Chelsea, London, June 20, 1835
The ancient magazine had been pushed under Charles Dickens’s Selwood Terrace door sometime on Friday night, after the household had retired.
“Here.” His brother Fred thrust the crackling papers into his hands. “I found this on the floor.” Fred, a gangly almost fifteen-year-old, was dressed to go out in a cut-down frock coat, a shawl, and gloves.
“Was there a note?” Charles, still in his dressing gown, regarded the yellowed pages and scarred cover of Migrator Magazine with bewilderment.
“No.” Fred shrugged. “I’m going to the bakery for fresh buns. Do you want anything?”
“Please. When you return, I expect you to work on your Latin lessons while I finish an article,” Charles said.
Fred squeezed his cheeks toward his nose with his fingers, forming his amiable face into a pout. “It’s going to be a perfect summer day. I’d rather walk into the countryside.”
“Not until you’ve done your lessons.” Charles went to the water jug and found just enough water left for tea. He poured it into the kettle and handed the empty can to his brother.
“Very well,” Fred said with a hint of desperation. “But my stomach is growling.”
Charles gave his brother a cheery wave of goodbye and stirred the fire in the hearth, attempting to bring it back to life. While the day would be a pleasant one, with no hint of rain, for now a decided chill permeated the air.
He heard the click behind him as Fred went out the door. After tossing a fresh lump of coal onto the grate, he went back to the magazine, settling into a mostly unstained armchair he’d picked up from a Holywell Street secondhand furniture dealer. Since he’d kept his lodgings in Holborn, he had a limited furniture budget.
Still, it was worth the inconvenience to be closer to Kate Hogarth, his new fiancée, during the summer months. He wanted to see her without the time expenditure of a five-mile walk. The early part of their courtship over the past winter had burned through a great deal of shoe leather.
The publication date on the top sheet read “1785.” Who would hold on to it all these years, only to shove it underneath his door? He was a parliamentary reporter, a sketch writer, and an occasional theater reviewer, not a collector of stirring tales of past times.
When he flipped through the pages, he found a scrap of faded hair ribbon, a brown that might once have been lavender, tucked into the binding. The title of the marked article was “Death of a Jewish Child.”
Charles winced at that. The death of any helpless creature excited his natural sympathy. Was this the part of the magazine that the unknown sender had wanted him to read? He leaned toward the fire and perused the page.
Charles blinked hard as he came to the end of the story. Such a tragic tale within the damp-marked pages of this old periodical. A tale to make one rue humanity, in its depiction of cruel children and their immoral ways. He wondered if one of his neighbors, Miss Haverstock or Mr. Gadfly, had taken him seriously when he chattered about writing a historical novel and had slipped it to him for inspiration.
The door to his chambers opened as Charles turned the page.
Fred handed him a neatly wrapped bundle of buns. “Is the kettle hot?”
“Yes, it should be by now.”
Fred peered at him. “Are you well?”
Charles closed the magazine, which sent a waft of mold spiraling into his nostrils. He sneezed. “Perfectly. I was quite transported by the article I just read.”
Fred dug into his pocket for a handkerchief as Charles sneezed again.
“Thank you. Just the magazine irritating my nostrils.” He set it on a pile of papers, far away from the heat of the fire or the damp of the windows.
Fred went to the mantelpiece and reached for the stoppered china jug that held their tea leaves. “Did you deduce who left it?”
“No, but it’s a sociable building. Dotty old Miss Haverstock from upstairs could have found it in her belongings, or Mr. Gadfly could have picked it up when he was perusing at the stalls, looking for inspiration for his songwriting. Then there are our unpredictable friends, William and Julie Aga.”
Fred shook their teapot until the leaves were disbursed to his satisfaction, then covered the teakettle handle with a rag and gently poured the steaming liquid into the pot. “I was surprised when they moved in. It’s quite a walk for William into the city.”
Charles stood and stretched. “They seem happy enough. Besides, William and I can walk to work together.” William was a crime-focused reporter at the Morning Chronicle.
“Do you think so? You can hear William’s cheery whistles from half a mile away, but Julie looks drawn to me.”
“She had some sort of illness in the spring. High-strung people have these problems.”
“Maybe she left the magazine to tease you.”
Charles rejected the idea. “No, there was nothing funny about it.”
“Shall I let the fire die down?” Fred asked.
