Grave Expectations

by Heather Redmond

  Charles kicked leaves over their scribblings and grabbed Kate’s arm. “Let’s go.”

  She broke into a trot alongside him. The azure ribbons that were meant to tie her straw hat around her chin fluttered around her neck and shoulders. By the time they reached the gate and stepped back onto the road, they were both giggling madly.

  Charles stopped and pulled her alongside the outer wall of the burying ground. “You’re so lovely with your cheeks all flushed.”

  She stopped giggling and stared at him, then put her hands to her cheeks. “Oh, Charles, be careful with your money. I don’t want to wait much longer to be yours.”

  He stared into her eyes, feeling like he was falling into the ocean. “Neither do I, Kate. Believe me, I am most sincere.”

  She swallowed. “What should we do now?”

  “Will you come to see Miss Jaggers with me? I saw Mr. Moss this morning, and I want to follow up on what he said about Miss Haverstock’s hatred of foreigners.”

  Her gaze lost a little of its romantic haze. “You think she hated Mr. Larsen?”

  He tapped the elongated tip of her nose. “I do. If I can take some history between them to the police, it might help Mr. Jones. He wasn’t a foreigner.”

  She nodded. “Where does Miss Jaggers live?”

  “It’s a walk. We’ll stop at a cart and have some refreshment. Your parents know you are with me.”

  “Yes. Let’s go. I need to settle my nerves.”

  He grinned at her. Oh, how he understood that feeling.

  They strolled toward Eaton Square, stopping for lemonade at a cart where young children played in the street, next to their dusty parents. Not much of a day of rest for these people. Charles shared a glass with Kate so they wouldn’t arrive at Eaten Mews with a parching thirst, but he didn’t give pennies to the children like he might have if his finances were in better order.

  When they arrived at the house, in honor of the day’s warmth, the retired nanny’s little maid took Charles and Kate to the back garden of the house where Miss Jaggers lodged.

  Miss Jaggers sat in a chair in the center of the small lawn. The young lady wore white yet again and made such a picture she could have been posing for an artist. Gauzy fabric flowed around her limbs when she rose languidly to greet them.

  “Mr. Dickens again,” she sighed in obvious irritation. “And this is?”

  “Miss Catherine Hogarth, my fiancée,” Charles said, defensively putting his hand on Kate’s arm. “You would have seen her at the inquest.”

  She held out her hand to Kate. “Yes. You also discovered Miss Haverstock.”

  “I am so very sorry for your loss, Miss Jaggers,” Kate said with ardent simplicity.

  “Please, have a seat.” Miss Jaggers had been prepared for company. She gestured to a quartet of ironwork chairs on a stone flag terrace just behind the house. They surrounded a matching table. Glasses circled a sweating pitcher filled with something thick and purple. “Would you like to try my lassi?”

  “What is it?” Charles asked, intrigued. He pulled out a seat for Kate, then for Miss Jaggers. Kate and Charles sat.

  “An Indian drink from my childhood. Very refreshing. Made here with berries instead of mango.”

  “I’d love to try it,” Kate said as Charles nodded.

  Miss Jaggers lifted her elegant arm in a bird’s swoop and poured the creamy stuff into two glasses, then filled her own. She perched on the edge of her chair.

  Charles took a sip, then closed his eyes in ecstasy. “I am very tired of lemonade. This is an excellent alternative.”

  Miss Jaggers smiled with her mouth, her eyes narrowed as she watched Kate take a sip.

  “How delicious,” Kate exclaimed. “My, what an unusual beverage. Charles said you’d come from India.”

  “Yes, for my education.” Miss Jaggers regarded Kate over her cup rim with suspicion. Charles had the sudden notion that she wasn’t a girl who liked other girls.

  “I spoke to Prince Moss,” Charles said. “He seems an admirable young man.”

  “He has goals for himself,” Miss Jaggers opined.

  Unusual ones, for the swain of a lady like Miss Jaggers. Their conversation had boiled down to little but this. “He said that Miss Haverstock hated immigrants and expected to meet her death from one someday.”

  Miss Jaggers set down her glass. “She grew up in quite a rough neighborhood. I think she had trouble with the other children.”

