Grave Expectations

by Heather Redmond

  “I agree,” Charles said. “Boy, have you ever seen anyone at the second warehouse from the right?”

  The boy glanced up at the row of warehouses, then shook his head. “This morning a boy came by and looked around, but ’e left.”

  “That would be Prince Moss, Miss Jaggers’s special friend. He said he’d check on them this morning, but I’ve had no opportunity to talk to him again.”

  Constable Blight nodded at the foreman, and he and Charles strode back up to the row of warehouses. They went to the one that must be Miss Haverstock’s.

  “Odd that she’d choose to store her goods so close to the river.” The constable took a look at the hefty and rather fresh-looking lock holding the main door closed. “Easy to move from here. There’s no sign of damage.”

  “Any windows?”

  The constable raised his eyebrows, his dark under-eye circles deepening, and then they walked around the perimeter of the building. There were windows, though they were covered over from the inside. “We won’t be able to get any of them open except in the back,” he said. “Do you know anyone who has the keys?”

  “Her solicitor? Miss Jaggers herself? Though it didn’t sound promising,” Charles mused.

  Constable Blight smirked and pulled a long, thin tool from inside his reinforced coat and set to work on the window facing toward the road. “See if you can find stones or something so we can climb up there more easily.”

  Chapter 18

  Charles wandered around the back of the warehouses, breathing shallowly through his mouth. The weeds smelled of spilled beer and urine, mixed with the stench of the river.

  He found discarded crates in pieces but then saw a barrel that looked intact. When he pulled it over, he found the top was uncovered and it smelled worse than vomit, but the bottom seemed sturdy. He rolled it over to the Haverstock warehouse.

  “I’ll hold on to you when you climb up,” Charles said to the constable. “Just in case it doesn’t take your weight.”

  “It will be the other way around,” Constable Blight said. “You’re much lighter than I am.”

  “Very well.” Charles took off his fine frock coat and set it over some clean-looking rocks. After taking the constable’s hand, he climbed on the barrel and lifted the window.

  “Are you going to be able to see?” the constable asked.

  “Not without pulling the paper off the windows,” Charles said. He knelt on the sill and looked down, hoping to see where it might be safe to put his feet. It didn’t seem like there was anything just below the window, so he turned over and cautiously let himself down.

  His shoes touched wood. He turned around, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness, then ripped off a strip of the paper covering the window. Once they did, he was unable to believe what he was seeing. “Well, if that isn’t butter upon bacon.”

  “Hold.” The constable spoke from outside.

  Charles heard the man grunt as he climbed onto the barrel, then let himself inside. Charles stepped aside so that Blight didn’t drop onto him.

  “There’s a bloody mansion’s worth of furnishings in here,” Constable Blight said after an awed pause to contemplate the glorious mess.

  Charles edged along the wall, hoping to reach the next window and pull off the paper. When he achieved his goal, he found himself in front of a ghostly sheet-covered expanse. After dislodging spiderwebs as he cautiously lifted the sheet, he found an array of silver candelabras.

  The constable had gone in the opposite direction. More rays of light appeared. The constable exclaimed as he lifted a sheet. “Old paintings.”

  They walked along the perimeter in opposite directions, gently lifting glued-on paper from the lower parts of the windows and exposing the glory of Miss Haverstock’s possessions.

  “You know what this means?” Charles said when they met again back at the opened window.

  “What?”

  “Miss Jaggers is an heiress.”

  Constable Blight coughed. “I expect you are right.”

  “You need to arrest her.”

  “Why?”

  Charles lifted his eyebrows. “For the murder of Miss Haverstock.”

  “Why again?”

  “Because she hid the existence of all this valuable property. Surely Miss Jaggers’s culpability is more likely than a convict’s, when there was no sign of forced entry to Miss Haverstock’s rooms.”

  The constable stiffened at the mention of the lady’s name. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I can. Miss Jaggers is a very cold and superior sort of person, and I expect she wanted her inheritance sooner rather than later.”

  Constable Blight shifted from side to side as Charles continued. “Which means the manacles in the Jones smithy are meaningless to the murder.” Charles said these words with satisfaction, feeling as though he’d solved the case.

