One side was open to a fire in a tiled stove similar to the one downstairs. Between the open curtains, Charles saw Mr. Screws arranged on a heap of pillows, his face gray. When he opened his mouth, however, Charles observed that his tongue had a pink and healthy appearance, despite his skin.
Mr. Screws lifted a hand, which trembled weakly. Charles took it and sat on the edge of the bed. “I am sorry Miss Hogarth isn’t with me, sir. She’s very good in a health crisis.”
“I have suffered too much in these past days,” the old man whispered. “I must rest.”
“That is exceedingly sensible, sir, but what about the counting-house? You have employees. Is Mr. Fletcher trained well enough to take on your duties and Mr. Harley’s?”
“I am giving my business to my nephew and retiring.” He clutched a book to his breast and closed his eyes.
Charles stared at the old man, resting on his pillows.
With that new piece of information, Charles couldn’t help but reconsider Mr. Screws’s nephew. Was he behind everything? He knew what he had to do. Get imprints of the man’s fingers.
Chapter 14
Charles felt a wave of sympathy for Mr. Screws, gray faced on his pillow. “You may change your mind once you recover your health.”
“I will not.” Mr. Screws patted his book.
Charles sighed. “Please do not sign any papers regarding the business until we are certain who killed Mr. Harley. I don’t suppose his ghost has visited you with anything helpful? Young Primus seemed to think his shade was about.”
Mr. Screws laughed, or coughed, Charles wasn’t certain. “No. I have not seen him.”
“I am glad you still have a sense of humor, sir.” He paused.
“Are you certain Mr. Pettingill wants the business? He is a man of science.”
“He is the only close family I have.”
“And Primus Harley was trained as a weaver,” Charles said. “At least I assume Mr. Pettingill is an educated man.”
“He is.” Mr. Screws squeezed Charles’s hand. “Mr. Fletcher will help him until he returns to America.”
“When will that be?”
“I do not know.” Mr. Screws yawned. “I must rest.”
Charles patted Mr. Screws’s hand with his free one, then removed himself from the old man’s grip. “Rest well. I will speak to you again soon.”
He walked out of the room. The Pettingills huddled in the passage.
“What did he say?” Mrs. Pettingill asked.
“That Mr. Fletcher will help your husband run the business.”
Mr. Pettingill licked his lips. “I never thought he’d relinquish it. I have no training.”
Charles judged the man to be nervous, not triumphant. “Why don’t we go to dinner?” he suggested. “Somewhere with a good roast? We can discuss the matter.” If he could find somewhere with napkins and get the man to wipe greasy fingers on the cloth, he might be able to compare it to his sketch of the killer’s hands.
But the nephew shook his head. “My place is here, though it is very kind of you. But I am sure you do not know the business, either.”
“I’ll go to dinner with you, Charles.” Mr. Fletcher had come up the stairs without anyone noticing. “How is Mr. Screws?”
“Weak,” Charles said. “But still in possession of his wits.” He hoped.
* * *
Charles followed Mr. Fletcher into a chophouse in the banking district, not far from the Screws and Harley establishment. Inside, the customers presented as well fed and prosperous, a sign of an expensive but good-quality meal.
“Do you come here often?” Charles asked, setting his gloves on the bench beside him and taking off his hat.
Mr. Fletcher did the same. “If I can put it on my expense account with the firm. It’s very good meat and not too many vegetables.”
A fug of yellow cigar smoke rose from the table in front of them. Mr. Fletcher took an appreciative sniff. “Smells like back home. My family, the Lees, you know, still have a number of tobacco plantations in Virginia.”
As they ordered their food and had it served, the American prosed on with Richard Lee this, and Paradise that, as well as Ditchley and various other place names. Charles found it difficult to straighten it all out. “How long did this Richard Lee live?” he inquired.
“Oh, I’m talking about the founder, and the son, and the offspring,” Mr. Fletcher said. “All staunch royalists despite what happened later.”