  “Tormented for her religion?” Charles suggested.

  “Tormented by her religion, more like,” Miss Jaggers sniffed.

  “What do you mean?” Kate asked as Charles’s brows rose.

  Miss Jagger’s perfect chin went up. “I know rather a lot about my foster mother, things I haven’t revealed, because they didn’t seem relevant. But if you say this escaped convict may have been someone she knew long ago, maybe I was wrong to keep her history to myself.”

  “Please, do explain,” Charles urged.

  Miss Jaggers spread her fingers over the ends of her armrests. “Miss Haverstock married her husband in order to escape an arranged marriage with a fellow Hebrew.”

  “Surely you can’t convert on a whim,” Kate said.

  “She studied with a curate during the period of her engagement to a foreign-born Jewish man. As you probably know, the Hebrew people have vast networks across nations, formed by blood. They all seem to be related much more closely than Christians. When she was able, she converted to Christianity out of disgust with her family.”

  “I wonder if Osvald Larsen is a Hebrew,” Kate said. “Surely they must know at the prison.”

  Charles had read over the prison documents at Coldbath Fields. He closed his eyes, attempting to remember his review of the material. Seconds ticked by, punctuated by the clinking of glasses, birdcalls, rustling grass. Disappointment filled his thoughts when he remembered the relevant information. “No, he’s not a Hebrew, on the paperwork at least.” He opened his eyes again.

  Kate frowned. “The wedding was obviously a pivotal issue in Miss Haverstock’s life. Who would she have worn that dress for now?”

  Charles suggested, “The man she jilted?”

  “Not Larsen,” Kate pointed out. “Not Blood?”

  Charles said, “No, he isn’t Hebrew, either, and too young besides.”

  Miss Jaggers rubbed her upper lip. “So neither of them killed her?”

  Charles ran his tongue over his teeth. “Perhaps not. The convicts may be a dead end. We need to dig deeply into her past. Miss Hogarth urged me to do this some time ago, and I was set on the convicts being responsible.”

  “I don’t know any of the names,” Miss Jaggers said, sounding plaintive for the first time. “I’m related to her husband, remember.”

  “It’s time to find the Adams family,” Kate said soberly.

  Charles rose. “We should leave Miss Jaggers to her garden. Unless you know any Hebrews in Limehouse?”

  Miss Jaggers’s delicate eyebrows arched. “I don’t know anyone in Limehouse at all.”

  “The Haverstocks were from Limehouse,” Charles reminded her.

  She waved an elegant hand as Kate rose. “Not in my generation.”

  Charles inclined his head. “Thank you for that taste of India.”

  “Yes. It was delightful,” Kate said.

  Charles steered Kate around the side of the house, where a freshly painted wooden gate let them back onto the street.

  “We know one other Jewish person,” Kate said. “Maybe he can help us figure out where to go next.”

  “Who?” His thoughts went to Breese, but Kate surprised him.

  “Reuben Solomon, the old-clothes man. You seemed fascinated by him that day we sold the clothing.” Kate took his arm. She seemed exhausted by the heat and clung to him.

  He pulled her down the street. “We wouldn’t be able to see him today.”

  “No, we’ll have to go there in the morning, on your way in to work again.”


  “Do we have anything to sell him?” Charles said, not wanting to face the penetrating gaze of Mr. Solomon again. “Otherwise we are wasting his time.”

  “We could sell him the dreidel charm, perhaps.”

  “You don’t want it?”

  “I’m not sure I want anything of Miss Haverstock’s, to be honest.” She shuddered. “Murder. I find it a fascinating puzzle, and I can lean on my faith to get through someone dying, but the way she looked when we found her . . . Oh, Charles. She’s someone we took tea with.”

  He squeezed her hand against his body, thinking how far off from death it seemed here, in this neat mews behind a great square, on a dusty, sleepy Sunday afternoon. “Forget, Kate. It’s all we can do.”

  She nodded. “I’ll bring you something to eat in the morning, and we’ll go into London to sell the charm.”

