The Laws of Murder

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Seven years before, in 1869, the august medical school in Edinburgh had admitted women for the first time. There had been anonymous threats of violence against these women, and no lesser figures than the Queen and William Gladstone had plotted together to see if they could keep the Queen’s own sex from joining the medical profession, but the next fall these prospective students came to the college nevertheless to enroll. A gathering of hundreds of people met them at the gates, heckling and booing, waving signs in protest. This crowd threw rubbish at the women, old eggs, rotten fruit. At moments it had seemed likely to cross the line that divided a protest from a riot.

Afterward there were fines handed down by the courts. A pound each, a heavy penalty, for disturbing the peace — from the women, not from the protesters.

Since Sophia had been born, Lenox sometimes thought of those women, of the injustice of that fine. He harbored little doubt that women were weaker than men, being more prone to the vicissitudes of emotion — though sometimes, watching Lady Jane out of the corner of his eye, even this assumption seemed slightly doubtful — but despite this conviction, having a daughter had made him reconsider the idea of them working. There were women’s colleges at the universities now, after all. Why shouldn’t she attend one of those? He knew for a fact that his daughter was more intelligent than a boy nearby on Hampden Lane of the same age, Alfred O’Connell, who seemed to pass most of his time sucking on his fist. Sometimes Lenox even wondered: Should he be able to vote in an election, for instance, and his own daughter not?

It was because of Sophia, he thought, or obliquely perhaps even because of those young women in Edinburgh, that he had a sneaking sense of sympathy for Polly’s probable departure from their firm. From the first time they met he had admired her intelligence and her ambition. It was hardly surprising someone else should have noticed those qualities. Still, it was very surprising, outlandish even, to consider a woman being offered the control of such a large enterprise, and at such a young age. Polly was twenty-six now — the age Sophia would be in a quarter century, that far-fetched-sounding year, 1900. He wondered what the world would look like to her then. Perhaps her physician would be a woman.

It was in this philosophical mood that Lenox waited for Polly and Dallington to arrive at the office in Chancery Lane the next morning. It was an ugly day outside, the sky gray-black in color, with wind and rain whipping between the narrowly spaced buildings, umbrellas turning inside out, the men and women without them retreating further and further into their cloaks as they walked. Apart from a few flickering candles outside of each shop or restaurant, it was hard to see much even from just a single story above the street.

LeMaire had taken with him his loyal Irishwoman, Mrs. O’Neill, and with her had gone the morning pot of coffee (and her anxieties about Dallington’s bachelor diet). So Lenox made coffee himself, and tea as well. As he was pouring himself a cup of the latter, Polly arrived alone, and they had a friendly if slightly stilted moment of conversation about the weather, full of goodwill toward each other, each apologetic for separate reasons. If she were going, best that she went on good terms.

Besides, he thought there might just be one more arrow in his quiver.

Only a bit later Dallington came in. His greeting was stiffer. “Mrs. Buchanan,” he said.

She colored and then said, with exaggerated deference in her voice, “Lord John.”

Lenox smiled faintly. “Come along, let’s sit and have a conversation,” he said. “Polly, thank you for your note. A reporter came by in the evening.”

“Oh? For whom?”

“The Evening Sentinel.”

This wasn’t a very august newspaper, but Polly said, stoutly, “Excellent.”

They sat down together then at the polished conference table, and Polly once again expressed her regret that she had to make the choice to leave. She believed in their joint venture. It was only that the opportunity before her was too significant to throw away. And with LeMaire gone — well, it was true that things would be more difficult, there was no other way of looking at it.

Lenox nodded at this, Dallington glowered. As if in response to his mood, the steady rain outside began to grow wilder, lashing at the windows, soaking the buildings into darker colors.

Thoughtfully, Lenox rotated his cup of tea in its saucer for a moment. Then he looked up and spoke. “We hold you in the greatest possible esteem, you know, Polly. I don’t think either of us doubts that if you leave, you’ll be successful. There’s even a chance that you’ll push us out of business. At any rate we won’t continue in these offices. We don’t need so much space, and always worked from our homes before.”

