A Tale of Two Murders

by Heather Redmond

  Julie went back into the wings and came out with a bolt of fabric and another woman. They attempted to drape a rich blue robe over Miss Acton, tacking it in with pins.

  Miss Acton cried out, then lashed out with her hand, striking Julie on the cheek.

  Fred gasped and made as if to move forward, but Charles held him back. The woman, however talented, was a devil.

  Julie put her hand to her cheek and stared forward. Charles knew the instant she saw them, but his gaze redirected at Percy Chalke, who had his arm around Miss Acton, comforting her for all the world as if she had been the one wronged.

  A moment later, and Miss Acton was saying lines again, back in character, while the seamstress gathered material at her waist and tacked it into pleats.

  Julie’s hands dropped to her sides. She stood there, a noble, forlorn creature, the red mark obvious on her cheek.

  Charles took his brother’s arm and turned away. Would a woman so prone to violence be capable of subtle poison? He might better believe that Percy Chalke would poison someone who tormented his beloved. The question remained if Miss Lugoson’s becoming an actress would be enough to make her mother crazed, but given how little it took for the woman to fly into a violent rage, perhaps, just perhaps, Lady Lugoson had a point.

  They left the theater by the main door. Charles blinked in the daylight, limited though it was.

  “I’d heard theater folk were crazy, but I’ve never seen anything like that. Did you really want to be an actor?” Fred asked.

  “A couple of years ago,” Charles said.

  Fred snorted. “I’m hungry. Can we go eat?”

  “We’ll fetch something on the way home.” They made their way through the crowded streets. The air had warmed just enough for people to be out about their business, gathering food to prepare for Sunday, and catching up on errands. He saw brisk business at a secondhand clothing stall, a clothesline of women’s half boots rocking dangerously over a child’s head as a gust of wind roared through.

  They stopped in at a bakeshop, purchasing loaves for the next couple of days, and cakes as well. A butcher in the next street had stew meat, and Charles knew they had potatoes put by, so they could make something over the fire. Not the cozy domesticity of the Hogarths, but a way to stay out of the biting wind if it kept up.

  They had been home some twenty minutes, and Fred had only just come in with fresh cans of water, when a hearty knock rang at the door.

  Charles went to answer it, already hoping for an invitation to dine in some less labor-intensive manner, and found a most unexpected person upon opening. “Lord Lugoson?”

  The lad was swallowed up by a heavy coat more fit for a coachman than a young man-around-town. His top hat was much too high, and his muffler covered his mouth. He spat it out of his way and spoke. “There has been a most dreadful development.”

  The way he delivered the line reminded Charles of a stage play. “What is wrong? Has someone confessed to making your sister so ill?”

  “No, it’s Horatio Durant. He’s dead.”

  “But I just saw him a few days ago and he seemed to be in blooming health,” Charles said, then felt like an idiot, for saying the obvious. “Was he poisoned?”

  Lord Lugoson shook his head, then coughed. “Could I trouble you for something to drink?”

  “Why did you come for me? Shouldn’t your mother have sent a servant?” Charles stepped aside and called to Fred. “Pour out a cup from the kettle for Lord Lugoson.”

  “It isn’t hot yet,” Fred said.

  “No matter,” Charles said, as the young lord coughed again. “Have you been ill, my lord?”

  “Weak chest,” the boy sighed, then bent over as the force of the cough took him again.

  Just like his father, Charles recalled. Fred poured out a cup of the liquid he had just brought up the steps, and Lord Lugoson took it. After a minute, his coughs subsided.

  “My lord?” Charles asked.

  “I wanted to see your rooms. I never see anything in London,” said the lordling petulantly.

  Charles sighed and brought him to the fire, then he and Fred opened the inner doors of the apartment to show Lord Lugoson how a young journalist lived.

  When they were done, he smacked his lips with satisfaction. “I have a carriage waiting downstairs. We should go to Mr. Durant’s house.”

  “How did your family learn of this death? He told me no words of affection had been exchanged between your sister and himself. I admit I am flummoxed,” Charles said.

