Chapter 4
The East India House, the headquarters of the East India Company, was impossible to overlook. It was an intimidating, grey, neoclassical building with Doric columns that dominated Leadenhall Street.
Pen climbed the marble staircase between the columns and felt her pulse quicken.
In the vestibule, a bored-looking gentleman stood behind a standing desk. “Your purpose?” he asked, without looking up.
“I am seeking information on a gentleman who—”
“Third floor, second room. Next?”
A man behind her pushed her aside. Pen wrinkled her forehead. One thing she noticed since she was a man: people touched her more. She was forevermore being pushed, hustled, slapped, and jostled. All this physical contact took a while to get used to.
Pen found the room and confronted another clerk. He wore a harassed expression. “Purpose of visit?”
“I am seeking a gentleman who—”
“Wait in the room on the left.” He pointed at a wooden panelled room with chairs along the wall. “You will be called.”
Pen sat down.
People hustled about with papers under their arms.
There were offices in the corridors to the right and left.
Pen waited. And waited. And waited.
Now and then people were called by a tired-looking, bald clerk, and they disappeared behind a green-coloured door. Pen wondered when it was her turn. She’d been waiting for a good one and a half hours already.
“You cannot, in all seriousness, ask me to wait,” a nasal voice said in a complaining manner. “I will talk to your superior. This won’t do. This won’t do at all.”
A gentleman with a haughty expression on a florid face minced into the room. His eyes scanned the room, fell on Pen for one second and looked at the empty chair next to her.
Sniffing and wrinkling his nose, he moved his chair away from her, sat down at the edge, tapping his stick on the floor with an impatient rat-tat-tat.
Pen threw him an irritated look.
The bald clerk entered again. “Where are we? Who is next?”
Pen was about to raise her hand when the gentleman got up. “This would be me, no doubt.” He ignored Pen entirely.
Outrage flushed through Pen. “No, it’s not. I’ve been waiting here for over an hour. You came in barely five minutes ago. It’s most certainly my turn.”
She’d let that man go first only over her dead body. He had to wait his turn like everyone else.
The man completely ignored her. “Lead on,” he told the clerk, who looked bewildered from him to Pen and back again.
“I am talking to you, man,” Pen hurled at him.
“Did you hear something?” he asked the clerk. “Methinks there are flies in this place buzzing about my ear. Most inconvenient.”
Ice cold fury shot through Pen. “Corny-faced pig-widgeon,” she muttered under her breath.
The gentleman whirled around. “What did you just say?”
“I said, corny-faced pig-widgeon.” Pen stared doggedly into his face.
A dull red crept up his neck. Now his neck was red in addition to his head. “You… you… insolent pup!” He gasped for air. “Do you know who I am? My name is Blackstone. Lord Blackstone.”
