A Christmas Carol Murder Read online

  “It would be hard for her gang of younger boys to protect her,” Charles agreed.

  “Plus the lot of them might be oblivious to the danger.” Julie’s brow creased. “Could you wander down there sometime soon and judge the situation for yourself?”

  He moved his feet to change the angle of the drying. “Have you told William?”

  Julie nodded. “Yes, but he has had so many busy evenings.”

  Charles closed his eyes. “I’ll manage it. Could you please put the kettle on? I don’t want the Hogarths to take a chill.”

  After a moment, he heard her skirts rustle. With a sigh, he grabbed today’s Morning Chronicle from the deal table and applied himself to the theater notices.

  Julie had not yet reappeared when he heard a knock on the door. He went and opened it, expecting William’s return, but instead it was his brother, accompanied by the Hogarth sisters. Clapping his hands together, he kissed his fiancée, Kate Hogarth, on the cheek.

  “We met in the street,” Kate explained. She looked very merry, with pink cheeks and rosy lips. Her dark blond hair curled around her jaw under her green velvet bonnet. She wore an expensive white velvet cape edged in black that she’d inherited from Christiana Lugoson. He could see her pale yellow and blue tartan dress hem underneath.

  “How ever did you manage to keep that clean?” he asked, stroking her arm.

  Mary grinned at him. “She made me walk in front of her to catch all the mud.”

  He chucked Mary under the chin. “I well believe it. What do you think of my hardworking brother?”

  Mary glanced at Fred, then rolled her eyes as she turned back. “I hope he is applying himself.”

  Fred’s merry expression went mulish. He had a round face, but a growth spurt had thinned his body for now and his breeches were just short enough to need replacing.

  Julie reappeared with the kettle and set it on its hook over the fire before greeting everyone.

  “Are you well?” Kate asked, clasping Julie’s bare hands with her gloved ones.

  “I’m very well.” Julie opened her mouth again, and Charles, worried that she might say something about the baby, shook his head sharply. Julie’s head lifted proudly. “Just a bit flustered. Would you like tea?”

  “We’re fine,” Kate said. “We didn’t walk here all the way from Brompton.”

  William ducked into the room. “Are we ready? I’ll just put my things back on so we can go.”

  “Where are we going to carol?” Kate asked.

  “On the street right here, I should think. A main thoroughfare like Cheapside?”

  “Do we have an order of songs?” Fred asked. “Are there any friends you want us to particularly visit?”

  “I hope this is a good way to meet the neighbors,” William explained.

  “We must collect funds for your Charity for Dressing the Mudlark Children of Blackfriars Bridge,” Kate added.

  “William croaks like a frog,” Julie announced. “He will stand in the back and pretend to sing.”

  Charles shook his finger in William’s direction, but his friend smiled angelically and handed Charles his coat and hat. “Let’s start with ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.’ You can croak through that.”

  Julie pulled a black velvet cape with a matching bonnet and muff from a stand by the door while Charles redressed, and then led the party into the hall.

  “Should we all make sure we start on the same note?” Kate asked in the passage.

  Charles grinned at her. “Part of the fun of caroling is the surprise of the beginning.”

  “Ha,” William said. “What are we going to use to collect the money?”

  Julie muttered something, then vanished back into her chambers. A moment later, she flourished an old top hat. “Your second best, Mr. Aga.”

  Charles pulled out a pencil and slip of paper from his pocket and wrote Charity for Dressing the Mudlark Children of Blackfriars Bridge on it in the darkest letters he could manage, then stuck it upside down under the hatband. “All sorted.”

  “God,” Mary tried to sing tentatively.

  “God rest,” Kate joined in.

  Charles listened as the musical sisters melded their voices together. It wasn’t for nothing that their father was a musical genius.

  After they sang “remember,” Julie, a born performer, joined in, followed by the men. They walked down the hallway and through the second story of the building, then down to the first, where they had their first door open. An elderly gentleman, neatly dressed in cream trousers and a navy jacket, offered them a penny for their troubles. By the time they reached the ground level and the back of the chophouse, Charles was feeling parched, his throat still irritated from the Hatfield fire. They finished their first song outside, in front of the chophouse windows. At the end, a couple of happy, drunken fellows tripped out of the door and gave them a handful of small change.

