Kate reached out a hand as if to catch or console the old gentleman, but he was too far up the stairs.
“Watch yourself,” Charles called, reaching a hand through the railing. He only brushed Mr. Screws’s trousers before he returned to his doorway.
“Halt,” the constable commanded. “ ’Oo does this ’ere body belong to?”
Emmanuel Screws froze. After a moment’s pause, his shoulders went back and he sneered, an expression that seemed habitual on his worn face. “Jacob Harley, constable. My business partner.”
Charles could well believe that both men were the same age. While the living man seemed familiar to him, the dead one caused no pang of memory.
The constable pulled his single-bladed oak rattle from its particular uniform pocket. He moved into the street, lifted it skyward, and spun it to summon other peelers nearby.
At the sound of the whirring clicks of the rattle, the warmly clad solicitor slunk backward down the pavement toward his home. Charles didn’t call attention to the man since he had been unlikely to be involved.
“Can I tell you what we saw?” he asked the constable. “I’m Charles Dickens of the Morning Chronicle and my fiancée is very chilled.”
“I’m fine,” Kate insisted. Indeed, her body vibrated with excitement under her cloak. Her love of mystery had reared its head. She stared up at Mr. Screws, hovering on his front step. “Was anyone in the house other than your business partner? Mr. Screws? Do you have a cook? A valet? A maid? Dinner guests?”
The constable put up his hand. “Why don’t you go into the house, miss? You don’t need to see down ’ere.”
“We aren’t guests of Mr. Screws,” Charles interjected. He displayed the worn top hat in his hand. “We were caroling outside his front door, collecting for charity.”
“We were singing ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’ when the man fell out of the window,” Kate added helpfully.
“Just the pair of you?” the constable asked, his eyes narrowing.
“No, we were in a party of six, but one lady fainted. Her husband took her home, along with our younger siblings. I can tell you how to contact them,” Charles said.
The constable sighed. “Give me the names and addresses of all the carolers, sir.”
Charles offered the information. In the doorway at the top of the steps, a woman appeared, dressed in a sober black dress, and helped Mr. Screws wrap a shawl around his thin shoulders before disappearing out of sight again.
“Had you ever seen the deceased before?” the constable asked Charles.
“No,” he said. “We don’t know him.”
“You must let the poor man go inside,” Kate protested. “He’s shivering up there.”
“I can’t leave the body,” the constable said, rather helplessly.
“We’ll watch it for you,” Charles promised. “You go inside. We were here before and didn’t touch anything.”
“I only have your word for what you saw.”
“Not so. Is it not obvious to you that the man fell to his death from a height?” Charles pointed at the blood congealing on the pavement.
“What about the chains?” the constable asked.
“We haven’t touched them,” Kate said. “They were around his neck when he fell.”
“Did you have the chains in the house?” the constable called to Mr. Screws.
“Yes, but I hadn’t noticed them for a couple of days,” he said through chattering teeth.
“Why would you have such chains in your house?” Charles asked.
“Business,” was Mr. Screws’s one-word answer.
Charles heard boots coming up the street. “I hope that’s another policeman.”
“Me too,” muttered the constable. “Look ’ere, did you see anyone else around the property?”
“Only Mr. Screws, and only after the man fell,” Charles said.
“Our caroling didn’t bring anyone out of the houses on this street.”
“Very well then,” the constable said grudgingly. “The old gentleman can go inside for now.”
Mr. Screws stepped inside without another word, and shut the door.
“All the windows had candles here,” Kate reminded Charles.
He lifted his hands. “We didn’t see anyone in the windows.”
“There must be someone else in there,” Kate insisted. “Mr. Screws is too frail to have pushed a large man out of a window.”
“Then who did it?” the constable asked.
“He could have fallen alone,” Charles said, “tangled in those chains somehow.”
“Seems unlikely,” Kate said. “The butler must have done it.”
“There’s a butler?” the constable asked.