“You might as well. It should warm up now. Why don’t you do your lessons this morning, and after that, we need to tackle our windows. They are so frightfully dirty that it is hard to see in here.”
“What about my walk?”
“This afternoon,” Charles promised. “You won’t get anywhere in life without applying yourself. I have to write a sketch before I can please myself.”
The Dickens pair worked diligently at the elderly, rickety deal table they’d pushed in front of the fire to catch the last of the heat. A knock came at the door just as the bells of St. Luke’s tolled 10:00 a.m.
“I’ll get it. You keep translating,” Charles said, rising. He pulled off his fingerless gloves and dropped them on the table.
He opened the door a crack. “Hogarths!” he boomed when he saw the young ladies.
His fiancée, Kate, smiled at him, her heavy-lidded eyes brightening. She wore a crisp cotton dress, its thin stripes of red creating cheer. Her bonnet had been trimmed with matching ribbons. He still couldn’t believe she was his, though she’d accepted his proposal of marriage in the early days of spring, three months after her father had introduced them.
Her sister Mary, dressed in a summery floral print, held up a basket and pulled back the cover. The luscious sight of strawberry scones and butter greeted him.
“Such a pleasure, my dears.” Charles opened the door wider. “Fred is in the parlor, and we were about to eat.”
He shut the door after they entered, careful to keep their wide skirts from being caught. Fred rekindled the fire and boiled more water. The girls laid out four plates on the table, with the dish of scones and the crock of butter in the central place of honor. Charles found a butter knife in his box on the mantelpiece and handed it to Kate.
“Do you have enough chairs?” Mary asked.
“There are four, yes,” Charles said, pointing behind her. “I imagined many pleasant mornings like this when I moved to be close to my dear Hogarths.”
Mary asked Fred about his translations, and they discussed the Latin poetry he had set aside in favor of their repast. Charles found the catalogue detailing the kitchen equipment that was deemed necessary for every new home and shared it with Kate.
“Do we really need all these specialized brushes?” she asked with a hint of anxiety.
“The more the better,” Charles said. “You know how the soot goes everywhere, but you can’t let it win. We are planning to tackle our windows this afternoon. They are a dreadful mess.”
“It is rather dim in here,” Kate said.
“I’ll run home and get our special cleaning solution,” Mary offered. “And Father has a translation of Caesar’s Gallic Wars that Fred might like.”
Fred snorted.
Charles spoke over his brother. “The cleaner would be very useful.”
“Go quickly, Mary, but assure Mother that Fred is here to chaperone us,” Kate said.
“Yes, go quickly,” Fred added, “because I’m going out as soon as this poem is ready.”
Mary snorted at the younger boy’s order. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, for Kate’s sake.”
She flounced off. Charles and Kate shared an amused glance at the antics of their strong-willed siblings.
“Have you learned Latin, Kate?” Fred asked.
“A little.” Thus enticed, Kate bent over Fred’s side of the table.
Charles picked up The Times and flipped to page three to read the parliamentary news. He read the lengthy article about Mr. Buxton’s speech.
“The Times has put in quite a lot about Buxton’s antislavery speech,” he remarked. “I have to write my own analysis for the Chronicle, but my thoughts are taken up by cruelties even closer to home.”
“What do you mean?” Kate asked.
Charles reached for the ancient copy of Migrator Magazine and showed it to her, explaining how it had come into his possession. “Keep your handkerchief close by, because it has mildewed.” He opened it to the correct page and set it next to Fred’s translation.
Kate reviewed the page as Charles picked up the last of the dishes and set them in a bowl on top of a chest that they used as a makeshift sink. Then he retrieved his notes on the Buxton speech and picked up his quill, considering his own take on the subject. The Times’ comments on lashings excited his sympathies, so he went through his notes, seeing if he had anything their reporter had missed.
After a few minutes of intent reading, Kate closed the magazine. And sneezed.
Fred giggled. “You were warned, dear Kate.”
She wiped her nose daintily as Charles set down his quill. “You were reading about children from some fifty years past, Mr. Dickens. Surely the horrors of modern slavery are more real than murderous children from long ago.”
“Do you think children are better behaved now?” he countered.
Kate smiled at him. “I hope we shall find out next year. With any luck, we can be married at Christmas.”
He patted her hand. “With luck.”
“We have been engaged these past two months already,” she reminded him.
“I am hoping for Christmas, if we can find and furnish a suitable home.”
“Ahem.” Kate cleared her throat.