  Charles calculated the expense of the hackney into London. Kate would never be willing to walk that distance. It would cut drastically into his food budget for the week. He and Fred would have to eat trotters and eels instead of meat pies. But it was all in the service of Mrs. Jones and her poor family. Still, how long would he have to wait to make Kate his own?

  Chapter 17

  The next morning, he and Kate alighted from an unusually clean hackney on the corner of Middlesex Street.

  Sunday’s peace was broken by the cacophony of Monday. Wagons rattled in the street, the horses plodding along, raising clouds of dust, which caused people to cough and hack. Street sellers hawked their breakfast wares, rolls and fruit, ham sandwiches and coffee. People tore at the clothes hanging on the stalls, and doors slammed against brick, then closed again as people came in and out of the buildings behind the stalls.

  They ducked under a procession of men’s tailcoats hanging on a clothesline and found Reuben Solomon at his same bench, with the familiar women against the wall of the building, hiding in the shade.

  Mr. Solomon wore a frock coat instead of his previous long black coat and was counting buttons into a wooden box. They waited until he had finished muttering Hebrew numbers and had set down his handful of buttons before they spoke.

  “Back again?” he asked when they greeted him, his dark eyes raking over Charles.

  Charles straightened, then gestured to Kate, who held out the dreidel on its chain. She had repaired the clasp.

  Mr. Solomon’s expression softened as he took it from her. “Very nice. A bat mitzvah gift, perhaps.”

  “It belonged to my friend who died. I purchased it,” Charles explained.

  Mr. Solomon let the dreidel dance in front of his eyes. “You don’t want to keep it as a keepsake?”

  Kate shuddered. “It was in the room where she died, for days with the body.”

  Mr. Solomon shook his head sadly. “She was not buried within a day of her death?”

  Charles shook his head. “She was murdered, and besides, she had converted to Christianity. Jewish rituals might have been inappropriate.”

  Mr. Solomon raised his bushy eyebrows. “Then perhaps this token no longer meant anything to her.”

  Charles pulled the old wedding ring from his pocket. “We have this, as well.”

  “I am not the right person to sell these items to,” Mr. Solomon said, handing the charm back to him. “I deal only in clothing.”

  “Ah, I apologize,” Charles said, placing the ring back in his pocket.

  “Can we ask you a question?” Kate asked. “Before we go?”

  The corners of Mr. Solomon’s eyes crinkled. “What is it, child?”

  “How can we find any Hebrews called Adams?”

  He rubbed his beard. “Do you have any idea where she came from? Check with the burial grounds there.”

  Charles waited but the old clothes man offered nothing more. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Solomon.”

  “I can recommend Mr. Levy, the pawnbroker, for your jewelry,” Mr. Solomon added. “Near the docks in Limehouse.”

  “That’s where Backy Adams came from, Limehouse. She converted to marry someone other than the man her family had chosen.” Kate nodded as Charles expounded.

  The old man glanced through the hanging clothes at clouds moving across the blue sky. “My family has lived in London for a hundred years, but people who come from other places have sometimes endured the most terrible things. This girl who ran away from her family may have had a good reason to do so.”

  “She did end up a murder victim,” Kate said soberly.

  Mr. Solomon nodded. “Beware. You could find yourselves on a deadly path yourselves.”

  “We cannot quit,” Charles said. “A good man’s life is at stake. I must find out what happened so that we can free him from Newgate.”

  “An admirable quest,” Mr. Solomon said. “But this lovely creature at your side will miss you if you become a desperate man’s next victim.”

  Kate frowned at the old man. “He will be careful.”

  The old man spoke to one of the women against the wall. She walked back into the building. “This woman who died, what sort of person was she?”

  “Very retiring,” Charles said. “She saw her neighbors, the blacksmith’s family down the lane, and her foster daughter. I had lived there only a few weeks before her death, but I saw no one else.”

  “Then the danger is very close, Mr. Dickens,” the old man said. “You know the person who killed her. There are not many to choose from.”

  “But the wedding dress,” Kate said. “It’s important.”

  “Perhaps,” said the man.

  “It’s not so simple,” Charles explained. “There are escaped convicts, and manacles were found nearby.”

  The old man coughed. “You believe, therefore, that a man escaped prison and somehow got word to this retiring woman, and she dressed in her old wedding gown to greet him, and then he killed her?”