  “Don’t you want to see how he died?” Lord Lugoson asked, ignoring the question. “His body is at his house.”

  “Can’t you tell me yourself?” Charles couldn’t see how viewing a dead body would tell him if the man had been poisoned or not. He was no doctor.

  “I don’t know.” The boy stamped his foot. “I’m terribly curious.”

  “Very well.” Charles, not wanting to take more than one ghoulish youth in hand, told Fred to stay behind. He considered taking part of a loaf with him, but decided that a dead body might bring his dinner right back up again. It was better to go hungry.

  They met William Aga in the corridor. He saluted. “Well met, my lads. I was just coming to discover your dinner plans.”

  “Horatio Durant is dead,” Charles said.

  William’s mouth dropped open. “You don’t say,” William said, after he recovered.

  “This is Lord Lugoson,” Charles explained. “He came to tell us, and now we are going to Durant’s house.”

  William felt his head, and discovering a hat there, said, “It is a pleasure to meet you, my lord, despite the circumstances.”

  Lord Lugoson nodded politely.

  William’s expression went stern. “I’ll come with you. I might have to cover this for the Chronicle anyway.”

  A few minutes later, they sat in a comfortable coach with the young lord, speeding to Sydney Street as fast as the icy streets allowed. Charles leaned his head back against the squabs, listening to William’s gruesome tales of London deaths, calculated to thrill their young companion.

  “How did you learn about the death?” Charles asked again during a lull in the conversation.

  “A boy came with a note,” the young lord answered. “I was with Mother. She looked confused when she read it and then asked Panch to investigate the situation. He sent a stable boy to Sydney Street and found the house in chaos.”

  “Was the message boy from the Durant house?”

  “No.”

  Charles wondered if it had been one of the boys who watched his rented horse that day. Probably. “What did the note say?”

  The boy looked solemn. “It said ‘I miss her. I’m sorry. HD.’”

  The pulse in Charles’s throat leapt. “A confession?” He turned to William. “An admission of guilt? Perhaps there really was a secret engagement, despite his claim of innocence.”

  His fellow journalist fingered the wispy moustache he had started. “If so, it is a very obscure admission. It could mean anything.”

  “Did he kill himself?” Charles asked.

  “I think he must have killed himself.” The boy’s voice squeaked. “I will see the body and decide for myself. I’m a man, not a babe in leading strings.”

  Charles saw the marks of uncomfortable adolescence on the boy and remembered he had not been allowed to see his sister in her mortal distress. But did not the mother have the right to keep her only child safe?

  They arrived on Sydney Street. Though nearly dark, rainy, and cold, people milled about, too curious to remain indoors like sensible folk. This time, they had a driver to mind the horses, so they went past the crowd and to the house without interaction.

  The bored parlormaid was not in evidence, but a housekeeper of middle years, frizzy graying hair trailing from her cap, opened the door. “Lady Lugoson received a note from Mr. Durant,” Charles explained. “This is her son.”

  The woman stepped aside after a sharp glance at the young lord. “Wha
t does he think anyone can do now? Him without female relatives to lay him out. No one to care.”

  “Has a constable been called?” William asked.

  “No, sir. It’s a shameful thing, but there’s no one to be in charge. I’ve called for his man of business to come.”

  “I know he was disinclined to marry just now, but perhaps he had some kind of steady relationship?” Charles suggested.

  The housekeeper blushed. “I’m a decent woman, sir, and you’ve no right to be asking me these things.”

  Lord Lugoson gnawed at his lower lip, pulling the very corner of his mouth to the center of his teeth. He had a bright-eyed, eager look about him. “Did he quarrel with his mistress?”

  “I didn’t say he had one,” she snapped.

  “This is Lord Lugoson,” William reminded her.

  The woman colored further. “I’m sorry, my lord. I don’t know who she was.”

  Ah, so there had been a mistress. “Did you merely not know her name, or did you never see her?”

  “Never saw her, sir,” the woman answered. “But.” She sniffed. “A person knows, when she is taking care of a gentleman.”

