A Gentlewoman's Guide to Murder

by Victoria Hamilton

  At the Pentonville Home for Unfortunate Children, Josephs pulled the team to a halt and opened the carriage door.

  “This is our last place,” she murmured. He helped her down to the pavement and into the sweeping cold of a brisk breeze. She looked up at the grim gray walls, the smoke thinly streaming from a chimney above indicating little heat for the inmates. “I doubt if I’ll have more luck here than in any of the last several places.” She’d had suspicions of some of the warders, but no amount of questioning had exposed who it was who was taking girls to London for the benefit of the trade in tender female flesh.

  “Miss, if I might say summat?”

  She looked up into her driver’s weary blue eyes. “Yes?”

  Josephs thrust at her a paper sack. “Bag o’ confits, miss; give ’em to the little ’uns, and arsk the children your questions. They see more’n folk know.”

  Emmeline’s eyes widened. How foolish she had been! Among the asylum warders, the innocent had likely not understood what she was asking, and those she’d thought might be guilty had quickly masked their expressions and got rid of her. But the children knew more and saw more than adults thought.

  “As always, you are a beacon of common sense, Josephs. How much time I have wasted today! I should have spoken to you first.”

  The driver’s face reddened and he ducked his head. “No matter, miss. God will guide you.” He bowed.

  She turned and faced the building as he moved the carriage down the narrow street. Pentonville Home for Unfortunate Children did not lift her out of her dejection, by any means; it was a decrepit tenement that leaned against other frail tenements. There were older children about, but they were ragged and thin, with no hope in their eyes and no energy for play.

  She met a weary housekeeper at the door and asked if she could spend some time with the children. The woman watched her through narrowed eyes for a moment, then, after examining her stylish clothes and seeing the neat carriage she had exited, which now trundled down the road a piece, nodded and let her into the building. No one wished to turn away a possible benefactor, especially one with money, as Emmeline clearly possessed.

  The housekeeper led her back to a walled courtyard, where younger children sat in various attitudes of despair along broken brick walls and wooden benches. How was it possible that so many children had either no parents or, as was most often the case, no parent who could care for them as a result of extreme poverty, illness, or fondness for the gin bottle? Some in her circle of relatives and friends threw more food to their pack of hunting dogs after one dinner than was given to these little ones in a fortnight. Like timber or copper, they were raw material, to be forged into a lifelong worker if they survived the brutality of youth. When one wore out in the mine or mill, there were ten to take his or her place.

  She had no solution, but if she could shame a few of her class into caring, it may do some little good. But that was a problem—and a Rogue column—for another day. She must stiffen her resolve to get to the questions and answers she required before the housekeeper returned and wondered at her line of inquiry.

  One girl stood out beyond the others. She was only ten, she said, and small for her age. Her name was Sarah. She took a seat beside Emmeline on a sagging wooden bench, baring her teeth at any child who tried to usurp her spot. Sarah knew who her mother was, but her mum was unable to care for her because of Bertie, her mother’s “friend,” who beat her and made her work at night. He didn’t want a child around, as it made the customers uncomfortable. Emmeline’s heart clutched. Sarah clearly knew what her mother was, bitter knowledge for such a young girl.

  Emmeline handed out Josephs’ candies one by one, hoping there was enough to go ’round the whole crowd and vowing to send more if there was not. There was, fortunately, and when it was clear her supply was depleted, the children deserted her to sit alone and suck on the luscious candy. All except Sarah, who leaned against her, watching her every move, holding her bonbon in one hand.

  A cold wind whipped down the back lane, across which was a line of tenement homes divided into rooms for rent, wet laundry hanging out windows, and smoke billowing from the chimney above. It was a dark and dreary scene, all tones of gray, even down to the faces of the children. Emmeline opened her cloak and Sarah huddled against her, her heart thudding rapidly like that of a caught bird.

  “Do you have friends here?” Emmeline asked.

