But Langton left Pomfrey nursing his tankards, saying he had more pressing matters. He got a boy to fetch a carriage: he wanted to go to Montfort Street.

‘What’s in Montfort Street?’ I asked.

‘Benham.’

An awful twisting in my gut. It had been there since Langton had said the name out loud. George Benham. We were going to come face to face. What would I say to him? How would I be able to hold my tongue? Could I beg to be left at the inn instead? Those were my thoughts as we arrived at Levenhall, which shows you how little I knew of what lay in store.

Houses lined up like new ponies, holding their heads high like they could just prance right out into the street. Langton struck the knocker, a big brass lion’s head. The more swell those great houses think themselves, the more they collect jungle shapes to remember the beasts at the door. The walls around us threaded themselves into the shadows until the only solid thing left on the street was a single gas lamp with its yellowy yawning halo. The door swung half open, so I could see only a row of buttons, the corner of a mob cap, then an entire servant, a solemn-looking woman, with a face like a melting candle, the rest of her very stretched and thin, as was her voice.

She introduced herself to him as Mrs Linux, then looked me up and down. ‘This her?’

Langton coughed. She turned back to him. ‘We just lost a footman, you know. One of our pair. Married and . . . off! To his wife’s family. One of those is what we need.’ She gave me a sharp look, as if the loss had been my fault.

A strange way to answer the door, I thought. If I’d only caught her meaning then, I’d have run a mile, and I wouldn’t be where I am now.

Langton said it was quite all right, she mustn’t worry, and la-la-la. It was nothing like the way he talked to Phibbah or any other house-girl. Some kind of English music sneaking into his voice.

There was a tang of vinegar at the front door. The house stretched above us, a marble stair leading to a landing on the third floor. Portraits lined the wall, like captured thieves. As she led us to the back of the house I spied plainer wood stairs going up there. For the servants, I assumed. All quiet down below, windows covered with heavy damask drapes, but whispers through one of the closed doors, like scratches on wood. She left Langton in what she called the drawing room. He said I should follow her below, to the kitchen, which I did. It was inside, at least, unlike the cook-room at Paradise. There was a turnspit at one side of it, a maid cross-legged beside the fire with a bit of cheese. Linux lifted the kettle on the hob while I stood at a loss.