“A poor jest,” Kate said quickly. “Truly, we saw no one else until that woman came into view just now.”
The constable narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re sure you didn’t go inside?”
“We haven’t even been on the stairs.” Charles rattled the old top hat with the coins. “This is all we were doing, trying to collect for our Charity for Dressing the Mudlark Children of Blackfriars Bridge.”
“We’ve been working with the mudlarks since last winter,” Kate added. “We even sent one to school.”
“I’m sure you’re doing the Lord’s work,” the constable said.
“What’s ’appening ’ere?” said another constable, older, taller, and rougher than the first, as he reached them.
“Suspicious death,” the first explained. “Come closer.”
The constable lifted his lantern and walked around Charles, then made a Papist gesture when he saw the body. “Fell, I expect.”
“From that window,” Charles said, pointing up. “There had been a candle in it. Might be underneath the body.”
Charles and Kate explained who they were to the second constable. The second constable, an Irishman by the name of Boyd, sent the first constable to the nearest station for additional help.
“You won’t be able to leave him here until the coroner’s inquiry,” Charles said.
“No, but you’ll need to attend,” Boyd warned.
They nodded their assent. “We will be there,” Charles said. “You have our information. Now, can I please take Miss Hogarth home?”
The constable was still distracted by the body. He waved them off. Charles took Kate’s arm without further delay and tugged her down the street, moving rapidly through increasing chilly drizzle until they found a free hackney on London Wall.
Once they had settled themselves inside, Charles distracted himself by puzzling over the mysterious death. Even more so, he found himself distracted by that wisp of memory. Why had the house, and the man Screws, seemed so familiar to him?
* * *
The next morning, Charles made the excuse of walking to a bakery in Brompton to fetch special treats for the Hogarths as a thank-you for allowing him to sleep in front of their fire. He ducked into a news agent’s stand to find the newspaper for Hertfordshire. He wanted to make sure his advertisement about Timothy was running since there had been no responses yet. How long would the Agas and Mrs. Herring remain tolerant of the orphaned babe? He found the ad in the newspaper and hoped letters would be waiting for him when he arrived at Furnival’s Inn.
In a sleet of rain mixed with icy shards, he returned to the Hogarths with an assortment of cream-filled buns. A feeling of nostalgia for last summer rushed over him as he ventured past the Hebrew burying ground where he and his friend Breese Gadfly had worked on their first song together some six months before. The memory of the murder then brought his thoughts back to this new death he had witnessed. What had the police decided to do with Jacob Harley’s body? It had to be available for the inquest and they wouldn’t have left it on the street.
The man had probably been prosperous enough for a funeral furnisher. They’d have at least called an undertaker to put the body in a coffin, even if it had to stay in Mr. Screws’s house.
He opened the Hogarths’
garden gate, holding his bundle carefully so the cream wouldn’t break free from the buns. Inside the dining room, the youngest Hogarths, twins Helen and Edward, were running around, chased by older brothers James and William. All nine of the Hogarth offspring were in the room, lounging at the piano or sitting at the table if they weren’t on their feet.
Charles set his purchases on the table and Mary came running over to see what he’d brought.
“Just in time,” Mrs. Hogarth exclaimed, coming in with a pot of what smelled like kedgeree. A crock of oatmeal already waited on the table along with the massive teapot and a jug of milk.
Mr. Hogarth walked in from down the hall, pulling off fingerless gloves. One of them fell to the floor as he absently attempted to push it into a pocket.
“Cream buns!” cried Mary with an expression of heaven-sent delight. “For breakfast!”
Georgina rushed for the buns. Despite her trio of slightly older brothers, she had a greater hunger than all of them. Her mother set her pot on the table, then slapped Georgina’s hand.
“Away wi’ ye, troublesome,” Mrs. Hogarth said. “Until we make sure there is enough for all.”
Charles counted in his head. “I bought a dozen.”
“Such a waste of money,” Kate’s mother scolded him, in much the same tone she’d used for Georgina. “As if the twins need an entire bun at their age.”