  The girl shook her head. “They’ve all gone away.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Lunnon,” she muttered. She still held her confit in her dirty hand, afraid, it seemed, to put it in her mouth, but she did pop it in when one of the bigger boys eyed it with a greedy look.

  “London. Who took them?”

  “Man wiv a doggie.”

  Ratter. This was her first absolute confirmation. “Where did he take them in London?”

  She shrugged.

  “Sarah, this is important,” Emmeline said, her voice shaking. “Do you have any idea at all why they were taken to London, or what they were going to do there?”

  Her young-old eyes and pinched expression, her dirty face gray with cold and weariness, she shrugged. “Mr. Dunstable tole us they was goin’ ta work in big ’ouses, an’ ’ave enuff to eat.”

  Dunstable! The name hit Emmeline like a bolt of lightning; that was the name Sally gave for the warder of the orphanage she’d come from. How many could there be with that exact name?”

  The child continued. “But ’e”—she pointed toward a hard-featured boy—“said Molly an’ Lindy was goin’ ta be ’arlots, like me mum.”

  Molly! It was a common enough name, but in this case it could not be a coincidence. “Sarah, was there a girl here named Sally once?”

  A long time ago, Sarah said; a “long time” was likely measured in months, not years, to one so young as she. It must be the place where Sally and Molly both came from, and where Sally was abused and made pregnant.

  It was torturous extracting herself from Sarah, who clung like a limpet to Emmeline. “I must go, Sarah, but I won’t forget you,” she whispered.

  One tear rolled down her cheek, leaving a cleanish trail on her dirty face, but Sarah let go and turned away. How many promises had been broken in her short life?

  Furious, Emmeline banged on the door and was allowed back inside, though the children were not. They were made to stay outside for hours every day, Sarah had told her; as a form of disciplinary action if they were naughty, some were even made to stand outside at night. Emmeline asked to see the warder so she could give a donation.

  The housekeeper guided her to the office of the custodian of the asylum, Mr. Horace Dunstable, the man who apparently sold little girls into prostitution, and under whose governance poor Sally had been raped.

  His office was warm, a fire in the grate. Mr. Dunstable was a genial-looking man, stout, well-formed, with broad shoulders and unfashionably long, graying hair that curled on his coat collar, though it appeared to shun growing on the top of his head; his bald pate gleamed in the dim light that shone in the window. He wore a brown velvet jacket and a bottle-green waistcoat with polished brass buttons that threatened to pop off. As thin and miserable as the children in his care were, the man had clearly never missed a meal. “You wish to contribute to some orphans, Miss St. Germaine?” He sat straight, his hands folded on the leather surface of his desk.

  “I have a dear friend who supports a children’s asylum, and it brings her such joy, she says, to see the little ones lifted out of lonely deprivation and provided with a means to live and prosper.” Her tone was as treacly as she could make it; she must appear a sentimental, simpering spinster who craved the opportunity to help babies and toddlers, one who got weepy at the thought of the poor orphans and who misquoted Biblical passages such as “suffering little children must come unto me.”

  “How would you wish to help?”
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  Living as she did, hiding both her Crone and Rogue selves, had given Emmeline practice in artifice. “Poor little orphan dears! Have they had their lunch? May I send some cakes for them? My cook is a genius with palatable food for little ones.”

  “To be frank, more valuable than food from your household would be money, Miss St. Germaine. There is never enough for milk and clothing, or bedding, or the hire of women to care for them.”

  “I wish to do more, though. Perhaps …” She leaned forward, her hands together in a prayerful attitude. “What do you do to help them make their way once they reach a certain age? Could I sponsor a child to an apprenticeship?”

  Mr. Dunstable blinked. “We, uh, we help them to employment, certainly. Uh … factories, you know, need workers.”

  “What about the girls? Do you take care of them?” She saw a shift in his attitude, some dark shadow in his eyes. “Where do you put them out to work? In London?”

  He blinked and nodded.

