He walked down, scanning for Lucy Fair’s slim figure, usually surrounded by younger children. Two male forms straightened, looking taller than his group of young friends. He dropped the pair of new secondhand blankets he carried over his shoulder onto a waiting rock and held the lantern close to his face.
It didn’t stop the figures from approaching, their arms held menacingly away from the body.
“ ’Oo’s this?” called one of them.
“Dickens,” Charles called. “From the Charity for Dressing the Mudlark Children of Blackfriars Bridge.”
“Oo, don’t say,” sneered the voice.
Charles identified it as belonging to a youth, with a half-broken voice that put him at fourteen, or so. Nothing he couldn’t defend himself from, though two together seemed more daunting. “Where’s Lucy Fair? My business is with her.”
“She your girl?” the voice sneered.
Charles moved his lantern, flashing over the two faces. Both too young for facial hair, and a likely pair of villains. One had a turned-in eye, and the other seemed to be missing a good number of his top teeth. “Your clothing is little better than rags,” he observed. “At least take the blankets. You can use them as shawls.”
“We don’t want ’em,” said the first boy again. “Or you.”
“Lucy Fair!” Charles yelled into the night.
“We’ll care for ’er now,” said the boy. “Right pretty bird, that un.”
Charles’s hand shook. The lantern wavered over the threatening faces. He resolved not to leave until he saw the girl. They’d known her for close to a year now. He wouldn’t leave her to be raped by a couple of ruffians who could never take care of any babe they got on her. His hand stiffened on the handle and he stepped backward toward the blankets, thinking he could kick them at the villains somehow, and tangle their feet in them if it came to an attack.
“Mr. Dickens?”
He heard the sought-for female voice with relief. “I’m here, Lucy. We took up a new collection and I have more blankets.”
A shawl-wrapped girl peeled away from the murk of the water’s edge, where she had blended in with the night. She walked toward him, swinging her collection bucket at her side.
When she reached him, the first boy grabbed for her bucket. “What oo found, girl?”
She tore it away from the young ruffian. “None of your business, Lack.”
The boy’s bad eye rolled in its socket as she stepped closer to Charles. He also noticed that Lucy Fair stood taller than the lad, though he suspected she was younger. But every time he saw her, she had filled out more, looked less of a girl. No, she couldn’t stay here anymore.
He pulled a packet of sausages and fried potato slices from his pocket, cold now, though it had been toasty warm when Julie had wrapped it for him, and handed it to the girl.
“Poor John!” she called. “Brother Second! Cousin Arthur!”
Her little band turned from where they had been picking through rocks almost out of sight up the river. The trio all had more robust appearances than the newer, older boys. The youngest two, in fact, were quite stocky. They were cousins.
He let Lucy parcel out the food. Lack growled something nasty under his breath and stalked away.
“Blanket?” Charles called pleasantly, to make the point that they could be involved if they cared to behave, but the boy’s shoulders merely hunched.
“New blankets?” Poor John asked.
Charles leaned closer to the boy, at the cusp of leaving boyhood, and saw he had a new bruise on his cheek and a long cut leading from the side of his mouth. “I thought you sounded strange. What happened?”
Cousin Arthur lifted his grimy hands, shoved his half of a sausage into his mouth, and began to punch the air with his fists. “Lack, ’e did this! ’n that!” He swung his fists in the air while his cousin laughed.
“Poor John had a big hole in his blanket,” Lucy Fair exclaimed. “So he had it over his head, and Lack wanted it.”
“He does want blankets then?” Charles asked.
“Sure, if ’e can steal ’em,” Lucy Fair said with a curl of her lip. “ ’e’s evil, that one. Sells everything.”
“I don’t like the look of him,” Charles said. “Even less, his companion.”
“ ’e’s got a good eye,” Brother Second insisted, tucking food into his cheek. “Finds more coal than anyone. Nice fire.”
“But no teeth,” Charles muttered. “Well, my dear mudlarks, the time has come for a change, and not a moment too soon, given the fetid fogs we’ve been having.”
