Sir Silas tapped his fingers on the mantel. “Keep interviewing people who knew the victim. You may find a connection yet. It will help the court, if not Mr. Jones.”
“That is my only reason for continuing with my research,” Charles explained.
The coroner’s brow creased. “Don’t you want the murderer hanged? The victim was your friend.”
“Miss Haverstock is dead. The Jones family is feeling the pain of their victimhood now. They could lose everything.”
“You still must persist, in the hope that it can somehow help them,” Sir Silas said. He clapped his hands together. “Now, I have an engagement, Mr. Dickens. I wish you the best of luck.”
Charles followed him out of the room and back into the entryway. The valet settled the cloak over Sir Silas’s shoulders.
“The carriage is outside, my lord,” the footman intoned.
Charles realized that Sir Silas was actually a baronet, rather than just a knight. He must have a hereditary title. That explained the house, probably built by his grandfather.
Not that Charles cared. These rich people could not possibly understand how close to disaster a family like the Joneses could be. He followed the coroner to the street and refused the offer of a ride. The streets called to him on this fine night. He needed to think.
He left Sloane Square and walked through the heart of privilege in Belgravia, then along to the parks around Buckingham Palace. Feeling hungry, and grateful that he had some coin again, he paid for a dish of shellfish and some ginger beer. More than an hour later, as the sun began to descend in the sky, he found himself at the former site of the Eleanor Cross, which then became the hanging ground for the executioners of Charles I and now sported a decaying statue of that long dead king.
The bareheaded king sat on a fine Flemish horse. Some of his equipage was missing now, stolen a quarter century ago, but the king still looked on peaceably enough. No hint of the man’s mortally foolish obstinacy showed in his calm features. His inability to bend had cost him his life.
Charles stared up at his namesake, wondering what his own faults had cost him. They would cost him Kate soon if he continued to allow Julie Aga and his father to run roughshod over his life. He had to stop defending her to his fiancée, and he had to have a large enough income to fend off his father’s woes. Even if his impulse to spend was different from his father’s, with him giving in to charitable needs rather than to endless bottles of wine, he still found himself with empty pockets rather than full ones.
He needed to be smarter, too, to guard his valuables from thieves like Reggie Nickerson. It had cost him dearly to lose his rental agreement. He must remember to be more careful, more diligent. Somehow, he needed to work harder and sleep less. The best daylight of the year had just passed, and he needed to rise with the sun each morning and go to his work, write more articles, more sketches, more songs. More letters, too, as he needed to build more useful friendships, seize more opportunities.
If Charles I had been friendly instead of quarrelsome, he might have lived. He’d had a difficult childhood, an unpopular marriage, and religious beliefs that did not mix well with the times. Success was built with mainstream beliefs, the support of others, a good wife.
“You are a lesson of what not to do,” Charles called up to the statue, imagining his words bouncing off the brass.
He turned away and started the long walk home, making mental lists of whom to see, whom to write to, ideas for sketches. If world domination could be enacted on thought alone, he’d surely be king of England himself by the end of the night.
* * *
The next morning, he woke Fred, instead of the other way around. He found a note in the parlor that William had pushed under his door in response to his own note tucked under the Agas’ door during the night. It contained Prince Moss’s address. He and Fred went to Bloomsbury for church and a meal with the entire Dickens family. Charles saw his sisters, Fanny and Letitia, with their beaus, happy to see that his improvident father hadn’t ruined the relationships, not yet at least.
As soon as their roast and summer vegetable meal had been eaten, Charles excused himself to follow up on the address he’d received.
Prince Moss lived near Miss Jaggers in a crumbling old house alongside a market garden. Charles banged on the front door. His knock seemed to shake the entire listing wooden structure. Instead of anyone opening the door, a window opened on the first story. Bits of debris rained down on Charles’s head, part of the structure holding the window into the wall, no doubt. He blinked something out of his eye as an old woman shrieked at him.