“And you with a house to furnish and a wife to pay for,” Kate said, coming up beside him with a shy smile. She wore her gray wool, with its faint, faded tartan pattern and fresh white cuffs and collar. A blue ribbon that matched her eyes was stitched around the edge of the collar and she’d reinforced her hem with black that would hide some of the mud in the streets. She had her father’s stray glove in her hand.
Charles winked at her and wished he dared steal a kiss. How much longer would they have to wait to be in their own snug space? He had set his hopes on the Agas’ rooms in Furnival’s Inn when they moved out, but they’d already been promised. For now, he’d made inventory of everyone in the front-facing chambers with the best light, and anxiously awaited word of who would move next.
He’d also convinced Reuben Solomon, a dealer in old clothes, to keep watch on the secondhand furniture shops near his location for complete suites of good furniture. He liked the history in old things and the elderly Jewish man had an even better eye than he did.
“Are you dressed to go out?” Charles asked. “Do you need to go over to St. Luke’s or pay a call?”
“We need to call on Mr. Screws,” Kate said, handing the glove to her father. “We should make sure he is well, poor man.”
“Whatever for?” Mr. Hogarth asked. Smoke trailed from the pipe in his hands as he seated himself at the head of the table. On his right, the fire crackled in the hearth. Mr. Hogarth scooped up little Edward from the rug and deposited him in a chair, then did the same with Helen. “Come and sit.”
Charles agreed with Mr. Hogarth. He had no particular interest in paying a call on a cold, old man, gentleman or not. Surely he had been the one to push the other old man out of the window. He sincerely hoped he had never met such an unpleasant person, no matter what his memory told him.
The twins picked up their spoons as the rest of the family piled into their mismatched chairs. Mr. Hogarth said a prayer and the food was passed around.
“Do ye want yer mother to come with ye?” Mr. Hogarth asked, when Kate explained her plan for the day.
“No,” she said. “I don’t think there is a lady of the house.”
“We did see a woman,” Charles reminded her.
“Definitely a servant, not a wife,” Kate said. “Her clothing made that obvious.”
“I don’t think we need to pay a call on a murderer,” Charles opined.
Mrs. Hogarth gasped but Kate shook her head. “He’s not, much too tottering and weak to have done it.”
Charles grimaced comically at Mary. As she giggled he said, “Then you think Mr. Harley did himself in?”
“Not at the table please,” Mrs. Hogarth insisted. “Children are present.”
Charles nodded and applied himself to helpings of kedgeree and porridge, then ate his cream bun with relish. He could walk all the way to Finsbury Circus in the sleet with his belly that satisfied and warm, but Kate would not be pleased. After he was finished eating, he sent George to collect a hackney and escorted his fiancée out of the house as soon as her brother returned.
They spent the long drive holding hands and discussing different woods, settling on mahogany as their preferred choice. Kate blushed so furiously when Charles mentioned bedroom suite possibilities that he dropped the subject, grinning to himself.
As they drove down the street of terraced houses, Charles again noticed the Screws mansion was the only one without a simple wreath of greenery on the door. The man had shown little evidence of holiday spirit, or maybe he kept to the old ways of focusing all celebration on Twelfth Night, instead of earlier in the season.
They went up the steps. Charles paused on the landing, confused.
“What is it?” Kate asked.
Charles lifted his chin at the knocker. He’d seen this before, and not in the night, when it had been too dark to see anything in detail. The iron ring of the knocker hung from the nose of a man’s face with closed eyes, appearing something like a death mask. When they tapped the knocker with the ring, Mr. Screws’s door was opened by the same woman they’d seen the night before.
“Good morning, Mrs.—” Charles said suggestively.
“I am the housekeeper, Mrs. Dorset,” the woman said in a forbidding manner.
“We saw you last night,” Kate said helpfully. “With Mr. Screws. Is he at home?”
“He is normally at his office today, but under the circumstances he has not left the house,” the housekeeper said, stepping aside. “I will see if he will receive you.”