  The constable frowned. “I’ll take the matter to my superiors, but we can’t go about arresting women willy-nilly. You are sure that these items once belonged to Miss Haverstock and were not simply in her trust from Miss Jaggers’s family? She is an orphan, correct?”

  “My impression is that these items indeed belonged to the old lady.” Charles pointed the constable toward the selection of candelabras. Once the man stood in front of them, Charles reached through a couple of tarnished three-pronged candle-holders to the candelabra he’d spotted before. He tugged it forward, dislodging spiders’ webs.

  “It has nine lamps,” Constable Blight said. “What a waste of candles.”

  “It’s a menorah,” Charles explained. “It’s Jewish, just like Miss Haverstock. Miss Jaggers’s family is not Jewish, so these must be Miss Haverstock’s own possessions.”

  Constable Blight ran his fingers over the ornate branches of the candelabra. “This must be worth hundreds of pounds. I wonder where it came from.”

  Charles pulled out his handkerchief and rubbed at the base. “It’s good silver.”

  The constable wrapped his fingers around the base of the candelabra to pick it up. “Bloody—” He drew back his hand. One of the branch tendrils had cut into the base of his thumb. A thick drop of blood welled up, then dripped into his palm.

  “More blood spilled for these treasures,” Charles murmured. “Come. Let’s clean that up before it gets infected.”

  * * *

  Charles arrived at the Hogarths an hour later, so pleased with his solution to the murder that he couldn’t wait until a more suitable hour to call on his fiancée. Kate would not be pleased if he waited to tell her about the warehouse. The fact that he’d seen no sign of the missing convict in the vicinity made it all the more implausible that he had anything to do with the murder.

  The sun had almost vanished on the horizon, and the Hogarths had gone inside. However, he could see lights behind gauzy summer curtains in the windows, so he rapped on the door.

  Mr. Hogarth answered, peering out. Pipe smoke rose behind him, presumably from his hidden hand. “Charles! What brings ye by at this time of night?”

  “I think I know who killed Miss Haverstock,” he exclaimed.

  “Excellent news,” Mr. Hogarth said. “Kate is reading in my study.”

  Charles stepped in and shut the door behind him, then followed Mr. Hogarth. Kate sat at a chair in front of her father’s desk, reading a magazine by candlelight.

  He took her hand. “Great news, darling girl. I’ve solved the murder!”

  Mary tumbled into the room, pulling her dressing gown around her shoulders. “What’s the news?”

  Charles grinned at Mary. She perched herself on the edge of the desk and looked at him expectantly.

  He drummed on the desk. “Ladies and gentleman, I present a killer to you!”

  “Who is it, Charles?” Kate asked.

  “Miss Evelina Jaggers, late of India. Age seventeen and already a cold-blooded killer,” he said dramatically.

  “Miss Evelina Jaggers,” Mr. Hogarth said thoughtfully. “Ye don’t say.”
r />   “I find that entirely shocking,” Kate said.

  “Thrilling,” Mary insisted, clapping her hands with glee. “How clever you are, Charles. How did you figure it out? Is she in Newgate? Will she be hanged?”

  “I went to see Prince Moss again after I discovered a Susan Moss had been buried near an assortment of Adamses in East London. It was a long shot,” he said modestly, “but I had to do something.”

  Mary leaned forward. “What did you learn?”

  “He is related to Miss Haverstock,” Charles said. “Which he had lied about earlier. He admitted that his very eccentric relative had a warehouse of items intended as Miss Jaggers’s dowry. I thought the murder might have occurred because Osvald Larsen or Reggie Nickerson knew she was wealthy and he wanted to steal her goods. So I collected Constable Blight, and we went to the warehouse, and . . .”

  “And?” Kate prompted.

  He grinned. “She was a wealthy woman. Miss Jaggers was an heiress, but with no access to the material goods until her foster mother passed.”

  “So ye think Miss Jaggers killed her foster mother to gain access to what?” Mr. Hogarth asked.

