It was modern times, now, 1867, and for some years the prison system had been subject to close scrutiny from Parliament. This was primarily because of a remarkable woman named Elizabeth Fry, who had died some twenty years before. In her life she had toured prisons such as Newgate and found herself profoundly shocked by the treatment of prisoners there, especially women prisoners—in particular because if a female prisoner had a child, that child often accompanied its mother to the prison and stayed there as long as the prisoner had to.
Only in the last decade or so had a comprehensive overhaul begun. Prisons now were by law better ventilated, served heartier food, endured less theft by the guards, and allowed prisoners time outdoors and with visiting family. It was a change Lenox was all in favor of, though his more conservative friends decried the money it meant spending on common criminals.
Those were prisons in general, though, not the most famous prison in the world. For so Newgate was.
It stood at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey, near the primary criminal court of London. Though it had some architectural distinction, its dark walls and low roof gave it an ominous aspect, as if the building had learned its purpose and rushed to take on an apt appearance. It had housed any number of famous people: Jack Sheppard, the most infamous thief of the previous century, who had managed to escape three times before he was finally hanged; Daniel Defoe, who wrote Robinson Crusoe; the playwright Ben Jonson, Shakespeare’s rival; and the pirate Captain Kidd. Gruesomely, most public hangings in London had for more than three-quarters of a century been done outside of Newgate’s walls, where the prisoners could hear the crowd’s blood-thirsty cries. Although there was now a widely embraced movement to stop such barbarity, one Lenox suspected would lead to the end of the practice.
The detective had several times in his career occasion to visit the prison and always left feeling slightly desolate. It was improved now, to be sure, but still had the eerie feeling of a place where mayhem and death are almost as prevalent as their constriction. A place of high walls, little light, and constant sorrow.
Also a crowded one. As Lenox entered by the main gate and asked the bailiff if he might have an audience with the warden, signs of overcrowding were everywhere. It was another marker of the times. In previous eras punishment had been largely corporal, but now that men and women were staying in prison for long stretches instead, space came at a premium. The cells Lenox passed on his way up to the warden’s office were all full by one or two too many, and he marveled that Hiram Smalls had received his own space.
The warden was in. The man who had led Lenox up to the warden’s office went in and had a quick word and then poked his head out of the door to nod Lenox inside.
The man in charge of Newgate was fifty or so but looked strong and healthy. He was standing at a window that overlooked the courtyard, watching a group of thirty ill-looking men straggle around below him. A cup of tea was in one hand.
“How do you do, Mr. Lenox?” he asked. “I was surprised to hear you had come. I thought you were in the north.”
“How do you do, sir. Yes, I was, but have returned for a day.”
“Plus I may help you, I take it?”
“If you would be so good.”
“Inspector Exeter was here.” A small smile formed on the warden’s face. “Do you agree with his suppositions about this case, Mr. Lenox?”
“I haven’t had the honor of hearing your name, sir,” said Lenox stiffly. He disliked the warden’s savoring of the situation.
He stuck out his hand. “I’m Timothy Natt, and very pleased.”
“Pleased. I’m not sure whether I agree with Inspector Exeter, to answer your question. A friend has asked me to look over this matter, and I thought I would begin here.”
“With 122?”
“Excuse me?”
“With prisoner 122. Mr. Hiram Smalls.”
“Ah—indeed.”
“We give all of our prisoners a number when they enter Newgate.”
“I see.”
“I often hear from prisoners—I speak to them regularly, you see, in keeping with our modern trend of better inmate care—that they tire of being called only by their number. It’s 74 this, 74 that, 74 everywhere, as one man—prisoner 74—remarked to me.”
Lenox concealed a smile. Some pomposity here then. “I had hoped to see Mr. Smalls’s cell?”
“If you wish, yes.”
“Has anybody inhabited it since he left?”
“No, Mr. Lenox. Because the case attracted such attention, we have been scrupulous in our handling of 122.”
“Well—in most ways,” said Lenox wryly.
“Sir?” asked Natt rigidly.
“Only—well, he died.”
Natt drew himself up. “I can assure you that had we known he was in any danger from another prisoner, as Inspector Exeter thinks, or had we known he was a threat to himself—we would have—we would have—this is a well-run prison, sir.” With this piece of bluster complete, the warden took a violent sip of tea.
Lenox was quick to conciliate him. “Oh, of course,” he said. “I never meant to imply otherwise. A model, from what I’ve seen.”
“Well,” said Natt, with a definite “humph.”
“What about his personal effects, sir?”
“Excuse me?”
“His personal effects? The things you confiscated from him on his entrance to Newgate—pipe, purse, that sort of thing?”
Natt stared at Lenox for a moment before saying, “I’m ashamed to admit this, sir, but neither Exeter nor I thought to look at them.”
“What?”
“It’s quite possible—indeed, probable—that they have been remitted to the care of his family.”
Lenox cursed. Natt couldn’t have been expected to think of it, but Exeter! “Well, do you keep a list of what the prisoners arrive with?”