“What?” Lucy Fair asked.
“Our friend William has taken in a foundling,” Charles told her. “An infant who is poorly. I promised his wife, Julie, that you would come and help her. A proper job as nursemaid.”
Lucy Fair’s eyes grew wide. “Nursemaids have to be clean.”
“We can get you clean,” Charles said. “The important thing is to know how to care for children, and you do that.” He cuffed Cousin Arthur gently on the side of the head. The boy plopped down on the rocky sand, pretending to be knocked out, then jumped up and plied his small fists around Charles’s midsection.
“What about us?” Poor John asked. “I don’t want to be the leader of our gang.”
“I’ll put all of you on the stage to Harrow,” Charles said.
“You can join your old friend Ollie at school.”
“At school?!” Brother Second yelled, outraged.
“Ollie lost ’is ’and,” Cousin Arthur said. “ ’e can go to school. Not me.”
Brother Second nodded. “The lads are keeping us warm.”
Charles sighed. “I’m glad they can find coal, but I bring you the blankets and buckets and food.”
Brother Second shrugged. “Keep doin’ that.” He grabbed his cousin’s hand and they ran down the shore toward the little fire that Lack and his toothless henchman had built near the bridge.
Charles glanced between the two older children. “You know it’s for the best,” he said to Lucy.
“I don’t like my chances with that Lack,” she said with a shudder. “I wanted to move our camp, but then them two’s families couldn’t find them.”
Only Arthur still had a parent living, Brother Second’s uncle, and he was a drunkard. “Do you think the younger boys will be safe enough?”
Poor John puffed up his skinny chest. “I’ll get an education and come get ’em,” he said. “They’ll see the right of it. Little Ollie must be a proper gentleman by now.”
“We can hope,” Charles said. “Collect your things and we’ll be off.”
Lucy Fair stared at her bucket, then held out her hand for Poor John’s. “Can you get our blankets?” she asked him.
Charles wanted to tell her to leave the filthy things, along with anything else they’d collected, but what else did they have to hold on to?
He waited, then helped the children climb up the ladders to the road, between a dilapidated house and a slightly more structurally sound tavern. They walked through the fog to Cheapside, where Charles left Lucy Fair with Julie, and then he and Poor John headed toward a coaching inn.
In the taproom, Charles called for paper and ink, then wrote a letter to Mr. Aga, the master of the school and William’s father, to take in Poor John. Then he left the boy, snoozing by the fire under his blanket, and went to make arrangements for the next coach to Harrow.
* * *
As he made his weary way home after being up most of the last twenty-four hours, he thought that he’d done a good night’s work. He could only hope that the two youngest mudlarks had not been lost to them. How long would Lucy Fair stay with the Agas when her two youngest gang members were keeping such villainous company?
Chapter 5
Charles entered The Cooked Goose public house on Monday morning after the church bells rung eleven. He’d had to find the door by touch. The night’s brown fog had yet to lift and the only way to see through the streets was with whatever light
the street lamps had to offer. The building’s interior wasn’t much more visible due to heavy smokers creating a localized fog in the taproom.
The barman pointed him upstairs. “The inquest is under way. The jury members were sworn in and already saw the body.”
“At Mr. Screws’s house?”
The man rubbed his hands down his apron. “No, sir. They took the coffin upstairs. It’s going to be buried straight after.”
Charles was very glad he’d finished his morning porridge hours ago. At least Mr. Harley had only been dead two days. He’d been around worse. “Who is the coroner?”
“Sir Silas Laurie.”
Charles recognized the name. He’d even been to the baronet’s house. In his late thirties, Sir Silas had a keen, intelligent, rather disappointed face. But other than being a man of wealth and taste, Charles knew little about him. “Thank you.”
He went upstairs. Outside of a wall with a door inset in the passageway, Mr. Screws’s housekeeper, Mrs. Dorset sat, sandwiched in between a flashy young man and the most extraordinary looking bear of a derelict on a long bench.