  “Fine furnishings, silver objects, paintings.” Charles ticked them off on his fingers. “Trunks rested along the walls. I don’t know what is in them. The sun was going down.”

  Kate cleared her throat. “Surely slight Miss Jaggers didn’t strangle her foster mother, then lift her onto a stool and drive a corkscrew into her neck.”

  Charles listened, then shook his head. “People can do amazing things under stress. Presumably, she wants to marry Prince Moss and wants her goods. Maybe Prince Moss killed her.”

  “He didn’t look very strong to me, either,” Kate said.

  “He’s a farmer,” Charles protested.

  “Maybe they hired someone,” Mr. Hogarth said. “Like these escaped villains.”

  Charles waved his hands. “Don’t even think it, sir. If we can connect the crime to Miss Jaggers or even Mr. Moss, or to them both, can’t you see that it ought to lead to freeing Daniel Jones, which is why we were originally involved?”

  “That doesn’t mean you can think carelessly,” Kate chided. “You have a rather implausible version of the murder.”

  “You see a pretty face and can’t imagine the evil underneath,” Charles snapped.

  “I have no trouble seeing past a pretty face, Charles,” Kate said calmly. “I appreciate that you can see past one, as well, believe me. But I don’t think you’ve proven that Osvald Larsen is unconnected to the situation.”

  “Blast it,” Charles muttered. “Why must it be so complicated to free Daniel Jones?”

  “Because the strong arm of the law does not readily give back that which it has captured,” Mr. Hogarth said. “No, Charles, I do not think ye are going to be successful with this quest. I am sorry for the Jones family, verra sorry.”

  “I will leave you, as the hour grows late.” Charles sighed. “Thank you for hearing out my theory. We shall see what the police do with it.”

  “It’s a very good find, Charles,” Mary said. “You’ve done wonders, and I am sure you are right in the main, regardless of who actually killed her.”

  He saluted her, then bent and kissed Kate on the cheek. “You will be coming into the office late tomorrow afternoon, correct? We planned on attending the Colosseum Pleasure Dome opening?”

  “I’m coming in with Father in the morning,” Kate said. “I shall do some shopping for Mother and then meet you at the end of your workday.”

  “Very well. Good night, everyone.” He walked out, stiff backed. Mrs. Hogarth came into the passage, but he merely sketched a wave before he departed the house, in too much agony of feeling to do more. He knew Kate must develop her own theory of the murder, but he preferred his own.

  * * *

  Charles had forgiven Kate for her lack of support by the time he went to Mr. Hogarth’s office to pick her up late Wednesday afternoon. She would come around in time, after the police proved their case. Someday Kate would shriek and turn away from the newspaper in which Charles’s account of Miss Jaggers’s grisly death from hanging appeared.

  His breath left his chest when he saw Kate leaning against her father’s shoulder as they both read something at his desk. She wore a walking dress, primarily of blue silk, with a white underskirt showing out of a triangular opening in the front. A pretty lace kerchief lay across the soft skin of her throat, and a cunning pink ribbon was tied in a bow over the lace. It matched the strings of her straw summer bonnet. She also had her hair tied up in ribbons, so that a bow lay across her hair, just under the place where the straw kissed her scalp.

  “My goodness, you are a fetching portrait,” Charles exclaimed.

  Kate giggled as he kissed her hand. “La, sir, the things you say.”

  “She is ready for the fete,” Mr. Hogarth said proudly. “I don’t know that ye do her justice, Charles.”

  He knew Kate’s father was joking, because he looked rather fine himself in cream trousers and a perfectly brushed black coat. William had helped him tidy up the sleeves, and he’d tied a fresh white neckerchief around his neck just now. His jaunty waistcoat had been cut from blue silk. “I think we match, sir.”

  Mr. Hogarth glanced at the waistcoat. “I see that ye do. Well, off ye go, the pair of ye, and don’t forget to return and bring the article.”

  * * *

  The Colosseum hulked at the east end of Regent’s Park.

  “Do you feel like you are in Rome?” Charles asked as they walked up the side of the long promenade, along with hundreds of others. Carriages filled the center of the drive as Londoners streamed toward the grand fete in the glorious sixteen-sided space of the large building.

