The Fleet Street Murders clm-3

by Charles Finch

  “Certainly.”

  “Look, more importantly,” he said, handing the younger man a sheet of paper, “here’s the dossier I put together.”

  Jenkins studied it. Halfway down the page, he said in a quiet sort of yelp, “My God! Half of the unsolved crimes in our files are on this sheet of paper!”

  “I know.”

  “He must be ungodly rich.”

  “You were at his house, before Exeter replaced you on that case,” said Lenox.

  Jenkins looked up sharply. “There’s the question, I suppose. Why did he kill Exeter?”

  Ruefully Lenox shook his head. “I wish I knew.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  The case went slowly, very slowly indeed; for two days nothing happened. Lenox passed his hours not in any traditional pursuit of George Barnard but by sitting in the British Library’s Reading Room and going back through old newspapers, reading every article he could find by Winston Carruthers. It was dry work indeed, and worse still it was unproductive. Eventually he gave up.

  On the afternoon of the second day he was sitting in his library at home, having a cup of tea and a sandwich, when Dallington arrived at the front door. Graham showed him in.

  “I’ve some news,” the young aristocrat said, his face lined with fatigue but also bright with excitement. “It’s about Barnard.”

  The butler started for the door.

  “Stay, Graham,” said Lenox. “Do you mind?” he asked the lad.

  “No — at least — no,” said Dallington, slightly puzzled.

  “Graham is my oldest comrade in arms against George Barnard, as I mentioned to you once before.”

  “Of course, then.”

  “What have you discovered?” asked Lenox.

  “Barnard has been emptying his bank accounts.”

  There was a moment of silence. “How could you possibly have discovered that?” Lenox asked.

  “I went to the banks and looked at Barnard’s accounts, of course.”

  Lenox laughed. “How?” he asked.

  “I went in to look at my accounts and tipped the teller a few pounds to bring me Barnard’s papers as well as my own. It seems he emptied the two accounts I saw of all his ready money — several hundred pounds — although his investments still deposit there.”

  “The banker wasn’t reluctant to do that, sir?” Graham asked with some astonishment.

  “What? Oh, I see what you mean!” Dallington laughed heartily, still pacing the room. “No, you don’t understand, I’m afraid.”

  “What don’t we understand? It seems profoundly unlikely,” said Lenox. “Banks aren’t known for their accessibility.”

  Dallington laughed again. “You must understand — for years I’ve been poaching out of my parents’ accounts. Since I was thirteen or so. I know all the most corrupt men at the bank.”

  “You amaze me, John!”

  Dallington waved a hand. “Nothing too heavy — a quid here or there, you know.”

  “I see.” Lenox couldn’t help but smile. “So, then, you knew which man to visit?”

  “Yes! I only thought of it this morning. I told them it was fearfully important and acted very hushed and secretive, and you know they like to pal around with a duke’s son.”

  “I can’t help but disapprove,” Lenox said, but still with a smile on his face. “At any rate, it was well done.”

  Quietly Graham said, “That must mean Mr. Barnard has fled to Geneva for good.”

  “Yes, perhaps,” said Lenox, now furrowing his brow, “and perhaps it means he felt some imminent danger. From Winston Carruthers, from Hiram Smalls, from Exeter. Graham, do something for me, would you?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Go to Barnard’s house in Grosvenor Square and see what’s happening there, whether the servants have remained, whether the upper floors are shut. It’s such a massive place that if he’s really left it for good they may still be in the middle of closing it.”

  “Very good, sir. The usual method?”

  Graham had a tenderly cultivated skill for quick friendship with fellow servants. Lenox had often asked him to employ it on a case’s behalf. “Yes, precisely,” said the detective.

  Graham left, and Dallington and Lenox sat silent for some time, Lenox staring into the fire and contemplating Barnard’s actions.

