“Not uncommon, but not rare, either,” Charles observed.
“Not at all. All the servants are new these past few months. Nothing but the house remains from before. Not that we are allowed inside. It is as if the lady has forgotten her sister’s sacrifice gave her all this luxury.” He burped and drank more.
Charles was reminded that this man bought from smugglers to keep his costs down. He was probably a jealous man. “Do you have a poison in mind?”
Chalke’s head tilted in a thoughtful anger. “Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing, Confederate season, else no creature seeing; Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected, With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected, Thy natural magic and dire property, On wholesome life usurp immediately.”
“Hamlet,” Charles said, recognizing the quotation. “Midnight weeds? Some natural substance.”
Chalke snorted. “Something grown in France, probably. A poisonous place. But it doesn’t matter what it was.”
“Did you know the Rueff family? The other girl who died a year ago?”
“The lady practiced,” Chalke suggested.
“No, Marie Rueff died in Brompton, not in Fontainebleau.”
“Then maybe the first death gave her the idea for the second,” Chalke snapped.
“But Lord Lugoson’s death was more than two years ago. That was the first death.”
Chalke’s head lolled on his chest. A faint snore escaped his lips.
He had lost the man to drunken sleep. But no matter, as he made little sense with his time line of death. Here, at least, was motive. Hatred of her husband, of his dead daughter. Was that angry boy in her house in danger as well?
* * *
The next evening, at the close of the work day, Mr. Hogarth invited Charles home to Brompton for dinner. He accepted eagerly, though he had been close to nodding off at his desk before his editor came to him. Nothing sounded better than the innocent laughter of a pleasant, wholesome family after the unsavory conversations of the wee hours.
As soon as they walked in the house, they were greeted by an almost overwhelmingly cheerful group of children, fussing over Mr. Hogarth as he discarded his winter layer of clothing.
Mrs. Hogarth patted her husband’s hand, then greeted Charles. “My Kate had been feeding one of the babies, and as a result, has to make minor repairs on her wardrobe.”
“One of my brothers never kept anything down once he started walking. I thought he’d grow dreadfully thin, but something nourished him,” Charles said, handing her his coat and gloves.
“There is an age where the wee ones live on little but air,” Mrs. Hogarth opined. “But as they have such a sweet tooth, these bairns, I suspect they are secretly stealing biscuits. I can never keep any in the house.”
Mr. Hogarth winked and patted his belly.
Mrs. Hogarth ushered her husband and their visitor into the dining room and pulled chairs away from the table so they could sit in front of the fire. Charles stuck his feet as close as he could, wishing he could take off his shoes and dry his socks.
“William complained you’d been particularly quiet today, when you came back from that debate,” Mr. Hogarth said, plumping the cushion his wife had placed behind him in the chair. “Something troubling you?”
“Not at all,” Charles said. “Just working out a new sketch in my mind.”
“What’s it about?”
“The new gin shops,” he said, taking a hot cup of cider from Mary Hogarth with a smile.
“What’s to write about in them?”
“Have you seen the new style? I walked past one last night, near Drury Lane, and then stopped in at another between the debate and the office this afternoon. Such a world of contrast.”
“Oh?”
“Yes? You have the sporting gentleman, and the faded ladies, and the ladies of, er, business, and then, in the corners, the most wretched. The starving Irish, the miserable men who starve their children for a few drops of forgetfulness. What need have they of signs they cannot read, plate glass to look out upon an unforgiving landscape, snooty young ladies to serve them?”
“I see.”
Charles persisted. “It is a new fashion. I have seen it before. Different businesses take their turns improving their landscapes, until their lust for upgrading leads them down the path to bankruptcy. It is a peculiar habit in the lifestyle of a trade.”
“Something for our readers to be reminded of,” Mr. Hogarth said, warming his hands with his glass. “The cyclical nature of these things.”
“Dinner, Mr. Hogarth,” his wife called. “I don’t want the soup getting cold.”
“Something stodgy tonight, I’m afraid,” Mr. Hogarth confided. “Bean, perhaps.”
