A Christmas Carol Murder

by Heather Redmond

  Charles stirred. He heard a rapping at the door. The fire had died down and his candle had puddled, wickless, in its holder but the room had not yet gone cold. He felt his way to the mantelpiece and took a dip from a box, then held it into the coals until it caught fire. Ink dotted his fingers and shirt cuff from an accident with his pen. More work for the incompetent laundress. As he walked to the door, his fingers softened the tallow, which put off an unpleasant, sheepish scent. His flame danced along the walls.

  When he opened the door, he saw nothing at first. Then he raised his candle. A thin, tall figure, shrouded by a dark cloak, stood in front of him. Fog, or perhaps smoke, swirled around his feet. Charles didn’t recognize him but saw a hint of pale trousers when the man stepped forward.

  “Charles Dickens?” moaned a sepulchral voice.

  Charles, feeling a hint of unease, wished he had taken the time to find a candleholder. His hand was warm, and he was afraid the candle would bend and burn him. “Yes. Can you give me a moment?”

  “Charles Dickens?” the man moaned, louder. Hands in fine white evening gloves pushed his hood back from his face.

  Charles took a step back instinctively, holding his candle high. What fresh menace was this?

  Chapter 7

  In the candle’s glow, Charles could now see a grave-white face burrowing inside the deep hood. He could not perceive any sign of a hairline, but the sunken cheeks and half-closed eyes reminded him of someone he’d seen recently. Did he look like Jacob Harley, or merely any corpse? Shifting in his doorway, he attempted to step closer to the figure, but the being held up his hands in warning.

  “I bring you a message,” the strange creature moaned.

  “From whom?” Charles attempted to keep his tone skeptical, though his heartbeat rattled in his chest.

  “The Beyond,” intoned the voice.

  “Beyond what?” snapped Charles, covering for his nervousness. Who was this creature?

  “Leave the Screws household alone.” His ghastly voice nonetheless held an air of menace.

  Charles clutched his candle more tightly. It began to bend. “Who are you, sir?”

  His visitor gave a spectral chuckle. His gums showed very gray, his teeth very brown, against the pale lips.

  “Do not attempt to frighten me,” Charles warned, switching his candle to his other hand. “Are you involved in the body snatching?” He took a quick step forward.

  Before he could reach the cloaked figure, he heard a crash. A cacophony of sound resonated as the window at the end of the passage collapsed into a thousand shards. Charles covered his eyes and fell back against his lintel, trying to avoid the glass. The wind rushed through. He opened his eyes cautiously.

  The hooded figure had disappeared in the commotion. An accomplice must have managed to smash the window from down below. As Charles righted himself, a door opened across the passage.

  “Wot happened?” asked a young lawyer, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Named Alan Whitacre, he’d moved in the previous month. Charles didn’t know him to speak to but the man dressed well and seemed a sober sort.

  “The window,” Charles said, holding up his candle again and stepping into the passage. His candle blew out. He swore and retreated, running his fingers along the wall to anchor himself.

  By the time he had returned to his door with his relit wick, Mr. Whitacre had lit a lantern, his candle protected by the glass sides. Charles saw his sleeve twinkle in the candlelight. He brushed away tiny bits of glass that pricked at his fingers.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No.” Charles followed the lawyer down the passage.

  “There ought to be a rock on the floor, something that broke the window.” Mr. Whitacre, methodical, swept his lantern up and down the floor.

  Shards of glass twinkled in the light, but Charles saw no sign of a projectile.

  “God’s teeth, but it’s a bitter night,” the lawyer muttered.

  “The wind doesn’t help. What broke the window? How did the specter manage it?” Charles’s eyes darted everywhere the lantern’s glow went. He refused to believe that a ghost had broken a window and disappeared. “Fiend.”

  “Calm down, Dickens. They’ll board the window up in the morning. If you have a spare blanket, I’d suggest you lay it along the floorboards behind your door to keep the wind out.”