A constable, whose fingers kept going to his leather stock and tugging at it, directed him to the opposite bench.
“Another witness?” asked the young man. He wore a brown coat and a pink silk waistcoat with dark trousers and black shoes. His top hat had a pink silk flower attached in a jaunty fashion. Not really a London wardrobe, so Charles wasn’t surprised to hear another land in his voice.
“Yes, I’m Charles Dickens,” he said.
“Powhatan Fletcher at your service, sir,” said the man, tapping the brim of his hat. “I worked for Mr. Harley and Mr. Screws.”
Charles regarded the brash, well, not youth exactly. He put off an air of vigor but his short brown hair, visible now, receded at the temples. There might have been a hint of silver above his ears. “Do I detect American in your accent?”
Mr. Fletcher righted his hat. “Oh, yes. Virginia born, you see. Related to the Lees, who are of course related to the Catons. One of them is married to the Marquess Wellesley. Out of power for now, but you never know what is going to happen next in politics.”
“Unusual name you have,” Charles commented.
“Descended from some native king,” Mr. Fletcher said carelessly. “We’re proud of that sort of thing where I come from.”
Charles looked at the man’s ruddy skin and saw no sign of regal savage in him. “I dare say. I am a parliamentary reporter by trade.”
“How very strange,” Mr. Fletcher exclaimed. “What brings you to a murder inquest?”
“I saw your Mr. Harley fall to his death. I’m very sorry it happened.” He nodded soberly at the man in case he had liked the deceased.
Mr. Fletcher glanced at the housekeeper, then leaned forward. “I heard the carolers that night, but we were enjoying Mrs. Dorset’s lovely beef and didn’t want to leave the table.”
“Mr. Harley did,” Charles pointed out. So, this man had been a dinner guest that night.
“That’s best left for the inquest, I think,” Mr. Fletcher said.
Charles persisted. “Was it just the three of you at dinner?”
“No, my fiancée was with us. Miss Osborne. And Mr. Harley’s son.”
Mr. Screws might not have been willing to share the information, but this gentleman had a much more open character. “Oh, is she American?”
“No. I met her in America, though, and she persuaded me to come here for a time. I’m a sort of apprentice to Harley and Screws, learning the business.” His voice had slowly lowered as if his natural good humor was being overlaid by the realization that those days were lost.
“Did your fiancée like Mr. Harley?”
“She didn’t know him well. He was often ill. No, the burden of running the business often fell on Mr. Screws. I do my best to help him shoulder his responsibilities.”
“Had Mr. Harley become ill that night?”
Mr. Fletcher spread his hands. “Precisely so, Mr. Dickens. You are astute.”
Charles warmed at the praise. “Who are you?” he asked the large young man on the other side of the housekeeper.
He looked to be about the same age as Charles, but wore rough clothing, some sort of nubby gray wool. Maybe his best trousers and coat, but uncomfortable looking. Enormous hands rested fat fingered on his meaty thighs. If he’d been lost in Africa the wild animals would have found him a tasty morsel. Underneath his cap, his black hair hung greasily around his face. His lips were as thick as his fingers but he didn’t speak, his expression rather blank.
“This is my son, Johnny,” Mrs. Dorset said. “He helps out around the house. I need him, you see, as we did for Mr. Harley as well.”
“Oh, he actually lived at the house?” Charles asked.
“He didn’t sleep there every night, but he didn’t keep his own servants,” Mrs. Dorset told him.
“I wonder what he was doing upstairs that night?”
“He had his own chamber,” Mrs. Dorset explained. “His clothing stayed there, and he often worked from the bed because of his ill health.”
“How extraordinary,” Charles murmured.
“Indeed,” Mr. Fletcher agreed.
The door opened. “Mr. Dickens?” a constable inquired.
Charles stood and followed the man into the main room. Immediately, his eyes went to the familiar coffin on a table along an external wall. Thankfully, it was not open. He’d seen enough of the corpse. The window was open, blowing tendrils of fog into the room, but the coal-laden air covered up any hint of decay.