Charles didn’t care, especially when he saw Miss Hogarth appear at the doorway. She wore her gray dress with green ribbons, and her hair looked damp and consequently darker than usual. Maybe one of her siblings had thrown porridge in it and she’d had to rinse it out. Her eyes were sleepy-tired, but her smile was as bright as ever when she saw him. He greeted her politely, mindful that while she might be a bit daring, even demanding, in private, her father expected total propriety in public.
Mr. Hogarth had been wrong about the dinner, for instead the lady of the house served a delicious pea-and-ham soup. Charles had his mouth primed for a roast after that, but Mr. Hogarth’s prediction came true, as the next course was beans on toast. However, Mrs. Hogarth had added interest with the sauce, some kind of curry, and it was much better than anything he and Fred might have made for themselves over the fire.
After they finished, the younger girls helped their mother clear away, while Miss Hogarth led him and her father into his study. Charles stood against a bookcase while she picked sheet music off the chairs and put it on her father’s desk. Mr. Hogarth took the first emptied chair.
“Have you learned anything more?” she asked, straightening the rest of her father’s chairs. “It feels an age since I’ve seen you, Mr. Dickens.”
He had remembered to bring William’s articles for her, and in the flush of pleasure he received at her artless words, he pulled them out of his frock coat pocket for her. “This is the information about Marie Rueff, but the most interesting experience I’ve had this week was my conversation with Percy Chalke.”
“He believes Lady Lugoson killed Miss Lugoson,” Mr. Hogarth interjected, shivering in the chilly room. He lit a lamp on his desk to add to the candle they’d brought with them.
Miss Hogarth’s jaw dropped as she looked up from the papers. “Never!”
“He’s following the money,” Charles explained. “Christiana Lugoson wasn’t Lady Lugoson’s child. With her gone, Lord Lugoson inherits. And he is Lady Lugoson’s child. It’s a very twisted story.”
Miss Hogarth flourished the papers, nearly catching the edge of one in the open flame. “Goodness, what a strange family. Then Marie Rueff’s death is mere coincidence?”
“Read for yourself,” Charles said, moving the candle to the center of the desk. “You were there. Doesn’t the death described sound so very much the same?”
As she read, leaning close to the lamp, Mr. Hogarth lit his pipe with the candle and settled into his chair. “I think they both died the same way. Monsieur Rueff and Lady Lugoson somehow came to the same poison, something grown in France. They are not the same as us, these Frenchmen. You only have to look at the revolution to see that.” He shuddered.
“I don’t recognize this doctor’s name,” Miss Hogarth said, setting the papers in her lap a few minutes later. “Father, could we call on him tomorrow? Maybe he has a suspicion about what happened. We could even suggest he write to Dr. Keville about Miss Lugoson’s demise.”
“Your mother needs you here, Kate,” Mr. Hogarth chided.
“But I was there, sir,” Miss Hogarth pleaded. “I remember Miss Rueff from services. She was very shy, but very sweet, and lovely, too. I don’t remember her dying, but then, I had that terrible influe
nza last year after Christmas.”
“It seemed the entire household was laid up in succession,” Mr. Hogarth remembered. “Charles, what do you think?”
He kept his countenance calm while strategizing this chance to have Miss Hogarth to himself again. “I’m happy to escort her. If you bring her in with you to the Chronicle, we can find this doctor’s offices.”
“Very well. Have you learned anything else useful?” Mr. Hogarth asked.
Charles rubbed his chin. “There was a maid. I don’t know that we can find her after a year. Of course, the late Lord Lugoson might have been poisoned, as well.”
“No way to uncover that truth now.” Mr. Hogarth glanced at the top sheet of music on his desk, then turned over the stack. “Not that I canna imagine.”
“If Miss Rueff had a mother, Mama and I could pay a condolence call,” Miss Hogarth suggested. “But she is deceased. We had better focus on the doctor, for now.”
“What about Lord Lugoson?” Mr. Hogarth asked.
