The more pressing task, though, was to find out everything known about the late Harry Merridew. A fellow did not entirely lose his native complement of curiosity simply because he grew up, went to war, or became a peer of the realm.

“I tell you, ’Arry, she’s not there.”

A man as smart as Harry Merriman, formerly Harry Merridew, Harmon Merryfield, Hal Marigold, et cetera, needed about three days to change his name. It felt good to be Harry again, like coming home.

Harry had found that the most important part of the transformation was to address himself as the new person. To mutter that name under his breath, to declaim it in conversation, and converse with his new self in the mirror.

Harry Merriman, I says to myself, what could possibly be going on?

The rest—changing the mannerisms, the speech, the signature, the clothing, the family tree, the childhood stories, the preferred haunts—all followed from changing the name. This little pub, for example, was snuggled between the shops and bachelor apartments of Knightsbridge, not a venue the happily married Harry Merridew had had occasion to frequent.

He was Harry Merriman now, had been since he’d first set foot on English soil after three years in Dublin’s fair city, traveling under various pseudonyms.

“What do you mean?” Harry asked, nudging the opposite chair a few inches away from the table with his boot. “Matilda has to be there. That house is the only property she owns, and she’d sell it before she and the boy took charity.” Matilda was a proud sort, determined to maintain the properties, poor dear. Much like her father, did she but know it.

“Windows are boarded over,” Spartacus Lykens replied, running a hand through red hair fading to blond at the temples. “Steps ain’t been scrubbed for days, according to the neighbors. No coal going down the chute. The lady and her boy lived belowstairs, but the boy ain’t been seen neither, and nobody’s lived in the upper part of the ’ouse proper for weeks.”

Matilda would never be parted from that child. Harry was counting on her maternal devotion, in fact.

“This, my dear Sparky, is what you call your interesting development.” London required being more conscientious about diction, a return to the speech of Harry Merridew, who had been ever so eloquent when courting his bride.

“She’s piked off on ya,” Sparky replied, tossing himself into the chair Harry had offered. “Your missus was too pretty not to remarry. Some other fellow come along and crooked his finger at her. We’d best get back to Dublin.”

Sparky was very attached to his Dublin landlady. Harry doubted that good woman’s affection had been exclusively reserved for dear Sparky, though she’d been fond of him.

A female had to be practical. Maybe Matilda had turned up practical?