He opened the door.

“Yes?” he said. Before him stood a squat, strong man. “You’ll find no alms here. Seek work.”

The swish of falling rain muffled their words.

“Don’t need any,” said a distinctly unaristocratic voice. “Have some.”

“How may I help you, then?”

“Mr. Simon Pierce?”

“Yes,” said Pierce with mounting worry. “Who on earth are you?”

The man turned and looked up and down the street. One house was lit, its windows glimmering orange, but it was a hundred yards off. He took a gun from his belt and, just as Pierce stumbled backward in panic, rushed forward and shot him in the heart. The rain and a well-placed handkerchief stifled the sound of the bullet to some degree. Still, it was louder than he had expected. The squat man staggered down the steps and turned down an alley while Pierce was still on his knees, struggling vainly against death.

Half an hour later the murderer was in a different alley, in an altogether more refined part of town. He met a tall, blond, hearty-looking man, with an upper-class accent.

“It’s done, then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Here. Your payment. In addition to the debt-that’s gone, as I promised,” he said, “but only as long as you keep quiet. Do you understand?”

He thrust a purse jangling with coins into the squat man’s hand and turned to leave without a word.

“And a merry bleedin’ Christmas,” the shooter muttered, counting the money. His hands were still shaking.

Simon Pierce was the first man he had ever killed.

CHAPTER ONE

Lenox woke up with a morning head, and as soon as he could bear to open his eyes, he gulped half the cup of coffee that his valet, butler, and trusted friend, Graham, had produced at Lenox’s first stirring.