The Fleet Street Murders clm-3
Page 7
McConnell had left by the early train, assuring Lenox that it would be a marvelous distraction to work and promising to give Lenox’s best to Toto and Lady Jane. (Especially Jane, wished Lenox in his silent heart.) Meanwhile Graham had asked Lenox what help he might be in the campaign, and Lenox asked him to take over the various forms of propaganda that candidates had usually found necessary in parliamentary campaigns: the printing of further handbills and flyers, the circulation of Lenox’s name by a new patron who stood everyone in the pub a pint, the quick word to servants and livery about the by-election. Lenox could think of nobody better suited to the job. He and Graham had for many years now been more friends than master and man, and he knew now that Graham had a particular talent for sliding into unfamiliar situations and earning quick friends and allies. He could speak deferentially to a (perceived) superior and confidentially to a (perceived) equal, and his good looks meant young women were often willing to listen to him.
“Plenty of beer,” said Lenox. “Hilary tells me that’s crucial in these matters.”
“Shall I state baldly that I represent you, sir?”
“I think probably. Your discretion shall dictate what you do, of course. Here are a few notes.”
As Smith, in his usual snug gray waistcoat and with his favorite gold watch bulging on one side, led Lenox to Mrs. Reeve’s, he advised the candidate what to say.
“Flattery is poison to her,” he said. “Equally, however, she’s always watching out for what might be an insult or condescension. Her back will be up because you’re from London. It works to your benefit, though, that you’ve gained some fame even here for that case.”
“The September Society business?”
“Yes, exactly. Mrs. Reeve rather collects celebrities, if you see what I mean.”
“I do, unfortunately. Who has she collected so far?”
Sandy Smith frowned, thinking. “Well, there was a lad who fell into a well and lived. An actor named Crummles who comes through sometimes and does a decent show. There are more, though I can’t think of them.”
“I’m honored to be in such company,” Lenox said with mock formality.
Smith laughed. “You’ll find her a strange woman, no doubt. Still, she’s sharp enough in her way, I can promise you.”
They arrived at her well-maintained house, which was white with two tidy gables, and the maid let them in, then guided them down a front hall and into a sitting room that seemed purposely designed as a kind of permanent salon for guests. There were small clusters of chairs and couches spread throughout the room, each centered around a sizable tea table; all of these bore tea rings and hot water stains, bespeaking long hours of intimate conversation. On the walls were a few portraits in black and white of what might be deemed “Olde Stirrington,” sentimentalized pictures of rural lanes and young couples in bygone churchyards. The largest of these pictures was of a blacksmith shop from some impossibly halcyon time, with a brawny man at the hammer and tongs and awed small children watching him, as a row of ducks passed in the foreground. All of it made Mrs. Reeve’s vision of the world very clear.
As for the woman herself: She sat on the largest of the sofas, perhaps because it was the only one that fit her, wearing a regal maroon gown the size of a ship’s sail and reading Dickens’s latest novel, Our Mutual Friend.
“How do you like it?” asked Lenox before they had been introduced.
“Have you read it, Mr. Lenox?” she asked in a low-pitched voice, one with more charm and power in it than he had expected.
“I have indeed.”
“It’s very black, I think — but funny, too.”
“They say he’s sick.”
“Mr. Dickens? I hope he lives forever, as long he can always write.”
Lenox laughed. “I’m Charles Lenox,” he said. “Although you already know that.”
“Alice Reeve. Sally, fetch some tea, will you?”
“I’m awfully pleased to meet you, Mrs. Reeve.”
“And I’m glad you came to see me. I suppose you must view me rather as a local monument — yes, I see you, Sandy Smith, please sit down — a monument, along the lines of a church or a museum, to be respectfully and duly visited?”
“On the contrary, I’ve heard the best conversation in town is to be found in this room.”
“In town, yes.” She arched her eyebrows appraisingly. “Not quite London, though.”
“I grew up in the country, in fact.”
“Oh, yes — but in some vast house.”
“Well — big enough.”
“We’re sharper in these small towns than you might expect.”
“After meeting your fellow townsmen, I’ve little doubt of your sharpness here in Stirrington.”
“We don’t appreciate interlopers or arrivistes, either. Still, I bear no love for Robert Roodle.”
“No?”
“My nephew worked at the brewery before it left. A young lad with a family. He looked for six months before he found work again — and at a mill, terrible work at a lower wage.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Well, we need jobs, no doubt of that. The men here may care about this beer tax, but the women know better.”
“I’m relieved to hear you say that — I thought beer might be the local god from the way some people talk,” said Lenox.
At this Sandy Smith looked terrified, but after a moment of silence Mrs. Reeve gave her first real laugh, warm and long. Lenox liked her, in fact. A strange woman. She had gained some of the outward symbols of the gentry by virtue of her small fortune and intellect but retained the sense of a workingman’s wife, he saw. She corrected her maid when she brought out the largest teapot.
“Wasteful, Sally,” she said as she poured. “Well, and what can I do for you, Mr. Lenox?”
“Ma’am?”
“Sandy?”
“We would appreciate your support.”
