A Christmas Carol Murder

by Heather Redmond

  “We are too blessed with business to see everyone together,” said the old man.

  “Do you remember why you rejected the loan?” Charles asked, remembering hungry days as the school failed. “Out of curiosity.”

  “I never forget these things. House too expensive for a school. Principals too unqualified. Smelled wine on the man,” Mr. Screws said, his nose pinching as if from an unpleasant odor remembered. “I must not have found you impressive, either, for I don’t even remember he brought a boy along.”

  Charles stiffened. He would prove himself worthy of notice, hopefully by having the man arrested for murder.

  Kate took Charles’s arm as he asked, “Was Mr. Harley your friend as well as business partner?”

  The man shuddered. “I cannot stay in this room. Come.”

  Kate gave Charles a warning glance as Mr. Screws led them out of the street-facing parlor and back into the passage. They walked behind the front staircase and to the opposite side of the house. This room had the appearance of a mixed study and library. One bookshelf held a series of bound almanacs. Another held books Charles recognized from his childhood, like Tom Jones and dear Robinson Crusoe. The bottom shelf looked like it contained privately bound books of sermons, for all that Mr. Screws seemed to have no kindness in his soul.

  “Sit.” Their host pointed to a chair with a flattened and faded cushion on the seat.

  Kate took it and Charles perched on a bench.

  “What can I do for you?” the old man asked as he sat in an ancient brown armchair by the fire, which at least was lit in this room.

  “It’s what we can do for you, sir,” Kate said. “Do you have any idea what happened last night?”

  Charles kept his thoughts to himself, given that they involved a cell and Newgate Prison as the ultimate reward for the previous night’s activity.

  “Not at all,” the man responded. “Jacob excused himself from the dinner table. He was gone so long that the party broke up. I came in here to have a cigar and had smoked most of it before Mrs. Dorset came to notify me of the caroling.”

  “You didn’t come outside to listen,” Charles pointed out.

  “Not a music lover,” was his response.

  “Have you looked at the window upstairs?” Kate asked. “Was a latch broken?”

  “The police checked all that. I’m sure we will hear the details at the inquest.”

  “You must have a theory?” Charles demanded.

  Mr. Screws’s age-spotted hands fluttered on his thighs. “He was never still. I expect he was examining the chains. They were a product we had invested in.”

  “I see,” Charles said. The business partner had gone upstairs to fondle some portable property.

  Mr. Screws continued. “Perhaps the window latch did break. He could have caught his coattails on fire with the candle. My housekeeper, Mrs. Dorset, will insist on wasting money by lighting the house. She found the candle on the floor inside the window after. We were lucky it didn’t burn the house down.”

  “Mr. Dickens is an excellent observer,” Kate said proudly. “If you show him the room, I’m certain he will have some opinions to offer.”

  “Do I need his opinions? Or want them?” rejoined Screws. “My business partner is dead, a man I have known since our school days. It does not matter why.”

  “The coroner will want to know,” Charles explained. For himself, he wouldn’t mind proving the old man’s guilt. He had the Dickens family honor to uphold. “Your own neck could be at risk. What if it is decided that you killed him?”

  “Humbug,” said Screws. “I don’t need your help.”

  Kate glanced between the two men. “I understand you must not have slept well and are sick with grief, sir. But Mr. Dickens can help you clear your name if it becomes necessary.”

  Charles winced at that. Mr. Screws had not helped his family a dozen years ago. Why should a Dickens help a Screws now? And yet, if he proved he had a first-class mind and solved the crime either way, it would prove the old man wrong about his family.

  He focused on his fiancée. Why did Kate think Mr. Screws was not involved? They only had his word for his actions. “Can you tell us who else was at dinner that night?”

  The man grew quite red in the face. “I do not know you, and my private guests are none of your concern.”

  Charles did not want to goad him into some sort of bilious attack in front of Kate. There were other avenues of research. “We will leave you to your rest.”

