A Christmas Carol Murder

by Heather Redmond

  “You know I never mind seeing you, Uncle Emmanuel,” he said, perching on his chair. “But I have no interest in my father, his death or his funeral, nor his resting place.”

  “I thought you might care to know that his body has gone missing,” Mr. Screws said. He coughed mightily and applied his handkerchief.

  Mr. Harley’s body finally stilled. “Are you well, sir? The tea will just be a couple of minutes.”

  Mr. Screws waved his concern away.

  “Missing?” Mr. Harley continued. “No, I don’t suppose I do care about that. Mother ended up in a pauper’s grave, not even a resting spot of her own, thanks to my father refusing to marry her.”

  “He paid your way,” Mr. Screws said. “You had a good education, Primus.”

  “But—”

  “No,” Mr. Screws said, with a hint of virile sharpness. “Your mother, who was nothing but a washerwoman when he met her, had a roof over her head and food every day of her life after she met Jacob. She could never have counted on that. He treated her better than her parents could have, or even some Irish husband.”

  “He should have married her,” Mr. Harley protested. “She was devoted to him.”

  “In her way,” the old man sneered.

  “Nothing doing,” Mr. Harley snapped. “She was an excellent woman. My father spent his life afraid of her popishness and petticoats, ridiculous things to fear. He preferred to hide in his countinghouse.”

  Charles’s eyes widened. Mr. Screws’s own instruments of vision bulged in their sockets. “I-I think the tea is ready,” Charles stammered, hoping to reduce the tension.

  “Very well,” Mr. Harley muttered, wrapping his fingers around his pot and pouring thick tan liquid into coarse brown pottery cups.

  Charles could smell that the leaves weren’t fresh. He stood and went to the loom in the window. The silk on it appeared to be a half-finished garment, possibly a shawl, woven in a swirled pattern in light and dark creams. “Absolutely exquisite work,” he said.

  “It’s for the Duchess of Beaufort,” Mr. Harley said. “She has a large family and they keep me in work.”

  “Was your mother a weaver as well?”

  “No, she died when I was ten. Then I was apprenticed in a trade suitable to her ancestry.” Mr. Harley’s eyes pierced into Charles’s when he turned away from the loom. “I have naught of hers but a lock of her hair. My father let me keep nothing, calling sentiment womanish.”

  Why had a man so sentimental himself not taken a wife? Primus Harley must be around thirty. Perhaps he could not afford one. Or he had some unseen defect of personality such that would allow one to become a patricide.

  “Are you satisfied, Mr. Dickens?” the old gentleman said. “As you can see, there is little chance that Mr. Harley was involved in either the theft of my partner’s body, or his death, or your visitation last night.”

  “I believe you,” Charles said. He trusted nothing.

  “Truly, I do not understand why you dismiss the idea that it really was Jacob’s shade,” Mr. Screws said over his teacup. “If anyone could return from the grave it was him. He had an inextinguishable force of personality.” He closed his eyes and sucked in the steam through his pursed lips.

  Charles threw himself into the armchair and took a piece of shortbread, then bit into it savagely. He had so much work to do and the waste of time grated on his nerves.

  “It is very good?” Mr. Harley asked, his gaze softening and anxious as Charles swallowed his bite.

  His mouth warmed with the luscious velvet taste of butter mixed in an alchemy with flour and other ingredients. “Yes, I’ve never tasted better. What does it have in it?”

  “Spices,” Mr. Harley said with relish. “I don’t like bland colors or food.”

  Mr. Screws broke into Charles’s enjoyment. “You should take a look at Hugh Appleton next.”

  “Remind me who that is again?” Charles asked, taking another piece of shortbread as Mr. Harley lifted the box to his hand.

  “The owner of the chain manufacturer who was about to be ruined by Jacob,” Mr. Screws said. “He had just mentioned at dinner that he was going to lower the axe, when he took ill and left the table.”

  “I’ll speak to Mr. Appleton,” Charles said.

  “We shall leave you to your work, Primus,” said Mr. Screws wearily. “I do wish you would remember your father in a better light.”

