The Fleet Street Murders (12 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

T

homas and Toto McConnell lived in one of London’s grandest houses, her parents’ wealth visible in every aspect of it—everything new or just replaced, everything shiny and fresh. It had a ballroom, where McConnell played solitary games of horse less polo, and more bedrooms than they could ever use. These must have seemed a bitter reproach to Toto, who hadn’t yet filled them with the festive decorations of childhood though her entire family expected her to.

Lenox sighed as his carriage stopped. It was near dark, and the flickering candlelight in the windows felt gloomy. All the banal ornaments of sorrow sat upon the house. The stoop and sidewalk were dingy, unswept, the servants having more serious charges than cleanliness for once. Or congregating in corners to whisper, just as likely. There was a black crepe sash over the knocker, though that sign of gentility was at Toto’s house usually pink or white. The black, color of mourning, warned visitors away perhaps. Curtains were pulled shut over the window of the McConnells’ bedroom.

Lenox knocked at the door, and duly Shreve came to answer.

Now, Shreve was by general consent the most depressing butler in all of London, a present to the newlyweds from Toto’s father. He was surpassingly tactful and skillful in the discharge of his duties but in personality couldn’t have been more different than the effervescent and eternally happy Toto. Saying hello, Lenox thought that perhaps Shreve
ought
to have seemed an oppressive figure in this now sorrowful house but that in fact he was some comfort. Strange. He only hoped Toto felt so, too.

“I’m here to see Mrs. McConnell,” said Lenox, handing over his hat and coat.

“Please follow me, sir.”

He led Lenox down the front hall and to a large, well-appointed sitting room. Nobody was in it.

“May I bring you anything to eat or drink while you wait, Mr. Lenox?” asked Shreve in his gloomy baritone.

“Thanks, no. Is she up and about?”

“At certain hours of the day, sir. Excuse me, please.”

Shreve left, and without much interest Lenox picked up a copy of
Punch
that sat on a nearby table. He leafed through it, preoccupied—both by his concern for the McConnells and by that note Smalls had taken to jail. He had truly believed Mrs. Smalls’s protestation of innocence, but was it possible that both Poole and Smalls were innocent of all wrongdoing? On the other hand, Smalls had a criminal background of some kind, though it was obscure what his specific crimes might be.

“My lady will be down shortly,” said Shreve, jerking Lenox out of his daydream.

“Thank you, thank you,” he said. “Shreve, has Mr. McConnell been home today?”

“No, sir,” said the butler with a slight tone of rebuke. It was an intrusive question.

“Thank you.”

At length Toto came into the room. Lenox rose to meet her and with a chaste kiss led her to the sofa he had been sitting upon.

“My dearest Toto,” he said, “I’m so sorry I left London when I did.”

“I understand,” she said in a quiet voice. “Thank you for coming to see me now.”

“Of course. Has Jane been here since this morning?”

“She just left.”

“I hope she has comforted you.”

“She is so—so good,” said Toto, and a sob caught in her throat before she could compose herself.

She did not wear the traditional black but a dark blue dress that was unlike her usual clothes, colorful as they were. Her face was somber and not in the least frantic, as if the hours of manic anxiety had passed and left one encompassing, mountainous feeling behind: grief.

“I saw Thomas this morning,” Lenox said. “He’s helping me. Those two journalists who died.”

“Oh, yes?” she asked coldly.

“He is—may I speak plainly, Toto?”

“I would ask that we discuss another subject.”

“Ah,” said Lenox, nonplussed.

A silence.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“I think my health has returned,” she said. Her voice was still so terribly cold. It was jarring, when he was so used to her good spirits lifting his. “Thank you.”

It was as if she had decided Lenox belonged to McConnell’s camp, Jane to her own. Some barrier had gone up between them, after years of the closest intimacy. He didn’t know quite how to break through to her.

He sighed. “I came here for two reasons.”

“Oh, yes?” she said, without any apparent interest in this piece of information.

“I was worried about you, of course.”

Here she softened slightly. “Thank you, Charles.”

“I also need advice.”

“Do you? Thomas can’t help you?”

He waved a hand impatiently. “Not like that,” he said. “It’s about Jane.”

“Oh?”

“About our wedding. You know I’m fond of travel, perhaps?”

“I do know that, Charles.” The roll of her eyes as she said this was the first glimpse of the Toto Lenox knew.

Indeed, it might have been a rhetorical question. Travel was one of Lenox’s great passions, and he spent much of his leisure time planning elaborate trips to far-off lands—the Middle East, Asia, the Americas. Sadly, these trips (which always included Graham) remained largely theoretical. True, he had spent a blissful two weeks in Russia some years earlier, and after Oxford had toured Italy and France, but every time he was on the verge of leaving London nowadays something interrupted his plans. Usually a case, which he could never resist. Nonetheless, he was an enthusiastic member of the Travellers’ Club, whose charter decreed that all its members should have traveled at least five hundred miles in a straight line from Piccadilly Circus, and a frequent patron of several mapmakers, purveyors of durable luggage, and travel agents.