“Is Mr. Moss home?” Charles shouted.
“Wot’s that?” the woman asked, holding a gnarled hand to her ear.
“Prince Moss,” Charles yelled. He heard a window open in the next old house, as his loud voice had disrupted the neighborhood.
Her face contorted as her mouth opened, displaying the remains of a couple of rotted teeth. “’E’s in the garden.”
“Thank you.”
“Wot’s that?” she cried, putting her hand to her ear again.
Charles waved to her and turned away. The garden, a large plot that perhaps the inmates of the house farmed as tenants to a great lord, started behind an outhouse that smelled so badly that Charles had to pinch his nostrils shut with his fingers.
Grateful to reach the garden with its more agreeable odors, he walked down bare dirt paths between plantings. Beans were trellised on one side, blocking the view of the road. On his other side sprawled a vast bed of cucumbers.
A carrot suddenly sounded like the most delicious treat in the world to him. His fingers itched to pull one up by its curly top when he saw them over the cucumber vines. Then he spotted a youth bent over lettuces in the distance.
Prince Moss had not been well dressed at the inquest, but now he looked like a farmer. He wore thick boots, trousers and a waistcoat of cloth that could have been used to bag potatoes, and a dusty neckerchief. Had the dainty Evelina Jaggers of Eaton Mews ever seen her swain like this? Charles doubted it.
“Mr. Moss,” he called, heading toward the lettuces.
The youth straightened, then stretched his back with his fists pressed against his kidneys. “Yes?”
“I’m Charles Dickens. I was Miss Haverstock’s downstairs neighbor.”
Prince Moss pushed his straw hat back out of his eyes, then reached down and picked up a stone jug half-filled with water. He spoke after wiping his mouth with his hand. “I remember seeing you at the inquest.”
“I’m following up with everyone who seemed to be involved, because Daniel Jones is still in Newgate.”
“That’s the blacksmith who was arrested?”
“Yes, and a gentler soul you never met.”
Prince Moss set down his jug. “If he helped the killer escape prison, it hardly matters.”
Charles wiped sweat from his eyes. “I don’t think there is any need to assume he did. Osvald Larsen was a blacksmith and could have removed the manacles himself after breaking into the smithy for tools. I don’t know if you heard that there were two escaped convicts.”
The youth shrugged. “It’s no problem of mine.”
“It’s a great injustice to the Jones family,” Charles insisted. “They are losing everything.”
Prince Moss spit in the dirt. “Are they locals?”
“I believe so. Why?” Charles had the sense that most of his attention was outside of this conversation.
The lad squinted at the horizon. “She had a hatred of foreigners and always thought one would get her in the end.”
Chapter 16
Charles tilted his hat to hide his eyes from the sun. Heat seemed to rise from the earth, and he wished he had his own stone jug. “Why?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Dickens,” Prince Moss said without looking at him. “Miss Jaggers took me to tea with her foster mother a few times, but I never really spoke to her myself. I might have been able to say if something was stolen from her sitting room, ha
ving been there a few times, but solving her murder is beyond me.”
Charles could not help but think the lad hid something. Would praising him help to loosen his tongue? “You have the air of an educated young man, despite these humble surroundings. You must have some suggestion to make.”
Prince Moss smiled for the first time, still staring at his boots. “I’m interested in improving crops. It’s a passion of mine. I’d rather spend my time in a garden than in a countinghouse, save up to buy land of my own.”
Frustrated, Charles shifted the conversation in the right direction. “Does Miss Jaggers share your passion?”
“She’s as ornamental as any rose.” He picked up his jug again. “As long as the dirt is gone from under my fingernails when I go to see her, she doesn’t mind.”
Charles nodded. “Did Miss Haverstock speak specifically about any enemies?”
“Of course not. She was a retiring old woman.”
Charles’s gaze followed a trail of moisture as the lad drank. “Did she and Miss Jaggers have a good relationship?”