  “I’ve heard a horrid rumor,” she murmured, watching him closely, “that some disgusting, depraved men are taking little girls to London for unsavory purposes. Have you been visited by such as that, wishing to take your little girls?”

  He nodded, then swallowed and shook his head.

  “Which is it, sir? Yes or no? Do you ensure that the girls you send away are not being used for immoral purposes in London?” Emmeline lowered her voice to a whisper, looked toward the door and then back to him, and said, “The scandal columns hint that some men even like the little ones, as young as ten or eleven, and pay extra to deflower them! Is that true?”

  The warder gaped at the turn of the conversation; his face reddened and he assumed an expression of outrage as he shifted anxiously in his chair. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, Miss St. Germaine, but I assure you we would do nothing of the kind. What you said, I mean. Disgraceful!” He harrumphed loudly, clearing his throat. “I personally am sure each girl who leaves here has … er, is taken to a place to work.”

  “Would I know any of the employers? I wish to know where the girls are going.”

  “I can’t tell you that, miss,” he said, clearly trying to stay on her good side but becoming increasingly irritated and nervous.

  “Whyever not?”

  “The employers … their privacy … I … I cannot.”

  She donned an expression of good-natured idiocy, cloaking her inner turmoil with a fatuous smirk. “Oh come, sir,” she said coyly. “I won’t tell a soul. I promise! I know so many in society and would know the names, perhaps. I wish to be sure my money will be going to a good cause.” She undid the strings of her reticule and stared at him, wide-eyed. “I only wish to help!”

  He licked his lips as he eyed the reticule bulging with coinage. Perhaps bribery was the answer. From Sarah, she knew the place was supplying children to bawds and bullies, and with Sally and Molly’s names came the assurance that Ratter was involved. Here was the link, then, from this warder, to Ratter, and thence to Sir Henry. Dunstable was likely being paid handsomely, disgusting old hypocrite, even while someone in his orphanage was abusing the girls himself. It could even be Dunstable. For Emmeline, it wasn’t now merely a matter of discovering who had killed Sir Henry in order to save herself, as Rogue or Avengeress, from suspicion. This filthy practice, the sale of little girls, must be stopped.

  The warder shook his head and stood, a worried expression on his face. “Miss St. Germaine, I’m afraid I cannot help you.” He came around his desk. “You have some terrible notions, indelicate … hideous! No lady should say what you have said. That anyone should traffic in children … it’s unthinkable!”

  She didn’t stand. She was bungling this.

  “Good day, miss,” he said, bowing again. “I’m afraid I cannot help you, and you cannot help me.”

  Interesting that he wasn’t even willing to take her money. He looked terrified, perspiration rolling down his bald head and seeping under his collar. This would require another approach, and not by her. She stood and nodded, said goodbye, and left. Despite all she had attempted, she had achieved so little.

  Gillies was waiting for them. Emmeline, weary, heartsick, and discouraged, was happy to see her but had little faith that their investigations had uncovered anything of substance, at least as pertained to the murder.

  She was soon buoyed, however, by what her maid had learned. As Josephs maneuvered the carriage around the block, through traffic, Gillies told her everything that Tommy had discovered about the two men who had called that night, one a “Frenchie” and the other who walked with a limp, and where the potboy had taken the notes, to Ratter and to a second location in St. James. She relayed that the knife had apparently been found a couple of days after the murder in the convenience; this indicated either the killer needed to hide the weapon quickly, or the murderer was one of the household and had had no opportunity to get rid of it elsewhere.

  Gillies had gone, after talking to Tommy, to speak with Fanny, the Hargreaves’ young maid, whom she traced to a coster’s barrow buying vegetables for the Hargreaves’ dinner. As she helped the girl carry a sack of swedes and cabbage back to the rooms above the haberdashery, Gillies learned about Fanny’s mistress’s three or four visits to the Claybourne home, and something else baffling: “The last time, the lassie says, Miss Hargreaves had a smug look. An’ a day later, the household was flush with money for a while. Money for tea—a rarity for them—an’ meat an’ sugar.”