  Suddenly Dallington burst into speech. “Listen, Lenox — I want to apologize. I came to you in the absolute certainty that my friend — my acquaintance, whom if I acknowledge it I only knew briefly — was innocent, and I was wrong.”

  Lenox waved a dismissive hand. “You’re young,” he said. “There are many lessons before you, some harder than this one.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Well, perhaps not. I think in our first case together you had such great success — in fact, saved my life — that it must have seemed easy to you. All too often things are blurry, though, John. It’s the way of the world. Humans are blurry creatures,” said Lenox. “Now — did you learn anything else at all about Barnard’s last few weeks?”

  With a discouraged scowl, Dallington shook his head. “Not much. He was as upright as a parson the whole time. In his house, at his club, at his office —”

  “Office?”

  “In the Mint. He kept an office after he left — insisted on it, to smooth the transition to the next fellow, he said.”

  “Did he see anybody?”

  “Not to speak of. He had been to one or two parties.”

  “He went to Geneva without any notice?”

  “Yes, apparently — or on short notice. Announced he would go in the morning and left a few hours later.”

  There was a noise at the door then, followed by footsteps in the hallway. Dallington and Lenox exchanged a look, then stared at the closed library door, waiting for it to open.

  “Where is Mary?” said Lenox irritably after a moment had passed.

  Dallington stood up and peeked out of the door.

  “Good God, there’s a chap in your hallway who looks as if he might eat glass for a lark,” said the young lord in an urgent whisper. “Head like a walnut.”

  Lenox laughed and stood up. “That must be Skaggs.”

  “Who the devil is Skaggs?”

  “You’ll see. Very useful chap, quite intelligent.” Lenox went to the door and called out, “You must come into the library, Mr. Skaggs! Would you like a cup of tea? This is John Dallington, by the way.”

  “Something stronger wouldn’t go amiss,” said Skaggs, shaking hands with Dallington and Lenox. “Been cold.”

  “How about a glass of brandy?”

  Skaggs nodded approvingly.

  “Do you have any news?” Lenox asked, walking to the sideboard where he kept his liquor. “It seems to us that Barnard has been acting strangely. John, I hired Mr. Skaggs to trail George Barnard to Geneva.”

  “Nothing strange at all,” said Skaggs, accepting a glass of brandy and sitting. “Well, except one thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Barnard never went to Geneva.”

  “What!” said Dallington.

  “No. In fact, I very much doubt he left London,” said the investigator, a small, triumphant smile on his face.

  “How did you draw these conclusions?” asked Lenox.

  “It was simple enough to check on his travel out of the country. There’s no doubt that he left by his own carriage for Felixstowe, from which he was to take a ferry south, but he wasn’t on any of the company’s passenger lists, and nobody who took a first class cabin answered to his description. He hadn’t hired a boat privately, either, according to the local operators.”

  “He might have done any of these things under a false name, however,” said Dallington.

  Lenox shook his head. “Why? He spread it far and wide that he was going to Geneva. No reason to cover his trail, was there?”

  “Moreover, I wired to Geneva — I haven’t had to go, because there was plenty of evidence on these shores �
� and he never arrived at the conference he was meant to attend,” Skaggs said.

  “He might have gone anywhere on the Continent.”

  “If he had left Felixstowe,” said Skaggs. “He might have gone to another port, though again, why go to the trouble of doing that? No, I firmly believe he never left England. Or London, for that matter. I think he took his carriage to the edge of town, so that everyone could see he had left, turned around, and came home with the curtains drawn over the windows. Even at night, perhaps.”

  “Surely he’s in the countryside, then?” asked Dallington.

  “London,” said Skaggs stubbornly.

  “Why don’t you believe he left the city?”

  Skaggs smiled. “Horseshoes.”

  “What do you mean?” Lenox asked.

  “I visited his stables. His horses’ shoes haven’t been changed for two weeks, I discovered in the course of an idle chat with the groom, and when I picked up one of their hooves there was practically no wear on the shoe. They haven’t traveled more than a few miles, I’d reckon.”