Charles winced. He wasn’t eager to leave any questions uninvestigated, but he couldn’t see how to follow up in this case. “All the servants have been changed. No one will know exactly how he died.”
Chapter 15
Dr. Claude Manette had his business on the old turnpike road. Several new and fragile-looking two-story buildings had sprouted on the north side, and a group of ragged boys were chasing an old wheel down the side of the road. Peering through the Saturday afternoon gloom from the trap, Miss Hogarth at his side, Charles saw lit lamps in the window of the center building. It appeared the doctor was open for business.
Charles jumped to the ground and called to the boys, offering each a penny to watch the horse. They struck a deal, and he returned to the trap, followed by a trio of them.
“Dr. Manette practices very close to where the Rueff family lives,” Miss Hogarth said, as Charles helped her alight from the conveyance he had rented, so they didn’t have to walk in the swirling snow that had plagued traffic that day.
“We should visit the house after we see the doctor.” At her horrified look, he pressed her hand and said, “Not to pay a call, of course, just to get an idea of the family.”
“They are on Pelham Crescent. Quite new houses, I think. Very exclusive.” Miss Hogarth slid her hand from his and straightened her bonnet.
“I’d expect them to have money if they associated with Lady Lugoson’s family. Hold on for a second.”
“What?” she asked.
He made his voice calm, though he was in an agony of discomfort. “You seem cool with me today. Is something the matter?”
“Only that my parents have cautioned me to be more careful with you.”
He threw up his hands. “What on earth do they think we have been up to? Our investigation is forever leaping forward.”
“I might have been too secretive, Mr. Dickens. My sister asks me questions about you and I refuse to offer.” Her lips turned up. “I prefer to keep what I think of you close to my heart.”
He could scarcely breathe. “Do you?”
She nodded. “Let us get on with our business, before we prove my parents to be correct.”
“Very well.” Letting the subject go, Charles glanced back at the boys, hoping the trap and the horse would survive their tender ministrations, then ushered Miss Hogarth up the front step. He rapped the door with the knocker. It was opened promptly by a girl about Mary Hogarth’s age.
“Would the doctor be able to see us for a few minutes?” Charles asked. “I’m Mr. Dickens from the Chronicle, and this is Miss Hogarth of St. Luke’s Parish.”
“Please come into the parlor,” the girl said very politely, though she didn’t offer to take their coats. They followed her into a long, narrow room, well warmed by a fire. A portrait of a very forbidding-looking elderly woman in a white lace cap and wide panniers hung over the fireplace.
“French costume,” Miss Hogarth whispered.
“Manette does sound French,” Charles agreed. “His grandmother?”
“Tante Antoinette,” said a voice from the door.
Charles saw a man in a black tailcoat and striped white-and-black trousers in the doorway. His silk waistcoat attempted to hold in a round belly. “Are you Doctor Manette?”
“That is correct,” he said, rolling his Rs in that particular French manner.
“Charles Dickens.” He held out his hand, then introduced Miss Hogarth.
“Why do I have the honor of being addressed by a journalist?” the doctor asked, ushering them to a sofa and taking the chair opposite.
“We wanted to ask you about one of your patients.”
“Former patient,” Miss Hogarth murmured.
“Who?” Doctor Manette asked.
“Marie Rueff,” Charles answered. “William Aga, my fellow reporter, wrote about the case for our newspaper last year.”
“Of course.” The doctor chewed his lip for a moment before continuing. “A very sad death. I had known her from childhood. In fact her father paid my passage to come here to London, to care for our countrymen.”
“You did not care for the Lugoson family?”
“Ah, but they are not French,” he said, exposing teeth yellowed by pipe smoke.
“Lady Lugoson is half French. We were at Christiana Lugoson’s deathbed,” Charles said. “When I told Mr. Aga about the dreadful experience, he remembered what he had written about, especially since it was Epiphany night in both cases.”
“That is odd,” the doctor agreed, taking his pipe out of his pocket.
They waited politely while he went about the work of filling and lighting it.
“I’m concerned that the young girls of the neighborhood might be in danger,” Charles said. “That was your daughter at the door?”
