“Indeed.” Charles stood and put his hat on as the barman came with Mr. Fletcher’s plate. “Thank you for the cigar, but I must be on my way.”
He walked past the stairs. A stretched-thin man, coming down them, crossed his path as he pushed open the door.
“Troubling matters, sir,” said the man, who seemed to know who Charles was.
Charles flicked ash from his cigar into the street. “What say you?”
The man’s narrow face creased into an unctuous smile. “I’m Dawes, sir, the undertaker. I met you when I cared for Horatio Durant’s mortal remains.”
Charles stared hard at the man, but the only thing unusual about him was a seeming absence of anything but skeleton under the skin. Still, he did remember that horrible night in January. “Ah, yes. You were with Matthew Post, the solicitor. I remember now.”
He heard horrible scraping noises, then a bump, and behind them, the door opened again. As he turned around to see what was causing the commotion, two men in smocks came out, carrying the coffin. They looked strained, red faced, and perilously close to disaster.
Mr. Dawes directed them to a horse-drawn cart, where they manhandled the coffin onto a bed of straw. It rocked before settling and Charles thought uneasily of the body drifting inside.
“You need more than two men to handle a coffin and a body,” Charles protested. “The consequences of such a decision—”
“Were unavoidable,” interrupted Dawes. “I beg your pardon, but there was only room for two on the steps. We tried four to move the coffin upstairs but it didn’t work. They should have viewed the body at my premises or Mr. Screws’s, but Sir Silas does have his own way of doing things.”
“I see.” Charles put his cigar to his mouth, then took it away again. “What did you mean by troubling matters, sir?”
“What?” asked the undertaker.
“You were muttering when you came down the steps.”
“Yes,” Mr. Dawes said. “I meant the shameful condition of the body. I knew Mr. Harley in life, you see. Harley and Screws were kind enough to offer me a loan a decade ago when I opened my premises.”
“A hanging by chains is not a pretty sight,” Charles agreed.
“And then the fall.”
“True, true,” agreed Dawes. “But I meant the bruising on Mr. Harley’s upper arms. An old man, pushed to his death in such a gruesome manner. Makes one want to return to the country of his youth and raise cabbages.”
Charles’s focus narrowed. Bruises? Under his clothing? He, William, and Kate never would have seen them. “You performed an autopsy?”
“I embalmed the body,” Mr. Dawes explained. “For the sake of the inquest. Therefore, I acquainted myself most intimately with the mortal remains.”
“Very wise to embalm,” Charles said. “Having seen the opposite approach in the past. Anything else troubling you?”
“Thank you, Mr. Dickens, but no. May I offer you my card?”
“Please,” Charles said. Useful person to know, this Mr. Dawes.
“I do hope you informed the coroner of your findings. If murder was done in your opinion, he must know.”
“Oh yes, he is aware.” The undertaker reached into his pocket and frowned when it came up empty. “I am very enthusiastic about your articles, sir, and my profession is much maligned. If you are interested in the likes of humble me for one of your little projects, I would be most obliged.”
Charles inclined his head, pleased to be recognized as an author. “Presently I am focused on writing sketches about holiday matters, but I shall consider it for the new year.”
“Excellent.” The man rubbed his bony hands together, then pulled mittens from his pocket and slid them over his very thin, very white hands.
Charles did not like to think of those hands in connection with handling remains. “And do look for my sketches in book form very soon. There will be one or two new articles that you may find of particular interest given your profession.”
The man looked mildly intrigued. Hopefully, he’d made an advance sale for his book.
“Very good,” Mr. Dawes said.
They shook hands, and Charles went west toward his office. However, he met an old friend near the Courts from his law clerk days, and ended up having a drink with him. By the time they parted, two hours had gone, so he decided to return to where he had begun and see if anyone remained from the inquest.
As he went in the public house’s door, he saw a trio of jurors bent over a table, drinking steaming punch.
“What’s the word, gentlemen?” Charles asked.
One of them, a graybeard with tobacco-stained teeth, glanced up. “Sir Silas summed it all up wery fine. Our werdict vas accidental death.”
