A Gentlewoman's Guide to Murder

by Victoria Hamilton

  The rooms whispered of a woman of more taste than money, though, someone who haunted pawn shops to decorate her home. The few indifferent paintings on the walls and items on the shelves were of good quality, but old and worn. Many a genteel family on a downward spiral because of a gambling addiction or loss of investments chose to sell to a pawn shop rather than admit their misfortune to friends.

  If Miss Hargreaves had no income, there would be little for her to do but try to marry—which was difficult with no income—or find work, even more difficult in a way, given that she was refined and delicate, not suited to most of the jobs open to women. Unless she had money or enough talent to secure an investor and so open a millinery shop, she could be a wife or a governess. That was the best life could offer her.

  Aloisia returned to Emmeline and sat down. Her head bowed, she looked down at her hands, slim and white with tapered nails and no adornment, for a long moment. She then looked up, and there was more openness in her gaze than there had been. “Miss St. Germaine, I may have misled my brother. I didn’t wish to make trouble for Lady Claybourne, but I could not hide from Benjamin how shaken I was. The incident did not happen in the alley, near the convenience. I was actually in the Claybourne home visiting her ladyship when Sir Henry asked me to … to do something … something unthinkable.”

  Twelve

  “That’s terrible!” Emmeline exclaimed.

  “He was a repulsive man, and you’re quite right; I do not mourn his death, though no human should die as he did,” Miss Hargreaves said.

  “You visited with Lady Claybourne? Why?”

  Nancy, across the room, began weeping. Miss Hargreaves leapt up and tended to the child, whose silk had knotted and who was being taunted by her older sister. When she returned, she was again composed. “Why should I not visit with Lady Claybourne? She’s my neighbor.”

  “Given Sir Henry’s reputed manner, I’m puzzled.”

  “I had heard no rumors. Lady Claybourne was not well. The scriptures say we should comfort the afflicted.”

  “How kind of you,” Emmeline said. “I’m not certain about bringing the girls back to this area. If it was one of your neighbors who murdered Sir Henry … well, that won’t do.”

  “T’wasn’t our neighbors!” Aloisia said in a rush. “It … it must have been strangers to this neighborhood. I did see someone that night. I don’t like to speak of it, that’s all.”

  “Who did you see?”

  “It was late,” she murmured. “I was in my room and heard a shout. I went to the window and saw two men arguing with Sir Henry.”

  “Did you recognize them? And have you told the magistrate or his men what you saw?”

  “Of course not!” she said. Charlotte looked up from her embroidery and eyed them, squinting. When they were silent, the child went back to her work. Miss Hargreaves leaned toward Emmeline and whispered, “I would never go to the magistrate! What a shocking suggestion.” She folded her delicate hands on her lap in a composed manner.

  “But your brother told them that he was the one who saw the men, is that right?”

  “He’s very protective. It was better for him to say he saw it.”

  In a way it made sense; a young lady in her precarious position must be extremely cautious about her reputation. Having her name in the newspaper or on the court docket would sink her. By having her brother say he saw the men, Miss Hargreaves could get the story to the right people without being questioned.

  The young lady had regained her poise to such a degree that Emmeline was certain she would get no more out of her concerning the murdered man. It was a delicate matter. Aloisia’s gaze was watchful and steady on Emmeline.

  “So, how do you find these girls?” Emmeline asked, glancing over at the two. “Do they show promise?”

  “At embroidery? I hardly know yet.” Miss Hargreaves watched them a moment. “The younger, Miss Nancy, appears to have the more steady hand, though she becomes frustrated too easily. Miss Charlotte is hasty and seems uninterested. It will require discipline and repetition. They’ll have to learn to become calm and steady, determined to achieve ability, or it will not turn out.”

  “That could be said about life, too.”

  Miss Hargreaves’s head swiveled and she gave Emmeline a long, considering look. “I feel you are not speaking for the young ladies.”

  “Oh, but I am, and myself too. I am impatient often, and impertinent too, according to my elder brother.”

  “Then we have in common, Miss St. Germaine, that our brothers do not approve of our behavior.”

