The Fleet Street Murders

by Charles Finch

  “To be honest, I wouldn’t accompany every candidate this far,” said Hilary. “But we’re friends, and perhaps more importantly, the balance is very fine in the House right now.”

  “It is,” agreed Lenox. “I’ve followed the numbers on each side closely.”

  “Every vote will see us closer to accomplishing our goals.” As two lads loaded luggage onto a carriage, Hilary stopped. “In other words,” he went on, “we need you to do your level best here.”

  “To be sure,” Lenox responded and nodded with what he hoped was appropriate comprehension and solemnity.

  Of course, what all this meant was that they wanted Lenox to spend money. The vast majority of parliamentary campaigns were self-funded or else funded by powerful local interests. Lenox was happy to lay out his own money, as his father and brother had. Still, Hilary’s message was, even if friendly in delivery, clear in intent. As Lenox already knew, their Conservative opponent, a brewer named Robert Roodle, was quite willing to lay out money on votes. Still, Lenox felt confident that the bank drafts in his pocket would be sufficient to argue his case (for broader civil rights and a firm but reasonable international policy) to the people of Stirrington.

  That morning had been a busy one. First Lenox had dressed, as the harried servants packed; then the budding politician had written a brief but loving note to Lady Jane next door, begging her tolerance for his hasty departure, and a similar, more somber note to McConnell, promising his swift return and sending his dearest wish that Toto would recover quickly. Graham, it was decided, would follow on the evening train. Then a dash through dawn to the train station, followed by long hours of travel and conversation. Lenox was ready for lunch and a moment to breathe, in whatever order he could get them. Alas, the first was makeshift, and the second they skipped.

  Their first destination was a pub, the Queen’s Arms, which dated to Queen Anne’s reign. They were going there to meet Lenox’s political agent, his chief local strategist and the man whom Lenox and Hilary hoped would deliver a large block of business voters, Mr. Edward Crook. It wasn’t a promising name.

  “He’s the proprietor of the place,” said Hilary as they drove through the town. “Apparently from a long-standing Stirrington family, much respected here.”

  Lenox was observing what he could: maids stringing up laundry, a small but fair church, a slightly more bitter cold than London. “Any family?”

  Hilary consulted his notes. “Wife, deceased. No children. Crook’s niece lives with him and keeps his house, a girl named Nettie.”

  “What’s Crook’s political history?”

  “He helped Stoke win—but as you know that was no great achievement. The Stoke name means a good deal in this area, and Stoke has run largely unopposed since he first came into office. Before either of our times, of course. Undistinguished but loyal.”

  “So Crook hasn’t much experience?”

  Hilary frowned. “I suppose not much, but we have firm knowledge of his stature within the community. Apparently there’s a consortium of shop and tavern owners who listen to his every word. Shop owners, Lenox, win elections of this rural sort.”

  “Yes?”

  Hilary laughed. “By God, you’re lucky to run in such a place. My seat”—he represented part of Liverpool—“took a good deal more money and a great deal more maneuvering than this one will.”

  Soon they pulled up to the Queen’s Arms. It was a distinguished-looking public house, with whitewashed walls that had black beams running across them, giving it a rather Tudor feel. An ornately painted, and really rather beautiful, sign depicted Anne with a crown and a detailed image of the world beneath her foot. There were stables to the rear of the house, rooms upstairs, and, from what they saw through the windows, a spacious one-room bar below.

  They went in and found a hot, roaring fire at one end and a decent trade for the time of day; in chalk on a board were lunch specials (lamb with potatoes, hearty beef stew, hot wine), and Lenox’s hunger returned to him with a growl. A pretty, busy girl was coming to and fro from the kitchen, while a massive, red-nosed gentleman stood behind the bar, pouring drinks with surprisingly deft hands. He had on a bottle green spencer jacket, and a dirty towel was slung over each shoulder. This, Lenox saw, was Mr. Crook.

  “Shall we have a bite?” Lenox asked with barely concealed yearning.

