The Fleet Street Murders (7 page)

CHAPTER TEN

F

lushed with success, Lenox spent an hour in Sawyer Park, until he had indeed shaken every hand he could find. Smith was invaluable—had grown up in Stirrington and seemed to know every soul who lived within the town limits and a good many that lived beyond. On Roodle’s behalf several beefy-looking gentlemen were circulating in the park, saying that glib talk would get them nowhere, that the beer tax would probably be lowered regardless of this election’s outcome, and most importantly that Lenox was an interloper and a fraud—but all to little avail. Lenox was the man of the hour, and people of every stripe crowded around him, congratulating him and asking him questions (often very personal ones—one young man asked what Parliament could do about getting him onto the county cricket team, which Lenox still wasn’t sure had been a joke).

Finally Smith and Lenox had met everyone there was to meet, and Lenox, who after the headiness of the speech remembered again that Hiram Smalls was dead and began speculating in his mind about the Pierce and Carruthers murders, inquired what they were to do next.

“It’s a fearful proposition, but I thought perhaps we might call on Mrs. Reeve.”

“Who is that?”

“Has Crook not told you about her, then? Perhaps we should wait.”

“Who is she?”

“Mrs. Reeve is a widow, about fifty. She was married to Joe Reeve, famous in these parts as Durham’s best horse trainer. He left her with a comfortable living, and her house is a kind of stopping point for every woman in town. There’s always food and tea, and people agree to meet there as if it were a shop or a train station. Mrs. Reeve herself is very influential with all of the women I know.”

“She sounds a fascinating character.”

“Aye, and a powerful one. Men with little time to waste on politics will often listen to their wives, I believe.”

“What is she like in person?”

“Oh—fat—exceedingly fat.”

“What else?”

“Well—I don’t think she’s ever properly left Stirrington. It’s
possible
—and mind, I don’t say probable—that she’s never left town. She may have been to Durham once, but I can’t remember hearing of it.”

“On the provincial side of things?” Lenox asked, with what he hoped was delicacy.

Smith laughed. “I didn’t want to say it.” Then he paused. “I’ve been to France, actually.”

“Mr. Smith, I hope you don’t think I class you in such a way? I really don’t look down on Stirrington, you have my absolute word. Whatever Mr. Roodle says.”

“No, no, of course,” said the lawyer, red faced. “At any rate—to Mrs. Reeve’s?”

However, Mrs. Reeve was—and Mr. Smith called it an aberration—away from home. According to her housekeeper, who looked flustered, Mrs. Reeve was at her doctor’s.

“And if people would stop visiting until she returned I wouldn’t complain,” she added. Then rushed to say, “Not meaning you, Mr. Smith.”

It was just past four o’clock by then. “I hate to waste any daylight,” said Smith, “but perhaps we should visit Mrs. Reeve after supper?”

“Will she be up that late?”

“She keeps very late hours—requires next to no sleep, apparently.”

“She does sound a peculiar woman,” Lenox said.

“Well—quite.”

Back at the Queen’s Arms, Lenox found Crook serving pints of ale to the first men who were getting off work. He had already heard all about the speech and congratulated Lenox on the success of his conversation with Roodle.

“Dirty trick,” the bartender added, “but we’ll see him done for.”

“I hope so, anyway.”

“If he wants a fight, he’ll have a fight.”

“I’ve never asked you, Mr. Crook: Why do you involve yourself in politics? Is it of special interest to you?”

“I’ve always thought a man ought to believe in something, Mr. Lenox, and if he believes in something he ought to support it. Good evening, Mr. Pyle. A pint of mild, I expect?”

With that Crook was at the other end of the bar.

“Perhaps we could see Mrs. Reeve tomorrow, Mr. Smith? I don’t feel my most vigorous.”

“Of course,” said Sandy, although he looked chagrined.

Lenox didn’t care a fig at the moment, however, and bade farewell to his companion even as he began to walk tiredly up the stairs to his room.

“Wait, sir!” said the voice of Lucy, the waitress, behind him. “Here’s your telegram!”

With some excitement Lenox took it from her, enfolding a few pennies’ tip in her hand.

It was from Dallington, sent in at Claridge’s Hotel. Lenox knew this was one of Dallington’s watering holes and hoped the young man wasn’t reverting, as he occasionally had even under Lenox’s tutelage, to his old, dissipated ways. Still, the telegram was coherent.

GLAD YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THE CASE STOP LONDON TEDIOUS AT THE MOMENT STOP SMALLS FOUND HANGING BY BOOTLACES FROM WALL HOOK IN HIS CELL STOP APPARENT SUICIDE STOP EXETER CONVINCED MURDER STOP VERY FEW DETAILS RELEASED BUT SPOKE TO WARDEN TODAY STOP SMALLS LEFT BEHIND SEVERAL TORN BITS OF PAPER AND ON TOP OF THEM THE FAMOUS ORANGES STOP GOOD LUCK THERE STOP DALLINGTON

As Lenox was reading, McConnell knocked at the door and came in, looking fresher after his day’s rest but troubled nevertheless.