“Accidental?” Charles gasped. “What about the bruising on the arms? Surely that means Mr. Harley was helped to his death.”
“He was in a rough trade, money lending,” said a second juror, a much younger man who had the look of a scholar, with rumpled hair, round spectacles, and a paunchy belly. “Might have been grabbed by someone who owed the firm money shortly before that fateful night.”
“He’d been ill. Spent most of his time in a room in that house,” Charles said. “Mind you, I have no idea who could have pushed him.”
“It wasn’t that elderly Mr. Screws. He had his housekeeper to tell us she’d never let him out of her sight,” said the second juror.
Charles doubted the truth of that. He’d seen Mr. Screws in the doorway, and no housekeeper in sight until she’d arrived with the shawl. She had that son of hers to keep an eye on. But this hard old man had staff either too frightened or too awed by him to admit he might have killed his partner.
“He’s the heir to the business,” the younger juror added. “If he didn’t do it, no one else would have bothered.”
Charles squinted. He felt the need to clarify the motive for murder. “Mr. Screws owns the entire business now?”
“Was quite businesslike about it,” the juror agreed.
“If you find there vas some other killer, you’d best tell Sir Silas,” said the first man. “Vell out of it, ve are.”
The trio turned their backs to him. Charles opened his mouth but thought better of arguing with the jurors. After all, he knew how to find the coroner. Setting his fancies against the hot rum and water he craved, he went back into the fog and set out for the Chronicle.
He heard church bells pealing three o’clock while he walked through the streets on his way to the newspaper office. It had gone full dark by the time he reached it, dodging figures in the fog. He would not have known if he passed living, breathing people or shades in the brownish muck.
Inside, he coughed in hacking Londoner fashion as he tossed his coat over his chair. William’s desk, behind his, looked undisturbed. What would the news from Hatfield be?
A boy ran up to him, his fingers black with newsprint. “Mr. Hogarth wants you, sir.”
Charles groaned. A full day lost. What assignments had he missed? He walked down the row of desks, his feet aching with damp, his trousers dark with mud. He might as well have been tramping on the Thames foreshore.
A cloaked, bonneted figure turned away from Mr. Hogarth’s desk as he knocked and walked in. “Charles!”
“If it isn’t my darling!” Charles exclaimed, kissing Kate on the cheek. “You didn’t get called to the inquest, did you? Did I miss you at the public house?”
“No, but I wanted to hear the news, and Mother needed me to pick up dried sweet cicely from a Scottish apothecary for Helen’s chest cold. She’s developed a bad cough.”
“Poor wee one,” said Mr. Hogarth from behind Kate.
The boy reappeared in the doorway. Now he had ink on his nose. “Mr. Black wants you, sir. Something about tomorrow’s front page?”
Kate’s father stood, sticking his pipe stem into his mouth. “Duty calls.” He patted Kate’s shoulder as he passed by and picked up a small sheath of papers. “Work for ye, Charles.”
&nb
sp; “Thank you, sir,” Charles said, taking the papers. After the editor left, he said, “I never made it here today, between one thing and another. But I did talk to a few of the jurors and one of the witnesses.”
“What was the verdict?” Kate asked, unbuttoning her cloak. Charles helped her remove it and set it over the back of a chair. It rustled with a package, probably the herbal remedy. “You won’t like the result. Accidental death.”
Kate nodded thoughtfully. “It could have been. We can’t see murder in everything that happens.”
Charles held up a finger. “Ah, but there is more.”
Her lips curved and her eyes began to sparkle. “Oh?”
He grinned at her. “Oh, yes. I met Powhatan Fletcher, who has apprenticed himself to Harley and Screws to learn the business. And I saw the housekeeper’s son, the least promising sort of young man I’ve seen outside the rookeries.”
“Oh,” Kate mused. “Suspects.”
With no one to see, he dared to take her soft hand and squeeze it between his own. “There does not seem to be a butler to amuse you, but an indication of force presented itself.”
Kate’s teeth bit into her lower lip. “You think someone pushed Mr. Harley?”
