Tennant spotted a bowler-hatted man unscrewing a discreetFOR RENTsign at number six. “Let’s find out.” The inspector crossed the street and tipped his hat. “Are you the agent for these properties, sir?”
“I am.” The smiling, gap-toothed man stuck his screwdriver in his pocket and shifted the sign to his left hand. “What can I do for you gents?”
“I’m too late for number six, I see.”
“Sorry, guv. Got to be quick if you want to rent one of these beauties. Grosvenor properties they are, the three of them.” He grinned. “Folks like to brag that the Duke of Westminster is their landlord.”
“What about the houses across the street?” Tennant asked.“What rent might I expect to pay for number three, for example?”
“You’d pay nothing for that one. It’s a grace-and-favor. Rent-free if you’re a friend of the Prince of Wales. Chap who lives there moved in a few months ago.”
“So, I’m out of luck.”
The man reached into his breast pocket and pulled out his card. “Lots of other fish in the sea, guvnor. Drop by my office anytime.” He tipped his bowler and walked off.
“Rent-free, royal accommodations. Captain Frederick Locock grows more interesting by the hour,” Tennant said as they retraced their steps to Pall Mall.
On their way back to the Yard, they passed the columned portico of the Athenaeum Club. Tennant eyed its gilded statue of Athena, the goddess of wisdom.I could use some just now … and not only for the case,thinking of Julia.
It had been a snowy day in December when Dr. Andrew Lewis invited him to the club for a drink.Only a year ago.Strange how much a part of his life Julia and her grandfather had become in so short a time.Even Lady Aldridge.Tennant sensed a concern from her that he had never felt in his mother.And Julia… He had to find a way to gather the strands before things were beyond raveling.
The inspector and his sergeant stopped and waited for the traffic to clear at the corner of Pall Mall and Waterloo Place. Tennant’s left boot slipped off the curb, and he winced.
O’Malley’s gaze flicked to Tennant’s leg. “You all right, sir?”
“Yes, thank you, Sergeant.”Who do I think I’m kidding? He’s watched me struggle.O’Malley had never said a word, but the sergeant was an observant copper and no fool. “Are you spending Christmas with your sister, Paddy?”
“That I am. With those two young hooligans, my nephews, and a new niece, as well. What will yourself be doing, if I may ask the question?”
“I’ll spend Christmas in Kent with the woman who was like a mother to me.”
O’Malley nodded. “Ah, family. Whoever they may be. There’s nothing like having them around you at Christmas.”
When the traffic cleared, two sweeper lads brushed a clear lane through the road’s dung, and in the spirit of the season, Tennant gave each boy a shilling instead of a penny.
“All right, Paddy,” Tennant said when they reached the other side. “Give me your thoughts on Locock.”
“’Twas some good turn the fella did for Bertie to earn that grace-and-favor gaff.”
“He’s a half-pay captain, a man with a middling job in the Colonial Office, a doctor’s son, the third of five. He bought himself a yacht and lives, rent-free, at an expensive address, and moves in the first social circle.”
“They say there’s always room at the top,” O’Malley said. “But what did the fella do to climb there?”
On a crisp, clear Christmas morning, Dr. Andrew Lewis and his granddaughter attended services at All Hallows Church on the London Wall road, a short walk from the entrance to Finsbury Circus. They had lingered for the celebratory ringing of the bells. One hundred years earlier, in 1767, a new church had been built to replace the old.
“My grandfather missed the old All Hallows he knew as a boy,” Dr. Lewis said. “But I’m fond of the new church. You were baptized at its font, and I married your grandmother at the altar.”
“When was the old church built?”
“In the twelfth century. Parts of its foundation were older than that, constructed on the site of an older church and on the remnants of the Roman wall that ringed the city. You can spot some of the wall’s remains along the road if you look for it.”
“Think of that,” Julia said. “Worshipers on a Christmas six hundred years ago. Workers fitting the wall stones a thousand years before that. And here we are, on the same spot.”
“A blink in time’s eye.” He squeezed Julia’s arm. “A reminder that it’s fleeting, my dear.”
“Yes,” Julia said. She took a last look at the church tower as it disappeared behind a stand of trees.
“Pity Richard isn’t joining us for dinner,” her grandfather said. “Christmas in Kent. He must be fond of the place. And of Hannah, his housekeeper.”