  “Best ask Mr. Crook,” said Hilary sympathetically. “We’ve much work to do.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  They approached the bar, a wide, immaculately clean slab of slate, with glasses hanging above it and gleaming brass fixtures at either end. Like the outside of the house, the pub’s inside seemed the province of a fastidious, clean, and honest man.

  “Gentlemen,” he said in a heavy northern voice. “Here for dinner?”

  “I’m Hilary, actually. I sent word of our arrival. This is Charles Lenox, your candidate.”

  Crook gave them both an evaluating look. “Very pleased to meet you, Mr. Lenox,” he said. “I promise nothing, let me say from the start.”

  “I understand.”

  “Still, we shall do our best, and I daresay by the end we’ll see you through, and before long you can return to London and forget all about us. Johnson, another pint of mild?”

  Before Lenox had a chance to deny Crook’s prediction, the tender was already sliding a pint glass of foamy, rich brown ale down the bar. It looked lifesaving to Lenox’s eye.

  “Thank you for your help,” said Lenox.

  “Well—and you look solid enough.” This Crook said rather glumly. “It will be difficult.”

  “Do we have time to sit for a moment and eat?”

  “No,” said Crook. “Lucy!” he shouted. “Bring a couple of roasted beef sandwiches.”

  The pretty girl raised her hand in brief acknowledgment.

  “You two must go—with money, mind—straight to the printers. We need handbills, flyers, posters, all that sort of thing—we need ’em before the end of the day. I’ve designed it all, but run your eyes over what he has. Lucy!”

  The girl returned with two sandwiches. Without either of the two Londoners noticing, Crook had poured two half-pints of mild and pushed them across the bar. “You look peaky,” he said. “Drink these off and eat on your way. Six doors down, to your left. Make sure you bring cash. The stables have your bags? Good, I’ve got two rooms for you. Nice to meet you, Mr. Lenox. Mr. Hilary. All will turn out well if you trust me. Clark, one more pint of bitter before you go back to work?”

  With that their introduction to Edward Crook was over, and the two men looked at each other, shrugged, and turned away, both taking ravenous bites of their sandwiches before they left.

  “What do you think?” asked Hilary as they walked down the street.

  “He seems competent.”

  “Fearfully so, I should have said.”

  “The sort of chap we want on our side, rather than the other,” Lenox added.

  “Yes, absolutely. By God, these sandwiches aren’t half bad, are they? Look, this must be the printer.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  C

  rook, it emerged, was a gloomy, blunt, and practical man; Lenox took to him straightaway. He was honest and fair and had a straightforward way of speaking that engendered in his listeners an instant trust. When that evening he introduced Lenox to the small circle of businessmen and shopkeepers who formed the local party committee, he didn’t heap praise on the detective’s head. He merely said that he thought they had a candidate who could ably replace Stoke, a candidate with sufficient funds to have his voice heard, a candidate willing to work hard, and a candidate who would be—beyond any doubt—a better representative of Stirrington’s interests in Parliament than Robert Roodle, the brewer and Conservative.

  After they had returned from the printers that afternoon, Crook had described the situation. “Roodle’s not well liked here, and that’s what will matter most. There’re no strong feelings about you either way, but Roodle has alienated people
in a number of ways. As soon as his brewery grew, he moved it out of Stirrington; he has a farm outside town and has been in a long legal battle with both of his neighbors; and whether it’s fair or not his father was known as the most tightfisted, intemperate sod in the county. He used to beat his horses and drove his wife like a donkey. Be that as it may, there’s no mistaking Roodle’s success. Half of Durham’s pubs are Roodle pubs. He also has one other great point, in local terms.”

  “What’s that?” asked Hilary with some alarm.

  “He’s from here. In the north we value our own, you see.”

  Indeed, as they had walked that day about town Hilary and Lenox had seen numerous flyers on that subject. “Two weeks in Stirrington, or a lifetime? Who knows you better? Vote Roodle,” read one. “Vote your own—vote Roodle,” said another.