  * * *

  Hugh Appleton’s blacksmith enterprise perched on the south side of the river. Charles went across Blackfriars Bridge to Southwark to find it, craning his neck to see if he could spot any sign of mudlark activity on the foreshore, but in what passed for daylight at this time of year, visibility was too poor to spot anyone.

  The smithy was an entirely different level of affair from the one he’d known behind his rooms on Selwood Terrace the previous summer. Here, you could tell that no families were eking out a threadbare existence in cottages behind the forge. The smithy was an enormous, busy operation, with men of all ages moving about self-importantly. Behind the main building was a solitary cottage, with a painted signboard announcing APPLETON CHAINWORKS to anyone visiting.

  Charles walked through the yard to see if he could find the owner and understand why such a bustling enterprise had been about to be ruined by Jacob Harley.

  He passed through the open front door of the cottage. Inside, three men, two in workman’s clothes, were bent over a piece of paper spread over a table. None of them glanced up, but he heard heated conversation about specifications and tensile strength. The third man wore the clothing of a gentleman. While much younger than Emmanuel Screws, he had the leanness and the fidgety energy of the older man. He wore a dark suit, very plain, and when he pulled his hat off to scratch his head Charles saw he was bald except for wild dark brown tufts above his ears. The hat went up and down three times, and then the man cast it aside and pulled at those singular tufts of hair. His gaze wandered until he spotted Charles.

  Charles inclined his head. “Charles Dickens, Morning Chronicle, sir.”

  “Morning Chronicle? What have we done to warrant the interest of such a publication?” the man asked. He nodded at the workmen, who rolled up the paper and departed with inquiring glances.

  “I’m researching the demise of Jacob Harley,” Charles said, leaving out the “why” he was doing such a thing.

  The man’s hands went to his hair again, then fell away. He folded his hands over his chest. His right eye twitched.

  “What is the story of your involvement with Mr. Harley and Mr. Screws’s countinghouse?” Charles asked. He looked closely at the man’s hands. They belonged to a musician. He never could have trained those long, sensitive fingers at a forge. No scars, and his forearms looked too thin to work with metal.

  “We supply chains to Fairbairn and Lillie. They’ve come down from Manchester to set up iron ship works here and we needed capital to start the work.”

  “Are you Hugh Appleton?”

  “I am, yes. My father was a blacksmith, a successful one, and I expanded from his business.”

  “I see. An impressive smithy. I’ve seen what a two-man operation looks like.”

  Mr. Appleton’s narrow chest puffed. “I have twelve senior blacksmiths. Expanded from eight after Mr. Fairbairn, the distinguished engineer, chose us for his chain work.”

  “You applied to Mr. Harley for a loan?”

  “We’ve had the contract less than a year, you see. No time to earn enough to pay back the loan. When Mr. Harley visited and said he didn’t trust my operation and he was canceling the loan, well you can imagine my distress.”

  Charles hardened his expression, imagining he was Sir Silas presiding over an inquest. “Did you murder him?”

  The man’s mouth dropped open. “Good heavens, no! I’ve never been to Mr. Screws’s house, where he died. He wasn’t a well man, but he managed to come here to speak to me.”

  “Do you have any theories?” Charles rasped.

  M
r. Appleton emoted something between a laugh and a cry. “I haven’t stopped praying since I had heard about the chain being involved in his death.”

  Charles shared, “I saw the death and testified at the inquest. The undertaker told me of evidence of interference by human hands before the chain ever went around his neck. I wonder that you weren’t there.”

  The business owner sagged against the table. It took his weight as he dropped his head to his chest. After a moment, he linked his fingers together and bowed his head in obvious prayer. When he looked up, he said, “I wasn’t called. Do you think Mr. Screws will finalize the cancellation of my loan?”

  “I have no idea, but I will ask him to send you a letter,” Charles said. He did not think this man had anything to do with the murder. That didn’t mean some subordinate or family member wasn’t involved.

  “That would be very kind of you.”

  Charles sighed at Mr. Appleton’s hopeful expression. He did not want this man’s relatives to be guilty. “Do you have a second-in-command? A son?”

  “My son is thirteen,” Mr. Appleton said. “The oldest one. My brother worked with me until his death. I support his children with the business, but they are all girls.”

