Ferazzi looked over his head. “If I see one constable at my chambers, I will send my men to evict you, your family, and all your friends. If you’ll excuse me.” He moved toward the steps.
“Who killed Miss Haverstock?” Charles yelled at his back.
Mr. Ferazzi remained cool, no hint of a reaction in his body language as he went to the stairs.
Just then, the barmaid walked into the dining room with Charles’s second bowl of stew, a clean cloth laid over it. She had not heard the fight, but the man behind the bar gave him a long hard stare.
“Thank you,” Charles said, taking the bowl. He had to feed his family, rather than his ire. He’d had no satisfaction from the man, only threats. What would it take to prove Nickerson or Ferazzi or both were stealing from tenants? “I’ll bring the bowl back.”
He walked back to Selwood Terrace, careful not to spill his bowl of stew, his thoughts churning unproductively. Miss Haverstock didn’t die in the commission of a robbery. Her home had been full of her personal belongings when he and Kate had entered. Why had he thrown her death into his attack on the landlord? He’d just made things worse.
Breese, arriving from the opposite direction, met him in front of their door.
“How kind,” he exclaimed with a twinkle in his eye. “To bring me dinner.”
“It’s Fred’s,” Charles explained. “But I’ll buy you a libation if you help me with something.”
“Of course.” Breese patted his stomach.
The front door opened. Fred stood in the doorway, his hands on his hips. “My belly is touching my backbone, Charles.”
Charles handed him the bowl. “Here you go. Take the bowl back to the Apple Tree when you are done.”
“This isn’t going to be enough,” Fred complained as he took it.
Charles fished in his pocket and gave him a few coins. His brother snatched them and went back inside their rooms.
“Tight on funds?” Breese asked.
“That song saved me,” Charles admitted.
“Buy me a drink and we’ll work on another song,” Breese offered.
“Of course,” Charles agreed. “I need to distract myself and coins are hard to come by.”
“What is troubling you?”
“I had a confrontation with our landlord, but it got me nowhere.”
“You are at their mercy if you don’t protect yourself,” Breese suggested.
Charles rubbed his temples. “You are right. I need to let it go until I have secured more funds.”
The songwriter waited.
Charles forced his thoughts along another path. He still needed to solve the murder. Daniel Jones must be his top priority, not a crooked rent-taker. “I had a question for you. Do you know where the Hebrews who live in Limehouse might be buried?”
“I’m familiar with the cemetery at Brady Street,” Breese said thoughtfully. “Would that do?”
“I don’t know. I’ve learned that Miss Haverstock was originally Backy Adams. I want to find someone who knew her as a child and might have some insight into Osvald Larsen, who I believe knew her.” Whether or not he was the murderer. How many fiancés might Miss Haverstock had had when she was young?
“Then why do you want to look at graves?”
“I thought I might find some likely names. I asked a Jewish old-clothes man in Petticoat Lane, but he didn’t know anyone named Adams. I’m sure you’re right. It is a silly idea.”
“It’s actually not terrible,” Breese said. “Some of those stones have where people lived, the names of those that erected them, that sort of thing. It just seems that there must be a different way.”
“She isolated herself from her former life, yet it seems that is what killed her,” Charles said.
“It’s a pleasant night,” Breese said. “Why not walk over there? It’s always quiet in a burial ground, and we had luck working in one before.”
“I have paper and a pencil,” Charles said.
“So do I.” They set off together.
When they reached the main street leading into London, they had the luck to happen onto an omnibus and soon found themselves heading into Whitechapel. More walking, but eventually they arrived outside the leafy walled environment of the Brady Street burial ground.
The spiked iron gate wasn’t locked, so they were able to step right in. Charles saw a vast cluster of gravestones of many different types, from short little stubs of stone to large monuments. “It looks rather full.”
“I believe we want to avoid the south side. That has the oldest graves, and we want ones from when?”
“The last fifty years,” Charles said. “If we could find her parents maybe or siblings?”