  “You saw the evidence,” Charles suggested.

  She looked away as she nodded.

  “Where are the earthly remains?” Charles asked.

  “In his room. He called for a bath in front of the fire, must have been about three hours ago.”

  “He died there?”

  She nodded.

  “Is he still in the tub?”

  Her eyes welled with tears and she sniffled. “Joe and Billy pulled him out. He’s on the bed. Who is going to clean up the blood, I ask you?”

  “Blood?” Charles frowned.

  “It’s a right mess, sir, how he done it.”

  Not likely to be poison then. Had Durant shot himself? William frowned as Charles felt his old side pain flash white heat in his abdomen. He fought to gain control of himself as a knock came on the door.

  They hung back as the housekeeper answered it. “Good evening, Mr. Post, thank you for coming.”

  “Such a dreadful occasion,” said the man. “This is Mr. Dawes, the undertaker.”

  Charles recognized Matthew Post from Lady Holland’s house. The solicitor, of middle years, had a prosperous look about him. He seemed a likely sort to have a client like Durant.

  “Are you Mr. Durant’s executor?” he asked.

  “I do have that honor, yes. It is Dickens, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Doesn’t Mr. Durant have the social standing to require a funeral furnisher, rather than an undertaker?”

  “There are a number of considerations, Mr. Dickens,” he said. “Are you here as a friend of the deceased or as a reporter?”

  “We were sent for, in a way,” Charles explained.

  Post sighed but didn’t ask any further questions. “Please, allow these gentlemen to do their work.”

  The housekeeper stepped back, and a tall, thin man stepped in, followed by two younger men in smocks, carrying a stretcher. Charles and William shared a glance. They let the men go ahead of them on the stairs, but they followed directly upon their path. Charles wasn’t willing to let the body go unseen.

  The housekeeper directed them into the main bedroom, where they found Horatio Durant on his bed, a sheet pulled over his lifeless body.

  The undertaker’s men began to confer. Charles ignored them and removed the sheet, William at his side.

  He heard a strangled noise and turned to see Lord Lugoson swaying on his feet.

  “Get him out of here,” Post said.

  The housekeeper took the boy’s arm and gently pulled him into the corridor.

  “What a waste,” Charles muttered as he stared down at the marblelike body, again having that impression of a man in full strength, with the face of an angel. A gray angel now, with no animation of features. His eyes were slitted and his mouth hung open, but he had not lost his looks, and his hair still flopped over his brow in lazy curls that had not lost their spring.

  William exhaled sharply and pointed to Durant’s arms. Charles saw the deep cuts on the man’s inner wrists.

  “Suicide,” William breathed.

  “We’ll lay him out and put him in his coffin at my parlor,” Mr. Dawes told the housekeeper.

  “Have you contacted his cousin?” she asked.

  “It will take weeks,” said Mr. Post. “He is traveling on the Continent. I will notify the rector tomorrow, then arrange the funeral on Monday, but it will all have to be done without a family representative.”

  “As long as you are doing what he wants,” she said. “Poor boy.”

  One of the undertaker’s assistants gave Charles a dirty look. He moved out of the way and perused the room, looking for what Durant had used to slash his wrists open.

  The hip tub was still in evidence, the water so putrid that he had to hold his handkerchief over his nose. The fire had gone out. Trying not to gag, he searched the area around it for a weapon, but found none.

  William had followed him, and pointed to the floor. Lying next to the head of the tub was a brown bottle, uncorked.

  Charles bent down and picked it up. Tan paper, glued to the front, notified the holder that it was LAUDANUM POISON.

  “How helpful. The antidote information is right on the label,” William said, reading over his shoulder.

  “He must have taken it to dull the pain before he sliced,” Charles said, turning the bottle over. No liquid was left to drip out.

  “But where is the knife?” William asked.

  Charles shook his head. “Don’t see it.”

  William pointed to a door. “I’ll bet that’s the dressing room.” He vanished inside.