  Gillies chased after Tommy Jones, stopping him as he darted between carriages and carts. He was busy sweeping up horse leavings, to make the way clean for folk to walk but also to make piles for the men who would come in a cart after dark to collect it for the farms and gardens outside town. Collecting horse dung was a thriving industry, and so was collecting the human variety by the nightmen, as they were called, who would clear out conveniences for a fee. There was a whole army of men and boys who worked through the night collecting the dung, and human waste from cesspools, and clearing the middens, piles of food scraps, bones, and offal from the bottom of the gardens or courtyards of most homes.

  “Miz Gillies!” the boy cried as she grabbed his elbow to get his attention. The lad was twelve, small for his age but wiry.

  “Tommy, what’s goin’ on that you’re out here sweeping?” She examined his face: dirty and narrow, high cheekbones and a pointed chin but not too thin, given his rough life. He was red-cheeked in the chilly breeze but seemed cheerful enough. “I thought you were well employed at the chandler’s.”

  The lad sent a black look toward the candle shop. “That barsterd! ’E dint like me sayin’ as I sawr ’im dippin’ inter the cash box when no one else was lookin’. ’E turnt it back on me, sed as ’ow I were the one pinchin’. They let me go.”

  “Are you all right? Got a place to doss down?”

  “Most nights.”

  Gillies pulled him over to the doorstep of a law office, where no one was about, and went to buy a pie from a cart down the road. She brought it back to Tommy, sitting down with him on the highest step, out of the way of foot traffic and the chill late October wind. The lad fell on it with ravenous snuffles. When he was done, she pressed the pennies Emmeline had given her into his palm. He blinked up at her, surprise on his grimy face.

  “Miss wanted you to have this; she’s worrit about you. Did you hear about Sir Henry’s murder?”

  “Aye, old man t’were slit up the belly loike a pig. Heard it from the fishlad hisself!” There was a gleam in young Tommy’s eyes.

  “What’s the word on the street, lad? Who did such a wretched deed?” Folks would be talking, no doubt.

  “Dunno.”

  “Is there anyone you think likely in the neighborhood or household?”

  “Lemme think.” Tommy screwed his narrow face up, the dirt patches in grimy streaks making him look like the climbing boy he had been until rescued from a master who often beat him.

  Gillies wrapped her cloak around her and watched the lad. Finally he said, “Coulda bin the housekeeper … ooo, but she’s a grim one!” He described the Claybourne housekeeper as having a look like death, and Gillies could sympathize, having met her. She certainly was grim and not too kind to the help. Other than that, Tommy said, it could have been one man who was at the back door that night, a fellow with a little dog, or two men he saw arguing loudly with Sir Henry in the alleyway.

  “You saw them?”

  “Aye … but they dint see me!”

  She didn’t dare ask what he was doing nearby. Tommy was not above pinching anything left too long outside. “Man with a dog, and two other men? Separate?”

  He nodded.

  “So t’was so much argle-bargle?” The boy nodded again. “Was that before or after the scullery maid was
gone?”

  “Arter.” He had heard about the masked woman who stole away the scullery maid, he said, and was disappointed that he had missed the action. That’s why he was hanging about, in case she should come back. “Watch ’ad called ’leven.”

  So Sir Henry had still been alive at eleven that night, long after her mistress had taken the scullery maid. And word had already spread about the woman who had taken Molly away. “Had you seen any of the men before?”

  Tommy shrugged. “They was all blokes as ’ad been ’round afore, I know that.”

  “What did they look like?”

  He shrugged again. “T’were dark as pitch, Miz Gillies; those barsterds only come ’round when it were dark.” He told her that now, servants in every household were afraid and double latching the doors at night. Some householders set a servant with a cudgel at each door, for those wealthy enough to afford such serving staff. In most cases it was the man of the house with a cutlass who stayed up waiting for the killer to return.