“Yes, my darling?” Charles asked.
“You know what would distract me from the wedding?”
“What?”
She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “A mystery, of course.”
Charles pointed to the ancient magazine on the table. “There is a murder right in front of you.”
“Spare me the distant past,” Kate said. “And find me something fresh. If a disgruntled planter had shot Mr. Buxton, but no one knew he had done it, now that would turn my thoughts away from our future home for a time.”
“I should hardly think it Christian of me to hope a Member of Parliament be killed just to please you,” Charles said dryly.
Kate wiped a crumb from the table. It landed on the floor. “Of course not, but London is a big city. I’m sure you’ll find something to amuse me.”
“I don’t even know who left me the magazine.” Charles bent down and picked up the crumb, then dropped it into the fire.
“You have yet to leave our rooms today, Charles,” Fred pointed out. “All you have to do is call on the neighbors to solve that mystery.”
The door rattled then, and Mary came in. The sisters set to work polishing the interior of the parlor windows, clearing away the soot that was forever accumulating on the glass.
Charles went back to his table and his unfinished article. The window rattled as Mary and Kate opened it to clean the outside. Having buried himself deep in the Buxton matter, Charles didn’t register the activity around him until he heard a shout, then a shriek.
Mary was leaning too far out of the window. Seeing what was about to happen, Fred jumped to his feet and reached for Mary just as she fell out the window.
“Mary!” Kate screamed.
Charles rose quickly, upsetting his chair. Another shriek sounded; then he heard a call from the lane.
“I’ve got her, lad. You can let go.”
Charles rushed to the window to stand next to Kate. They leaned out. Just next to the hedge at the bottom of the four-foot drop, Mary lay splayed across the arms of the young blacksmith, Daniel Jones, who lived down the street.
Kate clutched Charles’s sleeve as the man gently set down her sister.
“Best brush off your skirts, pet. I always have sawdust on me clothes,” the affable local blacksmith said.
“Mr. Jones!” Charles called to Mary’s rescuer. “You’re a lifesaver. Thank you!”
Kate clasped her hands together and added her thanks.
Mary smiled up at them. “No harm done.”
“Indeed. She’s just a slip of a girl,” Mr. Jones agreed.
“She slipped right out the window,” Fred said, shaking his head.
“I leaned out too far,” Mary admitted. “I’m lucky you came along.”
“I live right down the lane.” Mr. Jones still wore his heavy leather apron, and a jug rested at his feet.
Charles pointed down. “Did you drop that to catch Miss Mary? Is it broken? I’ll pay for it.”
Mr. Jones picked up the jug. “No, it’s fine, Mr. Dickens. As are you, I hope, miss.”
Mary sketched a little curtsy. “Very fine, sir. Thanks to you. What is your favorite jam? My sister and I will bring you some to thank you.”
The blacksmith grinned shyly. “Oh, you needn’t do that, but my good wife can never get enough strawberry, as Mr. Dickens here knows.”
“We polished off an entire jar of it when you invited me to tea last week,” Charles agreed.
“Watch out for that window,” Mr. Jones advised. “That bush there has thorns. One of our cats was caught in it once, and Miss Haverstock had to call on me to rescue it.”
Mary pulled a face. “We’ll be more careful, sir.”
Mr. Jones lifted his cap and pushed sweaty locks of hair off his forehead. “Speaking of Miss Haverstock, have you seen her these past days? My wife usually does for her on Fridays, but she didn’t open her door when my wife knocked yesterday.”
“We’ll check on her,” Charles promised. “I haven’t been out yet today.”
“Very well. Off to fetch beer,” Mr. Jones said, settling his cap over his eyes. “Want to join me, Mr. Dickens?”
“I wish I could,” Charles said, “but I have to work. I’ll see you at St. Luke’s tomorrow.” The Jones family worshipped at the same local church as the Hogarths did, and Mr. Hogarth, not just Kate and Mary’s father, but also Charles’s editor at the Evening Chronicle, had introduced Charles to the Jones family back in April, after he and Kate had announced their engagement.
When the window cleaning was done, the men having taken charge of it, Charles told Fred he could go for his walk, and he went back to his gestating article, while the Hogarths cleaned the dishes and set everything back in their basket. Mary swept the floor.
Kate had brought some embroidery with her and settled down at the table, while Mary attempted to reattach some buttons that Fred had lost off of a coat. When the church bells struck eleven, she jumped up as if a hot poker had just touched her.
