The Fleet Street Murders

CHAPTER NINE

Lenox was stunned. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” said McConnell.

“You’re absolutely certain of that?”

“They were selling an extra edition of the paper with a story to that effect — I’m sure of that anyway.”

“Did you buy it?”

McConnell looked embarrassed. “I’m afraid I was — not myself,” he said.

With any luck the late papers from the night before might make it up to Stirrington tonight. Otherwise he would have to wait until the morning. It was maddening, just maddening. For a tenth of a second every fiber in Lenox’s body strained against the town and his task there.

“What did it say? Do you remember? Murder? Suicide? Was it unclear?”

Rather lamely, McConnell answered, “Only that he had just died, actually.”

Then Lucy arrived with a bubbling pie of some kind or other for Lenox, which despite his focus on Smalls was a welcome sight after a morning of what had been cold campaigning.

“Lucy, a moment — do you take telegrams here?”

“No, sir, but the boots will take a telegram to the post office for a small tip.”

“Could you send him over?”

The boots, when he appeared, turned out to be a lad of not more than thirteen or so, with a pronounced overbite and black hands from his work shining shoes. Lenox had quickly scribbled out a message and an address, and he handed these to the boots along with a large tip, in addition to the money it would cost to send the telegram. Admonishingly, he instructed the boy not to lose it or to tarry on his way to the post office. Thinking it over, he took back the tip and promised to hold it until the lad returned with a receipt. Perhaps this wasn’t the most trusting thing to do, but Lenox remembered what he had been like at thirteen.

“To whom did you write?” asked McConnell, who was looking slightly ill again.

“Dallington.”

“Telling him?”

“Asking him for information, primarily. Also telling him to keep an eye on matters there.” Lenox looked at his pocket watch. “I wish I had time to wait for a reply, but I’m afraid I’m scheduled to speak soon. Excuse me, will you?”

“Where?” asked McConnell.

He received no reply, though, for Lenox had already walked up to Crook at the bar for a brief consultation. Either Crook or Hilary had introduced him before all of his speeches so far, but Hilary was gone, and Crook was working; another member of the Liberal committee, Sandy Smith, was going to meet Lenox at his first speech and accompany him for the rest of the day.

“I must go,” Lenox said to McConnell. “I’ll see you for supper?”

“Can’t I tag along and help you campaign?”

“Tomorrow, certainly — but have another afternoon of rest, won’t you?”

McConnell still looked disheveled, and Lenox, though he had never been embarrassed by a friend before, felt he couldn’t march around Stirrington with the doctor now. How politics had already changed him! It wasn’t clear whether McConnell understood Lenox’s motives, but without any further protest he agreed to spend the afternoon on his own.

Lenox’s mind fairly swarmed with ideas. It would have been useful, in fact, to ask McConnell to look at Hiram Smalls’s body, but now the doctor was here; still, work might be the best thing for him. If there was any possibility of foul play, Lenox might ask him to return.

Sandy Smith turned out to be a small, dark-haired, and precise-looking man, a contrast to the vast Crook. He wore glasses, a short-brimmed hat, and a snug gray waistcoat, and constantly checked a gold pocket watch that sat in a small pocket therein. He shook Lenox’s hand enthusiastically and repeated several times that he thought their chances were better than anyone realized, which was cheering to hear.

Soon enough they arrived at a small, square park, full of bright green grass and low, well-maintained trees.

“This is Sawyer Park,” said Smith. He gestured to the arcades that ringed it. “Many of our finest shops are here — there you see my law office — and the apartments above the arcades are very eligible indeed. Mr. Roodle’s agent has that shop, the milliner’s.”

“I don’t see much of a crowd.”

Smith looked at his watch. “We have twenty minutes yet. Nobody wants to close shop or leave work much before they have to, but there’ll be a hundred people here, give or take. How many have you been speaking to generally?”

“Yesterday? Only twenty or thirty at a time. More like meetings than speeches.”

“Well, I hope you’re in good voice.”

“I think I am. The issues shall carry us, I expect.”

“Well,” said Smith doubtfully, “people around here are fond of a good speech.”

“Shall I take questions?”

He laughed. “Yes, whether you like to or not.”

“I see.”

Smith and Lenox spent the next few minutes shaking hands with people who happened to pass by. Some of these stayed in the park, others left and then returned with a friend, and soon there was a sizable crowd amassed on the small green, even larger than a hundred people. Lenox felt nervous, but he had practiced on the smaller crowds and knew he could deliver his speech. His anxiety now went toward the questions, which might well be rude or mocking. I must remember to maintain my own manner, he thought; there’s nothing I can do about anybody else’s.

At last he went to the small raised platform that served as a kind of Speakers’ Corner and delivered his speech. It went off fairly well, drawing appreciative laughter and confirming hisses at the right moments.

Then came the questions.

The first was already dangerous. “Why would you care about Stirrington?” a man a few feet off to the side asked.

“Because there’s an election here!” somebody farther back shouted, and everyone laughed.

“It’s true that I’m here because of this by-election,” Lenox said when the noise had died down, “but I’m here because I care about every corner of England and all her people, and Stirrington is just as much a part of this country as Sussex, where I’m from, or London, where I live. People here, like people anywhere, want a decent wage, a strong government, and” — here Lenox gulped back his pride — “a fair price for beer.”

This answer earned Lenox a round of applause.

“What’s a fair price?”

“Less than you’re paying,” the candidate answered.

“Do you drink?”

“Not right now, thanks.”

Another laugh, and Lenox felt he was getting the hang of the questions. A little humor mixed with broad answers.

Then a short, fat, sharp-faced man standing not five feet away said, loudly enough for everyone to hear, “You should go back to London, Mr. Lenox.”

Smith’s voice behind Lenox whispered, “That’s Roodle.”

“I will when I’m elected, Mr. Roodle, so I can represent this wonderful town.”

In the crowd there was total silence, almost an anticipatory inhale of breath, as the two candidates faced each other for the first time.

“So you can prance around in Parliament and forget all about us back here.”

“No man who knows me could deny that all of my convictions, all of my beliefs, are directed toward the protection of people like these. A better life for people here in Stirrington, and everywhere across England. I’ll never forget that.”

“You don’t know ‘these people,’ ” he said with a scoffing laugh. “I’ve been here my whole life, sir.”

Lenox felt a riposte forming somewhere in his brain. “Your whole life?” he said.

“My whole life,” confirmed Roodle.

“Yet your brewery hasn’t.”

There was a moment of silence, followed by an absolute roar of laughter. When it subsided just a little, Smith said, “Thank you!” and pulled the candidate offstage.

The small man was thrilled. “Leave ’em on a high note,” he said. “That was wonderful! You showed Roodle! Round one to Lenox! Come, come, we must wade into the crowd and shake every hand we can find! Come! ‘Yet your brewery hasn’t,’ he says! Wonderful!”