“Am I going with you to the river?” Fred asked.
“No. They can be a mercurial lot,” Charles said. “And it’s dangerous. Look what happened to Little Ollie.”
“He’s lucky,” Fred said, a serious expression on his face. “You always say education is important, and he wouldn’t have one if not for this. He’ll probably live much longer.”
“If he recovers completely,” Charles agreed. “Some people, though, they don’t want to leave what they know. All our mudlarks could have been moved on by now, thanks to our charity, and all of them chose to stay.”
“They don’t have anyone to guide them,” Fred said.
“At least ours are a nicer bunch than Pietro, Osvald, Edmund, and Hannah,” Charles mused.
Fred had read the magazine article, too. “They were savages. But Edmund and Hannah turned out well enough, didn’t they?”
“I don’t really know. Maybe Edmund did help with the manacles.”
“I expect it was Edmund who helped Osvald Larsen,” Fred agreed. “And then he died for his sins.”
“If that’s true, then why does everyone else have to suffer, too?”
“That I don’t know,” Fred said before draining his mug. “I’m not much for theology.”
Charles chuckled. “I’m more interested in people, anyway.”
“Maybe you’ll find something by the bridge,” Fred said. “You’ve got a good eye.”
“I never keep what little I find down there. I give it to the mudlarks or bargain with them. So there’s no point in me searching.”
“It’s too bad we stopped finding coins,” Fred said.
“I suspect we found the contents of someone’s dropped purse, rather than an actual buried stash,” Charles said. “Still, we had fun searching for them last winter. But I think my income is very sufficient to our needs, once we return to one set of rooms. I’ll save up quickly and be able to wed, and you’ll start contributing to the household, too.”
“I’ll never go hungry again,” Fred said.
Charles ruffled his hair. “You never go hungry now, except when I forget to feed you.”
Fred pushed back his chair. “I suppose I’ll go to Bloomsbury tonight. Father will have all the papers, and I can start to see what sorts of positions are available. I’ll see you on Sunday?”
“If you like,” Charles said. “I will be writing most of the weekend. I have a lot of catching up to do.”
They left the pub and walked into London. Charles was footsore by the time he left his brother on Bloomsbury Street and headed toward the river.
When he made his way down to the foreshore, he saw the little cluster of mudlarks bent over, staring at what the river had tossed up for them that evening.
Poor John had outstripped Lucy Fair in height over the past couple of months, though Brother Second still lagged behind, and the new child, Cousin Arthur, was only half Poor John’s size. He had acquired a bucket, however, maybe Ollie’s, to help him in his search for goods.
He heard the child chortle as he lifted a nice bit of coal from the rocky surface.
Lucy Fair stood, stretched her back, and saw Charles. He waved and walked down toward them.
“Did Ollie go to Harrow?” she asked.
“It’s possible,” Charles said. “I haven’t seen William today. I was out of town myself.”
She sighed, then retucked her hem into her leather belt, to keep the fabric dry. “Will he thrive there?”
Charles kept his gaze on her face. She was coming to the age where she couldn’t risk continuing to expose her ankles like this. “Mr. Aga will take good care of him. It’s not like Ollie is going to live with complete strangers.”
She shook her head. “I’m glad I learned how to read, but I can’t understand the point of the rest of it.”
Charles picked up a piece of metal that glinted on the beach and showed it to her. “This is why. To you, this is just a hunk of metal. But I know it’s a military badge.”
“How?”
“See? It sort of looks like part of a coin, but do you see the letters? W-a-t-e-r-l?”
“Yes, I see them.”
“I bet this was something very precious once. The word was Waterloo once, but it was cut up somehow, and this part of the bottom was lost.”
She shrugged. “It’s not precious now, unless the metal is worth something.”
He handed it to her, and she dropped it into her bucket. “Why are you here tonight?”
“I’m desperate to find Osvald Larsen. He grew up playing on the river. He has no connection to shipping that I know of.”
“In Limehouse, right?” she asked, bending down again.
Charles nodded. “He was a blacksmith and a thief. The other escaped convict has been found, so I think that means Larsen has better contacts. Of course, he’s also older and had a proper trade.”
“I wonder why he became a criminal,” Lucy Fair mused.
“I don’t know, except he helped accidentally kill a girl when he was around your age. Poor John knows the story.”
“I’ve heard it, too. They stuck her in a barrel that went out into the river. That would mark a person who cared about others,” she said slowly. “But other sorts of people would shrug it off as an accident, and it wouldn’t trouble them a bit.”
“Something about that past clung to these people, because they seem to have still been connected some fifty years later.”
Her poking dislodged something. She picked it up and showed him a small pipe, then gently set it in her bucket. “Maybe they were all related? Cousins?”
“No, that isn’t the case,” Charles said. “Good idea, though.”
“Maybe that wasn’t the only death,” she said. “Maybe Osvald Larsen knows the others’ secrets. It has to be like that, doesn’t it? Why would anyone help an escaped prisoner? It’s very dangerous.”