  “An excellent suggestion,” Charles said, his mind whirling with ghost stories. One thing was certain. He’d be on Emmanuel Screws’s doorstep at the top of the day, demanding to know who had attempted to haunt him. As much as he had initially detested the old man, he’d begun to suspect that greater forces were afoot than one cantankerous old soul who’d disliked the Dickens family.

  * * *

  Charles had not been to Finsbury Circus for three days. His first solo daylight visit the morning after the spectral call reminded him anew of how imposing the inner private park was, how solid and prosperous the inhabiters of the area were. His father had reached over-high in that attempt to get funds. Turning away from the sight of damp greenery over the fence, Charles’s eyes skittered past the spot where Jacob Harley had lain. He took a double-sized step over it and went up the stairs.

  Mrs. Dorset opened the door promptly after he rang. She wore unrelieved black, not uncommon for housekeepers, but on her it gave the air of one about to leave for the cemetery to pay respects. “Sir?”

  “You’ll remember me, Mrs. Dorset. I need to see your master.”

  “He is usually at the countinghouse at this hour.”

  “So early? I thought to catch him before he left.” Charles pulled off his top hat and tilted it to the side to pour off the water he’d acquired on the walk over.

  “He has not yet departed today.” Mrs. Dorset sounded concerned. She stepped back to allow Charles to come inside. “If you will wait?”

  He followed her to a room on the right of the entrance. She opened the door for him before walking toward the back of the house. Grateful not to have to return to the chilly parlor, he peered in to see a long, highly polished table, which would seat twelve. Only five chairs with carved backs were tucked in along each side. One ornate chair with armrests lined up at one end. The window side of the table had no chair. Two silver candelabras graced the table, ready with candles that definitely didn’t smell of animal fat.

  He went to the etagere behind the armchair to look at the painting over it, the only one in the room, passing by a pretty tiled stove that kept the room temperate. Mr. Screws must breakfast here as well as eat his evening meal.

  Charles chuckled when he realized who featured in the painting. Mr. Screws had once allowed himself to be painted. There he was, large as life, graying hair sticking out in all directions, with, Charles assumed, his partner, Jacob Harley. Mr. Screws stood a little taller here than he did in life these days. Charles guessed the men might be in their midfifties or a bit younger, an idea borne out by the fact that they were dressed more in the style of the late Regency than this modern age of William IV.

  Mr. Screws still had a pinched expression on his mouth, but Mr. Harley had a more jovial air. In that era, he’d already had a paunch, but also enjoyed rosy cheeks and a ready smile in the rounded face. Charles searched the painted face, looking for signs that matched his specter of the night before. Was the nose the same? The mouth? How could he say, given that these features were painted and the real-life creature may have decorated his face to give the appearance of the grave? For surely, the ghost had not been real, but some miscreant attempting to post as Harley returned from the grave?

  He heard coughing outside the door. The door opened and Mr. Screws tottered in. Charles went to take his arm. The man needed his cane for support this morning.

  “Good morning, Mr. Dickens. Come to collect for your charity again?” Mr. Screws wheezed, ignoring Charles’s outstretched hand. He fished a handkerchief from his pocket and coughed into it.

  Charles saw that if nothing else, Mrs. Dorset kept the household linen very clea
n and white. “You had asked me to find Mr. Harley’s, er, remains,” he reminded the old man.

  “I did not expect you to have any success, sir. No, he is on some doctor’s table by now, being chopped up by students.” Mr. Screws hacked. “I don’t hold with it, sir.”

  Who would, except the men who profited from the body snatching? “I did trouble myself to hunt down Mr. Dawes’s undertaking operation but the house was shut up tight. I could not think of what more to do on a winter’s evening.”

  “I thought you were a man of ideas,” rejoined Mr. Screws, his words punctuated by coughs. “I might as well have braved the police.”

  Charles ignored the man’s lack of confidence in him. After all, he’d asked for help in the first place. He pulled out the chair closest to the stove. “Come and sit down, sir. Let the heat aid your lungs.”

  Screws pulled his arm away when Charles attempted to take it. He half sat, half fell into the chair.