  “Well done,” Charles exclaimed. “If this keeps up, we’ll have the mudlarks in blankets and shoes all winter.”

  Fred began, “I saw three ships . . .”

  “Come sailing in,” William bleated, and then the rest joined in.

  They stayed on their side of the street, heading toward St. Paul’s. The thoroughfare was lined with buildings similar to the Agas’, with shops downstairs and residences upstairs. People were busy about their business, red cheeked and merry when they heard the carolers. They finished that song and started “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

  A stop in front of a public house netted them a few shared glasses of hot buttered rum, and they collected pennies from passersby. Eventually, as they sang “The Ditchling Carol” with its exhortation to give to the poor, they found themselves in Finsbury Circus. Its stone-faced terraced houses, home to merchants and gentlemen, circled around a garden. The area was fairly new and quite smart. The clouds parted as they reached a house, creating a nimbus of gray around the nearly full moon.

  “Nature’s spotlight,” breathed Charles.

  Kate smiled at him and tucked her hand under his arm as he stared up into the sky.

  “The holly and the ivy,” sang Julie, beginning another song.

  “When they are both full grown,” everyone joined in.

  They finished three verses of the song before their memories faltered.

  “You know, the lights aren’t on here,” Julie said.

  “No audience,” Charles agreed. He’d been distracted by the moonlight. “We won’t earn any money playing to an empty stage.”

  “A lot of lights over there,” Fred said, pointing to a house a few doors down, stone faced like all the others. “Every window is lit except in the attics. They must be having a party.”

  “That’s perfect.” Julie pulled at her husband. The rest of them followed her down the street.

  They stopped in front of the steps. A couple of the houses had railings twined with greenery or a wreath on the door. This one had nothing, but every window had a candle in it.

  “Christmas should be merrier than this,” Charles said, squeezing Kate’s arm. He stared up at the door. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar to him.

  “I’ll decorate our home every year,” she promised. “Holly, ivy, evergreens, and mistletoe.”

  William winked at Charles. He couldn’t help but imagine the delight of soft lips under the mistletoe in his own home.

  “I’ll start.” He pulled Kate to the base of the steps. William, Julie, Fred, and Mary crowded in behind him. “Hark! The herald angels sing, Glory to the newborn King; Peace on earth . . .”

  As he sang the words, a window on the second story opened, directly over the door. Charles threw back his head and continued to sing lustily, happy to have an audience. “And mercy mild . . .”

  Fred boomed out the last phrase in bass counterpoint, “God and sinners reconciled!”

  A mass came from the window, heading in their direction. A thick mass, not a handful of coins. Kate screamed, pulling Charles back as it came at them.r />
  “We didn’t sing that badly—” Charles started; then his mouth fell open.

  “Holy Mother of God,” Mary cried.

  The man, for it was a man, dressed in pale trousers and a black tailcoat, snapped up into the air, in a puppet dance far more grotesque than anything ever seen in a theater, then fell again as a loud crack resounded in the winter sky. In an instant, he had crashed onto the front steps of the lit-up house, then rolled down them until he landed faceup on the pavement. The moon highlighted the blood puddling under his shattered body, coloring his gray hair.

  Chapter 3

  “No!” Kate sobbed, her voice full of emotion.

  Charles wrapped his arm around Kate, pulling her head against his shoulder, attempting to prevent her from seeing more of the gruesome sight at the foot of the stone steps. She relaxed into his coat.

  William stepped forward, going to one knee next to the body. “Chains,” he reported. “He’s wearing wrought iron chains around his neck.”

  “That’s why he seemed to bounce,” Charles suggested. “He was caught in them.”

  Mary clutched at Kate’s arm. “What a horrible accident.”

  Kate lifted her head from Charles’s chest when Mary’s voice caught. She wrapped her arms around her younger sister.