He was off again. Utterly self-absorbed with the glory of his ancestors, rather like the British nobility. Did all Americans who knew how to trace their roots back to William the Conqueror obsess over their ancestors like this? And didn’t Mr. Fletcher see the irony in revering the Lees when his most distinguished family line was through a family called Corbin? Shouldn’t that be the name that dripped so reverently from his lips?
The more Charles listened, the more he realized he couldn’t discern how exactly Mr. Fletcher was related to any of these people. That might have been the fault of the wine, which was excellent. Charles’s glass kept filling, and he kept drinking.
Eventually, his eyes were at half mast. He could see snow falling outside. “Excellent,” he said, speaking over Mr. Fletcher’s story about some medical man in the Lee family. “We had better find our beds before all the horses in London are stabled due to the weather.”
Mr. Fletcher broke off and turned to the window. “When did that begin?” he exclaimed.
“Indeed,” Charles said. “My point is made in snow.”
His companion threw coins down on the table and rose. “Winter is not my favorite season. Sometimes I fancy taking my chances in a place like New Orleans, or even sailing out to be a bookkeeper for some plantation in the Caribbean. Always fortunes to be made there, if you can survive the fevers.”
“I like London,” Charles said, weaving behind Mr. Fletcher as they went through the tables to the coatrack.
Mr. Fletcher threw on his outerwear, then pulled something out of his pocket. He thrust it at Charles, who reached for it.
Somehow, their hands did not connect. The item thudded to the ground. Mr. Fletcher, holding his wine better than Charles, snatched it up again and handed it over, careful to ensure that the binding fell into Charles’s palm that time, instead of merely touching his fingers.
“Miss Osborne remembered that Miss Hogarth wanted to read Lodore,” he explained.
“The first volume,” Charles said, glancing at the tome. “I had heard that the author of Frankenstein had penned a new novel. Thank you, but it looks very new.”
“I purchased it the next afternoon after our theater night. I found it interesting, so I’m passing the first volume along while I read the second.”
“That is most kind,” Charles said. What a gracious gesture. He pulled on his coat, and carefully tucked the volume inside. “I am afraid I do not collect many books. I am so busy with my own writings at the moment.”
“I do not ask for repayment,” Mr. Fletcher said with a gallant swirl of his muffler as he wound it around his neck.
“I can give you a word of, well, warning, I suppose, in return,” Charles said.
“What is that?”
“A friend of mine, a retired actress, tells me there is an actress operating with your fiancée’s name.”
Mr. Fletcher’s eyes widened over his encompassing muffler. Then Charles heard his chuckle from behind the dampening wool. “It is probably a stage name, chosen because it is so pretty.”
“I am sure you are right,” Charles said. “I didn’t mean to imply, of course. I know very well how the denizens of the theater are regarded. I once fancied becoming an actor myself.”
“Oh?”
As they went on to the street, Charles regaled Mr. Fletcher with his abortive attempt to audition for the theater, thwarted by a severe cold.
“I think that illness was heaven sent,” Mr. Fletcher said. “For you have clearly found your gift in another sphere, that of storyte
lling.”
Charles blinked stinging snowflakes from his eyes. “Thank you. I will return your favor by presenting you with the first volume of my sketches when it is printed.”
“I look forward to it,” Mr. Fletcher said. “I hope it makes you a very rich man.”
* * *
Charles’s feet felt frozen to his shoes by the time he entered his chambers. The snow had briefly turned to rain, then back again, leaving parts of his clothing icy and snowy altogether.
“Charles!” Fred leapt up from the sofa, rosy cheeked from a generous helping of coal freshly popping on the fire. “I am so glad you are home.”
“Are you?” Charles said acerbically. Though grateful that his brother loved him again, he felt sick from the cold and the wine. He went into the bedroom, shedding his coat, muffler, and hat behind him. Once inside, he pushed up the window sash and breathed. In his acidic state, he even worried about the fate of those poor clerks in the countinghouse. Would it stay open under the management of Mr. Pettingill? He had not the feral instincts of a Screws or Harley.
