The Fleet Street Murders

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

His first action the next morning, following his bath and his breakfast, was to go and see Thomas and Toto.

They were sitting in a drawing room when the butler led him in, Toto knitting something pink and McConnell reading the newspaper with a cup of tea close at hand, the strong green tea he preferred. They looked up at him, and both smiled. McConnell’s great florid face looked battered, even wounded, but instantly Lenox saw that a resolute companionship had sprung up between him and his wife. It was easy to admire — and made it easy to forget the doctor coming up to Stirrington when he was barmy drunk and half mad with sorrow.

“I hear you lost, Charles,” said Toto. “I’m so sorry.”

Lenox waved a hand. “It’s no great matter. I’m only happy to be back in London.”

“Have you seen Jane yet?”

“I saw her last night. Some man was in a duel, apparently —”

“Freddie Fleer,” said Toto, nodding.

“No doubt that’s him. Two other people are going to be married. All that sort of thing.”

“Was it close, the by-election?” asked McConnell.

“Quite close, yes. I think it came down to the other man’s local support. It’s hard to win over a town full of northerners in two weeks.”

“I can’t say I’ve ever tried,” said Toto with a laugh.

Lenox laughed, too. “You’ll have to take my word for it, anyway. Still, it was a close-run thing, and I’m happy I did it.” He wondered if he should ask after her health but decided against it. “What about our little project?” he said instead, referring to his honeymoon with Jane. “Have you been studying?”

“I have!” she said with some animation. “When can we speak about it?”

“Very soon,” he promised. “I have to look into these crimes at the moment, but then you’ll have my full attention.”

“What in blazes are you two so mysterious about?” asked McConnell indignantly, having watched their exchange.

“Oh, nothing,” said Toto, acting perhaps a bit more cryptic than was necessary.

Lenox laughed. “Toto’s helping me with something,” he said. “I’m sure she’ll tell you all about it after I leave. Look, though, Thomas, I thought I might put you in the way of a bit of work. Not medical, however.”

“Oh?”

“I was hoping you’d come to Carruthers’s apartment and act as a second pair of eyes for me.”

“To be sure. When?”

“This afternoon, I hope, though I have Exeter’s funeral to attend. We’ll see when they let me in. I’ll pick you up, at any rate?”

“As you like.”

“See you then.”

Lenox left soon thereafter and, after stopping at home to make sure that Dallington wasn’t waiting for him, directed his driver to Fleet Street.

Printers and pamphlet makers had inhabited Fleet Street since 1500, but it was only in the spring of 1702 that it had gained its modern character — that was when the first daily newspaper in the world, the Daily Courant, opened its office and began publishing from the street.

In the subsequent century and a half it had become a collegial place, its pubs full of dueling journalists who put aside their differences at the bar to drink, to laugh, and to trade barbs, often with the equally drunken and witty solicitors who inhabited the close-by Inns of Court. It all savored even now of Dickens and Dr. Johnson and the grand tradition of literature — of a certain kind of literature. As Matthew Arnold said, “Journalism is literature in a hurry.”

Lenox planned to visit the office of the Daily Telegraph, where Carruthers had worked, and then if he could the man’s apartment. If Pierce had been the distraction from the real crime, as he suspected, then this was where he would have to begin his investigation over again.

The Telegraph’s building was a busy place, with young men running in and out of the door and the tremendous whine, drum-beat, and squeal of the printing press audible from the street. On the fourth floor, however, where he knew from the newspapers that Carruthers had worked, it was quieter.

Lenox greeted a young woman, a typist, who was hurrying toward a closed door across the floor’s large foyer. “Excuse me,” he said, “but who’s in charge here?”

“Mr. Moon, of course,” she said.

“And where is —”

“Third door on your second right,” she said and was off again.

Mr. Jeremy Moon, when Lenox knocked on the door of his office and pushed it open, was a gray-haired man with big round glasses and the beginnings of a paunch. He had discarded his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, and his hands were covered with ink. He was hard at work reading proofs.

“Who are you?” he asked rather rudely.

“Charles Lenox.”

Moon scowled. “I know that name. The detective, the Oxford murder. You appeared in our news section three consecutive days in September… let me recall… was it the ninth, tenth, and eleventh?”

Lenox shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

“Of course, you may not read the Telegraph as attentively as I do,” said Moon with a short laugh. “How can I help you, then? I should mention that I’m rather short on time today. Are you any relation to the chap by your name who lost the election up north two days ago?”

“I’m him.”

“Are you! Blimey, you put yourself about. At any rate, as I say, I’m quite busy. How may I help you?”

“Are you doing the duties for which Winston Carruthers was generally responsible?”

“It’s about that, is it? I am, some of them. Others have fallen to our writers. He had a wide-ranging brief here, did Win.”

“I had taken a passive interest in the case before Inspector Exeter died, but now I find myself in a more active role and hoped to discover from you what I might about your colleague.”

“Well — what sort of thing?”

“Was he a genial man?”

Moon laid the proofs he had been reading down on his desk and pushed the big, round glasses from the bridge of his nose thoughtfully. “Yes,” he said. “After his fashion. He lived for his postwork drink, and here in Fleet Street he had a wide circle of friends. Carruthers was the sort of chap who could tell you at a moment’s notice all the particularities of some obscure government matter to do with — well, say one of the colonies, and break it down so it made perfect sense. He could write an article on a subject he knew nothing about in half an hour. Save for those rather remarkable qualities, he would have been fired long before his death.”

“Why?”

“He was indolent and, as I say, overfond of drink. Had a bad temper.”

“Did he have enemies, then?”

“Perhaps, but I don’t really think so — that sounds very sinister and all, but we lead pretty mild lives here, the pub aside, I promise you.”

“What was he working on before he died?”

“I’m not entirely sure, though I know in a general way. Because of his talent he was the only writer or editor we had who didn’t quite answer to me. He was a pet of our publisher, Lord Chance. I reserved space for his articles and ran an eye over them but never asked much beyond that.”

“What was he working on in a general way, then?”

“He had a story he had been working on for months about Gladstone — a profile of the rising man in the other party, you know.” Moon smiled. “We’re Conservative here, as you may know. Pleased to see Roodle get in, though you seem a decent chap.”

“What else?”

“Let me see — he had a story about the Royal Mint — one about Ascot — one about the new railroads — and probably half a dozen others whose premises he scribbled down somewhere.”

“Was he writing about crime, in any way? The gangs?”

“He may have been. I didn’t know about it.”

“Did he ever mention” — Lenox tried to think of a delicate way to say it — “any testimony he had given?”

Moon laughed. “The Poole thing? Only every day of his life. Which is how I happen to know that Gerald Poole killed him, Mr. Lenox. It’s our first lead tomorrow morning. I can promise you we’re taking Win’s death pretty seriously around here, and Poole’s involvement, too. He should swing for what he did.”

“Then who killed Inspector Exeter?”

“That’s why you’re here, I presume. To discover who Gerald Poole’s allies were, no?”

“Well,” Lenox murmured, unsure of what to say.

Moon nodded. “Take it as read, yes, that’s fine.”

“Did Carruthers ever mention Poole’s son to you?”

The answer to this question Lenox was destined never to get, for just then a bright-looking young man came in without knocking.

“Who’s he?” he asked Moon, pointing at Lenox.

“Nobody you can’t speak in front of. Why?”

“It’s the Carruthers thing.”

“What is it?”

“Winston Carruthers’s maid is back, Martha Claes. She says she assisted Poole every step of the way.”