CHAPTER11
The following evening, Inspector Tennant’s cab pulled up to number seventeen Finsbury Circus. It delivered him to the Lewis house narrowly in time for his dinner engagement.
Mrs. Ogilvie smiled a greeting and assured the inspector he hadn’t delayed the evening’s proceedings. The housekeeper handed a maid his top hat and cape and led him into the drawing room. Tennant followed, pulling at his cuffs and settling his white tie. When Mrs. Ogilvie opened the door, Tennant recognized the sonorous voice inside.
“The tragic chain begins with two generations of chaos,” Mister Lloyd said. “The dislocations from opium wars with Britain, floods, famine, droughts, even swarms of locusts—there’s something biblical about China’s plagues.”
Julia’s Aunt Caroline said, “But to sell one’s daughters, Mister Lloyd!”
“Lady Aldridge, it shocks you, I know.”
Mrs. Ogilvie cleared her throat and announced Inspector Tennant.
“Richard, my boy.” Julia’s grandfather stood to greet him. “We’d almost given you up.”
“My apologies, Doctor Lewis. I’d almost given up as well.”
“You’ve met Mister Lloyd, but I don’t think you know his sister, Mrs. Davies.”
A woman in a widow’s half-mourning mauve smiled and offered her hand. She was as darkly handsome as her brother and spoke with the same musical cadence.
“The inspector and I met yesterday, as it happens.” Mrs. Davies added quietly, “I wasn’t sure whether to be sorry or glad that Jin couldn’t help you identify that poor girl.”
“I felt the same, Mrs. Davies.”
Tennant turned to greet Lady Aldridge. He had met Julia’s Aunt Caroline several times and admired her as a shrewd and formidable woman.
She took his hand. “Richard, Mister Lloyd has been telling us about the selling of girls in China.”
“A father doesn’t think of it that way, Lady Aldridge,” Lloyd said. “He is securing his child’s future as a prospective wife, not selling her into domestic slavery. And families are compensated for losing a daughter.”
“It seems a fine distinction to me,” Lady Aldridge said.
Julia asked, “Are we so different, Aunt? Consider the dowries some families dangle to make advantageous matches for their daughters.”
“My dear niece, it’s hardly the same thing.”
“Hmm . . . I wonder.” Julia smiled at her grandfather. “What’s my going rate would you say?”
“My dear, you are a pearl without price.”
Tennant caught Lady Aldridge’s eye and smiled. Then he crossed the room to join Julia. “I’m sorry I kept you all waiting.”
“Never mind,” she said. “I barely beat you here—for the last time, I hope. Gregory Barnes will switch his Thursday evenings at the clinic to Wednesdays.”
“Are you happy with the young doctor?”
“Very. What delayed you? End-of-day developments?”
“I arrived directly from a command interview with my chief.”
Julia eyed his evening clothes. “Did you change at the Yard?”
He nodded. “Clark caught me putting the last loop in this.” Tennant patted his white tie.
She smiled and straightened it for him. “He must have enjoyed that.”
Tennant’s working-class chief resented his more polished junior. The inspector had been educated at Sandhurst, served in an elite regiment, and was the godson and namesake of the Yard’s commissioner, Sir Richard Mayne. Clark loathed the whole list.