“The best.” Prince Moss set down his jug again. “Only love between them.”
Charles, finding that hard to believe when one was such a coldly beautiful young lady, pressed on. “And you? You were a suitable friend in Miss Haverstock’s eyes?”
“She never expressed any concern. I can assure you that neither Miss Jaggers nor myself had any part of her death.”
“I suppose Miss Jaggers has sufficient funds from her parents’ estate?”
Prince Moss finally met his gaze. “She is in no need.”
“Thank you.” Charles turned away before the young man spoke again.
“Were either of the escaped convicts foreigners?”
Charles glanced back. “Yes. Larsen, the blacksmith.”
Prince Moss picked up his hoe. “It will be him who did it, then. Will the police find him?”
“They found Ned Blood,” Charles said. “So there’s hope.” He saluted the boy and waded back into the carrot patch, then the cucumber patch, thinking it wasn’t a bad way to live, in the summer at least.
As the heat of the afternoon began to fade a bit, he drifted toward the Hogarth home. He hadn’t seen Kate for a couple of days, and they needed to speak.
Mary opened the front door when he knocked. Her face looked flushed, like she’d been working hard.
“Are you well?” Charles asked.
“I was just chasing the twins,” Mary explained. “They were trying to pull baby apples from the trees in the orchard.”
“Ah,” Charles said. “The little ones don’t have labors to rest from on the Sabbath.”
“Indeed not. Kate is in the kitchen. I’ll get her.” Mary started to shut the door, then opened it again with a grin. “Come in, Charles.”
“I’ll wait out here,” he said. “It’s pleasant.”
She shut the door completely, and he went to sit in one of the chairs the family had placed in the front garden, a sweetly relaxing place. He tilted his hat over his eyes and closed them, wondering if he could wring another sketch about parish life out of an incident he’d witnessed at church this morning between a very old woman and her young grandson, an impoverished curate.
“Charles?”
He blinked, then sat up straight when he realized Kate stood in front of him, dreamy eyed, in a short-sleeved blue dress and a lacy shawl.
“I’m sorry, my darling. I must have nodded off there for a minute,” he said.
She held a glass of lemonade out to him. “You should drink this. Your face is damp with sweat.”
He wiped it with a handkerchief, then took the glass and downed the contents in one long gulp. “Thank you. That was perfect.”
“Did you want something?” Her voice had a tenuous quality. “I’ve put up some more strawberry jam with the last of the harvest.”
“I always love your jam. I thought we could take a walk,” he suggested. “It is Sunday afternoon.”
“Yes. Mother said I could, as long as I’m home for dinner. The little ones have been crazed today.”
“It’s the heat,” Charles said, rising. He set his glass on the seat and offered her his arm, glad that she had not refused him.
She smiled and took it. They walked down the path toward her front gate, then headed down the dusty street.
“Look,” Kate said. “The cemetery gate is open.”
Charles glanced at the entrance to the Jewish burial ground. Kate was right. “It’s very peaceful,” he said.
“Can we walk there? I’d like to see inside.”
He nodded. “Just be ready to leave if we’re caught. The rabbi doesn’t like interlopers.”
She put a finger to her lips and smiled.
They walked through the gate and down the main lane. Kate’s head swiveled back and forth as, wide eyed, she took in the exotic gravestones. Charles saw that the remaining leaves from last fall had returned to dust in the heat. Now the parts of the burial ground that weren’t grassed over were gray with leafy remains.
Kate stopped under a tree’s shadow and let out a long sigh. “It’s lovely here.”
Charles smiled at her, then leaned against the tree. After a moment, he took her hand between his. “Kate?”
“Yes, Charles?”
“I’m sorry if it ever seems like I am choosing Julie Aga over you. That is never, ever the case. I’m so grateful for your maturity and gentle good sense.”
“She has a way of rattling your nerves,” Kate said.
“She knows how to bend me to her will, for short periods, at any rate.”