In the back, in front of the clerk’s desk with two candelabras on either corner, Emmanuel Screws sat on a stool and Sir Silas paced back and forth between the jurors and his witness. Mr. Screws wore old breeches and a tailcoat, with long boots. He placed his hat back on his wizened apple of a head when Sir Silas thanked and dismissed him.
The old man nodded at Charles as he passed him. Charles nodded back. Mr. Screws had best enjoy his freedom while he still had it. Newgate Prison called.
Sir Silas lifted a brow, recognizing Charles, but made no comment other than the legal ones.
“Now, Mr. Dickens, can you tell us about the events of Friday past?” Sir Silas asked after Charles was sworn in.
“We had resolved to collect for our charity by caroling on select streets of a prosperous nature,” Charles explained. “Finsbury Circus seemed a likely location, but Mr. Screws’s abode was the first that seemed to have people at home. We stopped in front of his steps and sang.” He described what they had seen.
Sir Silas paced past him. “You say a candle was lit in that particular window?”
“In all of them, sir.”
After he reached the wall, the coroner turned back. “Did you see anyone other than Mr. Harley at the window?”
“I did not. When Mr. Screws opened the front door, that was the first time I saw any inhabitant of the house.”
He stopped in front of Charles. “Did you see anyone else?”
“Mrs. Dorset, who I am now acquainted with, brought him a shawl after a time. He was shaking with cold. I had no idea who else was present, or what the occasion had been.”
“Did you hear raised voices coming from the house? Any sort of argument?”
“No, but then, we were singing rather loudly. The six of us can make a great deal of noise.”
“Did you see any foot traffic?”
“Not until after the death.” He explained the carriage and the solicitor who’d come and then gone in search of a constable.
“Do you have any connection to the Appleton Smithy?”
“I’ve never heard of it. A blacksmith shop?” Charles asked.
“They specialize in chains.”
“I see,” Charles said. “No, I shouldn’t think so. Where are they located?”
“South London.”
Charles shook his head. “I don’t believe so.”
Sir Silas asked him a few more questions and th
en dismissed him. Charles went back into the passage. He sat on the bench, thinking, and when the constable called for Mr. Fletcher, he hoped he might be able to hear the testimony. It didn’t filter through the wall. Disappointed, he went downstairs and ate bread, cheese, and pickle, while puzzling over some shorthand notes he needed to translate into an article for the Morning Chronicle.
“Still here?” said Mr. Fletcher, spotting him by the fire half an hour later.
Charles forced a smile. “I had some work with me. I need to go over to my office, but this seemed like a hospitable spot.”
“Pickles good?”
“Yes indeed.”
Mr. Fletcher called for a plate, then pulled out a pair of fat cigars. “Tobacco from Virginia,” he said, handing one to Charles.
“Thank you.” Charles inspected the cigar band, which had Rolfe emblazoned across it. “Your family’s plantation?”
“I became attached to this particular blend. Very smooth,” said the man. “I need a cigar before going back to work. I don’t want to know what Mr. Screws is going to decide about poor Hugh Appleton.”
“That’s the blacksmith?” Charles used his knife to clip off the end of the cigar and bent over the fire to light it.
Mr. Fletcher did the same, then leaned back in his chair, his free hand tucked into his pink silk waistcoat. “He’s bigger than that. Ran into debt. Borrowed money from us, of course. Mr. Harley was deciding what to do about the inventory.”
Charles puffed smoke, then finished off his beer. He really needed to get to the office. “Is that why he had the chain?”
“Yes. It was a sample. He did all his work from Mr. Screws’s house, you see. Rarely left it toward the end.”
“Did he suffer from vertigo, or something like that? If he was ill?”
Mr. Fletcher considered. “General weakness, really. He’d have bouts of fever in the late afternoon.”
“Do you think that’s why he fell?” Charles asked.
The side of Mr. Fletcher’s mouth tilted up. “That’s for the coroner to say. It won’t do for an American to mix himself up in English legal matters.”
A Christmas Carol Murder Page 6