  “Wonderfully done,” said Lenox, smiling.

  Rather dismally, Dallington said, “I’ve much to learn, I see.”

  “Why would he have pretended to leave town?” asked Lenox thoughtfully.

  After half an hour or so in which the three men discussed the subject, Skaggs left, gracefully accepting Lenox’s compliments, and shortly thereafter Graham returned from Barnard’s nearby house, flushed red with the cold.

  “Well?” Lenox asked.

  “It’s completely dark, sir, the house. Only two maids are there, who will stay until the new tenant arrives.”

  “New tenant?”

  “Ah — the most consequential part of it, sir — Mr. Barnard has sold his house. The staff understood that he was retiring permanently to the country and have been telling all visitors as much. They have been packing his things for the past several days.”

  The idea of Barnard living outside of London was laughable — it was his home and his solace, the center of his spiderweb, and he despised the northern life he had sloughed off when he came to the metropolis to make a success of himself.

  Why, then, between Geneva and the country, was he trying so hard to persuade everybody that he was gone forever?

  The three men sat and discussed it for some time before finally agreeing that they would reconvene in the morning. Lenox felt discouraged; it all seemed so opaque.

  Then, in the middle of the night, long after Dallington’s departure, Lenox woke out of a dream and sat bolt upright.

  Suddenly he understood it all.

  Barnard had insisted on keeping an office in the Mint, according to Dallingon, but why would he have wanted to, unless —

  “Of course,” said the detective softly. “It’s the only reason he took the job in the first place, I’d wager. The cunning fox.”

  He stood up and hurriedly began to throw on clothes, in the absolute certainty that even at that moment, George Barnard was somewhere amid the wide corridors and large offices of the Royal Mint —

  Robbing it.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Lenox was peering down the long, narrow stairs that led to the basement and the servants’ quarters. He had rung a bell as soon as he woke and heard noises below.

  “Graham? Graham?”

  “Sir?”

  “Come here!”

  “Just a moment, sir.”

  “Hurry!”

  Poor Graham, who was a deep sleeper, struggled as quickly as he could to fit into a suit and appeared a moment later.

  “Yes, sir?”

  Lenox explained.

  “What do you propose to do, sir?”

  “Go there, of course! Don’t be daft! I need you to go fetch Jenkins — there’s not a moment to lose!”

  “Yes, sir. Are you certain that you wouldn’t prefer to wait for the inspector?”

  “No,” said Lenox. “It will be dawn in two hours, and Barnard’ll only feel comfortable working at night — probably he’s been there every night since he supposedly left for Geneva. I only hope he isn’t gone already.”

  “Are you certain of all this, sir?”

  “Of course I am — he wants to make one last fortune before he leaves London, Graham. And I was also thinking as you dressed, do you remember that I found all of the articles under Barnard’s file in that pub?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “One of them was about the history of the building, the layout and architecture! What if Barnard asked Carruthers to write that article, as a way of obtaining the information without asking for it himself?”

  “Perhaps, sir,” said Graham doubtfully.

  “Oh, bother — listen, I know it! I know his mind! He won’t be easily able to extricate his investments if he disappears, which he’s evidently chosen to do in a great hurry, and every fiber of his being will be yearning for more money! I know his mind, I tell you!”

  “Yes, sir. I shall be close behind you.”

  “Will you get my brown leather kit?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  It was a long ride east, just past Tower Bridge, to get to the Royal Mint Court in East Smithfield, and Lenox spent it contemplating the Thames through his window and slowly rubbing out the imperfections of his reasoning until it was satisfactory to him. His mind was roiling with possibilities.

  At length he directed his driver to stop, one street short of his destination, and walked the rest of the way. He stopped when he saw the broad facade of the Mint; it was a long building made of limestone, with a high, stately arch at its center, a building that managed to seem at once distinguished and entirely uninteresting. A black wrought-iron gate, firmly clasped shut, stood between its courtyard and Lenox on the sidewalk. He began to walk the fence, looking for a point of access.