  “Why are you here?” the old man demanded. “What do you want from me?”

  Had the old man’s mind begun to wander? Why would he think Charles would not offer a report on the search for the undertaker? “The body might be missing, but the spirit is on the move.” Charles pulled out the next chair and sat, his knees almost touching the bony Screwsian appendages.

  Mrs. Dorset entered with a tray and took it to the opposite side of the table, then pushed it in between the two men. “Elderberry cordial and tea, sirs. Mr. Screws should have both for his cough.”

  Her master sneered. She stuck her nose in the air and walked out.

  Charles poured cordial into the small glasses provided and slid one glass toward his host. “It might help prevent a chest cold developing.”

  “Pour the tea,” the old man said. “Cordial is loathsome.” Despite his words, he drained the glass, and it did seem to help his cough. After he had breathed deeply a couple of times, he spoke again, in a stronger voice. “What is this about Jacob’s spirit?”

  Charles slowed his voice to suit the tale. “I had a visitor last night, very late. A cloaked figure, deliberately trying to frighten me.”

  “Why do you say that?” He picked up his teacup.

  Mrs. Dorset had put a honey pot on the tray, but no other accompaniments. Charles added honey to his tea.

  “Helps with coughs,” Mr. Screws said. “Did you add any to mine?” Charles nodded as he continued. “She is an efficient woman. I should have married someone like her, instead of chasing love and a pretty face.”

  “That sounds like a story,” Charles said.

  “But you were telling me one of yours.” Screws gave him a long glance over his teacup.

  “My visitor’s face looked as if it had been dug up,” Charles said. “Or at least been in a coffin for days. He told me to leave your household alone. Then, as I attempted to come close to him, to push the hood completely off his face and ascertain his identity, the window at the end of the corridor suddenly exploded. Glass everywhere, even on me. The creature disappeared.” He pointed to the small nick on his cheek.

  Mr. Screws laughed until he began to cough, all the wrinkles in his face collapsing in on themselves as if he were a spoiled apple. “He must have broken the glass in order to escape.”

  “No. The glass broke inward. I had glass on my sleeve and it littered the floor. One last thing.” Charles leaned forward. “No projectile. We looked last night, my neighbor and I, with a lantern. Fred, my brother, and I looked again this morning. No one had cleaned up the glass but there was nothing else. No rock. No tree branch. Nothing.”

  Mr. Screws let out one last little giggle. “I almost hope it was Jacob. Such laughs we had when we were young. We were a jovial pair back in the days of Mr. Wintersea, where we apprenticed.”

  Charles saw his opportunity to learn more about the murdered man’s past. Kate would appreciate the story, so he’d tuck it away for her. “Who was the pretty face you chased in those days?”

  “Jacob had a sister,” Mr. Screws said musingly. “Mary, she was. Mary Harley. She had—” his fingers gestured vaguely.

  Charles couldn’t tell if he was gesturing to a pretty face or a pretty form or something else entirely. “What happened?”

  The man’s lips trembled, but then he firmed them with a downturn of his flesh. “She rejected my suit, said yes to another apprentice, then died of cholera the next summer. Died unwed and much too young.”

  What a cold summation. His love had calcified into indifference with the passage of so many years. Charles hoped the same would never happen to his relationship with Kate. “Very sad.”

  “Yes. I never looked at another pretty girl after her betrayal.” The old man sneered.

  Charles could not help but remember his own unsuccessful three-year courtship of banker’s daughter Maria Beadnell. If he hadn’t had the heart to find another girl to love, would he have risked becoming such a man as Mr. Screws in the future? Thank God for Kate, even if Maria’s memory did still haunt him at times. “I am sorry you did not try again.”

  “She said I loved money too much.” The old man stared into his cup as if the leaves could tell him a tale. “She must have been correct.”

  “I see.”

  Mr. Screws startled and glanced up. “But Jacob was a different character.”

  “Did he marry?”