“He was admittedly unwell, so certainly could have overbalanced and fallen, but—” Charles paused.
“What?” Kate bounced on the balls of her feet.
He grinned at her. “Darling Kate, you’re so bloodthirsty. What kind of children will a mother like you bring into the world?”
“Intelligent ones,” she insisted, pulling her hand away. “Tell me what you’ve learned, Charles.”
He bent over her ear and whispered into it. “There may be something to investigate since bruising on the corpse’s upper arms indicates he was pushed out of the window.”
“Bruising,” she mused, picking up immediately on the most important word. She turned away from him and paced behind the chairs, biting on her gloved forefinger. “Who would have wanted to kill him?”
“Mr. Screws inherited the Harley share of the business,” Charles said. “He might have thought Mr. Harley wasn’t earning his keep, since he’d been ill. Why not hasten his end along?”
“I don’t believe that,” Kate griped. “Who else was there? Just the apprentice and the housekeeper’s son?”
“Huge hands, he has.” Charles said in a drawn-out, spooky voice. “They would leave bruises. The apprentice is American.”
“We can’t hang him for that,” Kate said absently. “Then there’s the housekeeper.”
“You do like a servant for the killing, darling,” Charles observed. “Why is that?”
“It’s such a domestic crime. And the chains, you know. A woman could apply force with chains, the way she couldn’t with smaller hands.”
“Maybe they all did it together,” Charles suggested. “Mrs. Dorset applies the chains, irritated by the extra washing. Harley was too cheap to pay for his own domestics. Her son causes the bruises, pushing Mr. Harley to the window, upset by the necessity of taking down an extra pot of slops each day. Finally, Mr. Screws himself goes down on his aged knees and lifts his partner’s feet, tipping him out the window that Mr. Harley’s son has opened.”
Kate clapped. “Well done, Mr. Dickens.”
Charles took a modest bow. “It’s as good an explanation as anything.”
The office boy dashed past the door, waving his hands. He went past Mr. Hogarth’s open door, then flipped around, dancing on his boots, then came back and stuck in his ink-spattered head. “Mr. Dickens, you’re wanted, sir.”
Charles stared at the breathless boy. “By whom, Infant Disaster?”
The boy wiped at his cheek, depositing more ink. “I don’t know, sir. Some old gentleman with wild eyes.”
Charles glanced at Kate, then followed the boy back toward the front room of 332 Strand, where a secretary fended off the public. Kate followed behind.
In front of the secretary’s desk, Emmanuel Screws himself paced back and forth, scarecrow-like on legs greatly thinned by age. His boots shone, evidence of his housekeeper’s command of the household, though his buff breeches had a new long stain from ink or coffee. He had a general air of one ripping his hair out with his fingers, though his hands were grasping the tails of his coat.
“Mr. Dickens,” the old man cried.
“Calm yourself, sir,” Charles said, rushing to help him, despite his revulsion at the sight of the old sinner.
Kate came up next to him and patted the old gentleman’s arms. “What is troubling you, Mr. Screws? The verdict?”
“What?” Mr. Screws said, wide eyed. “No, child, not the verdict, the body. Jacob’s body has been snatched!”
Chapter 6
Charles stared at Mr. Screws, all irritation at the man’s appearance gone in the excitement of a new puzzle. “You’re saying that Mr. Harley’s corpse has vanished?”
Behind him, the Chronicle’s secretary ceased scratching in his ledger. The two men who’d been accosting him, asking for a donation from the newspaper to their charity, stopped their patter. The newspaper’s anteroom had gone silent.
The old man nodded. “Yes.”
“Are-are you certain?” Charles stammered. “I saw Mr. Dawes myself, the undertaker. I met him early in the year and he truly is in that trade. He had two men with him. They loaded the coffin into a cart outside of the public house.”
“Maybe the body was no longer inside?” Kate asked, her gaze fixed on the old gentleman.
“What would they have done with the body?” Charles asked. “Tossed him into the rubbish heap in the alley from the back window of the pub?”
“The coffin has vanished as well,” Mr. Screws said heavily. He seemed to falter on one leg, as if a kneecap had suddenly disappeared.
