The Fleet Street Murders

moments longer than he ought to have, savoring the sense of being inside his own home. It meant something — but Stirrington beckoned.

He dressed in a dark suit with a dark cloak and found that Mary had packed new clothes in a tidy overnight bag for him. Downstairs he had coffee, apple slices, and toast, a scoop of marmalade spread over the last. He thought of Jane and wished she were next door, or better yet next to him. He was melancholy, for some reason. An identical note to each of two men, Jenkins and Exeter, informing them of the previous night’s discovery, and he was prepared to leave.

Although there was a small surprise first — an early visitor. It was James Hilary.

“How do you do?” Lenox asked, answering the knock at the door himself. “I’m pleased to see you.”

The young Member of Parliament had a slightly awkward air about him, standing on Lenox’s stoop, but spoke plainly. “Are you?” he said. “I rather wondered whether you would be.”

“Because you left Stirrington?”

Hilary nodded.

Lenox shrugged. “I understood,” he said. “It wasn’t a personal decision.”

“That’s true, but nevertheless.”

“We’ve been friends for a while now, Hilary. It’s politics.”

“That’s good of you, Charles — but it was a bad decision.”

“Oh?”

“Apparently you’re pulling even in local support.”

“We worked hard after you left.”

“I heard about your encounter with Roodle,” said Hilary. “Sounds like you scored one off of him.”

“I had little taste for it, I confess,” said Lenox.

“You oughtn’t to have left, however.”

“I know Crook thought so, too.”

“I hope you don’t learn how precious time is in a county campaign too late.”

“I’m returning now,” said Lenox.

Hilary gave him a searching look. “You’ll stay? Scotland Yard can take care of themselves, you know.”

Lenox laughed. “Yes, I’ll stay,” he said. “I had to come down, James, I promise you I did, but I’ve scarcely been gone a full day, and I won’t leave again.”

Hilary nodded, apparently satisfied with this intelligence. For ten minutes he stayed and discussed strategy with Lenox, promised to keep close track of the election, and generally made himself agreeable in the way he knew how to.

The truth was that Lenox did feel slightly betrayed by Hilary, his friend; and yet when he thought of the man as a political associate rather than as a friend it seemed better. He saw Hilary away with a cordial smile, and as he put on his overcoat he had a small smile on his lips. Pulling even in local support, the phrase had been.

They would see; perhaps he might nose out Roodle in the end.

As the sun slipped over the horizon and burnished London gold, Lenox was stepping into his carriage, on the way to King’s Cross Station. As he rolled through the streets he silently contemplated his fellow men, those just setting out for their days and those just getting home from their nights — the aristocratic gamblers who were stumbling home in a daze, the elderly ladies who preferred Hyde Park at this unhurried hour, the deliverymen who gave these rich houses their milk and fruit and meat as the day began. A sense of his own inconsequence stole over Lenox. This rented world. He discovered that he did care about marrying Jane sooner rather than later. All he wanted was to be beside her, Parliament and Hiram Smalls both be damned. The low fire of love for her that always burned in his chest flared and filled him.

At the train station he sat at a cafe with a cup of coffee, his third of the morning, and read the Times. According to a lead column, Exeter had definitive proof that Smalls and Poole had acted in concert. “Inspector Exeter had already ascertained that Mr. Poole and Mr. Smalls met in the Saracen’s Head pub,” said the article, “but he now has further proof of their complicity. When reporters asked him to reveal the new information, Exeter said, ‘You’ll see, you’ll see.’ Speculation centers on some link between both men and the Belgian housekeeper employed by Winston Carruthers, Martha Claes, whose whereabouts are currently unknown, with Scotland Yard eager to learn them.”

Lenox sighed. What proof could it possibly be?

Suddenly, across the vast expanse of King’s Cross Station, he heard a shout. It was coming from near the ticket booths.

“Lenox!” the voice shouted. “Lenox!”

Charles stood and turned, patting his pocket nervously to make sure his ticket was still there.

Then he saw who it was: Dallington. The young lad ran up to Lenox, people staring as he passed before they returned to whatever they had been doing.

“What on earth can it be?” asked Lenox. “How are you?”

“Quite well, quite well,” said Dallington breathlessly. “It’s Poole.”

“What happened?”

Dallington gulped the air, apparently unused to the exercise. “I didn’t think I’d catch you.”

“What happened to Poole?”

“The knife they found in the back of Carruthers’s neck? The long one?”

“Yes?”

“Poole bought it. It was Poole’s.”

“How do you know? How did you discover this?”

“Poole sent for me himself.”

“What are the details?”

“It’s a hunting knife with a red and black handle. Poole has always hunted and bought it three weeks ago.”

“Go on.”

Dallington nodded with an anguished look on his face. “Furthermore, what’s worse, Poole denied buying it at first. Now he says he can’t remember. It’s all so dreadfully suspicious — but I know he didn’t do it.”

“This looks black, Dallington. Exeter can prove the murder weapon was Gerald Poole’s knife?”

“The shopkeeper who sold it entered all of Poole’s particulars into a ledger.”

Lenox sighed. “I’m afraid he may be guilty,” he said.

“He’s not. I can tell you that flatly.”

The older man looked at the younger with pity. “Yes,” was all he said.

“What can we do?”

“I must go to Stirrington.”

“What! You can’t think of leaving, can you?”

“Indeed I can.”

Dallington looked dumbfounded. “An innocent man goes to trial in a week’s time.”

This pierced Lenox. “I will write to Exeter,” he said. “Forcefully.”

“You must stay!”

“I cannot. If you keep me apprised of every detail you learn, I will try to help. Yet if Poole is convicted, I can always return and try to exonerate him. Still, if he is truly innocent — then I hope he won’t be convicted.”

“Hope?” said Dallington, and a faint look of disgust passed across his face. “Parliament will go on forever. This is a man’s life!”

Lenox knew the justice of what Dallington said, but he thought as well of all the people who were paid to be discovering who had killed Pierce and Carruthers, and the thought of his visit with Hilary that morning — you’re pulling even in local support — and wondered why he had to be the one who fixed everything; and a small selfish voice rose in his mind. He wanted to be in Parliament.

“John,” said Lenox in an utterly reasonable voice, “you must understand. I have obligations. I came down expressly against the wishes of those with an interest in my campaign and have done my best. We know Smalls