The Fleet Street Murders

as she curtsied.

“Fairly,” he said. “I’m so sorry about your son, Mrs. Smalls.”

“You believe my Hiram was murdered?”

“It may be the case.”

She sighed heavily. “Mr. Smalls was a fishmonger, Mr. Lenox. I was on the stage, you know, and Lord Barnett once asked at the stage door for me —”

Here she paused for a moment to give Lenox the opportunity to appreciate her accomplishment, which he did with a lift of his eyebrows.

“Still, we always figured Hiram would follow his father into fish.”

There was something ludicrous about this that under other circumstances might have provoked laughter in Lenox. Despite that, there was the weight of grief in the apartment, and he merely nodded.

“He didn’t, I take it?”

“Put it this way, Mr. Lenox — he never worked a proper job, but he always had money.”

“Something illegal, you think?”

“Ah, but he was so sweet, Mr. Lenox! You ought to have seen him, in his blue suit. He worked hard, whatever he did — and like the fool I am, I was proud of him whatever he did.”

“It’s a becoming pride in a mother,” said Lenox gently.

“Well,” she said, with a theatrical but genuine sob — in fact, the theatrical was the genuine in Mrs. Smalls, perhaps. “Oh, but he was sweet! Did you know I owed a man a hundred pounds — think of it! — and was only a few months away from debtors’ prison when Hiram paid it off? Months away!”

“Where did he find the money?”

“Oh, he always found the money. You should’ve seen him as a lad, you know! Always wanted a ha’penny for candy, he did. Little nipper.”

Lenox sighed inwardly and to forestall any further reminiscences said, “May I ask you one or two questions, Mrs. Smalls?”

Instantly her look sharpened. “Now, where do you come from, Mr. Lenox?”

“Not Scotland Yard, ma’am. I’m an amateur detective.”

“How do you come to involve yourself in the case, sir?”

“A friend of mine knows Gerald Poole and has asked me to intervene on that young man’s behalf.”

“Who is intervening on Hiram’s behalf?” said Mrs. Smalls angrily.

“Nobody, as yet. I shall see what I find. As I understand it, the prison remitted your son’s effects to you?”

“Yes, as why shouldn’t they?”

“Of course, ma’am, of course. I had hoped to see a letter he was in possession of.”

“I know the one.”

“I didn’t quite understand what it was.” Now, here was a fib: He recalled that it was thirty-two words, beginning The Dogcarts Pull Away and ending No green. “Do you have the letter?”

“You have a trustworthy face,” she said and half-sobbed again.

“Thank you.”

“Well — here it is, then.”

It was on a coarse piece of paper such as might be had for a penny in any shop, unfortunately, and looked new — relatively clean, written recently. It was in an unsophisticated hand; there was a greeting but no farewell, nor was there a date. There were two paragraphs: a short one of thirty words and another that was even shorter, only two.

Mr. Smalls —

The dogcarts pull away. I’ll see that Messrs. Jones get all the attention and care they need. For the others, George will rely on you and on your worthy peers.

No green.

Now this was, at best, puzzling. It seemed as if Messrs. Jones (but wasn’t that a strange locution, in fact?) were in for something sinister, as were the “others” to whom George and Smalls — if indeed the letter was addressed to him — were to give attention and care. Although clearly the keys to it were the first sentence and the last: The dogcarts pull away and No green. Both of them seemed like utter nonsense to Lenox, anyway. A dogcart was a rough-and-ready farmers’ equipage used on country roads. No green perhaps meant “no money.”

Lenox read it two or three times, skipping words (“The-pull-I’ll” — “The-away-Messrs.” — no), reading backward, and adding one letter to every word, then to every other word — first t, then r, then s — but no. It had to be written in some prearranged language that the reader would understand without resort to any trick. So faithfully he copied the note down and thanked Mrs. Smalls, promising her he would give it his further consideration.

The puzzling thing about the note was why Hiram Smalls would have taken the letter to prison. Either he had acted very stupidly, had been been sure of the code’s impenetrability, or else he had wanted to be caught for something — or perhaps it wasn’t his! That was the possibility that shook Lenox slightly. What if after all Hiram Smalls was innocent of any involvement in the murders of Simon Pierce and Winston Carruthers?

“Mrs. Smalls, do you see any meaning particularly in the oranges that Hiram ordered while he was at Newgate?”

She shook her head vehemently. “There’s been too much discussed about that, Mr. Lenox. It doesn’t mean a single thing! I don’t remember Hiram enjoying oranges, but he has very refined — erm — parentage, sir, and there’s no reason why he wouldn’t enjoy the finer things in life.”

“Of course,” said Lenox sympathetically. “What else was there among his possessions that the prison gave you?”

Her trust in the detective was more or less complete now, and she brought out a bag of things — and slightly sad things they were, a little rough, of coarse fabrics and cheap paper. The serge suit, the copy of Black Bess, the pouch of tobacco. Methodically Lenox searched through these but found nothing.

“May I ask you one other question?” he said as he returned Hiram’s things to her.

“Yes?”

“Do you think your son was capable of murder?”

She shook her head violently. “Never! Never in a million years!”

Lenox thought again that this was as persuasive as Dallington’s fervent advocacy of Gerald Poole, in its way. Apparently everyone was innocent. With a sigh, Lenox wished Mrs. Smalls good-bye and went back out to the street.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Back at home there was a telegram from Sandy Smith, Crook’s associate, with a list of commitments that Lenox had to return in time to fulfill the next day. He would have to be on the train by six the next morning, he saw with frustration. Still, it had been a productive half day. He had some grasp of the case, however uncertain.

As he passed the threshold of his home, he traded the uncertainty of the three murders for the domestic uncertainty that mattered far more to him.

“Has Lady Jane returned here, Mary?” he asked after he had changed into a new suit.

“No, sir. Shall I see if she’s in next door?”