  “I do not need your permission,” the old man said with dignity. “You did not know Jacob and I will not allow him to be the subject of your prurient interest. Please leave.”

  * * *

  Five minutes later, they were back in the street. Charles steamed at the insult of their departure. Mrs. Dorset had handed them their garments with a complacent air and opened the door. While she didn’t slam it behind him, Charles had heard a definite click.

  Kate tightened her bonnet strings. “They don’t seem very concerned.”

  “That’s because Mr. Screws killed his business partner.” Charles wrapped his muffler to keep any drafts at bay.

  “We saw him soon after Mr. Harley’s fall. He didn’t seem to be out of breath or have any notion of what had happened.”

  Charles led her back around the street so they could leave Finsbury Circus. On a late Saturday morning, the area was quiet. Any tradesmen had come and gone. The steps had been swept. “He could be a good actor. The murder might not have winded him. The way he dismissed my father shows he is a coldhearted old man.”

  “No,” Kate insisted. “Though I am sorry he did not help your father start a school, Mr. Screws is too frail to have pushed the old man out of the window. Don’t forget he would have had to go up and down steps to the room Mr. Harley fell from.”

  “A few steps,” Charles said, taking her arm to lead her around horse muck. “He is used to them.”

  “He has such a strong character that he seems more than he is, physically. Did you notice his tremor?”

  His breath puffed white, mingling with Kate’s. “That’s what I’m saying. The fall may have been accidental, but he’d have been dead from the chains. It’s possible that would have killed him without too much strength being exerted.”

  “Mr. Harley had a thick neck,” Kate observed. “Or so it seemed from what we saw today.”

  “Inflammation?” Charles suggested. “His face was a mess.”

  Kate’s lips flattened. “I tried not to look too closely.”

  “Let us find a hackney,” Charles suggested as they reached the main road. “I want to call on the Agas. William will want to hear about our interview with Mr. Screws.”

  “I’ll join you to check on Julie,” Kate said.

  “No, your mother wants you home,” Charles said quickly, remembering the baby. “I noticed the twins had runny noses. She’ll need your help.”

  * * *

  Charles reached Cheapside under leaden skies, grateful that Kate had agreed to return home without visiting the Agas. Their happiness might be spoiled at any moment if she thought he’d been sporting with maids shortly before meeting her. How could she trust that he would care for their children together if he had fathered a child all unknowing, and done nothing for its care? He needed to find a home for baby Timothy, and discover his real father.

  He bounded up the stairs to the Agas’ rooms. The close air of the passage smelled of fried fish and potatoes. His stomach rumbled in expectation. Julie often fed him, a habit established during those brief days when she’d worked as his maid.

  He knocked, but no one answered. Were the Agas out? If so, the smell of cooking food wasn’t coming from their door. He turned in one direction, then another, thinking he might go to the chophouse downstairs and have a meal. If he sat in the windows, he could see his friends returning.

  Just as he’d decided to leave, the door opened. Julie’s red hair, though pinned back, surrounded her face in a frizzled halo. She
held the baby in her arms. Timothy squealed and waved his thin arms. His fingers latched onto a beaded necklace Julie wore, dragging her head forward.

  Charles untangled the baby’s fingers while Julie spoke. “Mrs. Herring said he should be able to sleep most of the night through by now, but he isn’t, so she gave him back to us after his late feeding.”

  Charles noticed she had purple shadows under her eyes. “That means you each had him for just one night. Why do you look so tired?”

  Julie’s mouth tightened. “How well did you sleep last night, Charles, after seeing a man fall to his death?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I forget you missed most of the actual corpses we’ve been unfortunate enough to discover.”

  She worked her jaw and shuddered. “It was as if the moon highlighted all the blood.”

  “Is that why you fainted? The sight of blood takes people that way sometimes.”

  Timothy gave a shrill cry and pushed his fist into his mouth. Julie stared down at him in dismay. “Is he teething?”

  “It’s early,” Charles said. “But we only have the aunt’s word for his real age.”