  Lenox saw the fairness of the point. It was a strange political system that led to Hilary representing Liverpool, while the Liberal Party’s current leader in the House, William Gladstone, had grown up in Liverpool but for a long time represented Oxford, of all places. Still, he also believed that his platform would genuinely help the people of Stirrington more than Roodle’s, and he resented the negative, attacking nature of Roodle’s campaign. He was ready to fight.

  Lenox’s own campaign handbills were, he thought, singularly effective; they advertised what they called his “Five Promises.” Crook had written it up, and Hilary (who was invaluable for this sort of task) had revised it. The only promise that both the printer and Crook had absolutely insisted upon keeping was for a lower tax on beer. This wasn’t self-interest, Crook rather defensively assured them, but the most important issue to many Stirringtonians.

  Better still, Roodle was in a bind over the beer tax. He had vocally supported a lower beer tax for many years (as a brewer interested in selling as many pints as possible), but now he found himself on the wrong side of his party, and rather than alienate the aid he received from London he had switched positions. Crook felt this hypocrisy was important, if only to show how weak willed Roodle would be if elected.

  At the committee meeting there was a great deal of detailed talk about Lenox’s schedule for the next several days; by this time he was faint with fatigue, however—Hilary was still impressively spry, but he was younger—and only half heard the plan for a series of speeches, a debate, a meeting with county officials, and visits to several dances, balls, and livestock auctions. The idea was to make Lenox as visible as possible to compensate for the short time he had in which to present his platform. Through all of this conversation Crook was a gentle but forceful guide. His authority was obvious.

  At last Lenox was allowed to go to sleep. In his plain, quite clean room, which had a small warm grate near the bed, he drifted off into a grateful rest, so tired that he only for a passing moment worried about McConnell and Toto.

  In the morning, to Lenox’s surprise, his coffee appeared via a familiar bearer; it was Graham.

  “Thank goodness you’re here, Graham.”

  “I arrived late last night, sir.”

  “You’re not exhausted, I hope?”

  “I slept very well, sir. May I ask how things have progressed here?”

  “Very well, I think, though I’m pulled in five different directions at once.”

  “Such is the nature of campaign life, sir, or so I have heard.”

  “Indeed it is, Graham.” Lenox took a sip of coffee and instantly felt livelier. “Well, I’m prepared for the battle.”

  “Excellent, sir.”

  “I say, though, was there any news about those two gentlemen—about Pierce and Carruthers?”

  “I brought yesterday evening’s papers with me, sir,” said Graham.

  Lenox noticed a bundle under the butler’s arm. “Cheers.”

  “I am afraid there is no new information, however. Mr. Hiram Smalls is still in custody. Inspector Exeter is widely quoted in the paper as saying the case is over.”

  “Is he now? Insufferable, isn’t it,” he murmured as he glanced at the headlines.

  “Will you eat breakfast here, sir?” Graham asked.

  “Is the pub open?”

  “Yes, sir. I ate there earlier and can heartily recommend the poached eggs.”

  “Put in an order for me, would you? I’ll be down in twenty minutes. Plenty more of this, too,” said Lenox and raised his coffee cup.

  “Yes, sir. May I draw your attention to the two letters on your nightstand, sir?”

  There were a pair of white envelopes next to Lenox’s book. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Graham and left.

  Good to have him here, thought Lenox. It will make life much easier.

  He took the first envelope, which he recognized as being on the heavy, cream-colored stationery of Lord John Dallington. The second, however, caught his eye, and he discarded Dallington’s note for it; inside was white paper ringed with pale blue. It was from Lady Jane.

  Dear Charles,

  I pray this finds you well. Thank you for your kind note, and Godspeed in Stirrington. I sit here at Toto’s side; under sedation she has lost all her good cheer and effervescence, and their absence does what their presence could not and makes me realize how much I had come to rely on them. Thomas handles himself badly, I’m afraid; and as I would only say to you. His concern for Toto is patent, and he harries the doctors with questions when they come in, but he has also been drinking. Toto instructs me during her coherent moments to bar him from the room, and he’s half mad at the exclusion, persuaded that these sorry circumstances are his fault. I try to mediate between them when I tactfully can, to soften words, but there is much I cannot do.