  “Yes,” Charles said after a pause. “Or at least, I did.”

  Kate nodded.

  The old man’s lips curved. “Oy vey, what a tangle.”

  “We should go,” Charles said. “I need to be at work.”

  Mr. Solomon inclined his head. “Then I will pray your quest is successful.”

  They walked out from behind the clothesline. Everything was brighter and busier on the other side.

  “I am frustrated by old men,” Charles muttered.

  “I agree that was frustrating,” Kate said, trailing alongside Charles as he walked toward the Chronicle’s offices. “We have a perfectly good theory, and he thought it was silly.”

  “I feel like yelling at someone,” Charles said.

  “Who?”

  “I have a good candidate. I want to give Mr. Ferazzi a piece of my mind. His Mr. Nickerson threatened my family’s lodging in that other building. I’m not happy that we’ve all been targeted, and I want Mr. Ferazzi to know what is going on. I do not want to take on the additional expense of helping my family move.”

  “No, that would delay our wedding even more. Have they found a new tenant for the rooms above you?” Kate asked.

  “No. Maybe that is at the heart of his thieving from me.”

  “Maybe Mr. Nickerson is acting on his own,” Kate said with grisly relish. “After you tell Mr. Ferazzi what happened, a constable will discover the rent-taker’s body in the Thames.”

  “I just want to ensure that my mother and siblings will not end up on the streets.” Charles coughed as carriage wheels raised a cloud of dust just in front of him. “It is going to be a busy week.”

  * * *

  Charles, still with a head of steam, planned to go to Mr. Ferazzi’s office after he was done at the Chronicle for the day. Unfortunately, he had left no money with Fred and couldn’t leave his brother hungry.

  He sidetracked to the Apple Tree, a pub on Fulham Road, and downed a bowl of stew, then asked to borrow the bowl and have it refilled with stew to take to his brother. He was waiting for the refill when he saw Mr. Ferazzi himself enter, accompanied by two men similar to him in age a
nd clothing. His gaze narrowed as he considered how to approach the landlord and his hands clenched. Time to release some frustration.

  “Mr. Ferazzi,” Charles said in a confident tone, walking up to him.

  The landlord looked down his long razor of a nose at him. “Yes?”

  “Charles Dickens, with the Chronicle,” he said, each word measured. “I would like to speak to you about your employee Mr. Nickerson’s extortion and threats.”

  “Go along, gentlemen, and I’ll be with you momentarily,” Mr. Ferazzi said to his companions. Their gazes drifted over Charles as they walked past him and went up the stairs to the second level. “Now, what is this about?”

  “I’m your tenant at Selwood Terrace.”

  “Ah,” he said dismissively. “You’d have to speak to Mr. Nickerson. I’m not that involved.”

  “You are involved enough to be involved in cleaning out rooms,” Charles reminded him.

  “I am a busy man,” Mr. Ferazzi said impatiently. “If you think Mr. Nickerson has committed a crime, please speak to the authorities.”

  “He’s your employee and follows you like a dog,” Charles snapped. “Did you order Mr. Nickerson to steal my rental agreement or commit the robberies at Selwood Terrace before the murder? Did you order the murder?”

  “You belong in Bedlam, sir.” Mr. Ferazzi sniffed. “I shall call the authorities on you. After all, as you have told me, I know where you live.”

  “Did you know Miss Haverstock?” Charles demanded. The two men at the table alongside him got up and left the pub. “Did you rob her, the way I was robbed? Did she try to stop you?”

  “I don’t know any of my tenants personally,” he snapped. “I’m not a killer.”

  “Does murder happen often in your properties?” Charles asked, attempting a quieter tone, before one of the other customers called for a constable.

  The landlord fingered his mustache. “I have owned property for twenty years, Mr. Dickens. Everything that can happen has happened.”

  “Can I quote you on that, sir?” Remembering the power of the press, Charles pulled a piece of paper from his pocket.

  “I’ll have your position, sir, and your rooms. I can terminate your rental.”

  “The same tactic as your employee uses,” Charles growled. “You are a criminal, sir, and I will have justice.”