Grave Expectations

by Heather Redmond

  “They will hold both men over for court.” William sighed. “It’s just supposition right now, and the fact that we know something about the personalities involved. Even if we uncovered a link between Ned Blood and Jones senior, it wouldn’t save Daniel now.”

  “I hear you,” Charles said. “But still, we should learn what we can. Let’s walk over to the prison and see if someone will tell us about the escapees.”

  William nodded. “Very well. I’m about done for the day. Let me clean up my desk and we can go.”

  * * *

  Two hours later, with the sun still high in the sky, Charles and William arrived at the exterior wall of Coldbath Fields Prison in Clerkenwell. They showed their Morning Chronicle credentials to a guard at the front gate. While he stared at them, they stomped dust off their shoes and slapped at their clothing, releasing dry brown puffs. The guard let them enter through the tall prison exterior and into a covered passage that ran past the vagrants’ block to a residence in front of the main buildings, all of brick, which contained separate blocks for felons and misdemeanants.

  Charles tried not to remember those months when his parents and younger siblings lived in the Marshalsea Prison, though it had been nothing so onerous as this. These days, prisons intrigued him as much as they repelled, though he never forgot those days almost half a lifetime ago now.

  A servant with a dirty neckerchief and gin-soaked breath admitted them into the governor’s office in the residence to wait for an interview.

  “What do you know about this prison?” Charles asked William.

  “Houses about a thousand prisoners of both sexes, children, too. Run by local magistrates. It’s technically a house of correction, short-term sentences.” William fiddled with a small ring he wore on his right pinkie finger. “But you know as well as I do that hardened criminals can be caught and locked away for a lesser crime than those they habitually commit. Still, there must be a few here who could be rehabilitated from a life of evil deeds.”

  “The public doesn’t really care about any of it,” Charles suggested.

  “They want to know such people are being punished by hard labor. They would prefer the prisoners be kept in silence, in the hopes that they will not be able to train up the next generation of criminals, or to collude in future plans once they are released.”

  Charles chuckled darkly and peered out of a window. “Which is why transportation is so appealing. Get the men and women of black deeds out of the country.” He could see vegetable fields off to the right. He hoped some of the inmates were employed in the open air, though he understood most of them spent their days picking oakum or walking the treadmill.

  The heavy office door opened. A map tacked to the opposite wall fluttered on its pins as the door banged into the wall. A man wiping the shiny top of his bald-pated head with a handkerchief walked in, followed by another man, hunched and gray.

  “I am the governor here,” said the first man. “Jonathon Shipley. Who might you be?”

  William and Charles introduced themselves.

  “Your purpose for visiting?” Governor Shipley asked. “An article for the Chronicle?”

  “I am the man who took the second set of found manacles to the police in Chelsea,” Charles told him as the governor seated himself behind his large desk. “The constable informed me that there were two escapees.”

  “What do you know about the escaped prisoners?” William asked. Since he was an established crime reporter, Charles let him take the lead.

  The governor made a noise in the back of his throat. The other man darted to a cabinet and opened it. Charles saw bottles. The hunched man reached for one and poured some sort of purplish cordial into a fluted glass and put it on the governor’s desk.

  Governor Shipley poured the cordial down his throat and gargled it loudly, then rattled some of the papers about on his desk until he came up with the relevant document. Charles was surprised the man couldn’t come up with the information from memory, but then he had smelled gin coming off the man right when he entered the room, and it was almost six in the evening. The cordial was sweeter, something to help with coughs, probably. The hunched man refilled the glass, but the governor ignored it this time.

  After clearing his throat, the governor said, “The escapees were Ned Blood and Osvald Larsen.”

  Charles squinted. Hadn’t he come across the name Osvald recently?

  “What do you know about the men?” William repeated.

  The governor sifted through his papers, moving phlegm around the back of his throat, and came up with a couple of sheets. “Unpleasant. The continual dampness of these old buildings, you know. Hits me in the lungs.”