Natt brightened. “Ah! We do! Rime,” he shouted out to his assistant, “122’s list of effects! On my desk! I see that you’re a sharp one, Mr. Lenox. The papers were right. The Oxford case, I mean to say.”
Not wanting to be drawn, after a moment’s pause Lenox said, “Shall we see the cell, then?”
“Certainly, if you wish.”
To reach the cell they walked through a series of dank corridors, some lined with cells and some not. The prisoners they met along the way were alternatively listless or loud, though when they saw the warden they all went quiet. At last, when Lenox could smell fresh air for the first time since he had entered Newgate’s walls, they stopped at a cell.
“The prison yard is just down here, the place where prisoners may exercise and socialize.” The guard following them opened the door. “You see we left the cell intact.”
It was a poor little place to spend one’s final days in. A narrow cot with rumpled sheets took up most of the space, with a small, ill-made, but solid nightstand just by it. The hook Smalls had hanged himself from was just to the right of the cell’s front bars.
“The bits of paper—the oranges—they were on the nightstand?”
“Precisely. Inspector Exeter took those as evidence.”
“Did he say of what?”
“No, Mr. Lenox. Not that I can recollect. Exeter and I suspected that whoever did this, if 122 was murdered, tore up the papers to conceal their meaning.”
“No,” Lenox murmured.
“Excuse me?”
“Ah—you’ll pardon me, I didn’t know I was speaking out loud. I doubt it, though, that’s true. A murderer would either have taken the papers or left them. Smalls himself tore them up. Whether meaningfully or not remains to be seen.”
“Inspector Exeter was certainly of the opinion,” said Natt shaking his head with certainty, “that the murderer did it.”
“Would it be easy for a guard or a prisoner to murder someone here, Mr. Natt?”
“Not a guard, certainly.”
“A prisoner, then?”
“Yes, sadly. Before 122’s death we left va
cant cells open while their inhabitants were in the yard. It would have been easy to sneak into a cell and lie in wait, I suppose. There’s a great deal of chaos, unfortunately, and since some cells are overcrowded a person might not be missed for—say, half an hour.”
“Then bribe a guard to return to his own cell?”
“Well—”
“I take your point, Mr. Natt. There are also deliveries and so forth to the prison?”
“Yes, sir. All prisoners with sufficient funds may order in food, books, pen and paper, etc.”
“Is the delivery person admitted to the cell?”
“Yes.”
“So again—it wouldn’t be impossible to pretend you were a delivery person and somehow gain access to a cell?”
“Not impossible.”
“Is there a list of incoming deliveries?”
“We have—er—discussed it.”
“I see. Well—may I look over this room?”
“Yes, of course you may.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
L
enox began, as was his wont, by searching from the ground up. With a lack of ceremony that plainly surprised Natt, he lay flat on his stomach and took a preliminary look under the bed. Lighting a match from a matchbox in his pocket, he then made a more comprehensive survey of the space. He took enough time for Natt to offer an impatient throat clearing, but in the end the time he took was worth it. Behind one of the bed’s feet he found a pile of coins, stacked in order of size so that they made a small pyramid. He picked it up carefully and spread the coins in his palm.
“A farthing, a halfpenny, a penny, threepence, sixpence, and a shilling. All the coins of the realm up to the shilling,” said Lenox.
“You would be surprised what people hoard in here.”
“Of course. Wouldn’t he have kept money on his person, though?”
“In fact, no. There are frequent incidents of theft and mugging, I’m afraid.”
“It’s to be expected. What could this buy?”
“A pair of trousers?”
“I know what it could buy in our world,” said Lenox, “but in here?”
“Oh—oh. Perhaps five breakfasts? Four suppers?”
“Tobacco?”
“To be sure.”
With this Lenox resumed his search, looking under the nightstand, removing its one drawer and searching for false joints, and trying to pry off its top, until he was convinced it was innocent of further contents. Then he searched the visible floor, then the walls, and after that the ledge of the tiny window.
There was very little else in the cell, and finally he turned his attention to the hook Smalls had died on. It was slightly loose, no doubt from bearing all the weight it had. Lenox couldn’t make much of it but noticed a brown square about a foot below it, the size of another hook.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“There used to be two hooks. Still are, in a few cells.”
“Why did you take them away?”
“They had fallen out of use. From the color of the stain I’d say this one has been gone for three or four years.”
“I see.”
Lenox felt discouraged. He made it a policy to visit the freshest crime scene first but now wished he had gone to Carruthers’s or Pierce’s house instead.
They walked back to the warden’s office by the same grim route, and Lenox felt glad he had been born into a position that made crime an unlikely choice for him. Which was not to say there weren’t men of his station within these walls. Some of them were there because of him.
“Ah,” said Natt when they were in his office, “here is the list of 122’s effects.”
“Thank you.”
It was a short list that Lenox took in his hands. “One suit, gray serge; one piece of paper; one pouch, shag tobacco; one pipe, mahogany and match scarred; one penny blood, Black Bess.”
