The Fleet Street Murders

“Sir,” she said and curtsied. “There’s bread and butter pudding if you care for it.”

Lenox smiled. “Only to be given should I behave?”

“No, sir! Of course —”

“Only joking, Mary.”

“It’s quite tasty, sir.”

Normally Lenox, a thin man, skipped dessert, but he decided to have some today. Mary brought the flaky pastry, doused in a sauce of sweet vanilla cream, and it was so good that when he was done he asked for a second helping and ate that too.

By now he was thoroughly warm and thoroughly sated, and as he sat reading, whether he realized it or not the cares of his life at that moment — the election, the murders, Toto and Thomas, and Jane — began to fall away from him. An observer might have seen his face relax, just slightly at first, and then into a smooth kind of repose. The warmth of the room was wonderful, really, he thought.

He would just rest the journal on the table and look into the fire for a moment — ah, and then perhaps rest his weary eyes — he felt his cheeks relax — his eyelids closed ever so comfortably — and soon the detective was deep in sleep, and not even Mary, who tripped into the library with the coffee a little while later, could wake him up.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Shadows fell along the floor of the library, and that particular golden glare at the edge of the windows showed that it was late afternoon. With pleasantly heavy eyes Lenox stirred and awoke, his gaze on the fire, which sparked and flared when its logs shifted. When at last he was entirely back in the world, he noted the time — it was nearly four — and thought with lazy happiness of his reconciliation with Lady Jane. Soon they would be married, whether in six months or a year, and all would be right with the world. He trusted her judgment — more than his own, perhaps.

He rang the bell, and after some delay Mary came into the room. “Sir?”

“You were busy?”

“I apologize, sir, I was polishing silver.”

“Will you bring me some tea, please?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then take the rest of the day off, would you?”

She didn’t know quite what to make of that. “Sir?”

“I’m eating next door, and I can find my own clothes. Go to the theater. Here —” He handed her a couple of coins.

“Thank you, sir, I shall,” she said, with a glad curtsy.

“Tea first, though, please.”

“Of course, sir. Straightaway.”

Though she blushed easily, could be awkward around guests, and fumbled with some of her tasks, in the matter of making tea Mary was supremely assured. Lenox liked Indian leaf brewed strong, and between the first cup she had made him and this one there had been no variation in the perfection of her technique, whatever it was. She brought it in with a plate of cookies. Lenox ignored these but took a deep draught of the tea and found his senses tingling and his skin a little warmer.

He wandered over to his desk, which sat by the high windows overlooking Hampden Lane. What was he to make of this case? Who was Hiram Smalls? From a pocket Lenox pulled his copy of the cryptic note Hiram had taken into prison.

He wondered again, as he had before, why take it into prison? Either he had assumed the code was impenetrable, he was stupid, or he wanted some small artifact of his crime with which he might blackmail his partner. Lenox strongly favored the latter theory but couldn’t dismiss any of them at this moment.

The dogcarts pull away.

It was a strange, forced style of prose, which made Lenox again wonder about the nature of its encryption. Of course, it was just as likely that “dogcarts” was a prearranged synonym for any number of words — drugs, money, even people. The same held true for the names in the letter, Jones and George. It was a hopeless jumble. Soon after picking it up he threw the letter aside in disgust and stood over his desk, tea in one hand, trying to puzzle through some itch in his mind he couldn’t quite scratch.

There was a knock at the door then, and Mary, in direct contradiction to Lenox’s order that she take the rest of the day off, flew up the servants’ stairs to answer it as the detective came out of his library. She opened the door and gasped involuntarily.

It was Inspector Jenkins, Lenox’s sole friend within Scotland Yard, and he looked awful. A painful red and black welt had risen on his cheekbone, and there was a cut just under his left eye. In the normal course of things he was an efficient and serious-looking fellow, but between his face and his disheveled clothes he now looked like a reject from one of the gin mills by the docks.

“There you are, Lenox,” he said, peering around Mary. “I didn’t know where I ought to go.”

“Come in, I beg of you. Mary, take his coat and clean it.”

“Yes, sir,” said Mary, though there was a doubtful note in her voice. She wasn’t used — as Graham was — to the frequent admission of outwardly insalubrious characters to the house.

“You don’t have anything like a hot whisky, do you?” he asked.

“Of course,” said Lenox. “Before you see to his coat, bring one, won’t you? Bring two, in fact. I’ll drink with you, Jenkins. Now, what the devil has happened?”

Lenox motioned him down the hallway, and Jenkins came forward. The two men shook hands, and Jenkins smoothed down his ruffled hair.

“It’s been a long day,” was all he said.

There was a jittery kind of energy left over in him from whatever altercation had painted him black and blue. When the whisky arrived, he gulped at it gratefully, then took a deep breath.

“Well,” he said, “I think it very likely that before the day is out I shall have been officially dismissed from the Yard.”

“No!” said Lenox, genuinely shocked. “Why on earth would they do that?”

“They’ve just suspended me for showing Dr. McConnell our internal reports. Exeter did it, in fact. Called me a traitor. I asked him if he would say it again, and he did, and I jolly well showed him he shouldn’t have.” Jenkins laughed bitterly. “Although I didn’t come out of it unscathed, mind. He walloped me twice.”

“I’m shocked! Exeter has tolerated my involvement in cases of his before, even asked me for help.”

“It was a pretense, I believe,” said Jenkins, taking another sip of his whisky. “Exeter has resented me for some time. One of his lackeys saw me closeted with Dr. McConnell and reported me to the great man.” Another bitter laugh.

“There’s been tension between the two of you?”

“Yes, and I made it pretty plain that I didn’t think he was right about the Pierce and Carruthers murders. The great joke is that he may have been.”

“Why do you say that?” Lenox asked.

Jenkins shrugged. “Poole met with Smalls, and the two dead journalists had his father hanged. The motive is ironclad, and the meeting is a strong piece of circumstantial evidence.”

“Did Gerald Poole even know the details of his father’s case?”

“I don’t know, but the meeting with Smalls… I confess it seems damning.”

“Are they bringing him to trial?”

“Within a fortnight. All of Exeter’s men are out looking for evidence.”

“Do they have any idea who killed Smalls?”

“None, but Exeter certainly believes it was murder.”

“It was.”