  “Then I very much hope that Mr. Screws makes a different decision,” Charles said. The man could be hiding some other associate, but no suspect was obvious. He decided not to press on. He was due in Brompton for dinner and didn’t want to miss spending time with Kate. “I will be in touch. Is there a hackney stand near here?”

  “The nearest is some fifteen minutes’ walk away, Mr. Dickens,” Mr. Appleton said. “If you would permit me to walk with you, I would happily share my hopes for my business.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Charles said hastily. “I am a reporter, not a partner in the countinghouse.”

  Chapter 8

  For the Tuesday evening meal, Mrs. Hogarth and her kitchen girl had prepared a pork roast, cheese-covered sliced potatoes, and cabbage. A treacle tart came out after the meal, to squeals of delight from the children.

  After the treacle tart pan was empty, the Hogarths sent the very youngest up to their cots with Mary to tuck them in. Mr. Hogarth lit his pipe and resettled himself in his armchair at the fireplace end of their dining table while Mrs. Hogarth poured tea. The girls took up needles and the boys, their books.

  “Ye’ve been verra quiet tonight, Charles,” he observed. “What’s troubling ye?”

  Charles changed seats to where Mary had sat next to her father, close to the fire. “Kate wanted me to help Mr. Screws so I’ve been chasing the story. I saw the chain manufacturer today, but I don’t think he had anything to do with the death despite his business being threatened by the countinghouse. I met Primus Harley, who is Mr. Harley’s illegitimate son.”

  Mrs. Hogarth put her hand to her chest. “I never.”

  “Yes, I agree that using a business’s chains in a murder is ghastly, but it doesn’t mean that Mr. Appleton was involved in the nasty business,” Charles explained.

  “That is true,” Mrs. Hogarth said, patting her dark curls back under her cap. “I meant that ye had to have dealings with the bastard son.”

  Charles forced a weary smile onto his face and took the cup of tea that she handed him. Taking into account Mrs. Hogarth’s reaction, he knew he’d made the right decision not to tell the family about baby Timothy. “Given that a ghost popped up outside my chambers last night, I have to see everyone who might be involved.”

  “A ghost?” Kate exclaimed, wide eyed, from her spot in the rocking chair on the other side of the fireplace, away from the table. She dropped her knitting needles into her lap.

  “I’m sure it wasn’t really a ghost,” he demurred. “But the situation was highly dramatic.” He explained what had happened.

  “You really didn’t find a rock?” Kate asked. “Maybe it fell back out the window.”

  “The wind only went one direction,” Charles said. “I’m certain Mr. Whitacre didn’t kick anything out of the hole.”

  “I think it’s a sign,” Mrs. Hogarth said, as Mary came back into the room. “Mr. Harley must have been an appalling, unchristian man. Not worth wasting time on.”

  “What about Mr. Screws?” Kate said. “I still like him, and it’s such an unusual sort of murder.”

  Charles smiled indulgently at Kate while Mrs. Hogarth passed a cup of tea to her oldest son, Robert, who passed it along to Mary. She sat next to her brother.

  Mr. Hogarth chuckled. “Kate, my pet, ye need a better interest than murder. Flower pressing, perhaps?”

  “Cooking?” Charles added helpfully.

  Kate smirked at him. “I made the treacle tart myself, Mr. Dickens.”

  Charles brightened immediately. Visions of future tarts danced through his thoughts, quite eradicating all of the sketch revising he needed to do that night before he slept.

  “I can make a better tart,” Georgina said. “You should try my tart, Mr. Dickens. You’d like it ever so much.”

  Mrs. Hogarth spoke before he could reassure Kate’s younger sister. “I don’t want ye visiting this Mr. Screws again,” she insisted, her nose pointing in Kate’s direction as she picked up an embroidery hoop. “Finsbury Circus or not, he isnae our sort of gentleman.”

  Kate and Charles shared a glance. He cast about for a suitable topic, but before he could manage to open his mouth, Kate said, “I’m going to tell a ghost story. Mr. Dickens has already given us a very good one. Now it’s my turn.”

  “Lovely,” Mary said happily. She rose from the table and sat on a low stool in front of Kate.