  “Fred?” Charles turned to see his brother, his face stiff with shock. The coin-collection hat dangled from one hand. “Tut tut,” he said. “Come and comfort the women.”

  Fred blinked, but Julie went to him and picked up his free hand. They clutched at each other and bent their heads together, facing away from the body.

  Charles patted her arm, then went to join William. His fellow reporter had crouched a couple of feet away from the body. “Elderly,” Charles said, trying to keep an objective reporter’s eye as he stared at the sunken, yellowed cheeks of the corpse. “Male. Taller than average, and exceedingly well fed. Fell out of a second-story window.”

  “What else?” William asked, crab-walking a few inches to the left.

  “Signs of jaundice, and broken veins on his nose and cheeks.”

  “Unwell,” William agreed. “Could he have fainted and fallen? What a notion, given these chains.”

  “Suicide, perhaps? I heard the chains break.” Charles glanced at the door. No one had responded to the commotion and come outside yet.

  “I heard that, too.” William pointed a gloved finger at the chains. “Good quality. Made for a ship or something like that.”

  “He was anchored by them,” Charles suggested. “What a way to die. And in December, which should be merry.”

  William ignored his words. “Anchored to something on the house? I agree suicide is a possibility.”

  Charles glanced up at the window. The candle that had been in it had gone out. It might be found under the man’s body. He hoped it didn’t catch the man’s clothing on fire. He shuddered, remembering Hatfield. No smoke, at least. “He opened the window, wrapped chains around his neck, and jumped?”

  William frowned. Before Charles could say more, he heard a low “oh.”

  He turned quickly and saw Julie slump. Fred caught her, his eyes wide. The top hat dropped from his hand, spilling coins across the pavement. The Hogarth girls rushed to her.

  “My poor friend,” Kate crooned, helping to support her.

  William leapt up and tore off his coat. He spread it on the pavement so Fred could set Julie down.

  Julie’s head lolled to one side.

  “We need to get her out of this cold,” Kate said, tucking unconscious Julie’s cloak around her skirts.

  “We can’t leave. We just witnessed a death. I need to fetch a constable,” Charles protested.

  “What do you think happened? Did she recognize the man who fell?” Mary asked.

  “Ahoy there!” Charles called, seeing a hired coach pull onto the circus road. He ran down the street as a gentleman, dressed in a tall hat and a fur-lined overcoat, exited the passenger compartment to the pavement. “I need your carriage, sir,” he said to the man. “If you would be so kind as to fetch the constable on the beat, I would be much obliged.”

  “Whatever for?” The man glanced at the house behind them, probably eager to open his door, then pointed his cane at Charles.

  “A man has died, and a lady has collapsed,” he explained. He looked up to the coachman’s seat. “You, driver, please take yourself to my friends down the street. A lady has fainted.”

  “I-I believe the constable is most often found to the west,” the gentleman stammered. The coachman snapped his whip and his horses moved up the street toward the tragic scene. The gentleman’s walking stick clinked against the pavement as he trotted away. “You want me to fetch him?”

  “Please, sir.” The wind caught at Charles’s hat. He grabbed for it, pulling it against his temples. Should he go in search of a constable as well? He glanced up the street and saw Kate bent over the corpse. Mary was next to Julie now.

  No, no, he couldn’t have that. Kate had much too much eagerness when it came to murder. While he had no trouble with her puzzling out a mystery, staring at dead men could not be a suitable pastime for a gently reared female. He dashed up the street as the carriage drove toward them, then took her by the arm.

  “You should go with Julie,” he told her. “Take Mary and my brother with you.”

  William lifted his wife and carried her into the carriage. The coachman fought to keep his mismatched pair of horses steady.

  “William insisted on leaving with her,” Kate said at Charles’s side.

  He rapped on the window as the carriage rocked. William pushed it down and peered out.

  “How is Julie?” Charles asked.

  “Not well.”

  Charles dug some coins out of his pocket. “Could you take the children with you? When you can, send my brother on his way and have the hackney take Mary home.”