Fred came up behind him. Charles hit his head on the sash and reeled back. The explosion of pain was the last straw to his injured stomach. He leaned forward again and cast up his accounts over the pavement below.
“Satan’s teeth, Charles,” Fred exclaimed. “What is the matter with you?”
Charles turned and leaned the back of his head against the cold window. “Too much wine, that is all. Too much misery in the world, and at Christmas, too. It’s not right.”
“I’m sorry you knocked your head. I was only going to suggest you get dressed again so we could go coin hunting. Haven’t you missed the excitement of last winter, grubbing in the dirt for hidden treasure?”
“Whatever for?” Charles’s brain and belly sloshed with wine.
“To sell, to purchase Christmas gifts for the girls,” Fred said. “You know they’ve been busy all month making us new mittens and socks. I don’t have any talent with which to make things.”
“No?” Charles said blearily.
“I tried to make a little toy theater for the boys but it collapsed,” his brother said. “I want to buy some penny candy at least.”
“I don’t need the money from found coins,” Charles said. He had a good income these days. The only benefit in life left to him, it seemed.
“Maybe Julie would go with me?” Fred suggested.
“William would never allow it given her condition,” Charles said. “The very idea.”
“You want to go to bed?”
“I didn’t drink that much,” Charles muttered. “It’s just that I hit my head.”
“I believe you,” Fred assured him. “You can still form sentences.”
Charles put his hand to his forehead and considered his brother, who was eagerly shifting from side to side in his bid for attention. At least he hadn’t been deserted. He found a thread of his own cheer and forced his eyebrows to rise. “I bet you a penny that you can’t balance a spoon on your nose for five seconds.”
Fred grinned. “I bet you the penny I’m going to win off you that you can’t balance on one foot for ten seconds.”
“In my shoes or without them?”
“Without, blockhead. Your shoes are soaked.”
* * *
The next morning, Charles felt ill when he sat up. The room spun and his stomach felt like he’d swallowed rocks. He remembered the wine and the gambling and let his head drop back on the pillow, closing his eyes until he felt he’d achieved equilibrium again.
“Water,” he croaked, hoping Fred was in their rooms somewhere, but no one came. He must have gone to work.
Charles pushed the covers back and pulled the chamber pot out from under the bed using his sock-covered toes. Then he went to the window and leaned his head against the cold.
Outside, the yellow fog had descended again. Only a certain lightness above indicated daytime. He’d have to wait for church bells to even know the hour. A yawn told him his body required more sleep, but he had an endless pile of work to do both on his book and at the Chronicle.
He went to his diary to see where he was promised for the day. The words swam in front of his eyes but he eventually read his own notation. He was meant to be at the Lesser Hall for speeches that morning. While he wanted to check on Mr. Screws, it would have to wait for now.
Swearing, he pushed his hands through his unruly hair. He made himself ready and sped out the door, stomach churning, for what was left of the parliamentary buildings after last year’s fire.
Come afternoon, he made his way up the Strand toward the offices. He still hadn’t been able to eat but had ducked into a public house near the Lesser Hall for a tankard of ale, which had reduced his headache somewhat. His brain told him he should be churning over the question of possible war between France and America, but his thoughts kept turning to Kate. Only a week remained until Christmas and he felt farther away from her and their marital prospects than ever.
When Charles walked into the reporter’s chamber at the newspaper, something seemed to be very wrong. Thomas Pillar, the under-editor, scuttled away just before he would have met Charles’s eyes. No office boys were present, dashing about with messages. Worst of all, William stood at his desk. He faced Charles, his face ashen.
Charles’s mouth formed the name Julie and William shook his head in the negative.
“Charles?”
He turned to see Mr. Black, the editor, crook a finger at him. Having no choice but to follow, he walked out of the chamber after one last glance at his sorrowful friend.