“Read this,” said the detective.

“Interesting,” said McConnell when he was finished. He handed it back. “What do you make of it?”

“Well—I wonder whether it was murder. If Exeter believes something, I always examine the opposite possibility.”

“Suicide?”

“Doesn’t it seem more likely than murder? Why murder Smalls if you were his partner? Wouldn’t it draw attention to you?”

“Of course,” said McConnell. “Hence the appearance of suicide.”

Lenox sighed. “You’re right, of course, and it’s easy enough to enter a prison if you wish to—those guards will look away for a price, no matter what you do. Only it seems so transparent. Still, there was always the risk of Smalls ratting out whomever he worked with.”

“Yes.”

“I wish I knew what ‘several torn bits of paper’ meant, exactly.” Lenox paused. “McConnell, how are you feeling?”

The doctor shrugged. “Well enough physically, I suppose. Full of regret as well.”

“I know you came all this way, but how about some work?”

To Lenox’s surprise, McConnell fairly leapt at the idea. “I would like that beyond anything.”

“It would be back in London.”

“About Smalls?”

“Yes—and to see if you could find any information others missed about Pierce and Carruthers, too.”

McConnell laughed. “I haven’t been here twenty-four hours,” he said.

In part Lenox was hoping a trip to London would force McConnell to see Toto, but he didn’t say that. “Still, I’m glad you came,” he said. “I felt terrible having to leave at the moment of your loss.”

“Does this mean you’re looking into the Fleet Street murders?”

“I suppose I shouldn’t. I shall have to stay here.”

“Yes,” said McConnell. “This is important.”

“Please let me know of your progress, however.”

“By telegram, yes.”

The two men, each unhappy in his own way—Lenox to be out of London and because of Lady Jane’s worries, McConnell for more profound and sorrowful reasons—sat for another moment and spoke. Then McConnell stood up and said he’d better pack.

Lenox rang for Graham then. He hadn’t seen his valet since that morning.

“Graham,” he said when the man appeared in the doorway, “take a look at this.” He passed over Dallington’s telegram.

“Yes, sir?” said Graham when he had finished reading it.

“Well? What do you make of it?”

“Are you inclined to believe it was murder, sir, as Inspector Exeter does?”

Lenox again expressed his ambivalence on the question.

“With so few facts, I suppose there’s little to speculate about, sir.”

“Yes,” said Lenox. “Wait, take this telegram to the post office, would you?”

Graham waited while Lenox wrote out a note to Dallington asking for more information.

“I guess we’re stuck here,” Lenox said as he handed the note over.

“Most certainly, sir,” said Graham somewhat severely.

“Oh, I know, I know. I’m curious, that’s all.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

T

he next morning Sandy Smith picked Lenox up at the Queen’s Arms after breakfast, and they went again to see Mrs. Reeve. This time she was in.

McConnell had left by the early train, assuring Lenox that it would be a marvelous distraction to work and promising to give Lenox’s best to Toto and Lady Jane. (
Especially Jane
, wished Lenox in his silent heart.) Meanwhile Graham had asked Lenox what help he might be in the campaign, and Lenox asked him to take over the various forms of propaganda that candidates had usually found necessary in parliamentary campaigns: the printing of further handbills and flyers, the circulation of Lenox’s name by a new patron who stood everyone in the pub a pint, the quick word to servants and livery about the by-election. Lenox could think of nobody better suited to the job. He and Graham had for many years now been more friends than master and man, and he knew now that Graham had a particular talent for sliding into unfamiliar situations and earning quick friends and allies. He could speak deferentially to a (perceived) superior and confidentially to a (perceived) equal, and his good looks meant young women were often willing to listen to him.

“Plenty of beer,” said Lenox. “Hilary tells me that’s crucial in these matters.”

“Shall I state baldly that I represent you, sir?”

“I think probably. Your discretion shall dictate what you do, of course. Here are a few notes.”

As Smith, in his usual snug gray waistcoat and with his favorite gold watch bulging on one side, led Lenox to Mrs. Reeve’s, he advised the candidate what to say.

“Flattery is poison to her,” he said. “Equally, however, she’s always watching out for what might be an insult or condescension. Her back will be up because you’re from London. It works to your benefit, though, that you’ve gained some fame even here for that case.”

“The September Society business?”

“Yes, exactly. Mrs. Reeve rather collects celebrities, if you see what I mean.”

“I do, unfortunately. Who has she collected so far?”

Sandy Smith frowned, thinking. “Well, there was a lad who fell into a well and lived. An actor named Crummles who comes through sometimes and does a decent show. There are more, though I can’t think of them.”

“I’m honored to be in such company,” Lenox said with mock formality.

Smith laughed. “You’ll find her a strange woman, no doubt. Still, she’s sharp enough in her way, I can promise you.”