  “I thought this prison was rebuilt only forty or so years ago,” William said.

  “Brick. Retains the damp.” Governor Shipley pointed to a damp patch on the painted wall. “If you poke it, you make a divot. They’ll take me out of here on a stretcher, I promise you.

  “Now, as to these prisoners. They were both incarcerated on the same day. That’s probably how they met, in a general holding cell while assignments were being made.”

  “They had no known association previously?”

  Governor Shipley repeated his phlegmy noise. “Not that I’m aware of, but anything is possible. They could have lived in the same neighborhood even, though Larsen, I believe, is an immigrant.”

  William pulled out his pencil and notebook. “Do you have descriptions?”

  “Larsen is fifty-eight. Blood is much younger, by fifteen years, perhaps. Larsen is a graybeard. Blood is balder than I am,” the governor said, touching his forehead.

  “Do they have professions, other than criminal?” William asked.

  “Larsen was a blacksmith at an earlier stage of life. Still has the musculature.” The governor shuddered. “I’ve seen the man. Blood was a laborer. I don’t remember him, but my notes say he was not robust looking.”

  A blacksmith? Charles didn’t like that coincidence, given Mr. Jones’s profession. But he kept this piece of unhelpful information in his thoughts and made a different remark. “Larsen would have known how to remove manacles, as long as he had the equipment available.”

  “But it’s Blood who was seen in Chelsea,” William pointed out. “Therefore, he’s the one who would have needed help from a blacksmith.”

  “What sort of article are you writing? Backgrounds on the men? I don’t have much more for their physical description. Larsen had a beard, but it could be gone now. Blood is said to be unkempt, but that’s no surprise.”

  “Larsen would have an accent, correct?” Charles asked.

  The governor flipped through his paperwork, then picked up his cordial again and drank half of his flute. “Norwegian, this says. Came here as a child.”

  “Anything else useful in your paperwork? Known associates?” William asked.

  “No marriages listed, no children. Parents are likely dead.”

  “Former addresses? Employers?”

  The governor flipped through his papers again. A thick sheet of paper fell out.

  Charles grabbed for it, recognizing it as a portrait. “Is this Larsen?” He held up the rough artwork, that of an old, bearded man with deep pockets of flesh holding small eyes. The subject had round cheeks and a sharp chin.

  The governor poked at the back. “Says it’s Larsen.” He pulled out a second sheet and handed it to William.

  Charles stared at the deeply dissolute face of Ned Blood. The man had a thickly lined forehead, no hair at all, except for the unshaven face, and large piercing eyes. Full lips extended past the facial hair, and as expected, his flesh was molded tightly to his skull. “Where did these sketches come from?” Charles asked.

  “One of the guards fancies himself an artist. He does these while the men pick oakum. The prisoners don’t seem to mind,” the governor answered.

  Charles found that hard to believe. Criminals didn’t want to be identified. “May we take these?”

  “
Yes.”

  “They are very useful,” William said. Charles plucked Blood from William’s hand and tucked both sketches into his largest pocket.

  “I’m glad to be of assistance, gentlemen. Please don’t crucify us. We’re investigating the prison break, and of course, you can understand our need to keep all the details quiet. I can assure the public that the situation is under control.”

  Charles suspected that the governor had no idea how Blood and Larsen had broken free, but he would refrain from criticizing the man to his face. When the governor rose, the journalists did, as well, and the hunched man led them from the office.

  “What are you planning to do with the sketches?” William asked as they were escorted from the house and back into the tunnel to the front gate. “We need to get them back to the office so that they can be reproduced.”

  “It’s late. I’m going to take them to the Jones family and see if they recognize either of these miscreants,” Charles said firmly. “Now that we know Larsen is a blacksmith, this information might shake off some cobwebs at the smithy. Come. Let’s find a hackney and go to our chambers.”

  Chapter 10

  Charles left William at Selwood Terrace and went to the Jones property down the lane.