  “No, but he does have a son. A bastard, who was in fact at dinner that dreadful evening. Maybe he is the explanation for your visitor. Was he very like Jacob?”

  Charles wondered why the son had not been at the inquest. Perhaps he had given his testimony before Charles arrived. “I thought so, but I never saw Jacob in life. I saw his body and his painted portrait.” He indicated it on the wall.

  “I have a more youthful miniature in my study. Come. I will show it to you.” The old man put down his cup and rose. This time he took Charles’s arm and they rocked out of the room together.

  They went past one door in the hall. The space could not be sized for more than storage. Then they went into a room equally as large as the dining room and clearly set up for work. Mr. Screws released Charles and tottered behind his imposing desk. Behind that was a long table, nearly covered with papers. He picked up a small frame at one end and handed it across the desk.

  Charles went to the window, which opened onto the back garden. He could see better once he’d opened the curtain. Jacob had been thirty or more years younger in this miniature. Maybe it had been painted for his mistress. He had dark hair and a ruddy face. Thick lips coarsened the face but the eyes were piercing, even in paint.

  Given Mr. Screws’s attachment to his business partner, perhaps the old man had arranged to have the body stolen himself. It had been so strange when he’d arrived today. Mr. Screws had not inquired into the investigation that he had ordered. Nor, did it seem, that he intended to go to the police. But where would Mr. Screws hide a decaying body?

  Charles glanced through the window. Outside was a flagstone walkway around the back of the house, then a low hedge surrounded what might have been an herb garden. The space looked functional rather than designed for walking. He saw no sign of disturbance.

  With a vague sense of unease, he remembered Mrs. Dorset’s great bear of a son. Johnny Dorset could have dug a grave quickly enough, though no sign of one existed.

  “Just herbs?” Charles inquired.

  “In the garden?” Mr. Screws said from his chair. “No. We grow vegetables in the summer. Cabbages in the winter. Saves money. Better than we can get in the markets.”

  “I see. Ground is probably easily turned over.”

  “Yes, not yet frozen at this time of year. Johnny is good at the work.”

  Charles saw a small shed at the far end. Lots of shovels in there, he expected. Still, he didn’t think a grave could be hidden in such a tidy space, not at this time of year in this cold. A coffin wouldn’t fit in the shed.

  He turned and handed the miniature back to Mr. Screws. “Are you well enough to introduce me to
this bastard Harley?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Screws said with a quaver.

  * * *

  Primus Harley, the late Jacob Harley’s bastard son, lived in a comfortable room on Steward Street in Spitalfields. The seventeenth-century house sported red brick and slightly tattered four-pane shutters over the windows. While an area with an extremely poor and sickly reputation, housing on the edge remained decent, despite the decline in the weaving industry. The younger Mr. Harley’s chamber, probably once a parlor, had a large window overlooking the street.

  From it, Charles watched Mr. Screws’s coachman talking to his horses. Though only half a mile from Mr. Screws’s mansion, the old gentleman had insisted on taking his carriage, and Charles did not blame him, given his unsteady gait.

  Mr. Harley’s fireplace dwarfed the room, but he made good use of it. He had a drying rack with a blanket over it, a good-sized hob, and presently poured water from the steaming kettle into a teapot. Despite all of these pleasing accoutrements, not least of all an open box of shortbread on the low table in front of a pair of armchairs, Charles could not like the man. He seemed to have no care for the common ties of family.

  The good news had been that as soon as he had opened his door to them, Charles knew Mr. Harley had not been his ghostly visitor of the night before. He scarcely came to Charles’s shoulder and he could not imagine the greasepaint it would have required to completely take the life out of his ruddy flesh.

  Mr. Harley’s mother must have been an Irishwoman, given the wild shock of orange hair on his head and the backs of his hands. Thick hands, too, which didn’t match Charles’s remembrance of the false shade’s appendages.

  He would not entertain the notion that his visitor had been an actual ghost, as the apparition had claimed.

  Mr. Harley set down the teapot on the table and pulled a cane chair from his small dining table and brought it over to them.