“I’ve promised Jane that I would decide on the itinerary of our honeymoon and surprise her with our destination on the day we left.”

“Charles,” said Toto with a scornful laugh, “she won’t want to go to India or somewhere dreadful like that!”

Lenox laughed, too. “Precisely. That’s why I need your help.”

“How can I help? You know the capitals of all the countries, and which rivers are where, and how many windmills are in Holland, and all the tiresome things I could never remember at school.”

Again he laughed. “I’m afraid none of that will do me any good in this situation. Therefore I propose that the two of us form a committee and choose the best spot for Jane’s honeymoon. I want it to be perfect, you see, and you know Jane as well as anyone.”

“That’s awfully sweet,” she murmured and seemed to favor him with a smile. “Perhaps Switzerland?”

Sternly, he said, “No, no, idle suggestions won’t do. I’ve brought several travel guides for you to look over, with watercolor drawings and picturesque descriptions and—I’m afraid—a very few facts. The sort of thing that drives me mad.”

He pointed to the parcel he had left on a nearby table.

“I love that kind of book!” she said.

“I know. That’s why we’ll make such good collaborators—I can look for train schedules while you look for beauty. Shall we meet the day after I next return from Stirrington?”

Perhaps it was the idea of a project, or because Lenox spoke so earnestly, but Toto laughed, a real, genuine laugh, and with far more animation than before said, “We shall call it an appointment, then.”

She stuck out her tiny hand, and with a show of solemnity Lenox shook it. “Thank you,” he said. “What a weight off my mind!”

“I warn you that I’m a slow study.”

“Where did you and Thomas go, remind me?”

The smile vanished from her face. “We went to Scotland and then to Paris,” she said.

“Ah. I recall now.” In an attempt to rectify the mistake of mentioning McConnell, he said, “Did you like it?”

“I loved it,” she said with emotion in her face. “It was the happiest I’ve ever been.”

It was easy to forget, Lenox thought, how in love they had been—how profoundly in love. McConnell’s manly, kind bearing, Toto’s enthusiasm and loveliness—how happy they had seemed! The thought disturbed him for some reason.

“At any rate, I know Jane has been to Paris half a dozen times, and even I managed to spend a few months there.”

She laughed, her goodwill reinstated. “I’m glad I can help you,” she said. “I’m so looking forward to the wedding.”

“As am I,” said Lenox. “In that case, I shall take my leave.”

She stood and accepted another kiss on her cheek. “Will you tell Jane—do you mean to see Jane?”

“Yes.”

“Will you tell her, just one more night, perhaps?”

She had been staying there, then. Poor Toto. “I certainly shall.”

“I said she needn’t bother, before—but—”

“I’ll tell her first thing,” Lenox said. “Of course.”

Some moments later he was out on the steps, and in the cold evening air he stopped and gazed at the horizon. It was pink and blue, and overlaying those colors a deepening violet, and seemed to reflect back to him all the sorrow that filled his heart, cheerful though he had tried to be. Poor, innocent Toto, he thought. For so long, even through her troubles with Thomas, she had been everything fresh, everything unblemished, everything pure. Now, no matter how well she recovered, that was gone. How various, he thought, are the punishments this world may inflict on us. He stepped with a burdened heart toward his carriage.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

E

ating supper with Lady Jane restored Lenox’s good cheer. His own dining room was low-slung and comfortable, with a casual air about it even when he had a dinner party; by contrast hers was a marvel both of grace and intimacy, with candles glowing along rosewood walls. To eat they had a hearty beef and vegetable stew, which Lady Jane knew was Lenox’s favorite autumn supper, and for dessert what had gradually come to be called Victoria sponge, after the queen—an airy cake with cream poured over it. Jane offered Lenox the wine she kept in for him, but he declined it. They spoke of every subject that occurred to them, ranging between old memories and new gossip, and by the end both felt that despite their separation all was again well in the world.

He had told her straightaway about Toto’s request that Jane return that evening, and she had ordered an overnight bag prepared. As a consequence there was less time to sit in the parlor after supper than either would have liked, but they were happy moments, Lady Jane quizzing Charles about Stirrington, Crook, and Roodle and expressing over and again her wish that she might visit him there.

Finally, as a gentle rain began to slope down over the city, she left.

“Good-bye, my love,” he said.

“Good-bye,” she answered and kissed him swiftly on the lips before he handed her into her carriage. “Be well there. Don’t worry, Charles. I know you worry.”

With that, he knew he wouldn’t see her for another fortnight.

He made the short walk back to his own house as slowly as he could, savoring the raindrops on his tired face. Indeed, on his steps he stood and smoked a pipe, looking up and down the small, tidy lane they lived upon. It saddened him. The trees, the shops, they were his own, and he hated to leave again. Especially without having solved the murders of Pierce and Carruthers. He had wasted his energy, perhaps, in returning—but it had been necessary.