  “Mrs. Herring seemed quite certain that four months was correct. She said he ought to be able to sleep at least seven hours straight, plus two long naps.”

  Charles touched the infant’s forehead. “Ill?”

  “Just malnourished, I think. He isn’t warm. But he is too thin, don’t you think?” Julie asked anxiously.

  He gestured her to back through her door, then followed her in and closed it. “Yes, I do think he is too thin. Every child is different but his arms are like little sticks.”

  “What should we do?” She went to the boot bench just inside and sat.

  “More thin oatmeal gruel,” Charles said with assurance, remembering his brother Boz’s infancy. “I can get you some milk biscuits, too, to soak and feed him. If Mrs. Herring becomes unwilling, we shall have to search for another wet nurse as well.”

  “It’s only been two days,” Julie said. “I know that, but he’s such a little dear. I don’t want him to die.”

  “I don’t either.”

  She gave him a look of great seriousness. “You are certain he isn’t your child, Charles? I wouldn’t mind if it was, you know. I’m not a proper sort of lady.”

  Charles stiffened. “I assure you he is not. I had never been to Hatfield.”

  “Timothy’s mother might have come into London.”

  “With the dowager marchioness? She was employed by the old woman. I hardly think so,” Charles said. “That is not the picture I have of the situation at all. No, the little barmaid seemed to think she knew me. I suspect the father is in Hatfield or nearby, and resembles me.”

  The door opened behind Charles, almost swatting him on the backside before he leapt out of the way.

  William strode into the entryway and leaned over Julie, giving her a smacking kiss on the forehead, then put his forefinger in Timothy’s palm so the baby could clutch at it.

  “What are we going to do with him?” William asked.

  “Keep him,” Julie said promptly. “I can’t imagine sending him to die in a workhouse or farming him out to some baby mill.” She smiled tenderly at the child.

  William shuddered. “Baby mills are slaughterhouses, with their poor care and drugging of infants. We are not so desperate as that.”

  “Someone needs to find the father,” Charles said. “My advertisement might bear fruit yet, but if you went, William, and found the aunt, you might be able to find out who the father is once and for all. If I go, little Madge will simply hide again.”

  “Then what?” William asked.

  “If you want to keep the child, then nothing. The worst thing would be to fall in love with him and then have someone come to take him away.”

  “Someone dreadful, like my mother, might get him,” Julie said in a tremulous voice.

  “We know Timothy’s mother is dead, burned up in the fire,” Charles said. “And no father would keep an infant. He’d give him to a relative to raise, or something worse.”

  “We just need to know,” William agreed, patting his wife on the shoulder. “Instead of taking the word of one young, upset girl who had just lost her sister.”

  “Exactly.” Charles reached for the baby and Julie transferred him from her arms to his.

  “I should make the tea,” she said, rising. “William, did you purchase the sausages?”

  He pulled a packet from his pocket and handed it to her.

  “I’ll grind some oatmeal very fine for that gruel,” Julie said. “I’m going to need help if I have to do a lot of hand-feeding and William is traveling.”

  “Should I really go north?” William asked.

  Julie nodded. “I need to know if we must keep him or if another safe place exists for him.”

  William sighed. “Very well. How fast do you think we can hire a nursemaid?”

  Charles connected that thought with a past conversation. “What about Lucy Fair? You mentioned your concerns about her well-being. She’s the right age for the job and we know she’s good with children.”

  “I like her,” Julie said, tossing the sausages from hand to hand.

  Charles could smell spices rising from the packet. His stomach rumbled again. “I’ll go to Blackfriars Bridge after you feed me and see if I can persuade her to help you.”

  “You can have my sausages, Charles.” William grabbed a carpetbag that was packed and by the door. “I have to attend a meeting near Harrow tomorrow morning so I might as well head to Hatfield now.”

  “What about the inquest?” Charles asked. He started to tell the Agas about the Dickens family history with Mr. Screws, but then the baby gave a thin wail. Julie dumped the sausages into her waiting pan on the hob, then went to her pantry to grind oatmeal.

