The Fleet Street Murders

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

London.

In all its variety it seemed to put Stirrington out of existence, or at any rate out of thought. Lenox looked through the window of his phaeton and saw dustmen and shoeblacks darting among the traffic. The streetlamps were still lit at that early hour, but he had slept on the train and felt more excited than tired now. At eight o’clock Dallington and McConnell were coming to meet him, but before then he wanted to see Newgate Prison, the place where Hiram Smalls had died. According to the papers the warden there was a great advocate of abstinence and clean living (as almost by necessity a good warden must be) and preferred to begin the day early rather than end it late. Lenox hoped to find him at the prison, though it wasn’t past six yet.

It was modern times, now, 1867, and for some years the prison system had been subject to close scrutiny from Parliament. This was primarily because of a remarkable woman named Elizabeth Fry, who had died some twenty years before. In her life she had toured prisons such as Newgate and found herself profoundly shocked by the treatment of prisoners there, especially women prisoners — in particular because if a female prisoner had a child, that child often accompanied its mother to the prison and stayed there as long as the prisoner had to.

Only in the last decade or so had a comprehensive overhaul begun. Prisons now were by law better ventilated, served heartier food, endured less theft by the guards, and allowed prisoners time outdoors and with visiting family. It was a change Lenox was all in favor of, though his more conservative friends decried the money it meant spending on common criminals.

Those were prisons in general, though, not the most famous prison in the world. For so Newgate was.

It stood at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey, near the primary criminal court of London. Though it had some architectural distinction, its dark walls and low roof gave it an ominous aspect, as if the building had learned its purpose and rushed to take on an apt appearance. It had housed any number of famous people: Jack Sheppard, the most infamous thief of the previous century, who had managed to escape three times before he was finally hanged; Daniel Defoe, who wrote Robinson Crusoe; the playwright Ben Jonson, Shakespeare’s rival; and the pirate Captain Kidd. Gruesomely, most public hangings in London had for more than three-quarters of a century been done outside of Newgate’s walls, where the prisoners could hear the crowd’s blood-thirsty cries. Although there was now a widely embraced movement to stop such barbarity, one Lenox suspected would lead to the end of the practice.

The detective had several times in his career occasion to visit the prison and always left feeling slightly desolate. It was improved now, to be sure, but still had the eerie feeling of a place where mayhem and death are almost as prevalent as their constriction. A place of high walls, little light, and constant sorrow.

Also a crowded one. As Lenox entered by the main gate and asked the bailiff if he might have an audience with the warden, signs of overcrowding were everywhere. It was another marker of the times. In previous eras punishment had been largely corporal, but now that men and women were staying in prison for long stretches instead, space came at a premium. The cells Lenox passed on his way up to the warden’s office were all full by one or two too many, and he marveled that Hiram Smalls had received his own space.

The warden was in. The man who had led Lenox up to the warden’s office went in and had a quick word and then poked his head out of the door to nod Lenox inside.

The man in charge of Newgate was fifty or so but looked strong and healthy. He was standing at a window that overlooked the courtyard, watching a group of thirty ill-looking men straggle around below him. A cup of tea was in one hand.

“How do you do, Mr. Lenox?” he asked. “I was surprised to hear you had come. I thought you were in the north.”

“How do you do, sir. Yes, I was, but have returned for a day.”

“Plus I may help you, I take it?”

“If you would be so good.”

“Inspector Exeter was here.” A small smile formed on the warden’s face. “Do you agree with his suppositions about this case, Mr. Lenox?”

“I haven’t had the honor of hearing your name, sir,” said Lenox stiffly. He disliked the warden’s savoring of the situation.

He stuck out his hand. “I’m Timothy Natt, and very pleased.”

“Pleased. I’m not sure whether I agree with Inspector Exeter, to answer your question. A friend has asked me to look over this matter, and I thought I would begin here.”

“With 122?”

“Excuse me?”

“With prisoner 122. Mr. Hiram Smalls.”

“Ah — indeed.”

“We give all of our prisoners a number when they enter Newgate.”

“I see.”