Inside he found he had a visitor; it was Dallington, his feet up by the fire, chuckling over the same issue of
Punch
Lenox had inspected before seeing Toto.

“Hullo, old chap,” the young lord said and sprang to his feet with unnatural energy to shake hands.

Lenox shook hands and sat down heavily in his armchair. “How are you? Excitable, I see.”

“Well enough. You? You must be tired?”

“No, not tired. Uneasy.”

“Because of the case?”

“In part, anyway. Do you bring news?”

Dallington shrugged. “Nothing consequential, I’m afraid.”

“More’s the pity.”

“I spent much of the day wandering around Fleet Street, speaking to whomever I could find.”

“Yes?”

“I understand both of the men better now. The link between them—that’s difficult to say.”

“Other than Jonathan Poole.”

“Yes, other than that,” said Dallington. “Anyway, I know Gerald Poole didn’t do anything.”

“So you say,” Lenox answered slowly.

“So I know,” Dallington insisted, a flash of temper in his voice. “There was one interesting thing, however. About Carruthers.”

“Yes?”

“There’s a pub you may know on Fleet Street, called Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese?”

“I know it well,” said Lenox. “Dickens works there.”

“Exactly, has since he worked at the
Morning Chronicle
. Well, I checked in with the bartender there, a gent named Ransom, stout fellow with a red face and a great belly. Apparently Carruthers ate there every day.”

“Go on.”

“Buck rabbit, Ransom said. Can’t stand the stuff myself. All that cheese. In any event, according to Ransom it was well known up and down the street that Carruthers had his price.”

“What do you mean, exactly?”

“He accepted bribes. A few quid in his pocket and he would write an article or edit one, cut things from the paper, add things. Quite shamelessly, said Ransom.”

“Did you ask at the
Daily Telegraph
?”

“Oh, they were pretty indignant. Both men I spoke to would have thrown me out if I hadn’t taken a hasty leave of them.”

“Do you think it’s related to the case?”

“It’s something to know, anyway.”

“That’s true. And Pierce?”

Dallington’s eyebrows furrowed. His handsome, open face looked healthier, as if he had recovered from his hangover and was the better for a day of hard work. “Quite to the contrary,” he said, “apparently Pierce was scrupulously honest. Many men had tried to bribe him, but he was untouchable. Religious, apparently.”

Lenox sighed. “This is all according to the knowledgeable Mr. Ransom?” he asked.

“Scoff if you will, but he was very specific about Carruthers’s misdeeds. Had all sorts of examples to give me. I had the feeling that he spent a lot of time eavesdropping on men in the newspaper business.”

“That’s true, I daresay.” Lenox stood up and walked to his desk. “Here’s the product of my day.” He handed Dallington the copy of the note Smalls had had in prison.

The younger man read it. “What does it mean?” he asked.

“I don’t have the faintest idea.”

“Still, there’s something about it.”

“I know,” Lenox murmured, taking the copy back. “It’s been on my mind ever since I read it.”

“At any rate—Carruthers bad, Pierce decent. That’s the bottom line.”

Lenox froze. “Wait a moment. Pierce.”

Peers
.

“Lenox?”

“Wait, for pity’s sake.”

He studied the letter for thirty seconds, his face the picture of intense concentration. When at last he looked up, there was a small, twisted smile on his face. “That poor woman,” he said.

“Whom do you mean?”

“Mrs. Smalls. Hiram was guilty, I think. I feel sure, in fact. He killed Simon Pierce.”

“How do you know?”

Perhaps it had been the repetition of the name “Pierce” that had finally allowed Lenox to see what had been on his peripheral vision since he saw the note. He read the note with “peers” as a keyword, counting out its letters and words, until he realized that every fifth word of the middle paragraph held the message.

“Listen,” he said to Dallington. He read the note aloud:

Mr. Smalls—

The dogcarts pull away. I’ll see that Messrs. Jones get all the attention and care they need. For the others, George will rely on you and on your worthy peers.

No green.

“Well?”

Lenox handed him the note. “Try every fifth word—but only of the middle paragraph.”

Haltingly, Dallington read out, “I’ll—get—care—others—you—peers.” He shook his head. “It still doesn’t make any sense.”

“Think about it—‘care others’—Carruthers. ‘Peers’—Pierce. It says, ‘I’ll get Carruthers, you Pierce.’ Or am I mad?”

With dawning recognition, Dallington said, “No, you’re brilliant. Of course.”

“The names Jones and George distracted me,” said Lenox. “It’s a tidy little thing. I wonder how Smalls knew to sound it out.”

“And why he took it to prison,” said Dallington.

“That seems clear—to protect himself. He probably warned the author of the note that his effects included the letter.”

“The author believed in his code, though.”

“Exactly.”

“What of that last line—‘No green’?” asked Dallington.

“I’m not sure. It doesn’t appear to fit with the rest.”

“No,” said Lenox.

“Still, it’s a start. We may surmise Smalls killed Pierce.”

“Yes. I should say we might.”