  “I haven’t yet been called,” William said. “Have you?”

  “No, but I haven’t been back to Furnival’s Inn.”

  William gave him the old, open grin. “Not much they can do if I’m not at home for the summons. Besides, I don’t know anything you do not.” He clapped Charles on the shoulder and walked out.

  Charles sighed and smiled down at the baby. He had been so distracted by all of his projects of late, and his new, exciting literary friends, that he had neglected William. Yet here his friend was, willing to take on this baby on nothing more than Charles’s word.

  After Julie had fed herself and Charles, and they had spooned enough gruel into Timothy that he had fallen asleep, he walked to his chambers for the first time since well before Jacob Harley had fallen to his death. At home at Furnival’s Inn, he found his brother munching on a mincemeat pie. Fred handed him a written summons that ordered Charles to appear at the inquest in a tavern near Finsbury Circus.

  “I suppose you’re hungry,” Fred said with a mournful look at his pie, two-thirds consumed and glistening with currants.

  “Julie fed me.”

  Fred brightened. “Why did you go back to Cheapside?”

  “Left some things there,” Charles said carelessly. If he told Fred about Timothy, word would get to Kate. Fred had not yet learned to keep a secret. “Do you remember if we have any relatives in Hatfield?”

  “I don’t think so,” Fred said, then quickly filled his mouth with pie before Charles could change his mind.

  Charles uncoiled his comforter from his neck. Kate had knitted it for him in alternating blue and white stripes, but it was so long he had to wind himself into it until he looked like a turtle. “I’m going to edit a couple of the stories for my book; then I have to go out again.”

  “Are you reviewing a play? I could go with you,” Fred said.

  “No.” Charles poured hot water from the kettle into a cup and added a tot of rum. “Just an excursion. Nothing worth you catching a chill for.”

  Fred swallowed. “Are you investigating that man’s death?”

  “Kate offered my services to Mr. Screws,” Charles admitted. “B
ut I’m of the belief that he pushed the old man out of the window himself.”

  “She doesn’t agree?”

  “No, but she’s being sentimental. She sees the frail body and forgets that a wicked heart can hide underneath. Besides, I realized I had met him before. He’d turned Father down for a loan when he was trying to open that school.”

  “You can’t blame him for that,” Fred protested. “Father isn’t good with money.”

  “He didn’t remember me,” Charles said plaintively.

  Fred lifted his eyebrows. “You might be of consequence now, but back then?”

  Charles lifted his fists in mock defiance and Fred went into battle stance. They sparred, laughing, until Charles remembered. “We promised Mother we’d come for church and a family dinner tomorrow.”

  “I remember,” Fred said. “Best not tell Father you’ve run across this Mr. Screws again. He’ll go on a rant.”

  “Best not to,” Charles agreed, then fetched his writing box. “At least, not until I have him arrested for murder.”

  * * *

  Charles set down his pen as church bells tolled eleven times. He bundled up warmly, eager to clear his head after hours of revising his old stories. While he pulled on his gloves, he imagined walking past a bookshop and seeing his book in the store. What a moment of pride for that boy who’d been robbed of his education by his father’s unending money woes.

  Outside, fog swirled around the streets, blotting out light with a thick coat of brown sludge. He kept his lantern close, but after so many visits, he knew the scant half mile to Blackfriars Bridge well. As he walked down to Fleet Street, Temple Bar was off to his right, not creating a traffic problem at this time of night. Then he kept south, cutting through the Temple area, including gardens with ghostly trees branching into the fog, then into the maze of streets that led to the Thames foreshore and the bridge.

  A pair of lanterns bobbed down by the water. Mudlarks were at work, hunting for what the mighty Thames had cast up that day. It might be lumps of coal, or the remains of lost jewelry, or coins, or pipes, or even bones. They’d found manacles last summer, cast in by an escaped convict from Coldbath Fields.