“Yes,” the doctor agreed. “But she does not have the habit, as Miss Rueff did, of foraging.”
“Foraging?” Miss Hogarth asked.
“Yes. Miss Rueff grew up near Fontainebleau Forest. Every autumn she would forage for wild mushrooms. Every spring, for wild greens. It takes a careful eye and a bit of luck to manage not to poison yourself.”
“Oh?” Charles said.
“Not everything evil is bright red and decayed-looking,” the doctor said. “I have some samples of French mushrooms if you would like to see them.”
“Certainly,” Charles agreed. “But you are saying Miss Rueff died in January from something she had foraged for herself? When? The previous autumn?”
“It is possible she dried something to drink as a tea,” the doctor said. “Not likely to be a mushroom at that time of year. By the time I saw her she could no longer speak, I am afraid.”
He stood, and they followed him out. Down the corridor was the doctor’s study, complete with hanging skeleton and a shelf full of jars. He pulled down a trio of small jars, all holding various mushrooms in sickly shades.
“This is Satan’s Boletus,” he said, holding one up to Miss Hogarth. “You can see the white cap, the disgusting red tinge of the stalk, but sadly, some of this variety do not look so dangerous.”
“And these kill?” Charles asked.
“If you eat enough, yes,” the doctor said.
“Is this what you suspect killed her?” Miss Hogarth asked.
“No, there was no yellow slime in her vomit,” the doctor said. “No French mushroom that I can think of would cause exactly this death, which is why I expect some tea did it.”
Charles frowned. “You believe she did, what, kill herself, accidentally or on purpose?”
“Accidentally, of course,” the doctor insisted, setting his glass jar on the desk. “No, she was a happy girl, Miss Rueff.”
“She seemed withdrawn to me,” Miss Hogarth said. “So very shy.”
“You knew her?” Manette asked.
“By sight,” she said. “From St. Luke’s.”
“Ah, yes. Well, there was nothing wrong with her life. Her father’s only daughter, and he doted on her. A very quiet,
simple girl.”
“Quiet, yes,” Miss Hogarth agreed.
“A hard death,” the doctor said, taking off his spectacles and rubbing them clean. “Not an entirely natural one. Very good health, until then.”
“Did you tell her father about your suspicions regarding her foraging?” Miss Hogarth asked. “Did he have any of her homemade teas examined?”
“He did not care about that, or anything else. Jacques was heartbroken. For a time I was afraid he would follow his beloved child into the grave.”
Charles didn’t want to ask about money. He could tell the doctor would not cast any aspersions on the father so he didn’t ask about the Rueff finances either. “Thank you very much for your time.”
“Did it do you any good, Mr. Dickens?”
“It was the same death,” he said. “Which tells us that we are not wrong in treating Miss Lugoson’s death as unnatural.”
“But not necessarily murder,” Dr. Manette countered.
Charles ticked items off on his fingers. “We need to discover what happened to Miss Rueff’s foraging journals if she kept them, her homemade tisanes and such. I’d like to understand better if the youthful friendship between the girls continued.”
“Miss Lugoson was an heiress,” Miss Hogarth interjected, asking what Charles had not. “Was Miss Rueff?”
“Oh, yes,” the doctor said, lifting his brows in a very Gallic expression. “Her mother’s fortune settled upon her only child.”
“Where did the fortune go?” Charles blurted. What was left of it.
“To Miss Rueff’s cousin, I believe. The daughter of the Madame Rueff’s younger sister.”
Charles’s and Miss Hogarth’s gazes collided. They needed to find out who that was.
“Thank you for your time, Doctor,” Charles said. He helped Miss Hogarth rise.
“Of course. I am sorry to hear of the death of your neighbor. Perhaps I shall write a short tract on the dangers of foraging,” Dr. Manette said.
“I would read it most carefully,” Miss Hogarth said. “And be grateful for the information.”
They took their leave, and retrieved the trap from their trio of helpers. “Pelham Crescent?” Charles asked, as they settled themselves in the vehicle.
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