Lenox hastened to say, “Although before we can ask for that, I thought I’d meet you.”
“Well — let us see,” she said, but in a benevolent enough way. “Would you call again tomorrow evening? There’s a group of women who meet then, who I’m sure would like to meet you.”
“Of course I should be honored.”
Just then there was a knock at the door, and Sally ushered in a woman who said she “absolutely must talk privately with you, my dear Alice,” and after brief introductions Lenox and Sandy Smith left their teacups mostly full and made their way outside.
“That was painless,” said Lenox.
“I thought it went very well indeed. Lucky you’d read that book. I forgot to mention that she’s a great reader.”
“What do you think will be the effect of our visit?”
“Cigar? No? I think probably you have her support. She’s one of ours, by tradition. Only I think she wanted to be courted a bit, and old Stoke never had to set foot in Stirrington to win his seat. The Stoke name means a lot here.”
That was the second time Lenox had heard words to that effect. “Are there any Stokes remaining?”
Smith looked pained. “Stoke’s daughter married a local landowner — very respectable chap, no title, but a family that stretches straight back to the Domesday Book. Quite religious, she is, and rarely comes to town except on Christmas.”
“So I’ve just missed her.”
“Indeed — both for that and for Stoke’s funeral. As for Stoke’s son — that’s a sadder tale, I’m afraid. There were bright hopes for him at Cambridge, but after he went down from university he fell in with a gambling crowd in London and lost great sums of money. Eventually his father paid the debts — and was severely the worse for it, if local rumor means anything — and banished his son to India to make his fortune. There he contracted yellow fever, and nobody’s quite sure if he’s dead or alive. This town always loved Anthony Stoke, however. Such a merry lad, he was.”
By now they were coming to Main Street. “Where are we going?” Lenox asked.
“What time shall I see you?”
“I’ll be at the library.”
“You’re not coming with me?”
“Oh, no — Crook will. His niece, Nettie, volunteers there. Very loyal to the library.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Telegrams, sir!” sang Lucy as Lenox came in the door.
She made her usual rounds, picking up empty glasses and bringing full ones, until she met Lenox again and reached into her pocket, gone again before he could thank her. The first people for lunch were at the pub. Interesting, staying here, to watch the ebb and flow of it. Crook was too busy to acknowledge him.
The telegrams were from Dallington and Scotland Yard. With great curiosity Lenox put the latter aside and tore open his apprentice’s note. Which hand had killed Hiram Smalls, he wondered? Perhaps Dallington would know the answer.
DO YOU REMEMBER JONATHAN POOLE THE TRAITOR STOP THEY HAVE ARRESTED HIS SON STOP MET THE CHAP ON MY TOUR SOMEWHERE IN PORTUGAL AND HE SIMPLY COULD NOT HAVE KILLED ANYBODY STOP AIRIEST FELLOW I KNOW STOP EXETER IS CROWING TO THE PRESS STOP TORN BITS OF PAPER ARE SMALL SHREDS OF PAPER STOP WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT WOULD BE CLEAR TO THE MEAGEREST INTELLIGENCE STOP NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THEY SAY STOP RETURN STOP LONDON NEEDS YOU STOP POOLE NEEDS YOU STOP DALLINGTON
Scotland Yard couldn’t afford such extravagance when telegrams cost by the word, but the other note was just as arresting.
FEAR EXETER ARRESTED WRONG MAN STOP PRESS EXCITABLE STOP CAN YOU SPARE TIME STOP JENKINS
With these two telegrams Lenox’s mind flew into motion. Exeter had arrested Poole’s son, a lad no more than twenty who had never seen England since he was a child and been brought up in the softest ways by his maternal family, and here were a character witness and an evidentiary one (perhaps?) from two people whom Lenox trusted? There was a chance, of course, that young Poole really had conspired with Hiram Smalls — or indeed independently of the man — to kill Simon Pierce and Winston Carruthers. However, Lenox held Exeter’s certainties in very low esteem and at the moment felt disinclined to believe him about Poole.
The two implorations to return to London tempted him powerfully. Both because of the case and, less consciously, because of Lady Jane’s letter, he had been uncomfortably longing to go back since he arrived at Stirrington. Moreover, while he liked Crook and Smith and still held his dream of entering Parliament, he wasn’t sure but what the campaign didn’t suit him. It made him uneasy. He would stick it out because the prize was so great, but it was another feeling that pushed him homeward. Often in his adult life he had told people that he was a Londoner and hated to be away from the metropolis, but it had always seemed a pro forma rather than a meaningful statement. Now it rang true to him again, and he remembered why he had begun saying it when he was a youth.
Counterweighing all this was Lenox’s inborn, or at any rate early taught, feeling of responsibility. He couldn’t possibly turn his back on Stirrington when he had vowed to Hilary, Edmund, and now Crook to fight his hardest and do his best.
Still, couldn’t they spare him for forty-eight hours?
“You look thoughtful, Mr. Lenox,” said a female voice.
Lenox’s distracted thoughts vanished, and he looked up. “Why, hello, Nettie.” He stood up. “Would you care to sit down?”
She shook her head. “No, thanks. I’ve come to give Uncle his lunch.”