“How?”
“I believe she knows how to tug at my heartstrings. And she’s not beyond lying or stealing.”
“It’s unfortunate that Mr. Aga married her. I think you will not be able to stay friendly with him forever.”
He didn’t expect to stay a newspaperman forever. “Perhaps not.”
“Mrs. Aga has a very uncertain temperament, and she will create problems for him, probably in his professional life, as well.”
Charles didn’t want to speculate, so he changed the subject. “I am a very good reporter, one of the best.”
She nodded enthusiastically, also happy to move away from an uncomfortable subject. “So Father says, and Mr. Black, as well, when he comes for dinner. They are full of praise for you as the most accurate taker of shorthand in the business.”
Charles puffed up a bit. “That is good for us. But I won’t be a reporter forever. I’m out of town too often. You won’t want that when we are married.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“I want to do two things. One is refocus on the law. The other is keep building relationships with like-minded men and see where that takes me. After all, I would not be at the Chronicle if not for my uncle.”
She used the toe of her boot to scratch a C in the dirt, then a K next to it. “Do you have time to read the law?”
He added a heart between the two initials. “Not right now, certainly. But after we are married. I know your father went from the law to journalism, but that was in Edinburgh, not here. And I was a law clerk once upon a time.”
She grinned at his heart. “You are a very good writer, Charles. Your sketches are so funny. You shouldn’t give them up.”
“Thank you. It turns out I can cowrite quite a good song, as well. That has saved my finances this week.”
“Did you sort out your problem with the rent?”
“The agreement was stolen,” Charles explained. “I would never have lost such a document, but it is no longer in my possession. I believe Mr. Nickerson searched my rooms when they were clearing out Miss Haverstock’s space, and then took advantage of the situation.”
“So now what?”
“I lost a fair amount of coin due to irregularities with my father’s rent. But I proved to my satisfaction that I did not owe any money on my own rent.”
“Oh, Charles.” She blew out a breath, then picked up
a stick and started to inscribe his last name under their initials. “I’m sorry.”
He stared at a pair of stones with matching engravings. A married couple, perhaps? They were weathering together for eternity. “I have a responsibility for my siblings and mother. I’m sorry that this will put our wedding back a bit. It won’t be Christmas, I’m afraid.”
She focused on her stick writing. “Because you have to pay your father’s debts?”
He touched her arm. “I’m sorry, darling, so sorry. I wanted to see more of you, so I took on the expense of these extra rooms for the summer, but it seems it’s brought us little but grief.”
She hid her face from him. “You work much too hard.”
“I have to, as you have seen,” Charles said. “It’s all for our future. I’ll be more careful now with my charitable impulses, and I’ll make sure you come first. It won’t be so much longer. Just a few months. I’ll be able to save fast once I am back in Furnival’s Inn.”
“I know you will, Charles.” She forced a smile, but her lips trembled. “But it is hard to wait to be your wife.”
Her emotion pleased him. He didn’t want to wait any longer than she did. “I know. Engagements aren’t supposed to last so long.”
She dropped her stick and buried her face in the crook of his shoulder. He put his arms around her, loosely, just in case the rabbi came upon them. But when she let her soft cheek drift up his jaw, he couldn’t help but turn so that his mouth met hers.
Her lips parted, and he took her mouth in a kiss unlike any they had ever experienced together before. He tasted the gingersnaps on her breath and felt the hard pearls of her teeth against his tongue. Heaven.
An amused voice broke their reverie.
“Have you lost your mind?”
Kate broke away from him, her lips swollen and reddened. Charles could feel his heart pounding, and his arms ached to hold her again.
“Breese,” he panted, catching sight of his neighbor, dressed like a summer dandy, complete with new straw hat and silver-tipped walking stick.
Breese lowered his voice. “I just saw the rabbi. He’ll be here in a minute. You’d better leave, unless you plan to convert to Judaism.”
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