A Gentlewoman's Guide to Murder

by Victoria Hamilton

  Emmeline sighed. Lady Clara had made it sound like she were the instigator of this departure from plans. In truth, this complicated her evening. What could she do now? She must, she supposed, take Lady Clara to Belgravia first and then head north to Clerkenwell, but it was annoying.

  Or … she could use it as a test and watch the young lady’s reactions, since she still retained a smidgen of suspicion of Lady Clara. How would she react to being taken to Clerkenwell, the scene of the crime, so to speak? Would she recognize the place? It was time to either strike Lady Clara Langdon from her list of suspects or move her up to more prominence.

  Twenty-Two

  Mr. Jeffcock stalked down the steps to his waiting carriage without a word for his fiancée. Lady Clara smiled in satisfaction. If her intent was to disgust him so much he’d cry off, she was bound for disappointment. If Emmeline was any judge of that kind of man, and she had met his ilk before, it would make him more determined to dominate her. The consequences of such insolence with a man like that could be dangerous indeed, given that once they married she would be at his mercy.

  Woodforde gave Fidelity his arm down the steps, then took his leave. Once in the carriage, Emmeline turned to Lady Clara in the dim interior. “I hope you don’t mind, but we have a stop to make first, and it may take an hour or so. Are you in a hurry?”

  “Not at all,” she said, her head to one side, watching Emmeline. “Where are we going?”

  Emmeline shook her head. “It’s a secret, for now.”

  Fidelity was rigid with anxiety, but Gillies knew exactly how to handle her and began a quiet conversation about the next literary salon she was planning.

  “Miss St. Germaine, may I be impertinent and ask a question?” Lady Clara asked, her voice velvety in the darkness, the only sounds the two older women softly speaking and the carriage trundling over the cobbles of town.

  “You may. Although asking permission rather takes it from impertinence to inquisitiveness.”

  Lady Clara gave a low chuckle. “One cannot help but notice how attentive Doctor Woodforde is to you. Your families are close. Sir Jacob arranged the party tonight to bring you together. And yet you appear to hold him at a distance. Why do you not allow him to court you?”

  “Is it only everyone else’s preference that matters, and I must bow to it?”

  “I forget sometimes that not every family is the same,” Lady Clara replied. “Miss Espanson and I speak often, and our families are so similar that I forget there are those who actually care about the females under their control.”

  “What gave you the notion my family is any different from others?” Emmeline sought out Lady Clara’s pale face in the dimness of the carriage interior. “I was fortunate only that my father died at the right moment, and my eldest brother has a horror of notoriety. I assured him I would behave with circumspection if I could live in London with Fidelity, but still, I had to ask permission. Every single day I bite my tongue. I stifle my natural impulse to tell Leopold—my brother—what a loathsome and pompous creature he is. I am demure and obedient and behave with decorum and sweetness in the face of his spy, our butler, Birk.”

  Lady Clara had frozen in place, like a statue, staring at her.

  “I’m sorry,” Emmeline said, swallowing back her growing rage. “Bitterness occasionally overwhelms me that I, as a grown woman—intelligent, capable, and mature—must still respond to my elder brother’s slightest beck.”

  “I see you have thought of this a lot.”

  “That it is inherently unfair that I, an adult woman, must ask my dullard brother for permission to live where I live and even for access to my own money? I have pondered it on occasion, yes.”

  “You blackmail him, then, with threats of notoriety.”

  “I suppose.”

  “No ‘suppose’ about it,” Lady Clara said. “By your own admission, you get your way in exchange for giving him what he wants, a sister who is demure and circumspect.”

  “I prefer to say we have an understanding. He values our family reputation, and I value my freedom, that being a relative term given my circumstances.” And yet she was at perilous risk of being exposed, more so every time she went out in the night as the Avengeress. However, she saw that largely as a management of risk; she must do some of what she wanted in order to remain sane. She chose her occasions, aided and abetted by Gillies and Josephs, to traverse beyond the pale, and believed she was at low risk of discovery by Birk and her brother Leopold.

