The Fleet Street Murders

lost money alike at the track, drank himself into a friendly stupor — I can’t describe accurately how incapable of malice I believe him to be.”

“A more cynical man than myself might say you saw him through a friend’s eyes.”

“Am I such a poor judge of character as all that?”

“No,” said Lenox quietly. “I don’t think you are.”

“Well, then.”

Trying to sound detached, Lenox said, “You know, you look a bit tired, Dallington.”

The younger man laughed. “You always smoke me out, don’t you, Lenox?”

“Well?”

“A friend of mine was in London. I’ve been sleeping for the last fifteen hours, but we did chase the devil for a day and a night.”

Lenox sighed. It wasn’t his place to say anything, but the lad had talent, definite talent, in the art of detection. “I hope it was worth it.”

“Excuse me?” said Dallington, who was used to his own way.

“By God, man, do you realize I have a day here, not more than a day and a half? Much of this case must come down to you — to you! Or the Yard,” Lenox said as an afterthought.

A look of determination came onto Dallington’s face. “I had hoped as much.”

“Well,” said Lenox, standing. “Let us go and see Mr. Poole. Newgate twice in one morning! What a depressing thought.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Because of the hook on the wall of the prison cell that must have been propping up Hiram Smalls from the waist — and Natt’s comment that it had been gone for “two or three years” — Lenox felt distinctly suspicious of the warden as he entered Newgate again. In the end, however, he wasn’t forced to confront the man and merely signed in with Dallington to see Gerald Poole in a small room where prisoners could receive visitors.

They went in and found the prisoner sitting at a small table with three rickety stools around it. The room was otherwise empty, though a guard remained outside the door.

“That can’t be John Dallington, can it?” Poole said with transparent shock on his face.

“How do you do, old friend?” said Dallington.

“Only middling,” said Poole, then laughed and turned to Lenox. “Gerald Poole. Won’t you sit down?”

“Charles Lenox,” said the detective, seeing right away the way Dallington had been trying to describe Poole. He seemed as unconcerned at finding himself in prison as he would have been at finding himself in Buckingham Palace. An unflappable lad. Of course, criminals often were unflappable.

“I’m pleased to meet you.”

“I wish it were under happier circumstances,” said Dallington.

“Whatever can bring you here?”

“It’s funny, actually — I’m an amateur detective now. Or training to be one. Lenox here made the daft decision to take me on as his student. Perhaps you’ve seen his name in the paper?”

“The Oxford case, wasn’t it?”

“Yes!” said the young lord and beamed.

“But — a detective, Dallington?”

Now here was a conversation Lenox had had a hundred times in his life. Peers and elders who had once considered him promising greeted the news with barely concealed consternation, while those less familiar with him idly wondered if he had lost his money on horses or women. How much easier to be like Edmund, a stolid MP, part of the great mass of respectable aristocrats who clustered around Grosvenor Square! Lenox loved his work dearly and felt it was noble indeed; nevertheless, ignoble though it was, part of him yearned for the comfortable respect of being a Member of Parliament. It wasn’t the main reason he was running, but if he admitted it to himself it was one of the reasons. No more uncomfortable moments like this one.

Dallington, predictably, was more open than Lenox. He laughed. “Just a fancy,” he said. “I haven’t been disowned or anything like that. I felt I could do some good. Neither of us was cut out for the old military and clergy line of things, were we, Gerry?”

Poole laughed merrily, accepting Dallington’s explanation at face value. “No, indeed not,” he said. His accent was very definitely English, though he had passed so much of his life abroad. Lenox thought of the traitor Jonathan Poole and suddenly found himself curious.

“I told Lenox you couldn’t possibly have killed either of those journalists, and he agreed to come over and see you. He’s the best, I promise.”

“I’m awfully grateful. I seem to have few friends in this city — if visitors are friends. My cousin visited but could never rid himself for a moment of his feeling of superiority, and a childhood friend came but found me changed beyond his liking. I’ve ordered in a few books, but these have been worrisome hours, I confess.”

“I have faults,” said Dallington, “but at any rate I’m a good friend.”

Here Poole broke into a magnificent smile, a truly radiant smile, and in that moment Lenox felt with great power that he must be innocent. All the incarcerated lad said was, “Yes, you are, John. A good friend.”

“Will you tell us about your meeting with Smalls?” asked Lenox.

“Business — yes. Well, it was the damnedest thing I ever knew.”

“Oh?”

“I only returned to London three and a half months ago, when I finally turned eighteen, Mr. Lenox, and came into my inheritance. Before then my education had been on the Continent, and my tastes had run toward that part of the world anyway.” Very openly, he added, “You’ve heard of my father?”

“Yes,” said Lenox in a measured voice.

“London was a bitter place to my mind because of him, you see, but my lawyers contacted me and said that I had to return to see to business — and anyway I was finally growing restless in Porto, where Dallington and I first met.

“I’ve found it pleasant enough here, although I had no friends and little enough acquaintance. I spent my time corresponding with friends abroad, seeing shows, walking in Hyde Park, dining at my club — in short, adjusting to London — when the man named Hiram Smalls contacted me.

“He called himself Frank Johnson, however, not by his real name. He said in a letter that he had worked for my father at our house in Russell Square when I was very young and that he had always been fond of me and longed for a reunion, having heard that I was back in London. I’m not sure how he heard that, and it strikes me as strange, frankly.”

Poole lit a cigar and seemed to ponder this for a moment.

“What happened at your meeting?”

“It was the strangest thing. At first he began reminiscing in such broad terms that I was instantly sure we had never met in this life. After ten minutes I felt I had listened enough and asked him his true business. He denied lying, and I did all I could do — stood up and left. As I went I heard a barmaid who quite clearly knew him address him as Hiram. It left a strange impression upon me, but I didn’t think a thing of it after a day or two had passed. Then yesterday Inspector Exeter knocked on my door and arrested me for the murder of two men I’ve never heard of in my life. It’s the strangest damned thing under the sun.”

“Singular,” Lenox agreed.

“Clearly Smalls wanted to meet him in public for some nefarious reason!” said Dallington with passion.

“Yes,” said Lenox, “and he took you to a pub where they knew him and could testify to the meeting. It’s strange indeed. I remember something slightly like it, that I heard of once — though that was in France. I doubt the solution there meets the facts here, however. In that instance they needed the man out of his house in order to steal from it. Nobody has stolen anything from you, I hope?”

“Not that I know of, no.”

“Well — I certainly trust Dallington when he avers your innocence, Mr. Poole. He and I shall do our level best to figure out what happened to Pierce and Carruthers, not to mention Smalls. I take it the man you met at the pub