  The Royal Mint held an exalted place in the history of England, and it had been a great pride of Barnard’s to know its history inside and out. It was Alfred the Great who had first gathered in hand the muddled system of moneyers’ workshops in Anglo-Saxon times and founded the London Mint, in 886. By 1279 the Mint was firmly entrenched in the safest single place in England — the Tower of London, where it remained for five centuries. In 1809 it had moved to a vast, golden-stoned building in East Smithfield, where it stood regal, imposing, and remarkably well guarded.

  It had been a coup for George Barnard to attain the post of Master, which was traditionally held by a great scientist or an aristocrat — and occasionally, as in his case, by an important politician. (The leader of Lenox’s party in the House of Commons now, William Gladstone, had been one of these, Master of the Mint from 1841 to 1845.) The greatest of these Masters had been Isaac Newton, who held the post for nearly thirty years, until his death.

  Yet now what a threat it was under! Lenox had assumed even after he began to suspect Barnard’s nefariousness that the Mint was the one sanctified aspect of his life, his own fortress of immortality.

  It seemed, however, nothing was inviolable.

  Lenox had some idea of what it was like inside; he had never entered it himself, but when he had asked Graham to do his research on Barnard, Lenox had conducted his own about the Mint’s building and the Master’s place in it. At the Devonshire Club he had asked old Baron Staunton, a distinguished Liberal politician who had sat in Parliament for many years but had once been Master himself, about the place — all ostensibly in the guise of polite interest but in fact with keen attention to Staunton’s rather rambling and sentimental reminiscences. Thus Lenox knew that the machines and the money they made were kept in the lower floors, under heavy guard, and that the upper levels of the building contained the Mint’s offices. He had also learned that the Master’s office itself had a view of the Thames, which meant it would be situated toward the western part of the building.

  Then again, Staunton had been Master twenty years ago, and as he walked Lenox felt a twinge of anxiety; it could be that all of his information was out of date.
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  At last he concluded that there was nothing for it but to shimmy up and over the gate. He had in his right hand a doctor’s kit bag, the one he had asked Graham for, a battered pebbled leather case with an ivory handle that unclasped in the middle. It was light but spacious, and he had had it since he was twenty-four.

  He set this down beside him and pulled from it a long, stout piece of string, which he tested by quickly jerking it in the middle with both hands. Satisfied, he made a loop at one end and after several attempts managed to hook it on one of the (unpleasantly sharp-looking) spikes that lined the top of the fence. He tossed his bag over the fence and with a deep breath pulled himself over.

  It was sweaty work, and he slipped back to the ground twice, but eventually he just managed to make it to the other side. He quickly pulled the rope down (he had loosened it when he was coming over the fence) and packed it carefully away in his kit before stealing across the empty courtyard to the grand, dark building itself.

  At the front of the building was a series of heavy black doors, but Lenox knew he stood a better chance of gaining access through a side door and, trying to minimize the clack of his shoes on the stones, began to look around the perimeter. About halfway around he found something promising — a white door marked CARETAKER that had a window at eye level. If worse came to worst, he could break the window, but he didn’t want to make the noise.

  Instead he opened his case again and took two small tools from it. Fortune was on his side; it was an old-fashioned lock, and within about a minute he had managed to jiggle it open. As he had expected, it wasn’t impossibly hard to break into the building (and a good detective, as he had once said to Graham, always needs to be in some small part a good housebreaker, too).

  He imagined the vaults would be a different story.

  With slow, careful steps he walked up the stairway in front of the door, ignoring the caretaker’s closet to the left. At the top of the stairway was another door, and opening it he found himself in a wide, marble-floored corridor, which he saw in the dim moonlight was of regal bearing, with busts of past Mint Officials and portraits of past monarchs along the walls.