  Though maybe not now. But then, who could have foreseen bloody slaughter?

  She pushed the door open and peered into the gloom, but it was hard to tell where they were. Lamplighters were abroad; she saw one on his ladder with his wick, lighting a lantern while a boy stood at the bottom holding the ladder. Taverns were pools of light and noise, spilling out to the walk in front, rowdy drunks singing songs; “The Ballad of Clerkenwell” had become popular with the patterers, those glib fellows who disseminated a wildly fictionalized version of the day’s news in song or verse. It sounded as if new verses were being added about the murdering wench known as the Avengeress.

  “We must already be in Clerkenwell,” she said wryly, as a drunken chorus erupted from another such establishment. “They’re singing my song.”

  “Clerkenwell?” Lady Clara stared at Emmeline. “Why are we here?”

  Beginning to feel ashamed for even thinking Lady Clara capable of the murder, Emmeline said, “I have an appointment with a young gentleman.”

  Josephs had used his time well. Tommy awaited them by the front door of the Bridge and Bezel, drinking a pint from a pewter tankard, no doubt using pennies Josephs gave him. They helped him up into the carriage, which he found a great treat. Emmeline introduced him to Lady Clara Langdon. Tommy was charming to her in his inimitable roguish, bragging, boyish manner. She had brightened at the excitement of their late-night mission, and avidly listened to the conversation.

  Emmeline had wanted to speak with the lad herself, for though she trusted Gillies’s memory, she knew that once Tommy was on a task, he was like a rat terrier and would not let go. He had likely discovered more in the past few hours. “Tell me what you’ve learned, Tommy.”

  “The potboy from the town’ouse next to Sir ’Enry’s ’eard what they was talkin’ ’bout that night.”

  “Is that the Farnsworth house you speak of? What who was talking about?”

  “Aye, the Farnsworths’… Arnie Biggins, ’is name is. ’E over’eard Sir ’Enry an’ the feller with the dog, the feller as brung the little girls to Sir ’Enry, quarrellin’.”

  Emmeline felt a spurt of hope. Her doggedness was being rewarded. “Tell me what he said, as close to exactly as possible.”

  Tommy screwed up his face and recited the story the potboy from number 74 Blithestone had told him. There was a great deal of the conversation that was youthful bragging and blustering, but there was much that was important. Arnie had been sleeping on a pallet on the kitchen floor in front of the hearth, by the last embers of the fire in the kitchen. His employment was comfortable enough, but the cook was a dragon. It was his job to keep an eye on things overnight and alert the master if there was trouble, be it thief or fire, so he slept lightly.

  A dog’s bark awoke him and he heard voices, so he opened the kitchen window. Though he couldn’t see because of the brick walls between the terraced homes, he could hear clearly, as the night was otherwise quiet and sound carried.

  “Feller wiv the dog, ’e were quiet loike, Arnie says. Sir ’Enry—Arnie knows ’is voice coz ’e’s alluz yellin’ at someone—hollered as how the feller—Ratter, ’e called ’im—must o’ tole someone what they was up to, fer the lady in the mask to know to snatch the lass. Sir ’Enry said as ’ow Ratter were gonna die if the uvers found out, and ’oo did ’e tell? Ratter raises ’is voice then; sez that the guvner don’t know what ’e’s on about, that ’e
never tole no one ’bout bringing girls inta Lunnon ta sell orf, an’ Sir ’Enry’s getting’ worked up over nuffin.”

  Lady Clara looked confused, but Tommy’s patter was not difficult to decipher for Emmeline, so she repeated what the boy had said, and did so for the next lot, too; she listened more, and then translated for Lady Clara and Fidelity, adding, also, information she already knew from before, for their benefit. “Ratter left after Sir Henry accused him of telling what they were up to and threatening that others would kill the procurer for talking. That’s not to say he left the area, though; he still could be the one who killed Sir Henry. Then two men showed up together. Both sets—Ratter and the two anonymous men—must have come in response to the notes from Sir Henry, sent by way of the Claybourne potboy, Noah, who was dispatched to the Rookery—St. Giles, you know—with a note to Ratter, and to St. James bearing a note for the other two, it appears. Tommy says that Arnie overheard those two men speaking with Sir Henry, too. Their voices were too low-pitched to hear, but Sir Henry shouted a few things, much the same as his accusations of Ratter, and they denied his charge.”