“Very well. Looking for Adams.” Breese wandered through the uneven clusters of graves, muttering snatches of poetry as he went.
Charles stopped at a vault. A number of stones had been placed on top of the stone surface. “What’s this?” he asked.
“The stones are a gesture of respect in the Jewish community,” Breese said. He walked around the vault. “Ah, here’s the inscription. This vault holds a rabbi.”
“I left a stone for you, but you weren’t buried there,” Charles intoned.
“They staked you at the crossroad, but your heart is where?” Breese added with a chuckle. “Sounds like a very bad murder story that a street seller would have on hand. I prefer songs I can sell to the theaters.” He walked down a row of graves on the opposite side of the rabbi’s memorial.
“Fair enough,” Charles said.
“Here we are,” Breese called. “One Thomas Adams, of Limehouse. Died eighteen twelve.”
Charles walked around the rabbi’s vault and perambulated through the area Breese had found. “Here’s another. Next to Hurwitz. This is Dr. Abram Adams, died eighteen twenty-two.”
“Was her father a doctor?”
“I have no idea,” Charles said. “She’s a mystery. Let’s keep looking.”
Breese walked down the row. “Adams again, a Simon this time. Just died three years ago.”
“I find it hard to believe that these wouldn’t be her relatives. What other names are mixed in?”
“Levy, Hart.” Breese’s voice became harder to hear as he walked farther down the row. “Abraham, Moss—”
“Wait. What was that last one?”
“Moss. Susan Moss. Died five years ago.” Breese looked up from the gravestone.
Charles lifted a finger emphatically. “We know a Moss—Prince Moss. Miss Jaggers’s friend. She is a relative of Miss Haverstock’s late husband. What do you want to bet that Prince Moss is a relative of hers?” Although the boy had claimed he didn’t know Miss Haverstock well. He knew the youth had hid something.
“Have you asked him about Larsen?” Breese asked, crouching down to pick up a pebble.
“Yes. He assumed Larsen was the killer, because I told him that the man was a foreigner, but he didn’t volunteer anything else.”
“It’s almost as if the young people in her life don’t care that she was murdered,” Breese suggested. “Which sends me down the path of another murder ballad. No more graveyards for a while. Take me to a public house, and let’s enjoy some drunken men singing songs. That will put us in the right mood.”
“I apologize, Breese, but I don’t want to waste another minute of Daniel Jones’s life. Can you go see young Moss with me first?”
“As long as you give over to me after that.” Breese dropped the pebble on Susan Moss’s grave and walked back to him.
“Of course, my friend.” Charles followed him as he wound his way out of the cemetery.
When they reached the crumbling house, where Prince Moss lived Charles bypassed it, shielding his eyes with his hat from the slowly lowering sun. He suspected Prince Moss was in his beloved field still, since farmers didn’t like to waste light.
“Is that him?” Breese asked. He looked unfavorably at the edge of the field. “My city shoes are going to be even dustier.”
&n
bsp; “Turn that into a song,” Charles suggested. As Breese muttered rhyme schemes at his back, Charles stepped into the field.
Prince Moss indeed had decided to use what sun remained. He had gloves on and was dropping weeds into a bucket as Charles approached him.
“You again, Mr. Dickens?” Prince Moss asked, shading his eyes with his hand as he glanced up.
“I felt like you had more to offer,” Charles said. “Are you related to a Susan Moss who died five years ago?”
“My mother,” the youth said. “Why?”
“I’m guessing you are related to the former Backy Adams?”
Prince Moss chuckled, his nostrils flaring with each hard laugh. “You figured it out. She was my mother’s cousin. But I really did not know her well. And I had nothing to do with her death.”
“What am I missing?” Charles asked, relieved to have solved one mystery. “I have her firmly placed in Limehouse, along with Larsen, who I assume was a Jew hater, given his treatment of the little girl Goldy in the article I read.”
