The following day, Friday, Lydia sold the first piece of jewelry. Captain Ingleby-Lewis said that it made sense to sell outright rather than to pawn: you received more money, and of course you didn’t have the bother of redeeming it. She chose a small brooch, a ruby set round with diamonds which had once belonged to a great-aunt. The setting was too ornate for modern taste but she thought the stones were good.

Her father took her to a poky little shop in Hatton Garden and negotiated on her behalf with a tall, hunched man who would not offer them more than twenty-three pounds.

Ingleby-Lewis lit a cigarette. “Dash it all, Goldman, you strike a hard bargain. Still, I don’t choose to haggle over it. But you’ll do the business at once, eh? I don’t want to be kept hanging around.”

Mr. Goldman inclined his head. “Is that agreeable to you, madam?”

Lydia nodded. She had not expected to feel so humiliated.

“One moment, sir.” Goldman opened a door behind the counter and retired into a room beyond.

“We’ll not get a better price elsewhere,” Ingleby-Lewis confided in a hoarse whisper. “Goldman knows he can’t pull the wool over my eyes. And he’s not going to keep us waiting either. That’s what some of these sheenies do-they give you a price and then take their time paying it. But Goldman’s all right as these people go. Serridge uses him a good deal.”

“Mr. Serridge sells jewelry for a living?”

Her father glanced sharply at her. “No, no. But he occasionally has pieces he wants to dispose of.”

Lydia wondered whether she had imagined a furtive expression on his face. “What does Mr. Serridge do? Is there a Mrs. Serridge?”

“Ah-no. I believe not.” He turned aside to blow his nose. Then he rapped the counter with his knuckles and called out, “Come along, Goldman. We haven’t got all day.”

Afterwards, outside in the chilly bustle of Hatton Garden, Ingleby-Lewis laid his hand on Lydia’s arm.

“Ah…perhaps you would like me to look after the money for you. It’s a lot for a girl to carry around in her handbag.”

“I think I’ll keep it, Father. There are things I need to buy.” She glimpsed the gloom descending on his face like mist. “But I ought to give you something. I ought to pay my way.”

He beamed at her. “I won’t pretend that money isn’t a little tight at present. A temporary embarrassment, as they say.” He watched her open her handbag and find her purse. She took out a five-pound note, which he almost snatched from her gloved fingers. “I have a business appointment a little later this morning,” he went on. “First, though, I’ll introduce you to Howlett.”

“Who?”

“The Beadle chap in Rosington Place. He’s a bit of an ally of mine.”

“I think I met him the day after I arrived.”

“He ought to know you’re my daughter. Have you got half a crown, by any chance?”

“Why?” she said, thinking of the five-pound note.

“I haven’t any change on me. I like to give Howlett something now and again. It’s an investment, in a way.”

They set off toward Holborn Circus. Smoke drifted up from the chimney of the lodge at the foot of Rosington Place. He rapped on the shuttered window facing the roadway with the head of his stick.

Instantly the dog began to bark. The shutter flew up with a crash, revealing Howlett’s head and shoulders. “Shut up,” he said and the barking stopped abruptly, as if the dog had been kicked. “Morning, Captain.”

“Morning, Howlett. This is my daughter, Mrs. Langstone. Mind you keep an eye out for her.”

Howlett touched the brim of his hat. “Yes, sir. We met the other day, didn’t we, ma’am?”

Lydia nodded. The dog began to bark again.

“I suppose Mrs. Langstone might find it convenient to use the back gate occasionally,” Ingleby-Lewis went on.

Howlett grunted. The dog began to yap again.

Her father turned to Lydia. “There’s a gate up there in the corner by the chapel-you can get directly into Bleeding Heart Square from there.”

“We don’t like all and sundry using it,” Howlett said firmly.

“No, indeed. Only the favored few, eh?”

“The little tyke,” Howlett observed. “I’m going to have to let him out.”

His face vanished from the window. The door opened. The dog ran round the lodge and sniffed Lydia’s shoes.

“Beg pardon, ma’am.” Howlett edged the dog away from her with the toe of his boot. “Get out of it, Nipper.”

“Plucky little brute,” Ingleby-Lewis said.

“He’s got a terrible way with rats.”

“Well. Mustn’t stand here chatting all day. Work to be done, eh, Howlett? Here, something to keep out the cold.”

The half-crown changed hands. Howlett touched his hat again. Lydia and her father walked up Rosington Place toward the chapel at the far end. The two terraces on either side were drab but primly respectable. Judging by the nameplates on the doors, they consisted almost entirely of offices.

“Must be a living death, working in one of these places,” Ingleby-Lewis observed, quickening his pace because the Crozier would now be open. “Just imagine it, eh?”

Lydia stared up at the chapel. Now they were closer, she saw it was much larger than she had first thought. From the other end of Rosington Place, it was dwarfed by the perspective: the height of the terraces created the impression that you were looking at it from the wrong end of a telescope.

“Belongs to the Romans now,” Ingleby-Lewis said. “That chap Fimberry is always in and out-knows all about it. Odd place, really. Still, that’s London for you, I suppose: full of queer nooks and crannies. And queer people, come to that.”

The chapel was set back into the terrace on the left-hand side. A door on the left gave access to the house that abutted on the chapel; there was no other sign of an entrance. Immediately in front of them was a gate, painted murky brown, that sealed the northern end of Rosington Place. It was wide enough for a carriage, and it had a wicket inset in one leaf. Ingleby-Lewis raised the latch.

“Old Howlett’s got the only key,” he said. “Sometimes he keeps the door locked just to show who’s top dog.”

“You don’t like him much, do you?” Lydia said.

Her father held open the wicket for her. “It’s not a question of liking or not liking. Howlett’s a fact of life. You want to keep on his right side. Rosington Place and Bleeding Heart Square count as a private jurisdiction, you see. It’s a sort of legal oddity-Fimberry knows all about it. In theory even the police can’t come in unless they’re invited.”

The door beside the chapel opened. They glanced toward the sound. A tall young man came out. Lydia caught her breath. He smiled and touched his hat to her before walking rapidly down Rosington Place toward the lodge.

“Who’s that fellow?”

“I think his name’s Wentwood, Father. He’s interested in the attic flat. Mrs. Renton told him to come back today when Mr. Serridge is here.”

She stepped through the wicket. In Bleeding Heart Square, a man was standing at the entrance to the public bar of the Crozier and shouting at somebody inside. A mechanic working at the garage at the far end whistled at Lydia. There was a little pile of excrement, possibly human, in the angle between the gate and the pillar supporting it.

Ingleby-Lewis followed her through the wicket and closed it carefully behind him, shutting out the seedy respectability of Rosington Place. “Serridge,” he said thoughtfully. “Yes, he’ll have to talk to him. And you haven’t met Serridge, either, have you?”

Later that morning, while she was tidying the shelves on the left of the fireplace in the sitting room, Lydia came across an old writing box. It was a portable writing desk, a solid mahogany affair, its corners reinforced with brass. When she lifted it onto the table to dust it, however, she discovered that it was less robust than it looked. The lid slid off and fell to the floor with a crash. At some point in the box’s history, the hinges had been broken. The fittings inside had vanished as well.