  In the yard squatted the heart of their operation, the smithy. A square brick chimney poked out of the roof, revealing the position of the forge. Charles had visited the first time shortly after he took his summer rooms, and had seen the prosperous nature of the operation. Quality brickwork, two anvils, a heavy vise and treadle grindstone. The workbenches had been in good repair and covered in tools. He’d seen horses in the stable, ready to be reshod. The property contained two houses behind the smithy. Edmund Jones lived in one, with his sister Hannah tending it, and in the other lived Daniel Jones, with his small family.

  Charles walked past a hired boy chopping wood in front of a lean-to and peered into the smithy. Edmund Jones was bent over the larger of the anvils, shaping a piece of iron over the horn. He looked too busy to be interrupted, and his apprentice had his back to Charles, doing something with a pair of tin shears at a bench.

  Night drew near, and the day had cooled, but the intense heat still broke sweat on Charles’s face just from him hovering at the door. He turned away and went to the larger house.

  When he knocked, he heard fast-running footsteps. Beddie Host opened the door and stared at him, her mouth hanging open.

  “Is your aunt home?” Charles asked. He knew the girl had come to live with the Joneses after her parents died a couple of years before.

  She nodded and gestured him in, then pointed him into a parlor without speaking. The girl ran off. The windows in the house were closed against the wood smoke and still held in the summer heat, though it was pleasant compared to the intensity the forge generated. He smelled dinner, which must have been roast chicken from the coop next to the barn.

  The furnishings were tidy and minimal: a couple of tables, six or seven chairs, and a piano pushed against the wall. Only one painting added character to the abstemious space, but the light wasn’t good enough for Charles to discern what the crudely painted landscape was meant to represent.

  “Mr. Dickens,” exclaimed Addie Jones, coming into the parlor. Her hands were reddened from her day’s labors, but she had removed her apron. Wet streaks formed an oval around where the apron had rested on her skirt. “Do you have news?”

  He nodded. “I have a couple of sketches to show you.”

  “Of what?” She gestured him to one of the austere flat-backed chairs and sat next to him.

  “It turns out there were two escaped convicts last week. I attempted to find a way to spin that tale into something that might persuade the police to set your husband free, but that didn’t do any good. Still, I wanted to see if you recognized either man. Will you take a look?”

  She swallowed, squared her shoulders, and nodded. Beddie ran into the room and leaned against her aunt. Did she ever walk, or only race?

  He retrieved the sketches and held them out to Mrs. Jones. She squinted at first one, then the other.

  “Who’s that?” Beddie asked.

  “Some very bad men, dear. Do they look familiar to you?” he asked.

  Mrs. Jones and her niece both looked blank.

  “It was a long shot,” Charles admitted.

  “I don’t think my husband ever left his bed that night,” Mrs. Jones insisted. “He had nothing to do with the manacles. He did what he ought to have, as a law-abiding citizen.”

  “I understand,” Charles said gently, “but what if you’d seen one of these men in the neighborhood? One of them was seen around here.”

  “I have not seen them,” Mrs. Jones said, tucking a stray hank of her lank brown hair behind her ear.

  He nodded. “Please let me know if some new thought comes to you.”

  “I will, and, Beddie, you do the same,” Mrs. Jones said, putting her arm around the girl. Beddie stared at him while putting a finger in her mouth.

  “Can I show them to your father-in-law and his men?” Charles asked.

  “I’ll take you out there,” Mrs. Jones said, standing up. Holding Beddie’s hand, she walked out the front door and to the wide-open doors at the smithy. All three of the men were inside now. The hired boy stacked wood, and the other two were still at their posts.

  “Father,” Mrs. Jones called. “Can we interrupt?”

  “Not now. I can’t let this cool,” Edmund Jones said, pounding away at the anvil.

  Charles walked over to the hired boy and held out the sketches. “Do either of these men look familiar to you?”

  The boy gawped at him. Charles shook the papers a little. “Can you see them?”

  The boy glanced down. “’Oo are they supposed to be?”