  Lady Clara said, “Why did Sir Henry send for these men?”

  “He suspected them of telling tales … of letting their business secrets out. He’s blaming them for the woman who took Molly away.” She gave Clara a significant look and nodded toward Tommy, who mustn’t know she was the Avengeress. He would find it exciting, and how could he resist telling the world? The fewer in on Emmeline’s secret identity the better.

  Tommy said Arnie may have heard the scuffle when Sir Henry was killed, and if so, it took place shortly after he heard the voices. He then heard the watch, then a commotion when the watch was beaten, and then silence. He heard nothing more until the next morning, when the fishlad found Sir Henry’s body in the alley by his own back courtyard.

  “Wait. Where exactly was the body?” Emmeline asked. “I’ve heard it was in the alley and in the courtyard.”

  “Bof, miss,” Tommy said. “’E were arf in, arf out, yer see.”

  “Yes, I see.” She turned to Lady Clara. “The timing of it, if Arnie is correct, is the best indication we have that the two men killed Sir Henry. Or perhaps Ratter hung around and killed the knight after they left, fearing Sir Henry would turn him over to the authorities or otherwise get him in trouble. The watchman thinks it was two men who set upon him, but his memory, according to the newspapers, is unclear.” Emmeline turned back to Tommy. “How would we go about finding exactly where the Claybourne potboy took the notes? We know St. Giles and St. James, but those are two large areas.”

  The boy shrugged. “Dunno, miss. Noah won’t go back to St. Giles. ’At’s a dangerous place, the Rookery. Lad could lose ’is loife there.”

  “I don’t want him to go back there. I want to know if he can recall the addresses, or how he found the places, since you say he can’t read. It may point us to the right people.”

  Tommy shrugged. “I’ll arsk ’im.”

  They let the boy go, as he was yawning and wiping sleep from his eyes. He had a place to sleep that night if he nipped in right soon, he said.

  “I don’t think we can do another thing tonight,” Emmeline said.

  They left Clerkenwell, stopped in Belgravia to let Lady Clara off at her home, and returned to Chelsea. Birk had stayed up, of course, so Emmeline and Fidelity chatted quietly about the nut-crack party as they entered, what fun it was and who had been present, and then the butler locked up after them.

  November 1st, 1810, Evening Edition of The Prattler

  By: The Rogue

  To The Despoilers of Little Girls

  Your Faithful Correspondent, your very own Rogue, has learned much about the man who was Butchered like the Swine he was. Sir Henry, the Brewer and Knight, had his own collection of Filthy Secrets, as your Rogue told his faithful readers. His predilection for Despoiling the Flowers of Youth was noted here.

  But Shame! T’would seem to not only be Lusts of the Flesh he was satisfying. He and a herd of Like-minded Satyrs joined together to import into our unfair city Orphaned Girls, those whose Motherless state render them the objects of Charity, and, it appears, Debauchery. The Knight and his Ilk sell these little girls to Lustful and Wicked Men, reserving for themselves, like art collectors, the Prettiest Treats.

  Rise up, ye Citizens with a Conscience! What does it matter if the Poor Defiled Children are Orphans? Should we not, as a society, care for them the more? How do we call ourselves a Christian Nation and yet abuse the helpless in such Terrible and Devilish ways? Satan is abroad, and finds among the Perverted Lusts of some men a Playground.

  Your Rogue is investigating, and will come to you with More, for it seems that Whomever Murdered Sir Henry Claybourne may have had reason other than Shiny Shillings in his Pocket. There are others such as him about. Your Rogue desires not Blood, but Justice for the Sullied Youth. A Warning to those so Inclined; We Will Stop You!