“I often hear from prisoners — I speak to them regularly, you see, in keeping with our modern trend of better inmate care — that they tire of being called only by their number. It’s 74 this, 74 that, 74 everywhere, as one man — prisoner 74 — remarked to me.”

Lenox concealed a smile. Some pomposity here then. “I had hoped to see Mr. Smalls’s cell?”

“If you wish, yes.”

“Has anybody inhabited it since he left?”

“No, Mr. Lenox. Because the case attracted such attention, we have been scrupulous in our handling of 122.”

“Well — in most ways,” said Lenox wryly.

“Sir?” asked Natt rigidly.

“Only — well, he died.”

Natt drew himself up. “I can assure you that had we known he was in any danger from another prisoner, as Inspector Exeter thinks, or had we known he was a threat to himself — we would have — we would have — this is a well-run prison, sir.” With this piece of bluster complete, the warden took a violent sip of tea.

Lenox was quick to conciliate him. “Oh, of course,” he said. “I never meant to imply otherwise. A model, from what I’ve seen.”

“Well,” said Natt, with a definite “humph.”

“What about his personal effects, sir?”

“Excuse me?”

“His personal effects? The things you confiscated from him on his entrance to Newgate — pipe, purse, that sort of thing?”

Natt stared at Lenox for a moment before saying, “I’m ashamed to admit this, sir, but neither Exeter nor I thought to look at them.”

“What?”

“It’s quite possible — indeed, probable — that they have been remitted to the care of his family.”

Lenox cursed. Natt couldn’t have been expected to think of it, but Exeter! “Well, do you keep a list of what the prisoners arrive with?”

Natt brightened. “Ah! We do! Rime,” he shouted out to his assistant, “122’s list of effects! On my desk! I see that you’re a sharp one, Mr. Lenox. The papers were right. The Oxford case, I mean to say.”

Not wanting to be drawn, after a moment’s pause Lenox said, “Shall we see the cell, then?”

“Certainly, if you wish.”

To reach the cell they walked through a series of dank corridors, some lined with cells and some not. The prisoners they met along the way were alternatively listless or loud, though when they saw the warden they all went quiet. At last, when Lenox could smell fresh air for the first time since he had entered Newgate’s walls, they stopped at a cell.

“The prison yard is just down here, the place where prisoners may exercise and socialize.” The guard following them opened the door. “You see we left the cell intact.”

It was a poor little place to spend one’s final days in. A narrow cot with rumpled sheets took up most of the space, with a small, ill-made, but solid nightstand just by it. The hook Smalls had hanged himself from was just to the right of the cell’s front bars.

“The bits of paper — the oranges — they were on the nightstand?”

“Precisely. Inspector Exeter took those as evidence.”

“Did he say of what?”

“No, Mr. Lenox. Not that I can recollect. Exeter and I suspected that whoever did this, if 122 was murdered, tore up the papers to conceal their meaning.”

“No,” Lenox murmured.

“Excuse me?”

“Ah — you’ll pardon me, I didn’t know I was speaking out loud. I doubt it, though, that’s true. A murderer would either have taken the papers or left them. Smalls himself tore them up. Whether meaningfully or not remains to be seen.”

“Inspector Exeter was certainly of the opinion,” said Natt shaking his head with certainty, “that the murderer did it.”

“Would it be easy for a guard or a prisoner to murder someone here, Mr. Natt?”

“Not a guard, certainly.”

“A prisoner, then?”

“Yes, sadly. Before 122’s death we left vacant cells open while their inhabitants were in the yard. It would have been easy to sneak into a cell and lie in wait, I suppose. There’s a great deal of chaos, unfortunately, and since some cells are overcrowded a person might not be missed for — say, half an hour.”

“Then bribe a guard to return to his own cell?”

“Well —”

“I take your point, Mr. Natt. There are also deliveries and so forth to the prison?”

“Yes, sir. All prisoners with sufficient funds may order in food, books, pen and paper, etc.”

“Is the delivery person admitted to the cell?”

“Yes.”

“So again — it wouldn’t be impossible to pretend you were a delivery person and somehow gain access to a cell?”

“Not impossible.”

“Is there a list of incoming deliveries?”

“We have — er — discussed it.”

“I see. Well — may I look over this room?”

“Yes, of course you may.”