inside become to it. Crook was sweating and red, his agile hands flying up and down the taps. The lad who washed dishes was running to and fro with dirty and fresh pint pots.
Then there was another ring of the bell, and when a man entered all of the commotion stopped. Silence.
It was Roodle.
His eyes scanned the room. “Mr. Lenox,” he said when his eyes lit on the Liberal candidate. “May I have a private word with you?”
“If you wish,” said Lenox gamely.
“Perhaps you would consent to visit the Royal Oak, down the street, with me?”
“Terrible place, that,” said a voice in the silence.
“Terrible beer, too,” said another.
There were snickers all over the room. The Royal Oak was a Roodle pub, which served Roodle beer.
“After you,” said Lenox, putting down his newspaper.
They left and walked the short way to Roodle’s pub without speaking.
Compared to the Queen’s Arms, the Royal Oak was an entirely different kind of place. The lights were dim, and under them morose patrons sat singly and doubly, nursing their beers. Its charm lay perhaps in its quiet nature; it lacked the slightly rowdy good cheer of Crook’s bar.
“Well? What can I get you?” Roodle asked.
“Nothing, thanks.”
“It’s free, you know.”
Lenox smiled. “That certainly is an inducement,” he said, “but I don’t want a drink.”
Roodle ordered a pint of stout, and the barman skipped over two customers to deliver it. That attempt at ingratiation failed, however; the brewer chastised his employee and told him to give the two customers free half- pints. He then led a bemused Lenox to a table in the back, next to a cobblestone wall.
“You know why I asked you here, Mr. Lenox?”
“On the contrary, I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“You ought to leave the race.”
At this Lenox laughed outright, though he knew he ought not to. “Why, pray tell, should I so gratify you?”
In a sudden passion, Roodle said, “Is it dignified for a detective to seek a seat in Parliament? For a Londoner to visit a town he has never seen and compete against a candidate with roots there? Is it dignified for you to seek the seat of Stoke, whose family has been here for generations? No, it is not. It is not.”
Lenox was no longer smiling. For a moment there was tense silence.
“My party has seen fit to let me stand here,” he answered at length, “and I can pay my bills. Your opinion of my profession is your concern, but I will answer for it to any man in the world. As for my being a Londoner — seeking Stoke’s seat — that is the politics we have, Mr. Roodle. Whether we think it ideal or not, it is the politics we have, and by which we must abide.”
“A gentleman’s code stands above politics.”
This whipped Lenox into a lather. With all the restraint he could muster, he said, “Let us each define what a gentleman’s code is for ourselves, Mr. Roodle. I am at ease with my own definition.”
“You ought to leave,” muttered Roodle.
“Yet I shan’t.”
“I come to you civilly with that request, sir.”
“On the contrary, you have insulted my profession, questioned my honor, and attempted to bully me.”
Roodle glared. His heaviness had not obscured his sharp, intelligent face. “Then we are at an impasse,” he said. “I take my leave of you.”
He left the pub by the front door, his pint standing untouched on the table, and after a moment Lenox stood and followed him through the door. Suddenly he remembered why he was running for Parliament, and it seemed important again to him — as important as any murder — to keep small-minded men away from the nation’s big decisions. He walked back to the Queen’s Arms feeling a renewed determination.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The prior evening’s London papers arrived the next morning, bringing Lenox in fuller detail the news Dallington had relayed to him by telegram. He was breakfasting in his room on eggs, bacon, and dark tea, and between practicing snatches of dialogue for the debate he ran his eye over the news.
A letter came up the stairs; he recognized Jane’s handwriting on the envelope. It read:
Charles —
How wonderful to know that your foot fell somewhere in London again yesterday. You left this morning, and already I miss you. Your house, though you couldn’t know it, looks quite desolate when you aren’t there.
There is only one piece of news to relate to you — Thomas and Toto have made up, and Thomas is living in their house again. Needless to say I am relieved. It happened in a roundabout way. I was in Toto’s bedroom when the card of a gentleman named Dr. Mark Lucas came up. The doctor was waiting downstairs and said he arrived on medical business. Toto was disinclined to admit him (her mood has been a little happier in the past day or two, but she still has black stretches of time; I wish for her above all an occupation) until he said he came at the behest of Thomas. She asked I stay but consented to see him.
He was a strange little man, but quite evidently proficient. He asked poor Toto, who seems to have seen every doctor London could dredge up, an exhaustive series of questions about her diet, her pregnancy, her habits, and every other thing under the sun. At last he said, “In my medical opinion no doctor could have predicted your misfortune. Not even one in daily contact with you.”
“Does that change anything?”
“Not even Dr. McConnell,” he said with a significant glance.
Toto groaned. “That fool,” she said. “Does he think I blame him?”
“I’ve offered my opinion,” he said.
About half an hour later Thomas came in, as formally as you like, and though I left the room they soon called me back again. Neither looked happy but both quite relieved, and some of the anxiety of Toto’s face was gone, thankfully. I agree with her — what a fool. It is for the best, of course. I am glad of it.
James Hilary was at the duchess’s last night. He is full of excited plans for your political career. I told him it was all the same to me whether you were Prime Minister or a pauper, which he frowned at and couldn’t agree with at all. Still, it is true.
I send this by fastest post, that it may carry my love to you all the more quickly. Please know me to be your very own,
Jane
Lenox folded the two sheets of paper carefully (two sheets — since one paid by the sheet, this was an extravagance) and put them on his dresser with a contented sigh.
Graham, who had brought the letter in and then gone out, knocked at the door again and entered.
“You have an uncanny ability to know when I finish letters,” said Lenox.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Is there something else?”
“I came to ask whether you require any assistance in your preparations for the debate, sir.”
“How do you mean?”
“I could play Roodle, for instance, sir, or simply pose questions to you.”
“Do you think you know Roodle well enough?”
“My new… acquaintances have thoroughly briefed me on his character and tactics, to be sure.”