  Twenty-Three

  Emmeline attended morning service for All Saints’ Day, to celebrate the lives and works of the saints. She would attend again for All Souls’ Day on the morrow, to remember the faithful departed. It was true she did not believe in God, but she still found herself praying sometimes, especially when her heart was sore and the memory of her mother and sister lay heavy upon it. Prayer was contemplation, a time to think deeply and discover her heart. All Saints church was the perfect place for that on a chilly Thursday morning, when she was distraught over the evil that men did—aided by women, in some cases, it was true—to the helpless over whom they had complete control.

  She was torn about finding the killer of Sir Henry Claybourne. She had reasoned that finding his killer would expose—perhaps—the men with whom he did business, and that would—perhaps, again—end their commerce in children’s bodies. But then again, his killer or killers had done the world a favor.

  She walked home to write letters and sent Simeon a list of questions, some about the orphanage she now knew about and Mr. Dunstable, its warder. Every day that went by without the Pentonville Home for Unfortunate Children being shut down meant that more children were being abused. Any moment, other little girls, such as Sarah, could be sold into a life of depravity at the mercy of men who knew no shame. Her letter also included what little she knew of the notes Sir Henry sent with his potboy, as well as a description of Ratter and a query about whether Simeon had anyone who could track the man down in St. Giles.

  Simeon had hundreds of contacts, some in the unsavory underworld and some among legitimate businessmen and women who plied their trades—rag and bone, night soil, and other businesses—among the downtrodden. She also sent him a Rogue column that summed up all of the rage she felt, as well as the helplessness, but also her determination to find justice. She hoped that her suggestions within it would shake loose some information. Men other than those involved must know about the trade in orphan girls. Josephs, who was taking some of the carriage tack to a blacksmith, carried that and other letters to post, as she didn’t trust Birk.

  The afternoon mail brought a package from Simeon and letters from others; one in particular was shocking in its contents. Martha Adair wrote to her that Sally had run away. Emmeline’s first thought was that Sally had been snatched, but Martha was quite clear on the circumstances—her household was run on strict lines as far as the servants were concerned—and Sally had most definitely taken her few possessions and voluntarily left the house. One of the maids had seen her go, remonstrated with her, but Sally had replied that an apprenticeship waited for her.

  She had been an unsatisfactory servant at best, disappearing at times, secretive, silent, sometimes sullen. At first she hadn’t been able to work at all, of course. Martha had been lenient, given what the girl had suffered in being pregnant and miscarrying. It was more than many mistresses would have done. When Sally recovered, though, she had been almost untrainable, though far from stupid. Ellen,
the maid-of-all-work, had told her mistress that Sally was not sullen with the other servants. She was, in fact, clever at mimicry and had kept them all laughing, though Martha never saw that side of her.

  How could Sally afford an apprenticeship? It was unthinkable that an orphan girl should suddenly be able to purchase her future.

  Simeon’s letter had much graver news. He had already instituted a hunt for Ratter before Emmeline’s letter that morning, and his journalist had tracked the man down in the Rookery. Ratter had feared for his life. He was willing to tell them everything about who was involved in the company to procure young girls for the gentleman connoisseurs; in exchange, he wanted the protection of a boat ticket to the Canadas. Emmeline’s heart lifted at that news; finally, a break!

  The journalist couldn’t promise the man anything without Simeon’s approval, so he had come back to his boss, who agreed to help Ratter escape London in exchange for the full story of the company formed with the express purpose of buying and selling the innocence of children. But when the journalist went back to find Ratter, he learned that the man was dead, stabbed through the heart in a back alley and left to perish.

  Emmeline slumped in dejection; so much hope, lost so swiftly.

  One or two locals, for the bribe of a penny, admitted to seeing two men who clearly did not belong in the Rookery: one had a limp, and the other a Frenchie accent. Given this murder, it followed that it was indeed the two men who had killed—first, Sir Henry, for being a threat to the secrecy of the company, and now Ratter, who must have been known to them, for the same reason. Somehow they had heard about him speaking with a news writer and his willingness to expose them, and took action to prevent it. All they now had was Ratter’s vague description of the company, a group of hoity-toities, as he had called them to the journalist.