They finished the meal. Trenchard insisted on paying, after thanking the proprietor in fluent and colloquial Arabic, then he accompanied Pitt to the bazaar and helped him to bargain for a bracelet set with carnelian for Charlotte, a small statue of a hippopotamus for Daniel, some brightly colored silk ribbons for Jemima, and a woven kerchief for Gracie.

Pitt ended the afternoon with information he accepted was inevitably true, however much he would have preferred it not to be, and gifts he was delighted with, and for which he knew he had paid a very small price indeed.

He thanked Trenchard and returned on the tram to San Stefano, determined to find the army barracks where Lovat had served and spend the rest of his time in Alexandria pursuing Lovat’s military and personal career and anything he could find out about him. Somewhere his path had crossed Ayesha’s, and there had to be more to learn about it.

CHARLOTTE FOUND IT very difficult trying to occupy her mind with anything, knowing that Pitt was in Egypt, alone in a land of which he knew nothing. More dangerous than simply its unfamiliarity was the fact that he was there to ask questions about a woman who might well be a heroine in her people’s struggle against British domination of Egyptian affairs. She tried to occupy herself with any number of other thoughts, mostly trivial, but they all fled before the enormity of his absence once she turned off the last of the gaslights downstairs and went up to her bedroom alone. Then she lay in the dark and her imagination raced.

Therefore she was pleased to see Tellman on the evening of the third day after Pitt had left. Gracie answered the back door to find him standing there looking tired and cold, his face pinched from the wind. He came in at her invitation, stamping his feet a little on the scullery floor as if to get rid of water, although it was not raining at the moment, but it had been. He took off his coat.

“Good evening, Mrs. Pitt,” he said, looking at Charlotte anxiously, as if somehow it was still his concern to care for her in Pitt’s absence. The old habit died hard, as did the pretense that he did not care.

“Good evening, Inspector,” she replied, amusement in her smile as well as pleasure to see him. She gave him his title intentionally. She had never used his Christian name. She was not even sure if Gracie had more than the odd, highly informal time. “Come in and have a cup of tea,” she invited him. “You look cold. Have you had any supper?”

“Not yet,” he replied, pulling out one of the hard-backed chairs and sitting down.

“I’ll get yer summink,” Gracie said quickly, putting the kettle onto the hob as she spoke. “In’t got nuthin’ left over for yer, though, ’ceptin’ cold mutton an’ bubble an’ squeak-’ow’s that?”

“Very good, thank you,” Tellman said without pleasure, glancing at Charlotte to make sure that was acceptable to her also.

“Of course,” she agreed quickly. “Have you heard something about Martin Garvie?”

He looked across at her, then at Gracie, his face full of pity and a gentleness exaggerated by the gaslight’s soft glow catching the angles of his high cheekbones and hollow cheeks.

“No,” he admitted. “And I’ve looked every way I can without police authority.” The urgency in his voice made it impossible to argue with him.

“Wot did yer get, then?” Gracie asked, putting the frying pan on the top of the stove and bending to riddle the ash down and allow the fire to burn hotly again. She did it almost absently, still looking mostly at Tellman.

“Martin Garvie’s definitely gone,” he answered unhappily. “Nobody’s seen him in almost two weeks now, but nobody’s seen Stephen Garrick either. None of the servants, which is what you said, so at first they supposed he was in his rooms, taken sick, in one of his tantrums-”

“Not for more than a week, without the cook at least being aware of it,” Charlotte interrupted. “Whatever illness he had, she’d be sending food of some sort up to him. And in that length of time, surely they’d have the doctor in?”

“So far as I can find out, there’s been no doctor,” Tellman answered, shaking his head a little. “And no other caller for him either.” His face tightened, his eyes black. “He’s not in the house-and nor is Martin Garvie. There’d be food, bed linen, if nothing else…”

Gracie fetched the cold potatoes from the larder. She started to peel and chop the onions with a brief apology, fishing for a handkerchief at the same time. “Bubble an’ squeak’s no good without onions,” she said, by way of explanation. The frying pan was already beginning to get hot.

“Were there no letters?” Charlotte asked. “Invitations? Surely they would be replied to… or at least forwarded?”

Tellman bit his lip. “I couldn’t be that direct, but I asked around about Mr. Garrick, and it seems he doesn’t have that many friends. He’s not good company. At least that’s what I understood.”

Gracie sniffed and dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief, then slid the chopped onions into the hot fat, and the sizzle blocked out her next words. “ ’E’s gotta ’ave somebody!” she repeated. “ ’E don’t work an’ ’e don’t stay ’ome, so where’d ’e go? Don’t nob’dy miss ’im?”

“Well, as far as I can make out, nobody sees him often enough to wonder where he’s gone,” Tellman replied, looking at Gracie, then turning in his chair to Charlotte. “He doesn’t seem to have the same sort of life as most young men his age from a family like that. He doesn’t go to a regular club, so nobody thought it odd not to see him. There’s nowhere he’s known, nobody he talks to, or plays any sport with, wagers with… nothing to make a… a life!” He cleared his throat. “I see the same people just about every day. If I wasn’t there they’d soon miss me, an’ there’d be questions asked.”

Charlotte frowned. It was worrying, but there was nothing specific yet to grasp. The subject that rose to her mind was indelicate, but the matter was too serious to pay deference to such things. However, she was aware of Tellman’s sensibilities, particularly in front of Gracie. “He is not married,” she said, feeling her way. “And apparently not courting anyone, so far as we know. Does he have…” Now she was not sure what to say.

“Couldn’t find anything,” Tellman said hastily, cutting her off. “As far as I could learn, he was an unhappy man.” He glanced at Gracie. “Much as you said. Drinks a lot and gets difficult. Lost most of his friends lately. They don’t seem to see him anymore. Not that I’ve had time to look very deep. But nobody’s seen him, and he doesn’t seem to have been planning to go anywhere, so wherever it is, he went in a hurry.”

“And took Martin Garvie with ’im?” Gracie said, stirring the onions without looking at them. “Then why didn’t the cook know? An’ Bella? Surely they’d ’ave ’eard? ’E didn’t go without cases an’ things. Gentlemen don’t.”

“No, they don’t,” Charlotte agreed. “And you didn’t answer about his letters. Are they forwarded to him, wherever he is? Someone would decline invitations, but surely he would want his letters?”

“His father?” Tellman suggested.

“Probably,” Charlotte agreed. “But does he take them to the postbox himself? Why? Most people like him have a footman to do that. Has Stephen gone somewhere so secret the household staff are not allowed to know? And why did Martin leave no message for Tilda?”

“Wasn’t time,” Tellman answered. “It was a sudden invitation… or at least a sudden decision on his part.”

“To somewhere from which Martin could not send a letter, if not to Tilda, then at least to someone who could let her know?” Charlotte said dubiously.

Gracie tipped the potatoes and cabbage into the pan to let them heat through, to mix with the onions and brown nicely. “It don’t sound right ter me,” she said quietly. “It in’t natural. I think as there’s summink wrong.”