“An excellent question.” They heard shouts behind a large rock, and Brother Second held something up in the air. “Edmund Jones might have been forced to help him, because he had a son who is a good man, and he didn’t want his son to know. But if Pietro Ferazzi helped him, a man who doesn’t have any family, what was the reason for that?”
When Charles and Lucy Fair reached the other children, they saw the prize was a gold ring.
“I saw it on a dead cat!” Brother Second crowed triumphantly. “It was caught in its fur.”
Charles stepped away from the sad corpse.
Poor John clapped the younger boy on the shoulder. “You’ll get a pretty penny for that, eh, Lucy Fair?”
“Absolutely.” She took the ring and added it to the strip of leather she had tied around her neck. “Anyone find anything else?”
Cousin Arthur held up a pipe. “It’s old, but it’s perfect. And five lumps of coal.”
Charles held out his hand for the pipe. “I’ll buy it as a gift for my fiancée’s father,” he said. He haggled with the children, then passed over coins in good humor. But what had really been helpful this evening was talking over his problems with Lucy Fair.
* * *
“It’s been days and days,” Kate said to Charles as they walked down the front path from her house to her garden gate. She straightened her gloves and fixed her straw bonnet.
“I’m here now,” Charles said in an apologetic tone. “Ready to discuss the situation with the missing Osvald Larsen.”
“Do you have news?” Kate asked, shading her eyes as she checked out the sky.
Though there were a few clouds, the sky was as bright blue as it ever blazed above London. Kate adjusted her bonnet again, and Charles tipped his hat lower over his brow.
“I spoke to the mudlarks last night, and Lucy Fair had an interesting question.”
“What was that?” Kate asked, a touch of sourness in her voice.
“She asked why anyone would help an escaped prisoner,” Charles explained, craning his neck to see the gate of the Jewish burial ground as the passed by. This time, the gat
e was not open in welcome.
“It’s a good question, given the danger,” Kate mused.
“Exactly. Why would Edmund Jones help Larsen with his manacles? Why would Pietro Ferazzi hide him?”
“Why are you so sure he is?” Kate countered.
“Because Larsen hasn’t been found, and Ned Blood has.”
“He could be anywhere.”
“No,” Charles said, gesturing grandly around the street. “He’s been a Londoner since childhood. Anyone he knows in the entire country is right here. He’s not leaving the streets he knows, and who better than his old friends Edmund, Hannah, and Pietro to help him?”
“Pietro?”
“Pietro Ferazzi,” he said.
“Oh. You have learned some things since I saw you last,” Kate admitted. “Are those the names from that old magazine?”
“Yes, or close enough. The article had child’s nicknames, but they all match to the people we know. In order to figure it out, we went to Ferazzi’s house,” Charles said.
“You and Lucy Fair?”
“No, I went with the Agas.”
“Ah.” She kicked at a pebble, raising a cloud of dust, then sneezed.
Charles sighed. “My dear, I do think there is something you should know about Julie Aga.”
Kate pinched her nostrils. “What?”
“Everything has been a bit strange with her for months, but I finally found out why.”
“Did her mother persuade all the theater managers in London not to hire her?” Kate lifted her brows.
“No,” Charles said. “She lost a baby. I didn’t know. I’m sure she doesn’t want to discuss it.”
Kate stopped dead on the street. “A baby? How is that possible?”
“Shhh,” Charles said, noticing that an elderly couple, moving very slowly, had managed to listen to their every word. He tipped his hat to them and watched as they passed at a snail’s pace.
To their left, a nanny came out the front door of a terrace house, holding the hands of two small children. The little girl might have been dressed in a miniature of Kate’s clothes, with gloves, ribbon-trimmed straw bonnet, and floaty cream dress all the same.
Kate’s expression softened as she looked at the children. “Soon,” she murmured, squeezing Charles’s arm.
“Soon,” he agreed.
“How did Julie Aga manage to lose a baby when she’s been married only three months and a couple of weeks?” Kate demanded, going flinty around the eyes.
Charles glanced away. “I don’t like to tell you this, but she did disappear at one point when she was my maid of all work, and we discovered she had stayed with William.”
“Charles,” Kate shrieked. “And you continued to see her?”
“They swore their innocence. You remember what last winter was like. Don’t forget she almost died.”
“Good gracious,” Kate said, her gloves going to her lips. “She must have been expecting when she was pushed down those stairs.”
“No wonder she lost the baby,” Charles said. “I am sorry that happened to her. Some women can move on, but for others, it is very hard. One has to lean on one’s faith, and I don’t know that Mrs. Aga has had a proper religious education.”
“I now have the sense that William kept her from the stage deliberately, so that she could recover her health.” Kate made a frustrated noise. “I hope she can return soon, so she doesn’t create more mischief.”
Charles agreed, remembering Julie’s claims that William was off drinking when he was merely away for business. “I think it would be good for her to have work in the evenings. The life of a reporter sends William away all too often.”
Kate took the opportunity to have a poke at him. “Must you work so hard?”
He nodded adamantly. “It is the job. We are paid well for it.”
“Yes,” Kate murmured, “but—”
“Charles!”
The houses were behind them, and they were now in an area with shops. They had just passed a pub, and a cobbler’s shop had come up on their left, with an assortment of repaired shoes that had never been collected exhibited in the window.
