“Yes, yes, and I should only drink barley water and meditate on the Sabbath. Still, it’s damn hard to find a game of cards in this town!”
“I think Poole is innocent.”
Dallington furrowed his brow. “Well, of course.”
“You say that despite his confession?”
With that the younger man looked uneasy. “Well —”
“I have a theory that Poole is the victim of a plan to frame him for the murders of Pierce and Carruthers.”
“So do I — Hiram Smalls asked him for a meeting.”
“That relies on Poole’s word, you know. Let me tell you what I think.”
Lenox repeated what he had said to Graham — that Carruthers was the murderer’s real target and Pierce an unfortunate casualty, the murderer having known that the two men were connected by Poole and that Gerald Poole was in London again.
Dallington whistled, impressed. “Could well be,” he said. “So they may not be the Fleet Street murders after all, then.”
“Precisely — we can’t quite say what sort of murders they may be, except that with Exeter and Smalls dead, too, they’re for very high stakes.”
“Speaking of which — shall you be safe?”
“I hope so,” said Lenox. “I don’t speak to the papers, so I hope it’s not widely known that I’ve interested myself in this business. Still, I mean to speak to Scotland Yard about it tomorrow. They may give me assistance.”
“There’s such a public outcry over Exeter, I’m sure they’ll be desperate to do anything to find his killer.”
“Yes,” said Lenox grimly. “God, but it’s an ugly thing.”
“What can I do?”
“Find out why Gerald Poole confessed.”
Dallington stared at Lenox for a moment and then nodded. “All right,” he said. “I’ll see him first thing in the morning.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”
“Yes — I’ll come here when I’m done.”
“I may be out during the day, but wait, if you would.”
“Of course.”
Dallington left then, perhaps off for a few more rounds of whist to brace him for his morning task, and Lenox checked on his brother — still sound asleep. Molly and their sons were in the country, and he decided to let Edmund rest.
“Put him upstairs, would you, if he should stir?” he said to Graham. “Tell him I won’t hear of him going home.”
“Very good, sir.”
Then at last, blessedly, he could go see Jane.
He fairly bounded next door, hoping it wasn’t too late to catch her. Her telegram had been brief but consoling, and he felt a powerful desire to see her, to remind himself that he had a wonderful life, well worth living, even without Parliament.
Her house, imperiously tall from across the street, seemed from their own sidewalk to be no more than a homely, silent thing, with one room dimly lit and all the others entirely dark. Before he could knock she opened the door and, without speaking, wrapped him in her arms. For a moment he remembered how it had been when his mother was alive, even into his thirties — that childlike comfort she was able to give him long past the age of scraped knees.
“Are you terribly disappointed?” she asked. Now she led him down the hall and into her rose-colored drawing room, from whence that solitary lamp had been visible from the street.
“It was more of a sharp, quick pain,” he said, “than a long, dull one. I thought it would have been the other way around.”
“How unfair, though! Will you tell me about it?”
In such a way that he had barely noticed, she had maneuvered him into his favorite chair and then sat beside him. In a torrent, then, he told the entire thing to her — about Mayor Adlington and his long watch chain, about Roodle’s squeal during the debate, about their impromptu exchange in Sawyer Park, about Sandy and Mrs. Reeve and Nettie and Crook and Lucy the waitress, about the awful dinner parties, the endless days out in the countryside, the hustings in front of the Queen’s Arms and the speeches. The two old friends laughed at the funny bits and felt solemn together at the serious bits, and when he was through telling the story it felt as if he were finally through the experience. He had had his chance and lost. So it goes, he thought. Perhaps there will be another, but even if there isn’t — if there isn’t that’s all right as well.
And here, he asked? What was the news?
“Thomas and Toto are doing the best they can,” said Lady Jane.
“I’m glad to hear it, of course, but you know what I mean — London, the chatter, I’ve missed it all.”
“It’s my turn to entertain you?” she said. “Well, the Duchess is having her house redecorated, and the whole family is moving to the country for six months while it’s done… let me think… Deborah Trice is going to marry Fordyce Pratt.”
“I haven’t the faintest idea who either of them is.”
“He’s a judge.”
“That ancient lump of flesh I see at the Devonshire? Surely he doesn’t have it in him.”
She laughed. “Yes, in fact,” she said, “and you ought to know that Deborah is a very respectable widow, just returned from some part of India where her husband was posted.”
“A tiger ate him, I assume?”
“Fever,” she said, though still laughing. “What else? George Barnard was to have a party, but he’s gone to Geneva instead, some sort of conference, and people are terribly disappointed. You know he has that ballroom.”
“Humph,” said Lenox, or some grumpy noise approximating that.
“Yes, yes, I know you don’t like him. Oh! Frederick Fleer was in a duel, you know, but neither man was hurt.”
Slowly, then, Lenox and Lady Jane resumed their lifelong conversation. An hour later, thoroughly exhausted, she led him to the door.
He gave her a chaste kiss on her red lips. “Thank you for staying up,” he said.
A serious note returned to her voice after much laughter, and she said, “Oh, but of course.”
They agreed to see each other the next day, and as he walked back up the steps to his house Lenox thought happily of all the long hours he would sleep on his own soft bed. Tomorrow there was work to be done, but tonight he could truly rest. Maybe for a while in the morning, too.
The house was quiet. He hung up his coat and began to make his way upstairs, only to check himself and return to the door of the library, through which he peered to find Edmund sleeping still, and before Lenox traipsed up to his bedroom he stood and felt a deep swell of affection, of true kinship, for his brother.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
His first action the next morning, following his bath and his breakfast, was to go and see Thomas and Toto.
They were sitting in a drawing room when the butler led him in, Toto knitting something pink and McConnell reading the newspaper with a cup of tea close at hand, the strong green tea he preferred. They looked up at him, and both smiled. McConnell’s great florid face looked battered, even wounded, but instantly Lenox saw that a resolute companionship had sprung up between him and his wife. It was easy to admire — and made it easy to forget the doctor coming up to Stirrington when he was barmy drunk and half mad with sorrow.