They arrived at her well-maintained house, which was white with two tidy gables, and the maid let them in, then guided them down a front hall and into a sitting room that seemed purposely designed as a kind of permanent salon for guests. There were small clusters of chairs and couches spread throughout the room, each centered around a sizable tea table; all of these bore tea rings and hot water stains, bespeaking long hours of intimate conversation. On the walls were a few portraits in black and white of what might be deemed “Olde Stirrington,” sentimentalized pictures of rural lanes and young couples in bygone churchyards. The largest of these pictures was of a blacksmith shop from some impossibly halcyon time, with a brawny man at the hammer and tongs and awed small children watching him, as a row of ducks passed in the foreground. All of it made Mrs. Reeve’s vision of the world very clear.

As for the woman herself: She sat on the largest of the sofas, perhaps because it was the only one that fit her, wearing a regal maroon gown the size of a ship’s sail and reading Dickens’s latest novel,
Our Mutual Friend
.

“How do you like it?” asked Lenox before they had been introduced.

“Have you read it, Mr. Lenox?” she asked in a low-pitched voice, one with more charm and power in it than he had expected.

“I have indeed.”

“It’s very black, I think—but funny, too.”

“They say he’s sick.”

“Mr. Dickens? I hope he lives forever, as long he can always write.”

Lenox laughed. “I’m Charles Lenox,” he said. “Although you already know that.”

“Alice Reeve. Sally, fetch some tea, will you?”

“I’m awfully pleased to meet you, Mrs. Reeve.”

“And I’m glad you came to see me. I suppose you must view me rather as a local monument—yes, I see you, Sandy Smith, please sit down—a monument, along the lines of a church or a museum, to be respectfully and duly visited?”

“On the contrary, I’ve heard the best conversation in town is to be found in this room.”

“In town, yes.” She arched her eyebrows appraisingly. “Not quite London, though.”

“I grew up in the country, in fact.”

“Oh, yes—but in some vast house.”

“Well—big enough.”

“We’re sharper in these small towns than you might expect.”

“After meeting your fellow townsmen, I’ve little doubt of your sharpness here in Stirrington.”

“We don’t appreciate interlopers or arrivistes, either. Still, I bear no love for Robert Roodle.”

“No?”

“My nephew worked at the brewery before it left. A young lad with a family. He looked for six months before he found work again—and at a mill, terrible work at a lower wage.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Well, we need jobs, no doubt of that. The men here may care about this beer tax, but the women know better.”

“I’m relieved to hear you say that—I thought beer might be the local god from the way some people talk,” said Lenox.

At this Sandy Smith looked terrified, but after a moment of silence Mrs. Reeve gave her first real laugh, warm and long. Lenox liked her, in fact. A strange woman. She had gained some of the outward symbols of the gentry by virtue of her small fortune and intellect but retained the sense of a workingman’s wife, he saw. She corrected her maid when she brought out the largest teapot.

“Wasteful, Sally,” she said as she poured. “Well, and what can I do for you, Mr. Lenox?”

“Ma’am?”

“Sandy?”

“We would appreciate your support.”

Lenox hastened to say, “Although before we can ask for that, I thought I’d meet you.”

“Well—let us see,” she said, but in a benevolent enough way. “Would you call again tomorrow evening? There’s a group of women who meet then, who I’m sure would like to meet you.”

“Of course I should be honored.”

Just then there was a knock at the door, and Sally ushered in a woman who said she “absolutely
must
talk privately with you, my dear Alice,” and after brief introductions Lenox and Sandy Smith left their teacups mostly full and made their way outside.

“That was painless,” said Lenox.

“I thought it went very well indeed. Lucky you’d read that book. I forgot to mention that she’s a great reader.”

“What do you think will be the effect of our visit?”

“Cigar? No? I think probably you have her support. She’s one of ours, by tradition. Only I think she wanted to be courted a bit, and old Stoke never had to set foot in Stirrington to win his seat. The Stoke name means a lot here.”

That was the second time Lenox had heard words to that effect. “Are there any Stokes remaining?”

Smith looked pained. “Stoke’s daughter married a local landowner—very respectable chap, no title, but a family that stretches straight back to the Domesday Book. Quite religious, she is, and rarely comes to town except on Christmas.”

“So I’ve just missed her.”

“Indeed—both for that and for Stoke’s funeral. As for Stoke’s son—that’s a sadder tale, I’m afraid. There were bright hopes for him at Cambridge, but after he went down from university he fell in with a gambling crowd in London and lost great sums of money. Eventually his father paid the debts—and was severely the worse for it, if local rumor means anything—and banished his son to India to make his fortune. There he contracted yellow fever, and nobody’s quite sure if he’s dead or alive. This town always loved Anthony Stoke, however. Such a merry lad, he was.”

By now they were coming to Main Street. “Where are we going?” Lenox asked.

“I’m going to drop you off now. You’ve your speech at the library this afternoon—nothing until then. This evening will be important, however. You’re meeting with a group of businessmen, those who would favor Roodle in the normal course of things but want to see what sort of man you are.”

“What time shall I see you?”

“I’ll be at the library.”

“You’re not coming with me?”

“Oh, no—Crook will. His niece, Nettie, volunteers there. Very loyal to the library.”