  “Just some men. Seen them hanging around here?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “Thank you.” Charles moved on to the apprentice.

  He had set down his shears and was smoothing out the rough spot on a horseshoe with some sort of square hammer. “Wot’s this about?”

  “Some men. Trying to find out if they’ve been seen around the smithy.” Charles put his sketches under the younger man’s nose.

  The man glanced up and down, up and down. “Sorry, but no. Haven’t seen them.”

  “Very well.” Charles walked back through the shimmering heat until he stood in front of Edmund Jones, who wasn’t nearly as friendly as his son. “It will just take a second, sir.”

  Irritation creased the man’s weathered face, but after a measured pause, he glanced at the sketches. “No. Never seen them.”

  “Are you certain? Should I come back another time?”

  “No, never seen them,” the man repeated.

  “Let’s let them return to their labors,” Mrs. Jones called from the doorway.

  With a sigh, Charles followed her and Beddie back into the yard. No one in the smithy had ceased working for a moment. Edmund Jones ran a tight shop.

  “That’s that, then,” he said, defeated.

  “Why don’t you take them to the vicar?” Mrs. Jones asked. “He should know if we have vagrants around here.”

  “That’s a good suggestion,” Charles said. “I’m sure my newspaper can send reproductions of these images to all the local police stations, and to the Bow Street Runners, so that they are on the lookout. We might not be able to do anything with the sketches, but someone will find them useful.” He patted the child’s head and took his leave.

  When he reached Selwood Terrace, he felt too restless to go in, so he decided to visit the Hogarths. Kate would want to consult with him regarding the murder.

  * * *

  Though the hour was late, summer kept everyone but the youngest children from their beds. In fact, Kate and her father were sitting on a bench in the front garden, while Mary tended to the hollyhocks that grew profusely along their front fence. Though twilight had come on, Charles could still see the vibrant pinks and reds of the flow
ers, and Mary had a ghostly presence in her white summer dress as she cut tall stalks for bouquets.

  As he walked up to the gate, Kate stood and waved, looking sweet in a floral-sprigged pale blue dress with a cunning bodice that made her already slim waist appear tiny. Mary trotted over to open the gate for him. He doffed his hat and bowed with a flourish. “Thank you, Miss Mary Hogarth, and good evening.”

  She curtsied to him, her skirt belling out. “And a good evening to you, sir. I hope you have a treat for us in your pocket.”

  He reached in and pretended to pull out a stick. “One long shard of flavored ice, just for you.”

  She took the pretend stick and licked at it delicately. “Ooh, lemon. My favorite.”

  Kate straightened her skirts and glanced at him expectantly. “Do you have one for me?”

  “Even better.” Charles bent to her cheek and gave her a loud, smacking kiss.

  She giggled. “Why are you here so late?”

  He took the images from his pocket. “William and I had these from the prison governor. These are the missing prisoners.”

  Mary and Kate stared at them for a long moment. Kate clicked her teeth. “It is too bad they are worthless.”

  “Why?” Mary asked. “The artist displays some skill.”

  As Mr. Hogarth came toward them, his pipe smoke perfuming the air, Kate said, “The whiskers are blocking most of the identifying characteristics of the faces.”

  Mr. Hogarth leaned over Kate’s shoulder, then nodded his assent to her words.

  Kate colored slightly and spoke again. “We need to learn who the victim really was.”

  Charles shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. A stranger killed her.”

  “Maybe,” Kate said. “It’s possible. She’s quite a mysterious character, though. We met Mr. Small in the lane when we took a walk earlier this weekend. You remember the St. Luke’s curate?”

  Charles grimaced. The curate tried to wrangle for a dinner invitation at the Hogarths’ table whenever possible. He clearly had feelings for Kate. “And?”

  “Miss Haverstock did not often attend any of the local places of worship. He likes a bit of gossip, does Mr. Small, and he said that no one around here knew her well, not the Methodists or the Hebrews, not anyone.”