Kate and Charles helped the elderly man to a bench by the door.
“It never arrived at your home after the inquest?” Kate asked.
“They were meant to take the coffin right to Jacob’s grave,” Mr. Screws said. He squeezed his knees with bony fingers, holding back emotion. “I returned home in my carriage and ate a late, cold dinner prepared by Mrs. Dorset before going to the burial site. By then Jacob was supposed to be delivered to General Cemetery of All Souls, Kensal Green. The grave was dug, but no coffin ever arrived.”
“How odd,” Kate said. “Might there have been a traffic accident? A horse that lost a shoe?”
“The cart looked rickety,” Charles said, struck by the tears in the old man’s eyes. Perhaps he had a heart after all, even if he had not employed it with the Dickens family. “I only met Mr. Dawes at a private gentleman’s home. But I will find his establishment for you and sort things out.”
“Let Mr. Dickens look into the matter. You should go home to bed, Mr. Screws,” Kate said gently. “You don’t look well.”
“Thank you both,” Mr. Screws said tremulously. “I am not an indecisive, fluttering sort of man, but I must say the death of my business partner has made sport with me.”
“It is a terrible thing,” Kate soothed. “Mr. Dickens will have your carriage return to the door if you are ready to leave.”
“Yes, have John return,” Mr. Screws said.
Charles nodded and stepped into the wide street. He spotted an ancient private carriage up the street. Dashing past a crossing sweeper cleaning up muck, he ran down the pavement waving until he caught the coachman’s eye.
“For Mr. Screws? Are you John?” he called up.
“I am,” said the gravelly voice. The coachman’s face looked even older than his master’s, but his hands were steady on the reins.
“You’re to return,” Charles said. “And take the old man home.”
“Wery vell,” said the coachman, and snapped his reins. Charles watched him disappear into the fog. He’d have to find a spot to turn around. Charles reversed and almost bumped into a street seller carrying potatoes. Must have been an out-seller from someone with cooking equipment elsewhere. Thinking of th
e cold, he bought three hot potatoes from the Irishwoman and tucked them into his pockets, enjoying their warmth on the dash back to the Chronicle. Instead of tormenting Mr. Screws, he now wanted to comfort him, a strange twist of fate.
Inside, Kate sat on the bench next to the old man. The coal brazier was on the opposite side of the room and Charles thought Mr. Screws’s lips looked blueish. He offered him two of the potatoes and the other to Kate.
“For warmth if not for eating,” Charles said.
“Thank you. Where is my carriage?” queried the old man, taking the potatoes in shaking hands. He lowered them to his thighs.
Charles smiled at Kate as she took her potato. “Still on this side of the street, I’m afraid. He’ll have to come around.”
Mr. Screws made an irritated noise, put one potato into his pocket and opened the other. As he pulled back a piece of skin, steam expelled from it.
“That looks delicious,” Kate admitted. “I think I will eat mine if you don’t mind. Charles, do you want a bite?”
“No, I have some badly cured pickles sitting uneasily in my stomach,” he said. “Go ahead.”
“Have you gone to the police, sir?” Kate asked. “Are they looking for the coffin?”
“I tried them first,” Mr. Screws said wearily. “But the station was full to bursting with malodorous fishmongers who had been fighting. The constables were thoroughly engaged in the mess. I did not have the strength to wait them out, so I came here instead.” He considered his potato.
Charles stood against the wall while his charges ate. “Why would anyone steal Mr. Harley’s body?” he asked aloud without meaning to. Street accidents were common so it seemed likely that something had happened to Mr. Dawes’s wagon along the way to the cemetery.
“Body snatchers, sir,” Mr. Screws said. “Perhaps you are too young to recall the considerable reports of them at the start of this decade.”
“The laws have changed since then,” Charles pointed out.
“Maybe something about Jacob’s body made him worth the risk. But I made sure nothing valuable was on his person,” Mr. Screws rejoined.
“Maybe the value was in his remains,” Kate said gently. “Evidence of his murderer.”
A Christmas Carol Murder Page 7