about. He made his way to St. James's Place, a nearly hidden cul-de-sac where Duke's Hotel formed a stately L of redbrick, decorative ironwork, oriel window, and sumptuous swaths of ivy tumbling from first-floor balconies. He left the Healey Elliott under the watchful eye of a uniformed doorman and entered into the reserved hush one usually encounters in places of worship. Could he be helped? he was asked by a passing bellboy.
The bar, he replied. An immediate smile of recognition: Lynley's possession and use of the Voice would make him eternally welcome in any establishment where people spoke in murmurs, called employees "the staff," and had the good sense to drink sherry before and port after. If the gentleman would come this way ... ?
The bar ran heavily to naval portraits and prints of ruined castles, with a painting of Admiral Nelson in his post-arm days taking a predominant position, as one would expect of a sea-oriented decor. The bar comprised three rooms - two of which were separated by a fireplace in which, mercifully, no fire was burning - and it was furnished with upholstered armchairs and round, glass-topped tables at which were gathered mostly business people at this time of day.
They appeared to be tossing back gin and tonics, with a few hardier souls getting glassy-eyed over martinis. This was apparently the signature drink of one of the bartenders, an Italian man with a marked accent who asked Lynley if he wanted the speciality, which - he was told - was neither shaken nor stirred but rather bruised along into some sort of miraculous nectar.
Lynley demurred. He said he wouldn't mind a Pellegrino, if they had it. Lime and no ice.
And was Frazer Chaplin available for a chat? He produced his identification. The bartender - who bore the unlikely non-Italian name of Heinrich - gave no reaction at all to the presence of a policeman, in possession of a cultured accent or not. Indifferently, he said Frazer Chaplin had not yet arrived. He was expected - with a glance at an impressive watch - in the next quarter hour.
Did Frazer work regular hours? Lynley enquired of the bartender. Or did he, perhaps, just fill in when things were busy in the hotel?
Regular hours, he was told. "Wouldn't have taken the job otherwise," Heinrich said.
"Why not?"
"Evening shift is busiest. The tips are better. So are the customers."
Lynley raised an eyebrow, seeking elucidation, which Heinrich was happy to give him. It seemed Frazer enjoyed the attention of various ladies of varying ages who frequented the bar at Duke's Hotel most evenings. These were international businesswomen generally, in town for one reason or another, and Frazer was apparently willing to give them additional reasons to hang about.
"Has an eye out for a lady who'll keep him how he wants to be kept," was how Heinrich put it. He shook his head, but his expression was unmistakably fond. "Fancies himself a gigolo."
"Is that working for him?"
Heinrich chuckled. "Not yet. But that's not kept the lad from trying. He wants to own a boutique hotel, just like this place. But he wants someone else to buy it for him."
"He's looking for a great deal of money, then."
"That's Frazer."
Lynley thought about this and how it related to the truths Jemima had wished to speak.
To a man hoping for money from a woman, the message that she wouldn't be handing it over to him would indeed be a very hard truth. As would be the possible truth that she wanted nothing more to do with him because she'd discovered he was after her money ... if she had money in the first place. But again, and maddeningly, there were other truths when it came to Jemima. To Paolo di Fazio there was a hard truth that might have been told: that she was going to take up life with Frazer Chaplin despite Paolo's feelings for her. As to everyone from Abbott Langer to Yukio Matsumoto, doubtless a little delving was going to reveal truths everywhere needing to be spoken.
Lynley did the maths on the time of Frazer Chaplin's daily arrival in the bar of Duke's Hotel: The Irishman had ninety minutes between the hour he left the ice rink and when he began work at this location. Was it time enough to race up to Stoke Newington, murder Jemima Hastings, and get to his second job? Lynley didn't see how. Not only had Abbott Langer suggested that the man went to Putney before heading to