Home > Work > The Fleet Street Murders (Charles Lenox Mysteries, #3)
1 " Are you going to give a speech?' she asked gaily.He gave a choked laugh. 'Of course not,' he said. 'Not for ages.''My cousin Davey gave one on his very first day!' ...'In the Lords, I remember. It was about how he didn't like strawberry jam.''Be nice, Charles! It was a speech about fruit importation, which I admit devolved into something of a tirade.' She couldn't help but laugh. 'Still, you could talk about something more important.''Than jam? Impossible. We mustn't set the bar too high, Jane. "
― Charles Finch , The Fleet Street Murders (Charles Lenox Mysteries, #3)
2 " Suddenly Dallington burst into speech. 'Listen, Lenox - I want to apologize...'Lenox waved a dismissive hand. 'You're young,' he said. 'There are many lessons before you, some harder than this one... All too often things are blurry, though, John. It's the way of the world. Humans are blurry creatures, "
3 " There was one thing that pleased Lenox in a small way; Exeter had been right. Hiram Smalls and Gerald Poole had murdered Simon Pierce and Winston Carruthers. It was a vindication. Was it for this, though, that he had died? Or had he discovered something else? "
4 " the father a traitor to England, the son weak willed and impulsive and drunken, Barnard half a dev il, even Carruthers a corruptible old toad. "
5 " Did you not listen to Poole talking about his drunken fury? No, I scarcely think I need a drink at the moment.” Dallington muttered something about troubles coming home to roost and then said, “Well? How do I help? "
6 " It hangs together, I suppose,” said Jenkins, “but most importantly, Lenox, I don’t understand what Barnard’s motive for all this mayhem might have been. "
7 " Dallington laughed again. “You must understand—for years I’ve been poaching out of my parents’ accounts. Since I was thirteen or so. I know all the most corrupt men at the bank. "
8 " The idea of Barnard living outside of London was laughable— it was his home and his solace, the center of his spiderweb, and he despised the northern life he had sloughed off when he came to the metropolis to make a success of himself. "
9 " He was usually the liveliest and loudest man in the room, with a blunt, bullying manner, but now he seemed suddenly sunken, diminished. "
10 " Lenox almost laughed. Saved at the last by Barnard’s snobbishness; saved at the last by Barnard’s insecurity about his own tenuous relations to the upper class of his nation. It was remarkable how a brilliant mind could in one aspect have been so blind. "
11 " Exeter was releasing all of those cryptic, confident statements to the press, and Barnard must have felt the stakes were too high for much to depend on an untested man with uncertain allegiances, who had probably only killed Simon Pierce to clear his mother’s debt. "
12 " I never had him in my house,” sniffed many great ladies, though it must be owned that the great majority of them had. Meanwhile the men in their clubs chomped fretfully on cigars and said things like, “Damn country is going to hell, been saying it for years. I expect the French to invade by the hour, I tell you,” which was very consoling and pleasant to contemplate. "
13 " He went out very little, and even when he did never commented to a soul about the downfall of George Barnard, choosing instead to focus on clearing up all of Barnard’s myriad crimes by tracing them diligently through the cunning and subtle ways in which the man had "
14 " How could Poole’s son, who had been out of the country, know anybody in London well enough to enlist them in such a plot? "
15 " Their houses often hosted the defining parties of a season or the most select evening salons. Yet it was typical of Lady Jane that she was going to marry a man who would much rather be searching for clues in the alleyway of a slum than having supper in one of the palaces of "
16 " This was the woman Lenox was to marry, whose counsel he valued above any other, and who was to his spirit both sun and moon, midnight and noon. "
17 " He was a large, physically imposing man, who—to give him his credit—had evinced time and again tremendous physical bravery. "
18 " Now, that’s something an amateur might find difficult, comparatively, given the resources in manpower and time of the Yard. "
19 " He was also, Lenox felt with complete certainty, the most dangerous man in London. "
20 " Once bluff and hale, an outdoorsman with gentle manners, he had begun to drink, and his face now, though still handsome, had a sallow, sunken look to it. "
