Smeaton summoned one of his subordinates, a promising young fellow, keen at this particular kind of work, and showed him the page in the peerage.
“I want you to find out as quickly as possible all you can about this family. You understand, Johnson—every detail you can pick up.”
Detective-sergeant Johnson, qualifying for promotion, smiled at his chief and gave him his assurance.
“I’ve had more difficult jobs, and perhaps a few easier ones, Mr Smeaton. I’ll get on it at once, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed,” he said.
Mr Johnson omitted to mention, with a reticence that must be commended, that a cousin of his was a footman next door to the Wrenwyck establishment, and accustomed to look in of an evening at a select hostelry adjacent to Park Lane.
That same evening—for Johnson’s methods were swift and sure—he waited on his chief at Smeaton’s house, with an unmistakable air of triumph on his usually impassive features.
“I have got up some facts, sir. I will read you from my notes. Lady Wrenwyck was a girl when she married; her husband some twenty years older. She was forced into the marriage by her parents, who were of good family, but poor as church mice. Her ladyship was a beautiful girl, she soon went the pace, and had heaps of admirers, young and old. The husband, horribly jealous, thought he had bought her with his money. Terrible scenes between the pair, in which her ladyship held her own.”
Smeaton offered the subordinate his rare meed of praise. “You have done devilish well, Johnson. Go on.”
Sergeant Johnson proceeded, refreshing himself from his notes. “For several years past they have lived in a sort of armed truce. They live together, that is to say, in the same house, but they never exchange a word with each other, except before guests. If they have to hold communication, it is by means of notes, conveyed through the valet and the lady’s maid.”
“An extraordinary house, Johnson—eh?” interjected Smeaton, thinking of his own little comfortable household.