  “I certainly feel like I am somewhere special,” Kate replied. “What a glorious night.” She smiled at a little girl, her face covered with the sticky remains of an icy treat as she clutched at her fingers ahead of them.

  Though as an attraction it had never been terribly successful, the cement-over-brick Colosseum looked astonishingly lovely with the summer rays hitting it, creating a golden hue on what was supposed to resemble white stone in the manner of the Roman Parthenon.

  “I’ve always wanted to see the massive painting inside,” Kate continued. “Have you seen it?”

  “Oh yes,” he assured her. “All three-hundred-sixty degrees.”

  “What is the perspective supposed to be?” she asked.

  “It’s the view of London from the top of the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral some dozen or so years ago,” Charles explained. “One of those examples of artistry that, while a great achievement, was ruinous for so many involved in the financial sense.”

  “What do you think of it, then?” she asked as they came up along the side of the polyhedron-shaped building. “Should the project never have been attempted?”

  “They should have reduced the scale to something manageable,” he said. “Some of the backers had to flee to America to avoid being thrown into debtor’s prison. They never were able to enjoy their achievement.”

  “I expect most people are happy to see what is in front of their noses, rather than a view from a bird’s perspective. Maybe people aren’t even meant to see things like this.”

  Charles considered her words. Was she offering him a warning about seeing what was only in front of his nose, like his quest to have Miss Jaggers arrested? He knew with sickening clarity that she’d been right that he hadn’t done enough to free Mr. Jones with his theory. If only he had the bird’s eye view of Miss Haverstock’s murder. “You are wise, Kate. I will consider what you say.”

  She smiled gently, squeezing his arm, but her attention had shifted to a group of youths wandering through the crowd, tripping into each other as they sipped from flasks. Mostly, he enjoyed seeing the people milling around, but he could do without the rowdy boys, who were too callow to enjoy paintings, anyway.

  “Flare-up!” one of them, a tender young dandy with flopping sa
ndy hair who’d lost his hat, called in a high-pitched voice, lifting his flask. “Flare-up, you Englishmen!”

  His friends chortled and tipped back their flasks for another libation. Charles could smell the fumes coming off them from earlier drinks and spills.

  The tender youth’s generously girthed companion tripped into another young man, perhaps one of a rival group of dandies. The rival youth, resplendent in a purple-checked waistcoat and a cream suit, snapped, “Not to cut it too fat, but just to throw in a bit of lean to make weight.” He pushed against the round youth.

  Kate jerked as the round dandy flung the contents of his flask at his rival. The rival threw a punch. Charles winced as the seam of the round dandy’s coat ripped at the shoulder. He pulled Kate away from the combatants, then found himself face-to-face with Prince Moss.

  Charles froze as he looked at the young farmer in front of Kate. His clothing was rougher than that of the other youths; his looks were more refined; his years, even more tender. And he was not alone.

  “Miss Jaggers,” Kate gasped.

  For Miss Jaggers stood next to her young swain.

  Charles blinked, disbelieving that he hadn’t seen her right away, in her filmy white skirts and lacy bodice, an emerald-green ribbon tied around her neck in a manner similar to Kate’s pink one. If it weren’t for that ribbon, he’d think her a ghost, a figment of his imagination. Blast the police for not listening to him. Just because her arrest wouldn’t clear Daniel Jones didn’t mean she wasn’t guilty.

  “H-how pleasant to see you again,” Kate stuttered.

  The stunning Miss Jaggers said not a word. She merely inclined her head to Kate in regal fashion and floated past them. Prince Moss smiled faintly at Charles and moved in her wake.

  Charles stared as they walked away in finery instead of chains. He took Kate’s arm and pulled her up the walkway, under the huge Doric columns. “All this grandeur in London and no justice,” he hissed.

  “They can’t simply arrest her on your say-so,” Kate said. “She’s a gentlewoman. It’s a terribly awkward situation, and I’m still not sure she did it.”

  “They should have taken some action,” Charles said, following the crowd. “I’d follow them if you weren’t with me.”