Chapter Three
As he strolled into White’s, Solomon’s mind jumped between the valet’s disclosures and this evening’s dinner with David. He hadn’t seen his brother so relaxed and happy since childhood, and he was eager to hear all about his Paris experiences.
The sight of the club porter jerked him back to the present, for he expected to be challenged. However, the porter merely inclined his head and murmured, “Mr. Grey.”
Solomon was startled, for although he was a member, he could count the number of times he had been here on one hand. Usually, it was looking for someone.
He paused and glanced back at the porter. “By any chance, is Mr. Percival Harvey in the club today?”
“I don’t believe so, sir. Several other gentlemen have been asking for him, too.”
“Have they?” Solomon murmured. “May I know which gentlemen?”
“Mr. Grantham, for one. And Sir George Dunne.”
“Thank you.”
Solomon was not acquainted with either of those members, but as he sauntered around the reading room, he did run into someone he did know slightly, and who good-naturedly hauled him off to the dining room and introduced him to Sir George Dunne.
This proved to be a fashionably dressed man perhaps a couple of years younger than Solomon, who sat alone with a large steak in front of him, his knife and fork hovering over it as though he were in some doubt. He seemed almost relieved to be interrupted.
“Sit down,” he said when Solomon’s friend had strolled off again. “What would you like?”
“Oh, nothing, just a moment of your time, if you don’t mind. I’m actually looking for Percival Harvey.”
Dunne grunted. “Owes you, too, does he?”
“I never lend,” Solomon said.
Dunne grinned as though Solomon had made a joke. “Stand in line, my friend.”
“I see. You don’t know where I might find him, do you?”
“He has rooms off Piccadilly, but his man always denies him.”
“He hasn’t been there for a couple of days. I understand he has a number of female acquaintances who might be—er…looking after him.”
Dunne nodded thoughtfully. “Bit of a ladies’ man, is Perce. On the other hand, he doesn’t care to live in squalor, so I doubt you’d find him with some dollymop for long.”
“Doesn’t he have a better class of lady friend?”
“He doesn’t keep a mistress, if that’s what you mean.”
“Why not?” After all, it would seem the perfect solution for a wealthy and virile young man who didn’t care for squalor.
“Variety,” Dunne said, returning to his cooling steak without noticeable enthusiasm. “And however lovely, they’re expensive little things.”
“Then Harvey is a trifle embarrassed right now?”
“Must be if he’s late with his debts of honor.” He paused, a piece of beef halfway to his mouth. “I know you won’t spread it around. He’s a friend of mine.”
“And a friend can be understanding,” Solomon allowed. “Do you suppose he also owes someone who might be less understanding?”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” Dunne said, between chews. “Don’t go to that kind of den.”
“But Harvey does?”
Dunne nodded.
“Do you know which ones?”
But Dunne did not know. Neither did Mr. Grantham, when Solomon eventually located him. So he set off for the next on his list of Harvey’s clubs.
*
He returned to the office to find Constance only a few minutes ahead of him. She cast aside the letter she was reading to say abruptly, “Adelaide Jenkins has gone home. She was staying with her son in a small hotel off Russell Square and left for home on Wednesday morning.”
Solomon threw himself into the chair on the other side of her desk. “With Harvey? His valet last saw him on Wednesday morning.”
Constance did not look surprised, but she said, “Not according to the hotel staff, though I suppose she could have taken him up later. She departed in her own carriage, with only her son and a moderate amount of baggage.”
Solomon frowned. “Did she have visitors at the hotel?”
“No. She seemed to be taking the boy around the sights of London—the Tower, the British Museum, Buckingham Palace. He’s five or six years old. She dined early in her room with the child and did not go out in the evenings. A man did call and ask for her on Wednesday, but she had already gone.”
“Percy?” Solomon asked.
Constance shrugged. “He didn’t leave a name. If it was Percy, he went on to have luncheon with Robert Waltham at White’s, and walked through St. James’s Park, according to Lady Phoebe, and that’s the last we know of him. What did you learn from his clubs?”
“Not much,” Solomon said ruefully. “Except that he’s in debt. Gambling debts of honor as well as simple borrowing. I suspect he’s robbing Peter to pay Paul. Oh, and he owes his tailor a hefty bill, too.”
“Then if he can’t pay his debts, how does he donate to charity? Perhaps he only did so once, when he was flush.”