Lenox laughed. “He doesn’t have what all these gentlemen are having?”
“Oh, he likes the little meals I make him. If you work in a public house long enough, Mr. Lenox, you grow weary of steak and kidney pie with ale.”
“I can imagine.”
“I trust you’re coming to the library this afternoon?”
“Yes, I shall certainly be there.”
“I’ll see you then.”
Lenox watched as she took her uncle his midday meal, noting the momentary softening in Crook’s eyes as they spoke. He promised to return the plate unbroken. Then he signaled to Lucy that he was stopping to eat, filled the pint glasses that were empty, and went to a quiet back table with his food and a glass of fizzy lemonade. Lenox was loath to interrupt Crook’s only respite of the day, but as soon as the publican had taken his last bite the detective went over.
“How do you do?” he asked Crook.
“Quite well enough, thank you.”
“I fear I may need to return to London. Only for two days or so — three days perhaps.”
Crook was astounded. “With scarcely a fortnight until the vote!”
“Call it two days. Less than forty-eight hours.”
“Mr. Lenox, I’ve never been so shocked in all my life!”
“It’s because of a murder.”
“Let there be twenty murders, see if I care! You cannot leave!”
“I’m aware of my duties here, but I feel I can still discharge them. What if I were to add another hundred pounds to our budget for advertising?”
“The town is pretty well covered.”
“My man, Graham, has been buying beer.”
“Not here,” said Crook, temporarily distracted.
“I thought it would look ill.”
“Because it’s my public house?”
“Well — precisely.”
“Be that as it may, you simply cannot leave. Think of all that they say about you being a creature of London, and caring nothing for our Stirrington — and as soon as you arrive you leave!”
Gradually, though, as Lenox convinced Crook of his seriousness and promised further funds for all the sundry expenses of a campaign, the bartender’s position altered. Promising that he would leave Graham in place, Lenox reached a compromise — he would leave that evening on the last train, stay in London for one day and one morning, and return in time to speak at Sawyer Park again on the second evening. He would be in London for something less than thirty-six hours.
“We’ll have to tell them you’re going to Durham to meet with county officials about the issues of Stirrington. That’s all.”
“We cannot lie,” said Lenox, frowning.
“Ha! Ha!” said Crook, coughing as he laughed. “You’ve been in politics a very short time! Make that face all you like, but lie we must, and lie we shall. Luckily Durham is a very impressive place to many of these voters, and they’ll like that you have the power already to meet with those who control the city. Roodle could never get in.”
“Well — if we must.”
“We must.”
For another ten minutes (by which time there were several disgruntled drinkers clattering their pint pots on the bar with meaningful strength) Crook and Lenox discussed the matter.
As a sort of final condition Crook said, “You must promise me that this afternoon and when you return, you will shake the hand of every person you meet on the way to and from your appointments.”
“Well — all right.”
“Promise me! It’s no easy thing.”
“I promise I shall speak to as many people as I possibly can. Surely I’ll miss some while I talk with others.”
“Well — yes,” said Crook begrudgingly. “Very well. Now you must knock at the door of my house. Nettie will walk you to the library. I’m afraid I won’t be able to come, Mr. Lenox.”
“No?”
“I’ve wasted enough time away from my business.”
Lenox went through the afternoon shaking every hand that would reach out to meet his and speaking to people with a sunny optimism he didn’t quite feel until he was hoarse. He impressed the town burghers at the library and earned the respect, if not the vote, of perhaps three-quarters of the severe-looking businessmen he met with that night. True to his word, he shook the hand of even the waiter who brought postpr
andial coffee into that meeting.
Even so, it must be owned: All the time his thoughts were bent toward London, toward Pierce and Carruthers, toward Dallington, Jenkins, and McConnell, and above all toward Lady Jane Grey, whom he hoped was still his engaged love.
Graham took him to the station.
“Don’t stint on the pints of beer!” Lenox said to his man. “Spend money where it must be spent!”
“I shall, sir.”
“Would you like me to take any messages back to London?”
“No, sir, thank you.”
“Did you pack my gray checked suit?”
“You’re wearing it, sir.”
“Ah — so I am.”
“Return quickly and safely, sir.”
The train began to move. “Good-bye, Graham! Conciliate Crook, if you can! Remember, money is no object!”
The detective turned into the train with a wave and found his empty compartment. It was something past midnight after a long, wearying day, yet as he felt the train gather pace beneath him and knew it was headed toward his home, he felt his heart lighten and his senses refresh themselves.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
London.
In all its variety it seemed to put Stirrington out of existence, or at any rate out of thought. Lenox looked through the window of his phaeton and saw dustmen and shoeblacks darting among the traffic. The streetlamps were still lit at that early hour, but he had slept on the train and felt more excited than tired now. At eight o’clock Dallington and McConnell were coming to meet him, but before then he wanted to see Newgate Prison, the place where Hiram Smalls had died. According to the papers the warden there was a great advocate of abstinence and clean living (as almost by necessity a good warden must be) and preferred to begin the day early rather than end it late. Lenox hoped to find him at the prison, though it wasn’t past six yet.
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.