“Are you the sole domestic support of such a large house?” Charles asked.
“No, sir,” she said, holding out her hands for Kate’s cloak and Charles’s hat. “There is an appropriate complement of staff for Mr. Screws’s position in life.”
“It seems a rather lonely place,” Charles mused. A gleaming brass umbrella stand stood next to a boot bench, but nothing else cluttered up the austere front hall. The lushly wallpapered walls were sufficient decoration, with two candle-filled sconces throwing light across the spindly green fern print.
The housekeeper frowned but said nothing. She led them into a cheerless parlor, then left the room without further speech.
“No ornaments,” Kate said, staring at the unlit fireplace, the empty mantelpiece.
Charles glanced at the wall opposite the windows. A trio of engravings were indifferently framed on more green-wallpapered walls. They seemed to be political cartoons from a generation before and he could not discern the significance of them. Instead of ferns the wallpaper featured leafy trees.
Both of them, having avoided the matter thus far, turned to the bowed front window, in which space rested an open coffin on a temporary dais. Charles knew what was inside: the flattened remains of Jacob Harley. Had the police removed his chains? Charles leaned forward, forcing himself to look inside.
Chapter 4
Charles glanced at the coffin’s contents. Jacob Harley’s features had set bloodlessly into a puffy mass of gray. A length of white cloth had been tied around his head to keep the jaw in place. Someone had wrapped a black cravat around his neck, with an extravagant knot straight out of Beau Brummel’s time. Charles expected it hid extensive bruising from the chains.
He couldn’t recall exactly what Mr. Harley had worn the night before. It had been too dark for clarity, but now, he saw a dark coat, a wine-colored velvet waistcoat, and a white shirt on the corpse. He didn’t see any blood so most likely the body had been cleaned and redressed, despite the suspicious death. The bottom half of the coffin was hidden from view by drapery.
Kate sighed and leaned her arm against Ch
arles’s. “I’d rather stare at a fire.”
“It’s best to let the room stay cold,” Charles said, remembering the summer before, when he and Kate had discovered a decomposing body.
“Indeed,” she said with a shudder. “Do you think they sketched the body before they moved it?”
“I have no idea,” Charles admitted. “But they’ll have our testimony. I have tried to set it firmly in my mind, but I realize now how inadequate my memory is.”
“You are so good with details,” Kate said. “For myself, I prefer a fresh corpse to an aging one.”
“A lot was happening.” Charles set his cheek against her bonnet. “Julie fainting, your sister and Fred wandering about.”
“The main event happened upstairs, whatever that was,” Kate said. “I’d love to get a look into the room he fell from. And what happened to the candle?”
“Here to pay your respects?” asked Mr. Screws from behind them.
Charles turned around, taking Kate toward the opposite end of the small parlor, so they did not have to converse with the house’s resident next to the coffin. “Yes, Mr. Screws.”
Kate rushed to the old man and took his hand in hers, a sweet gesture. “Of course, Mr. Screws. Last night was such a muddle. Are you well?”
“As well as I might be, despite my tribulations. But I do not complain,” Mr. Screws said with an air of pride. “Who are you? We were not introduced before.”
“I am Charles Dickens and this is Catherine Hogarth,” Charles said. “I am a parliamentary reporter for the Morning Chronicle and Miss Hogarth is my fiancée.”
“I met a Dickens once,” Mr. Screws said, fixing a stern eye on Charles. “A John Dickens, fancied himself a gentleman. Wanted money for a school, I believe. I didn’t give it to him.”
Charles felt his eyes go wide at the casually cutting remark. His mother had rented a large house for a school when he was eleven but no one had come to be educated. It had made his family’s debt even worse, eventually leading to his father being taken to debtor’s prison the next year. “My father is John Dickens. I must have come to a meeting here with him. I thought the front of the house looked familiar, though Mr. Harley did not.”
A Christmas Carol Murder Page 4