  Questioned further, Tommy couldn’t add much. Mrs. Partridge, the cook at the Claybourne residence, had a weakness for children and sometimes secretly gave him a bun or some scraps from the table. She was a drinker and took her pint at the Bridge and Bezel inn, the name a nod to Clerkenwell’s reputation as a center for watchmakers. Lingering about so often, he had, at times, seen the master of the house going out to the alley to the convenience, or to smoke, or—and this was interesting—to meet the scrubby-looking fellow with the little doggie who had visited him the night he died. It was that man, the one with the dog, who had brought Molly to him after Sally, the previous scullery girl, had disappeared.

  Gillies felt a clutch of illness in her belly. Emmeline had been trying to discover who the man was who had reportedly brought Molly to the Claybourne household; now she could give her mistress at least some information. Tommy, pressed further, supposed he could describe the man who had brought the maid; he was a tall, thin, dirty man with bad teeth, and always accompanied by the small dog. Sir Henry had called him “Ratter,” not that uncommon a nickname in a city where rat-catching was an honorable trade. Tommy didn’t know anything more, but that Ratter was not one of the two men arguing with Sir Henry that night, though he was skulking around about the same time.

  She gave him a few more pennies for his information and told him to keep his eyes open. The boy knew better than to ask why. He was close-mouthed for one so young, probably because he knew, as the saying went, what side his bread was buttered on. Miss Gillies and Miss Emmeline were worth valuable windfall pennies he didn’t have to steal or earn sweeping. As always, she asked if he’d like a proper job as a potboy or something else, and he said no. Life on the street, as hard as it was, was for him. He had learned in his brief life to not count on any man for his living.

  The Hargreaves’ maid timidly opened the door next to the haberdashery to let Gillies in, then locked up tight after her, quaking uncontrollably. In the dim confines of the stairwell, Gillies said, “Lass, are you so afraid that ye lock up tight even in the daylight?”

  “I’m Fanny, ma’am.” She curtseyed. The maid was no more than fourteen and small, with a pinched, worried face, pale from too much work and too little sleep. “Yes’m. We’re all affrighted. I heard his screams, ye know, that man what was murdered. I hear them screams now in my sleep, what little I can get!”

  Emmeline had told Gillies about the knight’s throat being cut, likely so he couldn’t scream. The girl was either imagining the screams or Dr. Woodforde had gotten it wrong. She’d wager on the little maid’s vivid memory being pure imagination. “That’s tairifyin’!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands to her bosom. “Poor wee Fanny! Did you no get up and see what was what?”

  The girl’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “Oh, no, miss … I hid under me bedclothes!”

  Gillies sighed. If she had heard screams in the night, she would be finding out what was afoot, as foolish as it may seem. “Is my mistress ready yet? Shall I coom up or wait here?”

  “She’s gettin’ the girls together. She arsked you to wait here.”

  “Aye, all right, then. Fanny, did y’know the little scullery maid from back yonder, Sir Henry’s house, the one that run away that night?”

  The girl shook her head. “She weren’t there long. I knew th’girl afore her, Sally, but she weren’t there long neither, an’ she weren’t over friendly. Girls didn’t last long in that ’ouse.”

  “Do you know any other servants around here?”

  The maid nodded. “Yes’m. Biddy, the maid at the Farnsworths’, next door to Sir ’Enry’s, she’s real friendly … talks to everyone!”

  Ah, yes, the gossipy Biddy; Sally had told Gillies about the talkative maid, a niece of the Adair housekeeper. “Where is your room, Fanny?”

  “In th’attic, ma’am.”

  “Did you no see anything that night, p’raps afore you haird the screams?”

  She nodded, her wide eyes glinting in the low light, the whites gleaming. “I were out t’the convenience and saw a feller,” she whispered. “A raggedy man I seen there afore, like a skellington, ’e were, and tall. Dark hair wiv a raggedy cap on ’is head an’ a wee doggie that didn’t bark wiv ’im.”

  A wee doggie. Tommy had mentioned the dog and the man named Ratter. “This fellow, he were there with another man?” she asked, deliberately mixing up the sets of men who were apparently separate.

  The girl shook her head. “The one wiv the dog, ’e were alone. An’ Sir ’Enry, ’e were angry wiv ’im. Callt ’im a … a shite eatin’ bugger.” Her cheeks pinked to be saying such words.