  Charles, my mind is so full of doubt! Would that you were here beside me; then I might be at ease for twenty minutes together. I know we are hoping to marry in the summer, six months from now, but witnessing our two friends’ difficulties I wonder whether we might delay our union? Do we know that we won’t fall into the same traps? If there were days when I couldn’t stand the sight of you I don’t know that I could go on living.

  I can hear your wise words from across England: that Toto and Thomas rushed into marriage; that we have long been friends; that our tempers are quieter than theirs; that our history and upbringing suit us to each other, as well as the content of our minds. Still, I cannot believe that it is right to marry so quickly upon the heels of your wonderful proposal (which I still count the happiest moment of my life, Charles). May we give it a year? Or longer? Please believe that this is written in love. From your own,

  Jane

  At the bottom in a hurried and untidy scrawl she had added: I send this by Graham. Please don’t mistake my doubt for doubt in you, dear one.

  Lenox sat in his bed, dumbfounded. What surprised him more than the sentiment of the letter was its wavering fretfulness; for years Lady Jane had been so dependable, the person in his life he knew he could count on should all others desert him. It was out of character. He wondered if there was something more than she confessed to in the letter, to make her feel as she did.

  As he was about to read it for a second time, there was a sharp rap at the door, and Hilary came in.

  “Good morning, Lenox. Sorry to catch you waking up.”

  “Oh—it’s quite all right, James, of course.”

  “Your first speech is in forty minutes?”

  “That’s right, yes.”

  “Do you know what you’re going to say?”

  “I’ll follow what Crook planned out for the handbills. There are a few words I wrote down after you came and asked me to run.”

  “Good, good,” said Hilary.

  “Is anything the matter? You seem nervous.”

  “Well, Lenox, I’m afraid I have to return to London this afternoon.”

  “What? Why?”

  “There are committee meetings to be attended, and . . . that sort of thing.”

  “But you knew your schedule when you came up.”

  Hilary sat
down and sighed. “I’m sorry to say it, old chap, but Roodle looks awfully strong here. I got a telegram requesting that I return, in response to my telegram sending them the numbers Crook had worked up of past votes. It’s the time, you see—because Stoke died we don’t have enough time.”

  Lenox felt at a conversational disadvantage, lying in bed, and his heart plummeted. “How does Roodle look strong?”

  “He’s spending as much money as you’ll be able to, which frankly we didn’t expect. He has a much higher name recognition—and, though it’s not your fault, and though people here feel respectful of old Stoke, they’re ready for a change.”

  “How poor do you think my chances are?”

  “If you fight hard, you might get within a few hundred votes of him. Then—who knows?”

  “But the chances aren’t good enough for you to stay?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Hilary with a guilty look. “You know we’re friends, and in the SPQR club together, Lenox, but damn it—politics is a ruthless game, and we have to follow the momentum.”

  “I see.”

  Hilary looked pained. “If it were simply up to me, I would have stayed till the bitter end. You know the respect I entertain for you, Lenox.”

  “Well,” said Lenox, unsure of what to say.

  Hilary stood up. “I’ll be downstairs. Come,” he said encouragingly, “let’s give a fight. This morning will be a good start.”

  Lenox sat in his bed and listened to the footfalls as Hilary walked downstairs. Uncertainty, suddenly, where all had seemed promising. Lady Jane’s letter was still in his hand.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I

  t was a long slog of a day, his first full one in Stirrington. Hilary took the latest train back that he could, with another string of apologies for Lenox before he went. More hopefully, Crook said, “Never mind him. These London types are weak willed, when it comes to politics. There’s fighting left to be done.” Strangely, because Crook was so gloomy these words meant much more than they would have coming from a more sanguine character.