  “From pawning the ruby brooch, according to Simeon, which likely came from Lady Claybourne with or without her knowledge.”

  “Aye, but here’s the thing, miss … Fanny don’t recall any talk of any insult from Sir ’Enry, and who would know better than th’maid?” Gillies rubbed her hands together, warming them, as the carriage rattled over cobblestones through Clerkenwell.

  “The brother and sister are likely both lying, then. And that means the ruby brooch wouldn’t have been a bribe from her ladyship,” Emmeline said. “Could Miss Hargreaves have had something else on Sir Henry? Or on Lady Claybourne?”

  “The puir lass is frightened since th’murder,” Gillies said, her Rs rolling as they did more when she was weary. “An’ I think she’s fair worrit that her mistress knows something about the knight’s murder.”

  What could Fanny know that the Hargreaves hadn’t told the magistrate’s men? What the girl reported to Gillies gave no indication that either of the siblings had killed Sir Henry, but they didn’t know everything yet. Emmeline then told Gillies what she had learned about the Pentonville children’s home and little Sarah’s plight. “She’s about ten, Gillies. How much longer does she have before they sell her to work on the street?”

  The question was left unanswered, because the truth was that Sarah could be taken any time. Girls as young as ten did work as prostitutes, and it turned Emmeline’s stomach to think of that little girl, frightened and alone, being abused by anyone for any reason, let alone used as a man’s plaything. What kind of man preferred children to women? It baffled her.

  “We’re here, miss,” Josephs said, opening the carriage door.

  He had moved them away from Samuel Street, so that they would not draw notice; they were now stopped a couple of streets over from Blithestone. Emmeline pulled on Dorcas’s heavy, unfashionable cloak to cover her costly dress. Time to retrieve Miss Honeychurch’s lace mittens from the Claybourne residence. She climbed down from the carriage, put her head down, and strode the two streets over to Chandler Lane. When she did glance up, she noted that this late in the afternoon everyone appeared as weary as she, their faces gray and drawn with exhaustion.

  She scurried along to the brick archway that led to the alley. As a companion without her lady, she should use the back door of the Claybourne residence, which was what she wanted anyway, though it was terribly risky: to speak with the staff, not Lady Claybourne. The alleyway was already dim an
d shadowed, damp and odorous from the dry privies and middens. When last she had been there, it was to confront Sir Henry; it made her quiver now to think how she had boldly strode through the courtyard and slipped through the door, hours before bloody murder was committed. Something gleamed palely, and she bent down. What was it? She picked it up and slipped it into her dress pocket. It was hard and silver, like a thimble.

  She tapped on the back door. A child answered, a little boy. He was short-haired, clean-scrubbed, and neatly dressed, but he looked sleepy.

  Emmeline heard a woman—the cook, she thought likely—shout, “Who is it, Noah?”

  “It’s Dorcas, companion to Miss Honeychurch who visited earlier,” Emmeline called out as she walked down the passage to the kitchen.

  Mrs. Partridge was much as Emmeline had seen the first time, up to her elbows in flour. “What d’you want?” she asked.

  “I beg your pardon, but Miss Honeychurch sent me back. She lost her lace mittens. She’s a wee bit touched, you know, and says she laid them down in the entry somewhere.”

  The cook stared at her. “S’pose I’ll ’ave to ’ave the maid look for ’em. Noah, go find Sybil.”

  The boy nodded and headed down the passage that Emmeline knew led past the housekeeper’s room and toward the green baize door that separated the servant’s section of the house from the rest of it.

  “I’ve had to come ever so far. May I sit for a moment?” Emmeline asked, a plaintive, wheedling tone in her voice. “Miss Honeychurch would not give me her carriage, so I had to walk most of the way.” The cook merely nodded and continued her work. Emmeline offered her help and was soon sitting on a stool by the table peeling carrots for the woman (she was clumsy at it at first, but improved rapidly), which relaxed the cook greatly.