“I forgot. Mother said I had to watch the twins while she paid calls.” She tossed down the coat.
“Did you fix the buttons?” Kate asked, unperturbed.
“All but one. You can finish it, can’t you, dear?” Mary asked.
“Of course,” Kate called as Mary ran for her shawl.
Mary glanced back. “You have to leave, too, since Fred isn’t here. Bring his coat with us.”
Charles looked up from his papers. He didn’t want to be parted from Kate yet. “Why don’t we pay a call? Miss Haverstock can chaperone us. I need to check on her, anyway.”
Mary flung her shawl ends over her shoulders. “Fine. I’ll leave the door open and go, but you must promise to be out the door in under a minute, or I will incur Mother’s wrath.”
Charles set down his quill. “Never that.” He stood and picked up the basket and placed it over Mary’s arm.
She sketched a wave and opened the door to its full extremity, pointedly leaving it open as she swished into the tiny front hall.
Kate set down her embroidery and picked up the coat with a frown. “I do hate to be interrupted when I’m in the middle of finishing a flower.”
“You never miss a stitch,” Charles said, leaning over her. “I love the blue. It matches your eyes.”
Kate set down the coat and patted his hand. “You do say the sweetest things.”
“I will give up sleep,” he said aloud.
“You will not, Mr. Dickens,” she said with a giggle. “That will not serve you.”
“Why not?”
“Your mind must remain keen.”
He tickled her cheek with one daring finger. “But I am such a fool for love. The more I do, the more I earn, and the faster I can afford to marry you.”
“Come, fool,” she said, standing. “We had better go upstairs. I don’t want to have to lie to Mother about never being alone with you in your rooms. You know it isn’t proper.”
He put his hands on her shoulders. “May I steal a kiss first?”
She tilted her cheek, leaving him a surface for his lips.
“Only there?” he said gently. “Is that all Mr. Dickens deserves?”
“Charles,” she whispered, her eyes meeting his.
He grinned and rubbed his nose against hers, then kissed the tip. “That will keep me. Your honor is as important to me as it is to you.”
“Thank you.” Her cheeks pinkened, and she stared at the floor.
He offered his arm with a gentlemanly flourish. “Let us go upstairs.”
“When did you last visit her?” Kate asked, a little unsteady on her feet as she softly took his arm, the pressure of her fingers almost unfelt against his coat. “I admit I am concerned, considering what Mr. Jones said. It was selfish of me not to demand we check upstairs right away.”
“You are never selfish, darling. Miss Haverstock uses that stick, you know, because of her bad hip. Maybe she couldn’t rise from bed yesterday.”
He and Kate stepped into the narrow hall between the sets of rooms. Opposite the front door to the building was a wooden staircase spanning the width of the hall, with extremely squeaky steps. Mrs. Haverstock was a small woman and didn’t make much noise going upstairs or moving in her rooms, which were over Charles’s. The noise she made was more like that of a mouse skittering than that of a full-grown person going about the business of their day.
As they climbed the steps, Kate having let go of his arm in order to lift her skirts slightly, he realized he hadn’t heard the mouselike sounds in days. When had he last seen his upstairs neighbor?
Kate glanced at him, a pinched expression around her eyes. “What is that smell, Charles?”
“Meat that’s gone off?” he asked, curling his lips with distaste. He’d smelled something like this before, half a year ago, when he’d been taken to the scene of a bloody suicide.
They reached the top of the stairs. The smell intensified. Kate coughed and pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and held it to her nose. “Maybe she is ill?”
Charles knew better, now that they were at the unremarkable front door of Miss Haverstock’s rooms. “It’s death, Kate. It can be nothing else.”
“Should we go for a constable?” Kate asked as they hovered outside the closed door to Miss Haverstock’s rooms. The dim windowless landing created a soundless cave. Nothing could be heard from the street; nothing moved inside the building. Yet something very bad had happened here.
Charles shook his head, his reporter’s brain needing more information. His words moved through the possibilities, even as he knew the uncomfortable truth. “Not yet. It’s been warm in the afternoons. Maybe Rattles, the building’s mouser, has died. Or Miss Haverstock went on a journey and left the remains of a joint of beef on the table.”
The cool knob turned easily under his hand, but that was not remarkable. Miss Haverstock didn’t lock her door. Nothing seemed out of place on the sparse landing, but then, the small space between apartments was empty, and the floor was neat, swept clean.