  Kate lifted her eyebrows and cleared her throat. “ ’Tis a tale of the Scots.”

  Charles noticed that her Edinburgh accent had made a dramatic reappearance. Normally, he heard only a faint trace of it.

  “Gone five a.m.,” Kate whispered menacingly, “and mist snaked around the boots of the men pawing through the rubble these past three hours, looking for the king and his men.”

  “Lord Darnley!” Mary called, shivering dramatically. “I love this one.”

  Robert set down his book and turned to face Kate. Charles and Mr. Hogarth exchanged amused glances.

  “Aye,” Kate said with a nod at her sister. “And the queen was up in Holyroodhouse, crying in her bed for her bairn’s father. The purple velvet hangings hid her dark, dark shame.”

  Mrs. Hogarth grunted and bent her head over her stitches.

  Kate winked at Charles. “Her head lifted as distant chatter drifted up the streets from Kirk o’ Field. ‘Let us go merrily to bed in singing . . .’ ”

  Her voice lowered. “But it was gone morning, a February morning, and the whispers made no sense. They belonged to the night before, when the queen had left her sick lord to attend a party.”

  “On purpose,” Robert interrupted. “For she wanted Lord Bothwell, not her husband.”

  “Dinna interrupt yer sister,” Mr. Hogarth reproved.

  Kate giggled, then went solemn again. “In the south field, under a pear tree, King Henry rose, his short white gown still despite the bitter wind.

  “A yard away, poor William Taylor rose, too, a pale lute in his hands.”

  “Oooh,” Georgina whispered, her darning forgotten in her lap.

  “The king moved tae his fur robe, draped across the stubbled garden. He stared down at the spittle-encrusted garment, emotionless, and sang in a fine, clear tenor voice. ‘Give ear to my words, O Lord. Hearken unto the voice of my cry . . .’

  “The valet plucked dutifully at the lute as he drifted across the frost, behind the king.

  “At Flodden Wall, the king stopped, his handsome young face distorting. The tendons in his neck stretched, his milky eyes unfocused, as his mouth opened tae an inhuman scream. ‘Pity me, kinsmen, for the love of Him who had pity on all the world!’ ”

  Charles shivered involuntarily at Kate’s eerie cry. Georgina put her hand on his sleeve, clutching at him.

  Kate’s eyes opene
d wide. “The doomed men vanished as the garden gate opened. A harsh cry came up from a dust-soaked searcher. ‘More bodies o’er here!’

  “The searcher raced in, then doffed his cap as he realized he was in the presence of the king. His face went pale as he recognized the horrible truth. Darnley’s body was faceup under the winter-branched tree, unmarked yet clearly dead.”

  Kate paused dramatically, then delivered another line. “Up in the castle, the queen clutched at her neck and coughed spasmodically, as if something had just cut intae the back of it.”

  “Ooooh,” Mary crowed, then clapped her hands.

  “She’s headed for the block, that one,” Robert said with relish as Charles clapped, too.

  “Death stalks even the highest among us.” Kate lifted her arm, her index finger focusing into a point. “No one is safe from his touch.” She stood and poked her finger into Mary’s side.

  Mary giggled and stuck out her tongue as Kate dropped into a curtsey, then sat down again, face flushed with storytelling magic.

  “You’re such a good storyteller, Kate dear,” Mary said, as her younger brothers hooted their approval. “How fun that was.”

  Kate schooled her expression and took up her knitting. “Maybe Father will give us a song now?”

  * * *

  The Chronicle office seemed extra chilly that morning when Charles walked in. He added coal to the stove before he took his coat off, then went to his desk. William slid his chair over and gave Charles a wide, charismatic smile after he sat in his desk chair. “Where have you been?”

  “I went to the East End to see if Mr. Dawes had reappeared.” Charles shivered. “Bloody cold it is outside.”

  William lost his smile. “The undertaker? Who died?”

  Charles dropped his damp gloves on the corner of his desk. “Not died. Disappeared. Mr. Harley’s body never made it to Kensal Green, remember?”

  William yawned. “I’m not getting enough sleep with Baby Timothy about. The undertaker had it?”

  “Yes, and I recognized him at the inquest when the coffin was picked up.”