Charles turned around, back toward the voice. It had come from the pub. Breese stood in the doorway, waving his hand. Charles turned Kate around, and they retraced their steps.
“Good evening, Breese. Having a jolly time?” Charles asked.
Breese grinned. “This is where a couple of composer friends of mine spend time.” He fished in his pocket and pulled out a handful of coins, then counted some into Charles’s hand. “I told you I had the song sold. Here is your take.”
Kate’s eyes widened.
“See, darling, I told you I’d catch up quickly,” Charles said, pocketing the coins. “Thank you, Breese. Enjoy your fun.”
“Oh, yes,” Breese said. “I deserve a break. What about you?”
“I wrote all day. One of my sketches. I had an article to finish for another little magazine, as well. Every little bit helps to refill the coffers.”
“Then we m-must work together again soon,” Breese said, slurring a bit.
“Of course. Kate and I were just going for a walk. We thought we might visit with my sisters.”
“I saw William in here a couple of hours ago. Have you been home? He said there was big news about our landlord.” Breese threw his arms up in the air.
“What is it?” Charles asked.
“Did you know that the Jones family didn’t own their houses or the smithy?”
“Mrs. Jones said as much,” Charles said. “Why?”
“Mr. Ferazzi owns the smithy, not the Jones family.”
Kate gasped. “Do you think Larsen is hiding on that property?”
“I wonder,” Charles mused. “It’s empty now, and he is a blacksmith.”
Breese blinked, then straightened his body. “We should inves-investigate,” he suggested.
“We should,” Charles agreed. “Kate, darling, do you mind if I take you home instead of going to Bloomsbury?”
“I can go with you,” she suggested.
“To find a murderer? Your father would insist we break off our engagement immediately if he found out.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Larsen’s a dangerous man, darling. Think about what he did to poor Miss Haverstock.” He slid his finger under her chin. “You know I can’t live without you, my sweet. Let’s take you home.”
She shuddered. “Very well, but if there wasn’t anyone else, I would go with you, Charles. I’d even hold a weapon.”
“I know you would.” He kissed her cheek. “Darling Kate.”
“We are inves-investigating?” Breese demanded as Kate smiled into Charles’s eyes.
“Get back to your rooms,” Charles said. “Drink coffee. I’ll take Kate home and then be along. We’ll gather up William, if he’s home.”
“But not Julie,” Kate said tartly.
“Of course not. I know the Joneses took some of the fittings from the smithy, but I’m sure there are quite a few dangerous metal objects about. There is no place for a woman in this search.”
“And not Fred, either,” Kate added.
“No, not Fred,” Charles agreed.
Breese seemed to have dozed off against the pub door. His eyes were half closed, showing a disquieting sliver of white between the lids and the under-eye area.
“Breese!” Charles called.
He jerked up like a marionette, all bending legs and flailing arms. “Yes, yes, I’m here.”
“Coffee.” Charles pushed him into the pub and waved toward the bar. “Coffee, then home.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Breese gave him a mock salute, then staggered toward the bar.
“He’s not going to be good for anything for a while,” Kate observed.
“It might be best if we do our search later in the day, anyhow.”
“Shouldn’t you bring in the police?”
“I’ll have time to look for a constable,” Charles sai
d, promising nothing.
* * *
By the time Breese was sober enough to walk in a straight line, the clock at St. Luke’s had chimed seven times and was about ready to resound across the parish again. Charles stood from Breese’s piano bench in the songwriter’s rooms when the man pulled the damp towel from his head and yawned.
“Maybe we should forgo the pleasure of your company,” William said, setting down the deck of cards he’d been toying with, a pint of ale at his elbow.
“No, I’m fine. Forty winks did me good,” Breese said. He stretched his arms over his head and yawned again. “Do either of you have weapons? It doesn’t escape me that we intend to search for a man who may have killed an elderly lady.”
Charles and William glanced at each other. “I hadn’t really thought about that,” Charles admitted. He remembered what Kate had wanted him to promise. “I suppose we should find a constable first.”
“Gather up a few sharp sticks and we’ll be as well armed as a constable,” William said. “I actually have a truncheon upstairs, but if I go up there, Julie will start begging to join us.”
“No women,” Charles insisted. “I told Kate she couldn’t come. I jokingly told her she could join us for a consultation after our investigation.”
“Right, because sweet, well-bred Miss Hogarth will climb down a trellis and come to visit you in the dead of night,” William said sourly.
“She’s no Julie,” Charles admitted. “But we weren’t looking for the same thing in a wife.”
“No,” William said.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you had to marry?” Charles asked.
William’s normally open countenance shuttered. “I can’t say that I did.”
“But—”
“But nothing,” William interrupted. “Not everything is your business, Charles.”
Charles did math in his head again. He was certain that he was right about when Julie must have conceived, and that it wasn’t after the wedding, but these things did happen all the time. It was simply that he didn’t like to be misled.
Breese scratched the top of his head. “I shall venture to the necessary, gentlemen, and then be ready to go.”
Charles nodded and retied his neckerchief, which he had loosened after it chafed his neck.
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