Instead of taking him to his own office, Mr. Black opened Mr. Hogarth’s door. He ushered Charles inside, then shut them both into the room with the coeditor. Neither of the men offered him a chair.
Instead, Mr. Hogarth set his pipe in an ashtray and stood, tucking his hands under his tailcoat behind him. “I’m afraid we won’t be requiring your services any longer, Charles.”
Chapter 15
“What? Why?” Charles demanded. “I haven’t missed any meetings, or any deadlines.” How could they think of sacking the best parliamentary reporter they had?
What had Kate done? He pulled his notebook from his coat and faced off with the other two standing men. “I have my shorthand notes from Lesser Hall this morning. I know I’m very busy with my book but my work here hasn’t suffered.”
“It’s not that,” Mr. Black said with a sigh. He sagged against Mr. Hogarth’s desk, his body language making it clear that he wasn’t pleased with these proceedings.
The coeditor shook his head.
“Then what?” Charles asked, knowing what was coming from the expression on Mr. Hogarth’s face.
“I am not willing to work with ye any longer,” Mr. Hogarth said. His hand shook as he picked up his pipe again.
“I have great respect for you, sir,” Charles said earnestly. “If you’ve heard otherwise, I assure you it isn’t true. It’s an honor to write for you.”
“What ye have done to my daughter shows anything but respect.” Mr. Hogarth shoved the stem into his mouth.
Charles squeezed his eyes shut. Kate must have decided to formally break their engagement without any further contact with him. “I’m going to win her back, sir. It’s all a misunderstanding. We love each other. We’ll sort it out.”
Mr. Hogarth’s lip curled. “I will not employ a man who fathers a bastard child while courting my daughter.”
“I didn’t,” Charles insisted, forcing his temper down. Theatrics would only hurt him. “The infant, Timothy, is not mine, in the first place. I’m trying to find his father.”
Mr. Hogarth continued to stare at him, a skeptical look creasing his brow.
Charles blurted, “And secondly, even if he were, he was conceived before I met Kate.”
“How do you know that?” Mr. Black asked as Mr. Hogarth’s eyes narrowed further.
Charles thrust his hands under his coat skirts, wiping sweat off his hands. “Becaus
e his aunt, young and distraught over the loss of her sister in the Hatfield fire, told me the circumstances of his birth. The babe wasn’t a foundling. He had a mother.”
“But not a father,” Mr. Hogarth said, acid around the pipe stem.
“That she knew of, sir. I’m sure her dead sister knew.” Charles swallowed. “It’s not me, sir. I promise you.”
“You’re a man of the world, Charles. You have every right to be,” Mr. Black said. “I don’t judge you, but obviously Mr. Hogarth feels differently, as he has the right to. Miss Hogarth is his daughter.”
Charles wouldn’t fall for the obvious attempt to get him to admit something. He straightened his shoulders and touched the bow on his neckerchief to make sure it was straight. “I didn’t wrong Miss Hogarth, but I also didn’t father the child. The mother was a maid at Hatfield House. The father came from much closer than Furnival’s Inn.”
“How do you know that?” Mr. Black asked.
“She worked directly for the old noblewoman. If she had more than a half day to herself a month I’d be surprised. No, the father must be someone employed on the estate.”
Mr. Hogarth bit down on his pipe stem until Charles could hear it cracking under his teeth. “Ye should have confessed all. Instead, ye wrapped William into yer lies.”
Charles’s heart rate sped. How had he never recognized how stubborn his fiancée’s father could be? “No lies, just men of honor attempting to save a baby from a Christmas of dying in the workhouse. The young aunt might yet come to her senses and care for her nephew.”
“Unacceptable,” Mr. Hogarth muttered around his pipe.
“You cannot want the child to die?” Charles clutched his curls on either side of his head. He felt tiny pops along his scalp as tender hair pulled out. “We’ve gone to a great deal of trouble and expense to save him. Here I am, risking my very career on the matter.”
“At the expense of your good relationship with my daughter. She deserves a respectable man.”
A Christmas Carol Murder Page 17