“Or it was a story he told his father to account for all the money he’d spent on nothing. I’ve met likeable spendthrifts before, but I’m not sure I care for young Harvey.”
“I don’t,” Constance agreed.
“Someone who would have difficulty gaining admission to the establishment?” he asked. It was a serious question. Constance kept strict security and those she distrusted were rarely allowed over the door, let alone near her girls.
“Precisely,” she said. “Is he the sort of man to frequent brothels and back-street prostitutes?”
“For variety,” Solomon said with a grimace. “But he’s unlikely to linger in such places.”
“All the same, I think I’ll inquire at the establishment. Someone might have heard of him, especially the newer arrivals. I shall call in tonight—after dinner, of course. Shall we go home and change?”
*
Jenks, the manservant Solomon had originally hired with the house in which his brother now resided, forgot himself in so far as to beam at them when he opened the door.
“Welcome back, sir, madam.”
“Thank you, Jenks. How are you?”
“Very well, sir, and happy to have Mr. David home again. Cook is beside herself.”
Constance laughed. “Well, we’re very much looking forward to dinner.”
David appeared at the top of the stairs, beckoning them up.
The main room was another revelation. Before David had gone to France, he had done little to change the place, leaving everything much as it was when Solomon moved out.
But now Solomon’s rather staid study area had gone, filled instead with easels and canvases.
The books remained in the sitting area, where the dining table had been set for three, but the pictures on the walls had been changed.
Bright, vibrant landscapes and dramatic portraits now blazed from the walls.
“Sorry,” David said. “I hope you don’t mind. I put the other pictures in the spare room. I just wanted to try it like this.”
“It’s your house,” Solomon said, gazing about. “I like it. It suits you.”
“Are some of these paintings yours?” Constance asked, inspecting one of them.
“No, I bought them—or was given them—in Paris. I learned so much there, found a style that feels like my own, and a few skills to carry it through. Look, I wanted to show you this.”
He walked over to a large, covered canvas, and whipped off the cloth to reveal a breath-catching portrait of Constance and Solomon.
It looked vaguely familiar, like a sketch Solomon had once seen, with Constance’s face wreathed in provocative laughter, and Solomon with brows raised and lips curved in quizzical amusement.
The pose and expressions were the same, but David had vitalized it with color and a backdrop of the River Seine and Parisian spires.
“I missed you,” David said awkwardly. “So I painted you there.”
Solomon’s throat closed up. They had been apart for twenty years. They had no business missing each other, and yet only now could Solomon acknowledge his fear that David didn’t, and wouldn’t ever, miss him.
“It’s stunning,” Constance said huskily. Her hand slipped into his as they both gazed at it. “And beautiful. I am in awe.”
David’s color deepened in pleasure. “I’ll show you the others later. Let me pour you wine.”
As a host, David was newly relaxed, informal yet attentive. He had done this before, in Paris. Solomon could imagine his entertaining his artist friends, and no doubt models, not only finding but enjoying his niche in life.
It made for a wonderful evening. David’s enthusiasm for life shone through everything he said and did.
Even the mingling pride and anxiety with which he showed them his work was boyish and endearing.
Like the pictures themselves, he seemed full of raw energy and delight.
As though the nightmare of his past was finally giving way.
It was getting late before David finally said, “Lord, listen to me going on! I haven’t even asked about you, yet! Though clearly you’re both thriving.”
“We have to decide whether or not to take on a new case of a missing young man,” Constance said.
“And will you?”
Solomon exchanged glances with his wife. “Probably. We haven’t found him. No one respectable seems to know where he is, so…”
“Time to look among the unrespectable? Does that mean another tense night out and about in low gambling dens?”
“Pretty much,” Solomon said, regarding him. “If you’re up to it.”
David grinned.
Constance said, “In that case, I shall call in at the establishment.”
*
As adventurous boys, Solomon and David had learned to blend into their environment, as at home among plantation-owning families as with sailors and stevedores and slaves.
Everyone made their own assumptions about the boys, and from those assumptions they learned early about many points of view and gained the habit of thinking for themselves.
And concealing their identities when necessary.
London was no longer alien to either of them. They shared the informal clothes still in David’s wardrobe and ambled through the unsavory gaming dens of Cheapside, St Giles, and Seven Dials, watchful, unthreatening, but confident.