“She wasn’t some poor girl,” Moss said. “Her father was a doctor, a very old-fashioned sort of man.”
They had found Dr. Abram Adams’s grave. “Hence the arranged marriage.”
“Yes. But Cousin Backy left her family to marry a man of business who had a very wealthy client. He speculated on banks and canals and had an uncanny way of getting his money out before things failed.”
“Who was the arranged marriage with?”
“I don’t know,” he said with disinterest.
“Think,” Charles insisted.
Really,” Prince Moss exclaimed. “It was before I was born. I’m only nineteen.”
Charles’s jaw didn’t want to form the words. “Then we will continue. Miss Haverstock was wealthy?”
Prince Moss sighed. “There is a warehouse full of property that Cousin Backy said was Miss Jaggers’s dowry.”
“Just portable property? Why did she live in two rented rooms? Why didn’t she admit to having been married?”
“I told you she was afraid of foreigners.”
“You think she was in hiding?”
Prince Moss shrugged. “She was eccentric. You knew her. She obviously had a reason to be afraid, given what happened. Not too many quiet widows are murdered.”
“No,” Charles agreed. “What else are you not telling me?”
“She deserves to have her privacy respected. What does any of this have to do with saving your Mr. Jones?” the youth demanded.
“I’m trying to understand her connection to Osvald Larsen,” Charles explained. “Believe me, I’m confused myself, but someone put a magazine under my door, revealing a story about a long ago murder Larsen was involved in. Since Larsen is an immigrant, he isn’t going to have much of a trail. Was he of the Jewish faith? Was he after her fortune? Did he know the Jones family?”
Prince Moss shrugged. “I need to finish my weeding before the sun goes down.”
“Where is this warehouse?” Charles demanded. What if Ferrari or Nickerson had learned about her goods? They were greedy enough to rob the dead. Maybe the murder did revolve around an attempted robbery after all. They could have ignored the modest goods of her chambers for the richer pickings of the warehouse.
The youth stared at a tendril of weed sticking to his coarse trousers. “Down at the lower end of King’s Road. There are warehouses between there and the wharfs.”
“Can you be more specific?” Charles asked.
The lad gritted his teeth. “Milman’s Street. The end of there, along the river.”
“Did Miss Jaggers have the contents of this warehouse under her control before Miss Haverstock died?”
Prince Moss shook his head. “No. But she’s just seventeen. She isn’t ready to marry, yet. If anything goes missing, I’ll hold you to blame.”
“I’m hoping to protect Miss Jaggers’s property from our greedy landlord,” Charles snapped. “I’m not the criminal here. Come with me if you like.”
The youth glanced between him and Breese. “Not tonight. I mean, it won’t be safe. It’s too close to the river. How about in the morning?”
“I have to work,” Charles said. “Why don’t you check on it in the morning? I will attempt to interest the police as soon as I am free tomorrow.”
The boy nodded. “I’ll do what I can.”
* * *
Charles went to a political meeting the next morning and wrote up his notes in a jolting coach on the way back to Chelsea, trying to save time. He jumped off the coach at the inn nearest to the police station, then turned up his collar against an unexpected summer rainfall.
The sergeant on duty laughed when he asked for Constable Blight. “Blight’s just brought in a drunk. Sick all over him. A dandy like yourself won’t appreciate the smell.”
Blight walked into the lobby just then, his clothing wet with stains. “Mr. Dickens, what is it now?”
Charles cataloged the dark circles under the man’s eyes. Either he had a new baby or the police were working him to death. His hair hadn’t fallen out from stress, though. The coarse dark locks twisted every which way as they sprawled out from his hat.
“Do you have time to go to a warehouse down by the river with me?” Charles asked.
The constable folded his arms across his chest. “Why?”
“It belonged to Miss Haverstock. I’m concerned about the safety of the contents.”
“What’s in it?”
“Goods meant for Miss Jaggers. Dowry items, supposedly.”