Lenox knew his compassion ought to be reserved for Pierce and Carruthers, but something about this list struck his easily reached heart. It was the magazine perhaps, the penny dreadful. He knew Black Bess. It was about a legendary highwayman, Dick Turpin, who had in truth been a stupid man, a robber of old ladies, a murderer, but who in these glamorized stories was the owner of a beautiful horse, Bess, on whom he rode the country, bad but never evil, a rogue with a conscience. What appeal would Black Bess have to a man like Hiram Smalls? It seemed to tell its own tale, the man’s choice of what to read.
“Did the paper have any markings or writing on it?”
“There will be a note on the reverse of the sheet if it does.”
“Ah—thank you.”
In fact, there was an addendum. In careful handwriting, a clerk’s probably, it read, “Note dated Dec. 20, no signature or address, beginning ‘The dogcarts pull away’ and ending ‘No green.’ Thirty-two words, nonsense or code.”
Well, this was maddening.
“Is there no way to get hold of the note?”
“You might inquire about it with 122’s mother.”
“Indeed I shall. You have her address, I hope?” Lenox said, trying to contain his ire.
“Here it is, somewhere on my desk.” Natt shuffled through his things. “Ah, yes, here.” He copied the address down for Lenox. “Will that be all?”
“Yes, thank you. I appreciate your help.”
“We strive for transparency, and in particular as you’re now in—in the public eye, as it were . . .”
So this was why it had been so easy to see the prison. “Yes?”
“If you do make it into Parliament, Mr. Lenox, I can guess you won’t forget us?”
“Of course not.”
Natt fairly beamed. “Topping! Yes, well, I wish you all of the best luck in your campaign and your—your case alike.”
“Thank you, Warden.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I
t was nearing eight o’clock in the morning now, and as Lenox rode homeward his thoughts turned to Lady Jane, whom he pictured in the small pale blue study, across from the rose-colored sitting room, where she spent her mornings. She would be reading her letters and answering them with a cup of tea beside her, and Lenox wondered whether perhaps his own note lay on her mahogany desk. It was foolish, but he felt afraid of visiting her. Still, he believed in facing things that frightened him and decided that after speaking with McConnell and Dallington he would go to her house.
He arrived at his own familiar door and found that the moment he touched the knob it flew open, with McConnell behind it. Mary, who was in charge of the house in Graham’s absence, stood a few feet behind him with a worried look on her face.
“How do you do, Lenox? I’m a bit early.”
“How do you do, Thomas? Shall we go to the library?”
“Yes, yes. I have news.”
About Toto or the case? It wouldn’t do to ask in front of Mary, however, who had taken Lenox’s coat and now trotted down the long front hallway behind the two men, whispering in Lenox’s ear that his suitcase had arrived, sir, and would he like breakfast, and that she had offered Dr. McConnell a seat, but he had insisted on waiting by the door. Lenox dismissed her with as much tolerance as he could muster, instructing her to admit Dallington whenever the young man arrived. Mary, who was always over-awed by her responsibility when Graham was gone and Lenox spoke to her directly, blushed and stammered and left.
In Lenox’s library a fire had just been lit, and to his agitation the papers on his desk were now neatly stacked.
“Will you come sit by the fire?” Lenox asked. “I’ve a bit of a chill. Winter weather.”
“With pleasure,” said McConnell.
The doctor’s face was flushed, and his eyes were slightly wild, darting a little too often to his left and right, never quite focusing. His hands trembled just slightly. His hair was combed back, but his clothes certainly hadn’t been changed in twenty-four hours, maybe more.
Gently, Lenox said, “May I ask after Toto’s health?”
“I haven
’t seen her,” said McConnell. “I’m staying at Claridge’s. Even so, her doctor says she’s well.”
“I’m so glad to hear it.”
McConnell nodded. “Yes,” he said. Then, a little less certainly, he said it again. “Yes.”
“How are you?”
“I’ve found something out, I believe.”
“What is that?” said Lenox, pouring two cups of coffee. McConnell looked as if he could use it.
“I think Smalls was murdered.”
“Not a suicide?” asked Lenox sharply.
“No.”
Now, McConnell was truly a world-class doctor. In his time he had been one of the most gifted surgeons on Harley Street, the epicenter of the empire’s medical community, and had treated the royal and the destitute side by side. Toto’s family had considered it beneath their dignity that their scion should marry a medical man, however, and though he had resisted for three years after his marriage, in the end they had persuaded him to sell the practice to an impoverished relation for a mere song.
It had been the catastrophic mistake of his life. Work had given him purpose and identity; left to his own devices, to the endless hours of an unoccupied day, he had begun to collapse inward. Now he only practiced when he helped Lenox. Because of the doctor’s state, however, Lenox felt less confident in the man than usual.
“How do you know?”
McConnell breathed a deep, steadying sigh. “It comes down to his bootlaces.”
“Yes?”
“I saw them. I visited your friend Jenkins, at Scotland Yard.”
“I’m seeing him this morning.”
“He managed to show me the bootlaces. He had to risk getting caught when he pulled them out of evidence, but I impressed the urgency of it on him.”
“What was so telling about the bootlaces?”
The Fleet Street Murders Page 8