He pushed open the door and they walked in. The rotting odor rushed out, so strong that he could taste it in the back of his throat. He blinked, attempting to focus his eyes into the bright parlor after climbing up the rather dark staircase.
“Oh,” Kate said, gagging a little. Her eyes had adjusted first. Charles saw the evidence of that as her face went pale and she turned her head into his shoulder.
Then he saw what was in the room. Directly opposite them, Miss Haverstock, unnaturally still, perched on a stool against the far wall next to one of the windows. In between them was a red and blue Turkey carpet and a faded brown-velvet sofa, worn on the arms. In front of the sofa, on the rectangle of carpet, rested a sewing basket. Charles saw a pincushion on top of a cloth in the basket. He remembered Miss Haverstock had been embroidering a seat cushion for her foster daughter. She’d worked on it while they shared a dish of strawberries, and she had worried about the fruit staining her fine efforts.
He cataloged all of it in a moment, then forced his eyes back to the strange figure. Miss Haverstock wore a dress he’d never seen her in. The high sash marked it as at least a quarter century out of style, and probably more. It had half sleeves, ruffled over the elbows, and a ruched bodice. The silk had probably once been white or cream but had yellowed. It had fine embroidered work on the skirt and must have been her best dress, the sort she would have married in if she hadn’t been a spinster.
He swallowed hard. The room was shut up close. A quick glance showed him that while the curtains were tied back, the windows were not open. But that hadn’t kept the bugs from descending upon his friend. He could see movement on her face, around her slack mouth and half-opened eyes. Maggots. A large spider crawled up one hand, which was splayed, open fingered, across her lap. The other arm hung down.
“Where’s the blood?” Kate asked, lifting her head from his shoulder for a moment before squeezing her eyes closed again. “There has to be blood, with that coppery smell. Check her dress. Oh, do you think it was the poor old thing’s dress for a wedding that never happened?”
“Perhaps. Go stand in the doorway,” Charles urged, pushing her gently toward the open door.
As Kate complied, he walked around the edge of the carpet, noting, as he had not before, Miss Haverstock’s small tea table, pushed off to the left of the sofa. A service was set out, cups, saucers, and a teapot. An unopened wine bottle squatted next to the cream jug. He craned his neck to look across the few feet between it and him and saw a dead fly floating in the remains of a cup of Miss Haverstock’s finest souchong tea.
He forced his gaze back to the body. His gaze roamed the gently wrinkled cheeks of his dead friend. Her chin rested on her throat, and her cap was slightly askew over her coarse gray curls. Her skin bore no resemblance to the color it had had in life. All her blood would have pooled lower once her heart stopped beating.
“How did she die?” Kate called.
Charles shook his head, holding his sleeve over his nose and mouth. It held a hint of grass and soot, which tempered the smell. He could see no reason for Miss Haverstock’s death.
He took a step closer to her, staring at her profile, trying to ignore the work of the maggots. Forcing his hand not to tremble, he touched her shoulder. Something crunched in the wall.
She began to tilt away from him. Charles grabbed Miss Haverstock’s arm, but she collapsed to the floor, still in her seated posture. That was when he saw the corkscrew embedded in her neck, blood congealed around it and soaking the back of her beautiful dress. Flies and other insects were stuck in it. Even in death, her yellowed skirts stayed demurely in place, protecting her modesty, if not her flesh, from the insects that devoured her.
He glanced away reflexively and saw a hole in the plaster where her neck had met it. Whoever had killed her must have driven the other end of the corkscrew into the wall. He gagged as he looked down at the body, now crumpled on the floor. The side of her neck was mottled. Fingerprints, maybe? Had she been strangled before being propped up in this strange manner?
He heard gagging sounds and raced to Kate, then pushed her out the doorway and into the hall. The ghastly odors diminished somewhat. Downstairs, the steps squeaked as someone came up them. Charles thrust Kate behind him, suddenly afraid the killer had returned.
Instead, he saw his friend and colleague William Aga, who had moved into the apartment across the hall from Miss Haverstock for the summer, along with his wife, the actress formerly known as Julie Saville. William carried a carpetbag, the weight sagging his wide shoulders, and Charles remembered he’d been out of town, covering the aftermath of a steamboat accident.
William’s usual smile was worn around the edges, and his top hat bore all the signs of hours riding on t. . .
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