your hopes.”
“I see,” said Dallington.
It was an awkward moment. “I have full faith in you, of course,” said Lenox, “but I simply want to be sure.”
“What can I do to help?”
Lenox looked at the clock on the wall. “Shall we go see him together? There are one or two questions I might ask him.”
“If you wish,” answered Dallington, looking miserable at the prospect.
“Or I could go alone,” Lenox said.
“No, I’ll come.”
“Then let’s have a spot of tea while they rub down the horses. Graham, are you out there?” he called into the hall. The valet came in. “Will you bell for the carriage and bring in some tea, please?”
“Sandwiches, too,” said Dallington, in a voice so disconsolate that it was almost humorous to hear him ask for a sandwich with it.
Lenox laughed. “Come, the world will turn again, you know.”
“Wait until you see him,” said Dallington.
It was true. They had their tea and sandwiches and soon enough were on their way again to Newgate Prison. It was a bitterly cold January day, of the kind that seems never quite to warm into afternoon before it falls again into night. A few flurries fell, vanishing as they hit the cobblestones, coating the stone buildings of London in a white stubble.
Poole, when he came into the visitors’ room, was a different man. It was as though he had kept the facade up as long as he could and then collapsed under its weight.
“How do you do?” asked Lenox gently. “Are you comfortable?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“Plenty of food? Warm enough?”
“Yes.”
“I thought we might have a word, since your confession took me by such surprise.”
“Every word of it is true,” said Poole sadly.
Yet Lenox had his doubts, even after seeing the lad. “Will you describe it to me?”
“The maid, Martha, helped me slip into the building,” said Poole dully. “Win — that man was sitting at a round table, writing. I stabbed him in the back, like a damned coward. I left as quickly as I came, sobbing the entire way. It was a despicable act, and I deserve to swing for it.”
“What was your motive?”
“Revenge.”
“On your father’s behalf.”
“Yes.”
“Pray tell me — how did you learn of Carruthers’s involvement in your father’s trial?”
Poole shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “It’s — it’s common knowledge.”
“On the contrary, I’ve lived here since before your birth, and I never heard of it. You only returned a few months ago.”
“Naturally I would take a greater interest in the matter than you, Mr. Lenox.”
“I concede that. Still, I insist that it wasn’t common knowledge.”
“As you please.”
“Another thing, Mr. Poole. What about the paper Carruthers was writing on? Did you dispose of it? Burn it? Take it.”
Poole looked genuinely baffled at this. “I didn’t think twice about it, of course.”
“Yet it was missing from the table and hasn’t been discovered anywhere among his personal effects.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Did you truly kill Winston Carruthers, Mr. Poole?”
“Yes, I did.”
There was such conviction in the lad’s voice that Lenox believed —
Suddenly a possibility occurred to him.
“Your father was in Parliament, I believe?” said Lenox. “Before the Crimean War began?”
“Yes,” said Poole cautiously. “Why?”
There was a long pause. “Did he ever know — or did you ever know — a man named George Barnard?”
Poole’s face crumpled, but he managed to choke out the word “Who?”
“George Barnard?” said Dallington with a disbelieving laugh. “That codger.”
Lenox continued to stare at the prisoner, however. “Barnard? You knew him?”
At length Poole nodded very slightly.
“Then you really did kill Winston Carruthers?”
“I told you, yes.” Poole began to cry softly.
“My God,” Lenox whispered.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
George Barnard?” said Dallington again, uncertainly this time. Poole spoke as if he hadn’t heard his friend. “For the last months he has been my only friend in London.”
“He knew your father?” said Lenox.
Poole nodded. “Yes. He came to see me the moment I arrived here from the Continent. Soon we were together most afternoons, talking — first of generic subjects but then more specifically of the past. I had never been interested in what my father did or didn’t do. It was too painful, and I tried never to be interested in the world — the world at large, I mean. Friends, a roll of the dice, books, all of those things occupied my time. Mr. Barnard told me every detail of my father’s death, and the sudden exposure to something I had studiously ignored all of my life — it opened a wound. A deep wound. It changed me.”
“So you killed Carruthers?” asked Dallington doubtfully.
“I’ve a feeling there were many intermediate steps,” said Lenox, “but tell me — why did you confess, after denying it at first?”
“The guilt became too much.”
“How could you have done it?” asked Dallington.
“I don’t have any idea. It sounds funny, but truly I don’t… I go over it in my mind and can’t quite puzzle together how it happened. It seems like a dream.”
“Why have you been protecting Barnard?” said Lenox.
A stubborn look came onto his face. “An informer killed my father. I never want to be a rat.”
“Is that what Barnard preached to you? The nobility of protecting a scoundrel?”
“A scoundrel?” said Poole. “He’s been a friend to me.”
“No,” said Lenox. “He hasn’t. Let’s leave that aside and tell us how you went from a mild friendship with George Barnard to killing a man in cold blood.”
“In hot blood,” said Poole. “I’ve never been drunker or angrier in my life.”
“Well? I want to help you with the police and the judge, Poole, but come now, why did you act as you did?”
“It’s a secret, but George told me — he told me that this man Carruthers framed my father.”
“What?” said Dallington.
Poole sat back triumphantly, and a deep sadness, a pity, rose up in Lenox’s breast. How eager we are to rewrite our fathers’ stories, some of us; the delusions of the heart.
“I think your father was very probably guilty,” said the detective quietly.
“No,” said Poole, shaking his head confidently.
“Well, leave that aside, too. How did Barnard persuade you to kill Carruthers?”