  “What else did Sir ’Enry say?”

  The girl looked up the stairs. Voices were approaching the landing. She whispered, “’E said as how the feller ’ad done ’im wrong this time, or summat like that. ’E were sore cross, Sir ’Enry was. I dint ’ear no more. I got skeered and run upstairs.”

  Emmeline and the two girls descended. Gillies darted outside and motioned to Josephs, who was slowly driving the carriage toward them. He hastened the horses with a slap of the reins, and halted them in front of the haberdashery. Mr. Hargreaves came out of his shop. He recognized Gillies and nodded to her.

  “My mistress,” she said, motioning to Emmeline, whom Josephs handed into the carriage. The driver helped the two little girls in, too, as the haberdasher joined his sister, who stood in the doorway watching them go. Mr. Hargreaves bowed to their party.

  Emmeline nodded to the haberdasher and made room for her maid beside her. That moment, a cart lined with benches and loaded with people lumbered down the street, pulled by two overworked horses who plodded wearily. Emmeline noticed it, but Gillies, her foot on the carriage step, reacted with a startled expression.

  “What is it? What’s wrong, Gillies?” Emmeline asked.

  The man’s shouts carried over the hubbub of the streets as he gestured to the corner and the cart turned.

  “That there is the man I told you about, miss,” Gillies muttered, glancing back at the Hargreaves. She didn’t want them to hear her. “He’s the one what was lingering about, the one I took for a writer.”

  “Josephs, take us around the corner,” Emmeline said to her driver. “I wish to be mired in traffic.” She helped Gillies into the carriage and shut the door.

  Soon they were behind the cart, which was stopped at the end of the infamous alleyway where Sir Henry had been slaughtered. Nancy, huddled in the corner, whined about being cold and tired, but Charlotte was watching her, Emmeline realized, and had heard her command. Leaning out the window, Emmeline watched and listened.

  “It were a dark night and gloomy, an’ cold as a witch’s teat,” the fellow said, standing up in the cart, with his audience avidly watching, then swiveling their gaze to the alley. They were a mix of young and older folk, moderately well-dressed, but all keenly interested. “Poor Sir ’Enry, neve
r knew what ’it ’im! Coom out ta take a piss an’ ’ere cooms the killers,” he shouted, wildly flailing his arms. “Slashing and cutting, slit goes ’is throat,” he screamed, drawing the imaginary knife across his own throat. “Blood spurtin’ everywhere, a gory, horrid stream thick as molasses, gleamin’ crimson in the lamplight out t’back door.”

  A woman screamed and swooned, while another, a well-dressed matron, cried out in shock. A man caught the one who swooned and fanned her with a sheet of paper, what was likely a broadsheet published by one of the papers. Emmeline was riveted as much as the folks in the cart. That man was making a tour of the murder, as if it was the Tower of London’s menagerie!

  “The killer, depraved animal that ’e were, or … were it the woman?” Eyes goggling wildly, the man thrust his face forward and scanned his audience. “Was it that unsexed female as stole away poor Molly, the scullery maid, for ’oo knows what nefarious purposes? Did she creep back ’ere and slit poor old Sir ’Enry’s throat while his lady wife slept peaceful-like, upstairs?” His voice cracking, he went on: “Is Molly gone too? Or is that poor wee mort chained in some dank drear basement, kept a slave to unnatural desires o’ the flesh?”

  He pulled off his cap, held it over his heart, and swayed, launching into song. To the dirge-like tune of “Down Among the Dead Men,” breeze fluffing his sparse hair over his bald pate, he sang that ridiculous verse from the broadsheet Emmeline had seen already, about her presence in the Claybourne home as the Avengeress. With some variations for effect, he repeated it twice in a rich baritone that would not be out of place in a music hall. He was possibly the writer of that piece of rubbish, or had stolen the verse and put it to music.

  She exchanged an alarmed look with Gillies. Careful to choose her words wisely in front of the children, Emmeline said, “That man is using a terrible tragedy as a tour site. And he’s set that execrable verse to music!”

  “That ’e has.”

  “Josephs, get us out of here,” she called out the door.