  Charles knew they’d never be back here again, so he did his level best to memorize every little detail. The candlesticks on the fireplace, the towels on the rack. A tray that contained a bottle of wine, half-empty, and one glass. A plate with crumbs on it. No clothing. No scent of perfume or pomade in the air, but the odor of blood hung cloyingly in the air, along with the darker smells of human waste.

  He felt positively dizzy and nauseated by the time William reappeared.

  “No sign of a knife, other than a razor.”

  “Clean?”

  “Yes, put away in a cupboard with shaving things. No disorder.”

  “Discarded clothes? Nightwear?” He heard a grunt and turned around. The undertaker’s assistants had Durant lifted onto the stretcher now, neatly covered with a sheet. Dawes looked winded. He must have helped.

  “Yes, it’s all there. No way to know if his decision was sudden or preplanned.”

  The assistants moved out of the room, the heavy burden between them. Mr. Dawes conferred with Mr. Post in a low voice about clothing.

  Charles responded as the housekeeper took the solicitor into the dressing room. “Of course it was preplanned. He sent a note to Lady Lugoson.”

  “Do we even know if it was in his handwriting?” William lifted a brow.

  Lord Lugoson reentered the room once the body was gone. Charles moved to block him. The body might be gone but the tub and its ghastly contents remained.

  “If he killed my sister I’m glad he’s dead,” said Lord Lugoson fiercely.

  “I thought you hated her,” Charles said.

  The boy’s mouth trembled. “There were moments when I did not.”

  Charles risked patting his shoulder. “Losing a lifetime companion is terribly painful, I am sure.”

  “Maybe we should go back to France,” the boy said in a small voice. “Dreadful things seem to keep happening here.”

  Charles doubted that murder was unknown in France. “Did you see any sign that Mr. Durant was distraught due to your sister’s death?”

  “I didn’t take much notice of him,” he said. “He called a couple of times a week last autumn, but he’s only come once since Christiana died.”

  “Did he seem emotional?”

  “He was conventional,” the
boy said after a pause. “I wouldn’t have thought him to have much sensibility, but my sister and her friend Miss Carley sighed over him like he was some romantic poet.”

  “Just over his looks, or his personality as well?” William asked.

  “I don’t know,” the boy said. He scrunched up his nose. “Silly girl talk. Honestly, I’d be more likely to believe he’d lost all his money and that was why he did it.”

  “Then why send your mother that note?”

  “Maybe his last thoughts were sentimental?” the boy suggested. “Knowing my mother would grieve for him as well, after knowing him for several months and his possibly becoming part of the family in the future.”

  “A pretty notion,” William said. He scratched his temple.

  “I think we should go,” Charles said. “I would like to confer with my employer. Do you mind if we rode with you, sir?”

  “Very well,” the boy agreed.

  The trio went downstairs. They made their good-byes to the housekeeper, then returned to the carriage, all three lost in their own thoughts. Charles looked forward to discussing the matter with Mr. Hogarth. And Miss Hogarth.

  * * *

  Mrs. Hogarth chuckled heartily at the sight of the two journalists, the carriage having driven past Lugoson House in order to leave them at the Hogarths before Lord Lugoson, coughing and pale again, returned home. “We see ye so often that ye need a room of yer own, Mr. Dickens!”

  He grinned at her. “Do you know William Aga? He writes for the Morning Chronicle as well.”

  “I recognize the name. Come in, the pair of ye. We’ve eaten, but I can toast ye some bread and cheese.”

  “Thank you,” William said.

  Charles’s stomach roiled at the thought of eating, after what they’d seen, but his fellow journalist was a good five years older and more hardened than he.

  “Mr. Dickens!” Miss Hogarth exclaimed, coming down the hallway in her everyday gray dress as he was in the process of removing his coat. “You look quite pale.”

  She took his arm, steadying him as he plucked off his hat and gloves. “What is wrong?”

  “Horatio Durant is dead,” he explained. “We’ve just come from viewing the body.”

  Her mouth puckered into an O. “Poor thing. And him, bless him. What happened?”