  “That’s much too far for her to go alone,” William demurred.

  “I can escort her,” Fred said, appearing at Charles’s shoulder. “We are practically family. Are you coming, Kate?”

  “Oh, I’m not leaving,” Kate said in the calmest of voices. She waved her muff. “The Agas need to return home right away for Julie’s health. No more dillydallying.”

  Charles knew better. From the pink in her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes, his fiancée was in the throes of mystery heaven. He handed Mary into the hackney. Fred slid in behind her. “Head toward St. Mary-le-Bow,” he instructed the driver. “Then out to Brompton, toward St. Luke’s.”

  The driver sighed visibly. “Better than waitin’ with a corpse, upon my soul.” He sent the horses coursing forward, circling around the private park.

  Charles turned back to Kate. “We should pick up our coins before anyone comes. I wouldn’t worry, except they are meant for the mudlarks.”

  “I’ll stand watch,” Kate said. “You may scrabble around on the pavement.”

  He bowed and bent to pick up the coins. “Madam, as you wish.”

  “Our caroling party ended memorably, but not well.” Kate hesitated, but before she could say more, the front door of the undecorated house opened.

  A thin, elderly man in evening dress stood in the doorway above them. The stone staircase distanced him from the body on the pavement below, shrouded in darkness. “What is all this commotion, sir?” he cried, waving a cane in Charles’s general direction.

  “Do you own this house?” Charles called, grabbing the last of the pennies and dropping them into the hat.

  “I have that honor,” the man said, in a voice high and cracked with old age.

  “Must be deaf and half blind,” Charles said in a low voice to Kate. She took his arm and they walked to the side of the iron railing on the sides of the stairs. Up close, Charles could see scrollwork that tugged at his memory, like something he’d peered through as a child. Seven steps led up to the old man and his front door, but they could not traverse them without stepping over the corpse. Also, blood splatt
ered and pooled on the pavement, though the wind kept the worst of the smell from them. “What is your name, sir?”

  “Emmanuel Screws, stripling,” he replied. “Why have you been making so much noise in front of my house? Humbug, I tell you, on all that caterwauling. I don’t hold with carols, sir—they irritate my ears.”

  “We were collecting for charity, sir.” Charles frowned. First the house looked familiar, and now this elderly man. But he’d never been here before. Had he?

  “I don’t want none and I offer none,” was the old man’s prompt reply, belying Charles’s theory of deafness.

  “That is well enough,” Charles rejoined, “but did you know you have an upstairs window open?”

  “I do?” The old man glanced up instinctively, then back at Charles.

  “I can see you, because of the light in your doorway, but can you see down to the base of your front steps?” Charles asked.

  “Why?” the man asked suspiciously. “You had better not be leaving me some infant mouser. I won’t hold with it, sir. I don’t want your cats.”

  “A man is dead,” Kate said gently. “He fell from your window.”

  The old man’s eyes bulged in their wrinkled sockets. “A man? Dead?”

  Kate pointed to the base of the steps.

  “Who is in your house tonight, sir?” Charles asked.

  The man stepped onto his doorstep and peered down. “Is there no lantern?”

  Down the street, just within the puddles cast by a streetlight on the corner, Charles did see a lantern swinging, and the shapes of two men. “That will be the constable with your neighbor.”

  “Which one?” Mr. Screws demanded suspiciously.

  “A couple of doors down. Maybe fifty?” Charles asked. “Carries a hooked cane with a silver overlay. Wears a fur coat?”

  “Solicitor,” Mr. Screws sneered. “Does he think this is Scandinavia? Such extravagance.”

  The constable arrived with the solicitor, stopping next to Kate. His reinforced top hat sat uneasily at the apex of his sloping forehead. He appeared squat next to the thin but bundled body of the solicitor. “Wot’s this now?”

  Mr. Screws came down one step as the constable’s lantern swung out over the gruesome sight. He gasped and swayed as light illuminated the corpse for a moment, catching at his iron railing with clawed fingers.