The constable’s eyes narrowed. “You’re hoping robbery was a motive for her death?”
“It is a good motive. We know there were robberies in the neighborhood before the murder,” Charles explained.
“Why don’t you let Sir Silas handle this? You’re just a reporter.”
“The police have custody of Ned Blood and Daniel Jones. Sir Silas can’t fully investigate the case as a result.”
Constable Blight sighed and turned to the sergeant. “Do I need to get back to my beat, or will you allow this? He won’t be able to get in without me.”
“I’d be happy to never see the likes of him again.” The sergeant stuck a tattered cigar into the side of his mouth. “Let this be the last time I see your face, Mr. Dickens.”
Charles nodded, feigning sincerity.
The constable gestured toward the door. “After you.”
Charles walked out, calling behind him. “Rough day?”
“The rain will help.” The constable reached him and scratched his broad nose, as if rubbing his nostrils might make them smaller. “Or I can pour a bucket over myself from a trough. In this weather my clothes will dry, or they would if it stops raining.”
“Messy business, your line of work.”
The constable nodded. “It’s a hard life, being with the police, but better than the army. My grandfather died fighting Napoleon, and my father spent years in India.”
“I like London too much to go far,” Charles said. “I have to travel for work, but never for more than a few days.”
“I don’t have your learning,” Constable Blight admitted. “But I do enjoy reading the Chronicle. There’s usually a copy or two lying about the station by the end of the day that I can take to the pub while I eat my dinner.”
They discussed the newspaper, stopping just once at a hackney stand, and with the waterman’s permission, the constable had poured a bucket of brackish water down his trousers, attempting to clean off the worst of the drunk’s emissions. After that he’d become a more pleasant companion.
When they reached Milman’s Street, they headed south toward the river. The houses became smaller cottages, then wrecks of cottages, then warehouses along the riverbank. The rank summer smell of the great river finally overpowered the man’s odiferous clothing.
“Which warehouse?” the constable asked.
“I’m not sure. I guess it could be any of these four,” Charles said.
The cons
table lifted his hand over his head and shook his rattle. “If any of my brothers are walking the beat here, this will bring them. Let’s go down to the wharf and see if anyone knows the answer.”
They walked across the foreshore to the rickety wharf that stretched into the Thames. Men were loading barrels onto rowboats, which then delivered the goods to larger boats anchored deeper in the water. Constable Blight seemed to grow taller as he took on an air of authority.
He pointed to a man who was standing at the end of the dock with papers in his hand. Though not dressed like a gentleman, he seemed to be in charge.
The constable waved and caught the man’s attention. He came down the wharf toward them.
“Do you work among these warehouses?” the constable demanded.
“I do, Constable.” The man’s rabbity front teeth clicked nervously. “Is there a problem?”
“We’re looking for the one rented by a Haverstock family. Any notion?”
The foreman pointed up the foreshore, his fingers black with grease and dirt. “It’s not the second from the left. That belongs to my master. The one on the end on the right belongs to a brewery. That’s all I know.”
“Thank you,” the constable said. “Any idea who might be able to identify the others?”
The foreman glanced around. “Eh.” He turned in a circle, then suddenly called out, “Micky, me laddie.” He pointed at a scrawny, barefoot boy talking to one of the laborers.
The boy glanced up and slowly finished his conversation, then came to them at a dawdling pace. “Wot?”
“You’ve worked for the people who own the warehouse on the left, haven’t you? Who are they?”
The boy rubbed his nose with a ragged sleeve. “Wot’s it to you?”
The foreman turned to the constable and shrugged.
With a roll of his eyes, the constable smacked the back of the boy’s head. “You know what I am? I’m the police. Answer the question, or I’ll clap you in Newgate.”
The boy’s eyes turned into little moons. “I don’t know, sir. ’E’s called No-nose, on account of the damage.”
Constable Blight glanced at Charles. “It’s got to be the other one, no?”
Grave Expectations Page 20