Charles Finch - Fleet Street murders

“What’s this?” he asked.

“There used to be two hooks. Still are, in a few cells.”

“Why did you take them away?”

“They had fallen out of use. From the color of the stain I’d say this one has been gone for three or four years.”

“I see.”

Lenox felt discouraged. He made it a policy to visit the freshest crime scene first but now wished he had gone to Carruthers’s or Pierce’s house instead.

They walked back to the warden’s office by the same grim route, and Lenox felt glad he had been born into a position that made crime an unlikely choice for him. Which was not to say there weren’t men of his station within these walls. Some of them were there because of him.

“Ah,” said Natt when they were in his office, “here is the list of 122’s effects.”

“Thank you.”

It was a short list that Lenox took in his hands. “One suit, gray serge; one piece of paper; one pouch, shag tobacco; one pipe, mahogany and match scarred; one penny blood, Black Bess.”

Lenox knew his compassion ought to be reserved for Pierce and Carruthers, but something about this list struck his easily reached heart. It was the magazine perhaps, the penny dreadful. He knew Black Bess. It was about a legendary highwayman, Dick Turpin, who had in truth been a stupid man, a robber of old ladies, a murderer, but who in these glamorized stories was the owner of a beautiful horse, Bess, on whom he rode the country, bad but never evil, a rogue with a conscience. What appeal would Black Bess have to a man like Hiram Smalls? It seemed to tell its own tale, the man’s choice of what to read.

“Did the paper have any markings or writing on it?”

“There will be a note on the reverse of the sheet if it does.”

“Ah-thank you.”

In fact, there was an addendum. In careful handwriting, a clerk’s probably, it read, “Note dated Dec. 20, no signature or address, beginning ‘The dogcarts pull away’ and ending ‘No green.’ Thirty-two words, nonsense or code.”

Well, this was maddening.

“Is there no way to get hold of the note?”

“You might inquire about it with 122’s mother.”

“Indeed I shall. You have her address, I hope?” Lenox said, trying to contain his ire.

“Here it is, somewhere on my desk.” Natt shuffled through his things. “Ah, yes, here.” He copied the address down for Lenox. “Will that be all?”

“Yes, thank you. I appreciate your help.”

“We strive for transparency, and in particular as you’re now in-in the public eye, as it were…”

So this was why it had been so easy to see the prison. “Yes?”

“If you do make it into Parliament, Mr. Lenox, I can guess you won’t forget us?”

“Of course not.”

Natt fairly beamed. “Topping! Yes, well, I wish you all of the best luck in your campaign and your-your case alike.”

“Thank you, Warden.”

It was nearing eight o’clock in the morning now, and as Lenox rode homeward his thoughts turned to Lady Jane, whom he pictured in the small pale blue study, across from the rose-colored sitting room, where she spent her mornings. She would be reading her letters and answering them with a cup of tea beside her, and Lenox wondered whether perhaps his own note lay on her mahogany desk. It was foolish, but he felt afraid of visiting her. Still, he believed in facing things that frightened him and decided that after speaking with McConnell and Dallington he would go to her house.

He arrived at his own familiar door and found that the moment he touched the knob it flew open, with McConnell behind it. Mary, who was in charge of the house in Graham’s absence, stood a few feet behind him with a worried look on her face.

“How do you do, Lenox? I’m a bit early.”

“How do you do, Thomas? Shall we go to the library?”

“Yes, yes. I have news.”

About Toto or the case? It wouldn’t do to ask in front of Mary, however, who had taken Lenox’s coat and now trotted down the long front hallway behind the two men, whispering in Lenox’s ear that his suitcase had arrived, sir, and would he like breakfast, and that she had offered Dr. McConnell a seat, but he had insisted on waiting by the door. Lenox dismissed her with as much tolerance as he could muster, instructing her to admit Dallington whenever the young man arrived. Mary, who was always over-awed by her responsibility when Graham was gone and Lenox spoke to her directly, blushed and stammered and left.

In Lenox’s library a fire had just been lit, and to his agitation the papers on his desk were now neatly stacked.

“Will you come sit by the fire?” Lenox asked. “I’ve a bit of a chill. Winter weather.”

“With pleasure,” said McConnell.

The doctor’s face was flushed, and his eyes were slightly wild, darting a little too often to his left and right, never quite focusing. His hands trembled just slightly. His hair was combed back, but his clothes certainly hadn’t been changed in twenty-four hours, maybe more.

Gently, Lenox said, “May I ask after Toto’s health?”

“I haven’t seen her,” said McConnell. “I’m staying at Claridge’s. Even so, her doctor says she’s well.”

“I’m so glad to hear it.”

McConnell nodded. “Yes,” he said. Then, a little less certainly, he said it again. “Yes.”

“How are you?”

“I’ve found something out, I believe.”

“What is that?” said Lenox, pouring two cups of coffee. McConnell looked as if he could use it.

“I think Smalls was murdered.”

“Not a suicide?” asked Lenox sharply.

“No.”

Now, McConnell was truly a world-class doctor. In his time he had been one of the most gifted surgeons on Harley Street, the epicenter of the empire’s medical community, and had treated the royal and the destitute side by side. Toto’s family had considered it beneath their dignity that their scion should marry a medical man, however, and though he had resisted for three years after his marriage, in the end they had persuaded him to sell the practice to an impoverished relation for a mere song.

It had been the catastrophic mistake of his life. Work had given him purpose and identity; left to his own devices, to the endless hours of an unoccupied day, he had begun to collapse inward. Now he only practiced when he helped Lenox. Because of the doctor’s state, however, Lenox felt less confident in the man than usual.

“How do you know?”

McConnell breathed a deep, steadying sigh. “It comes down to his bootlaces.”

“Yes?”

“I saw them. I visited your friend Jenkins, at Scotland Yard.”

“I’m seeing him this morning.”

“He managed to show me the bootlaces. He had to risk getting caught when he pulled them out of evidence, but I impressed the urgency of it on him.”

“What was so telling about the bootlaces?”

“That they weren’t broken.”

“Well, of course they weren’t-they-” Then Lenox saw it. “They couldn’t have borne Smalls’s weight.”

“Precisely. I nosed around at the coroner’s a bit. I couldn’t manage to see the body, for which I’m sorry-”

“Not at all.”

“I did find out that Smalls weighed roughly eleven stone. I measured the bootlaces, looked at the report Exeter drew up to see how they had been arranged around his neck, went out and bought a dozen pair of identical laces, and then did some experiments at the butcher’s.”

“And?”

“I tried hanging every hog and cow in the place-even a few that were much lighter than eleven stone-and every time the laces snapped. They were thin ones.”

“The butcher let you?”

“I gave him a bottle of whisky.”

“Brilliantly managed,” said Lenox.