With an anguished look, Polly said, “I never intended—”

“No, of course not, and what’s more, for you this is a business, whereas, to speak candidly on a subject I don’t think any of us would like to linger upon, John and I can afford to act as amateurs. For that reason I won’t beg you to stay. But I do have one request.”

“What’s that?” asked Dallington suddenly.

“I would like to know the identity of your new partner.”

Polly shook her head. “His privacy was an absolute condition of his offer.”

“You have my word as a gentleman that I will keep the information in the very strictest of confidence. Nobody who isn’t present in this room now will ever hear the name you tell us from my lips.” And suddenly the room, awash in natural light, took on a solemn air. “Dallington? Would you commit to the same?”

“I would never tell,” he said.

Polly looked at them each in turn, and then exhaled. “Very well,” she said. “It’s Lord Monomark.”

Lenox leaned back. There was the beginning of a smile on his face, though his brow was furrowed, as if he were taking in the news. In truth it was precisely as he had thought. “Monomark,” he said. “I wondered if that might be the name you’d say.”

Polly looked at him, confused. “You did?”

It had come to him last night at home, as he glanced over the newspapers. Polly had described the man who offered her control of this agency as one whose name they would all know, and someone with enough interests that an in-house detection agency would make financial sense. Then there was something suggestive about the meeting-ground of the Langham — a grand hotel, moneyed, the kind of place one might expect a newly arrived fellow like Monomark to take a prospective associate.

“And finally, of course,” said Lenox, “the articles.”

“The articles?” said Polly.

“How much do you know about Monomark?” he asked.

“A fair amount,” she said. “He was born the son of a grocer, apprenticed as a printer, bought several paper mills before he was twenty, made them very profitable, and now owns a dozen newspapers too. The Queen made him a lord last year.”

Lenox stood up and went to the window, looking out. He saw how it had all played out now — indeed, should have seen it from the start. The two most damaging articles about the new firm had both appeared in the Telegraph, one of Monomark’s papers, and there had been half a dozen other negative ones in his smaller papers.

Lenox had attributed the negativity to a political grudge, but now he thought it was probably more complicated. Monomark was above all a man of business, and he would never have made Polly the offer he did — dozens of detectives and staff, expensive offices — for reasons of personal satisfaction, without believing it to be a profitable idea.

Perhaps even very profitable. As he stared outside at the rain, Lenox began to wonder whether Monomark had heard of their new firm, envied the idea, and then set out systematically to destroy it, so that he might replace it.

“Two articles,” said Lenox. “One just after the opening of the firm, the other just after Jenkins’s death. For that matter, there may have been others. I don’t read the Telegraph every day, at least not closely. And in both of them the inspector with whose successes I am most closely linked in the public mind was chosen to discredit me — Jenkins, with quotes on the record.”

Polly realized what he was implying, and indignation began to dawn on her face. “You think that such a conspiracy against you is more likely than Monomark having a genuine interest in my abilities?” she asked.

Dallington put in his oar. “Of course it’s jolly well more likely!” he said. “Monomark and Lenox were at each other in Parliament constantly.”

Lenox shook his head. “Monomark has no love for me, but no, I think in addition to any idea of retribution toward me he must have seen your abilities from the start. Perhaps he resented that I would profit off of them, rather than himself. He’s a difficult man, but far from a stupid one. I think he has been determined since January to scuttle our firm and start his own, and I think he’s very nearly succeeded.”

Polly looked uncertain. “That’s business, I suppose.”

“But could you trust someone capable of that?” asked Dallington.

“We don’t even know that it’s true,” said Polly.

“You don’t find it odd that he was so insistent upon his privacy?” asked Dallington. “He must have known that Lenox would figure out his motivations, once he knew who had made you the offer!”

“But—”

“And once the business was started — a favorable article in the Telegraph, I would guess, and a standing half-page advertisement on the third page of the paper. Have I got that right?”

Polly colored, and was about to reply when Lenox held up a hand to silence them. “I have a plan,” he said.