End, too, but in Liverpool Street, twenty minutes’ walk from Brick Lane. It was perplexing. He must have perceived something Lenox had not. Either that or he had been off on a wild-goose chase. Lenox hoped it hadn’t been that.
Immediately after Exeter had gone into the hospital Jenkins had been reinstated, a fact that he relayed with much happiness in a telegram to Lenox. Unfortunately, he didn’t have — or wouldn’t offer, after his recent trouble — any more detail about the shooting of Exeter, other than to say that he felt sure it was tied into the Fleet Street murders. Lenox agreed and wrote back to say so, but he felt frustrated at his lack of access to the case’s finer points.
Still, it was good to have his mind on Stirrington. Election day was drawing precariously near.
On the fourth evening after the debate, Lenox had dinner with Mrs. Reeve again, though an entirely new and more agreeable set of guests joined them. Her influence was tangible, he saw as he grew more intimate with the town, and he was grateful for her good opinion.
Afterward he sat in the empty bar of the Queen’s Arms, drinking a companionable glass of port with Crook. He asked the bartender a question he had refrained from asking his entire time in Stirrington. “Am I going to win?”
Crook shrugged philosophically. “You have a chance, anyway. It all depends on this town’s feelings about Roodle, really. If they dislike him mildly, resent him mildly, then he’ll be elected. There’s a powerful instinct to stick together in your northern towns. If on the other hand there is deep resentment toward Roodle, you have a damn good chance.”
“That makes my time here seem rather futile,” said Lenox with a rueful smile. “If it all depends on Roodle.”
“On the contrary — you’ve done it all perfectly. You have a light touch with people, Mr. Lenox. I’m sure it has helped in your first career, at times. You’ve introduced yourself to the people of Stirrington and within a week become familiar and acceptable to them. Without having done that, it wouldn’t matter in the slightest what the opinion of Roodle was. A sluggish turnout and a victory of a few thousand votes for him, were you a different man.”
“I’m pleased to hear it.”
Crook, lighting a cigar, said, “Mind, Mr. Graham has helped, and Sandy Smith and I long had a theory that if you visited the outlying farms and villages you would find undiscovered votes. It’s all gone well, I must say. It never mattered when Stoke was in the seat, but Sandy and I are excited to see if the strategy works.”
“All things being equal — two wonderful candidates, neither of whom had ever traveled a foot outside of Stirrington — is this place Liberal or Conservative?”
Crook grimaced and puffed at his cigar. “Certainly we’re conservative in our morals, here. There are those who recognize that Liberal policies favor our kind. Myself, for instance. In the end, though, yes — Conservative.”
“An uphill climb for us, then.”
“You’ve known that since Mr. Hilary left, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” said Lenox. “To be honest, I thought it was all lost then.”
“The party is fearful of looking as if it really tried for a seat it might lose. Better that the onus falls on you, a dilettante, or me and Smith, locals. Harsh, I know, but true.”
Lenox saw the verity in this. He took a sip of the amber port. “I hope we can give them a surprise, then.”
“So do I, so do I. It’s wonderful finally to get my hands dirty and play at real politics, I can tell you. Stoke never had any juice in him.” After taking a sip of port he added, “May he rest in peace.”
Graham came in at that moment.
“A telegram, sir,” he said to Mr. Lenox.
“Who from?”
“Inspector Jenkins of Scotland Yard, sir.”
“Hand it over.”
“What an inundation of telegrams has come to my pub since your arrival!” said Crook with a belly laugh. “We ought to send a wire straight to your room. It must cost a pretty penny to stay abreast of the London news.”
“Worth it to me, though,” said Lenox. He opened the telegram and read it.
He gasped.
“Sir?” said Graham.
“Just a moment, Graham.”
Lenox read it over. “Gerald Poole has confessed. He killed Winston Carruthers.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
The news that followed the next day was scarce and overwrought. According to the papers Lenox could find, all of London was in an uproar about Gerald Poole’s confession. Each front page ran a long recapitulation of Jonathan Poole’s treason, and the names of the few tradesmen and servants who had met Gerald popped up again and again, uniformly to say how surprised they were. The more febrile stories called the shooting of Exeter a second treason.
There was no confirmation that Poole had indeed employed Hiram Smalls as a mercenary, but given the two men’s meeting at the Saracen’s Head pub the evening before the murders of Simon Pierce and Winston Carruthers, there was little doubt in most minds about their complicity. With Lenox, however, the idea sat uneasily.
“The question is, why on earth would Poole have sent that letter to Smalls?” he asked Graham as he read that evening, another long day of campaigning behind them. “Does it make any sense that he would meet Smalls in a public place, only to write a letter containing the same plan they had agreed to the night before?”
“No, sir.”
“Still, people get nervous when they mean to commit a crime.”
“Certainly, sir.”
“He may have been agitated and written the note to give himself some activity, I suppose. I hope Jenkins sends word of the contents of Poole’s confession. I fear he’s treading the line, however, after his suspension. Needless to say, I can’t blame the man for it.”
Indeed, in the forty-eight hours after he received the initial telegram, there was no word from London except another letter from Lady Jane, which predated Poole’s confession, and a stout and strongly worded telegram from Dallington.
IT SIMPLY CANNOT BE TRUE STOP I NEED YOUR HELP PLEASE RETURN STOP DALLINGTON
Lenox answered:
THERE ARE ONLY A FEW DAYS REMAINING UNTIL THE ELECTION STOP I SIMPLY CANNOT LEAVE STOP GATHER ALL THE INFORMATION YOU CAN AND THE MOMENT I CAN I WILL FLY TO LONDON STOP BEST LENOX
He felt guilty writing it but equally felt how impossible it was to write anything different.
Originally another debate had been set for that day, but Roodle had pulled out of it. With Crook and Sandy Smith satisfied that they had covered all the countryside there was to visit, Lenox turned his attention again to the local tradesmen and Officials who would be influential among their peers. He heard a long soliloquy by Mayor
