The Gunner was a slovenly ship, Lenox could tell at an instant, with none of the trim efficiency he had come to know on the Lucy (upon which he had, indeed, spent several diverting weeks in transit). Its ropes were slack, its paint was chipping. Men idled fore and aft. It also didn’t look as if it could move very quickly, which made it surprising when Helmer said it was reckoned the fastest mailboat to India.

“They look out for her in Calcutta, you know. Most recent newspapers and such. If you’re lucky the Gunner might bring you a copy of the Times that’s only eight weeks out of date, if you’re one of them great sahibs sitting on a balcony with ten darkie servants. Admiral Fanshawe never sends his mail by any other vessel.”

“You’d think he owned the bloody ship,” muttered Dallington, falling a step behind.

“Or that someone wanted to ship their cargo with very great haste.”

Dallington considered this. “Yes, true.”

As they walked up the gangway a great number of eyes turned toward them, none friendly. Lenox had heard of mailboats whose officers and crew committed acts of piracy when chance threw a weaker foreign vessel in their path. There was a blood oath among all those on board—punishable by death for its transgression—that the secret of these crimes was to stay among them. If it weren’t for the ship’s renowned speed, Lenox would have believed it of the Gunner in an instant. She had no very great appearance of rectitude.

At the top of the gangway they were stopped by a sour-looking lieutenant, irretrievably sun- and wind-burned, past forty. “Who’s these?” he said.

“Two paying customers, what’s let a hold on this ship,” said Helmer. He had some pugnacity in his voice. “Where’s Dyer?”

“Indisposed.”

“Dispose him prompt.”

The lieutenant’s eyes grew dark, but then he saw that Helmer was patting the little pocket of his waistcoat, and understood there was money to be made. “This way.”

The appropriate, extortionate number of coins changed hands, first with the lieutenant and then with Captain Dyer, a rat-faced but well-spoken man—a gentleman’s son, at any rate, probably ex-navy, with no chance of promotion within those ranks because of lack of interest—who took the claim ticket.

“You can have it back, whatever you put in there,” he said, “but not your money. We ship in eighty-four minutes, you know.”

“Just so,” said Lenox.

They descended into the hold by a series of short ladders, the smell worsening the farther they went from daylight. Hammocks were bundled up into the rafters on the lowest level; on every side were small doors with numbers stenciled on them. Dyer and Helmer led the way toward the aft, the rear, of the ship. Numbers 119 and 120 sat on top of each other, their door divided halfway. They were two of the larger storage doors.

“Do we need a key?” said Lenox.

“Only mine.”

Dyer opened the door. Lenox hadn’t been sure what he was expecting, but something more interesting than what he saw—first, an old and very large sea trunk of wood and brass, its lock flapping open, and second, a stack of old hammocks, extras, presumably. “Dallington, help me pull the trunk out, would you.”

With the help of Helmer—who was clearly anticipating further remuneration at the end of this adventure, a hope in which Lenox looked forward to disappointing him—they maneuvered the trunk into the cabin. “Not overly heavy,” said Dallington. “Though it will be some work to get it aloft. Shall I open it?”

The young lord pulled back the lid and frowned. “What’s that?” he asked.

There was something grayish filling the large trunk to its very top edge. “Salt,” said Lenox, and felt his heart begin to race. He dropped to his knees and began to push it aside.

It took a second, two seconds, to brush away the top layer of coarse salt. At the same instant all three standing men gasped. Helmer yelped. “Is that a body?”

“It is,” said Lenox.

Helmer shook his head. “Christ, Dyer, you’ve copped it now.”

Lenox uncovered the face. “Who is it?” asked the ship’s captain.

Dallington had seen, and his eyes widened. He turned to Lenox for confirmation, and Lenox nodded. “Yes, it’s him.”

“It’s who?” said Helmer.

“Eighty-four minutes may be an overoptimistic estimate of your departure time, Captain Dyer,” said Lenox. “This is the body of the Marquess of Wakefield.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Unsurprisingly, Lenox returned home that evening much later than he had planned, later than supper, past eight o’clock. Despite the hour he heard children’s voices when he opened the door, and smiled. He guessed Toto—McConnell’s wife, and one of Jane’s intimate friends—would be visiting.

His confirmation came almost immediately; as he walked up the long, softly lit central corridor of the house he saw a young person shoot from the drawing room with unladylike verve: little Georgianna McConnell. This was Thomas and Toto’s only daughter, a beautiful child with light brown curls and wide striking dark eyes.

“Hello, George,” he said.

“Hello, Uncle, give me a candy please,” she cried as she hurtled toward his legs.

Lenox braced for the impact, and after it came patted her head as she held him at the knee. “I haven’t got any. Though I do owe you a birthday present. Five years old, was it? I wish I could have been at the party.”

“It was my birthday,” she informed him.

“Yes, I know, I just mentioned it.”

“I’m five.”

“I never, were you?”

They discussed the party for a moment in serious tones. Charles took care not to refer to her unmet wish—to ride above the city of London in a hot air balloon, something that McConnell, a worrier, would no more have permitted than a donkey in the dining room—because he knew it was still a point of sore disappointment to her. “Did you have a cake?” he asked.

“Of course I had a cake,” she said pityingly, as if he were soft-headed even to ask.

He led her by the hand into the drawing room. It was where Lady Jane spent much of her time, a light space with rose-colored sofas and pale blue wallpaper. Jane and Toto, a young woman of high spirits and high humor, were sitting close together. Both looked up and smiled, then said hello. Near them on the floor was Sophia, Lenox’s own daughter. With a feeling of deep love, almost as if he had forgotten, he perceived that she was tired, perhaps fussy, though at the moment she was absorbed in some kind of wooden toy made up of a ball and a dowel.

He picked her up and kissed the top of her head, ignoring her cry of displeasure when he pulled her away from her toy, and then set her down again. “I’ve just been with your husband,” he said to Toto.

“Have you? About poor Mr. Jenkins?”

“Poor Mr. Jenkins and more, unfortunately. But why are these girls up?” he asked. “It’s very late, you know.”

Toto looked at the gold clock on the mantel. “So it is. But I cannot hold with putting a child to bed when there’s still light in the sky. We aren’t Russian peasants. There must be some joy in life, Charles.”

“It’s been dark for two hours.”

“It’s also unattractive to be so literal.” She sighed. “Still, I do need to take George home. Jane, thank you for the glass of sherry, and the biscuits she ate. George, step to, time to go home and go to bed.”

George was standing by Lenox. “Shan’t,” she said.

Around her father—of whom she stood in awe—George was saintly. She was more comfortable around her mother, and correspondingly far more willful, possibly one of the most willful children in London, Lenox sometimes thought. Beside her parents, the rest of her loyalty in life was given over to one of Lenox’s dogs, Bear, whom she worshipped with uncritical adoration. She begged every day to be allowed to visit him. Now she walked over and lay down on top of him. He was a docile dog and didn’t mind, and neither did Lenox or Lady Jane, though these were unorthodox manners in a child. An aristocrat’s child could perhaps make her own rules, to some degree.