The Thames River Murders (12 page)

I quickly wrote my Grimpen Lane address on the back—if this man craved privacy, I doubted he’d want to arrive at the large and well-populated South Audley Street house.

I pushed the card across to him with my gloved finger. Hartman made no move to take it. I gave the man another nod and departed quietly with Grenville.

Not until we were in his coach, and Jackson had headed us along the Strand toward St. Paul’s Churchyard and the long journey to Wapping, did Grenville let out a breath.

“So,” he said.

“So, indeed.” I studied the tall and rather drab houses we passed, the throng of humanity wafting down this busy thoroughfare. “The poor man.”

I’d watched Hartman’s reaction with sharp pain in my heart. For years, I’d not known the fate of my daughter, and I know some of what he felt.

I’d looked for Gabriella, but been unable to afford a long search. The war with France hadn’t helped—Carlotta had left with a French officer, and I’d not been able to scour that country for her. By the time the war had ended, thirteen years after Carlotta had fled with Gabriella, I had given up all hope of finding her.

My only comfort had been that she’d gone off with Carlotta. If Carlotta had intended to desert her child, she would have left Gabriella with me in the first place. This gave me some assurance that Gabriella would be looked after.
 

As it turned out, Carlotta’s French lover, Major Auberge, had cared for my daughter and raised her as his own. He’d taken care of her, I hated to admit, better than I had been able to.

Even so, Gabriella had been my child, the love of my existence, and not knowing where she was had torn a hole through me.
 

“I want to discover who killed her,” I said. “Hartman should not have had to suffer like that. She shouldn’t have been killed.”

“I know, old man. I agree with you.” Grenville rested his hands on his walking stick. “But where to start?”

“Hartman and his family. They must know why Miss Hartman was walking along the Thames docks, or where she’d gone the day or night she’d disappeared. Had she been meeting someone? Running away from someone? Why on earth would Judith want to pretend to be her sister when taken to a surgeon to have her arm set? Why did Hartman call it
her shame
?”

“All very good questions. All the same, I am not sure Hartman will embrace you into his family and let you interrogate them.”

“I had no intention of interrogating,” I said stiffly.

“You do become zealous, Lacey. Hartman, as you must have surmised, is a Hebrew. Such men do not welcome outsiders into the bosom of their families. While the Rothschilds, Goldsmids, and Montefiores attend my soirees and invite me to theirs, they would not wish me to delve too much into their private lives and their personal business.”

“Not many families would,” I said. “No matter what their origin.”

“Yes, but …” Grenville searched for words. “In my experience, Hebrew fathers are particularly guarded about their daughters. More so even than Englishmen. If you wish to discover the truth, you might have to do it without the assistance of Mr. Hartman. Might have to fight him for it, even.”

“Surely he would want to know. And bring the man—or woman—to justice. I certainly would, were it my daughter.”

Grenville gave me a deprecating look. “If it were your daughter, my dear Lacey, you would hunt the man down and wring his neck yourself. You know this.”

True, I’d be too impatient to let the wheels of justice turn in their course. When Gabriella had been endangered a year ago, I’d gone after the man who’d hurt her—Auberge and I had given him a good beating. Hartman, I thought, might feel the same.

“I will find the culprit, beat him black and blue, and drag him to the Runners,” I said. “I will leave it up to Hartman whether he wishes to prosecute.”

Grenville looked doubtful. I did not finish that if Hartman didn’t want to prosecute, I’d happily bring suit against the killer. And, if that didn’t work, dispatch him myself. Pomeroy might object, but at this point, I did not care.

At last Grenville gave me a nod. “Very well,” he said. “You know I will do all I can to help. Where do we begin?”

***

We started by journeying to Thompson in Wapping and returning the crate. I’d left the necklace with Hartman—I did not have the heart to take it from his hands to sit in a box in a cellar.

Thompson was out when we arrived, but he came in as a patroller ushered Grenville and I, and Bartholomew and Matthias, the two brothers carrying the box, into his tiny office.

Brewster had followed us, I’d seen as we’d climbed from the coach. How he found me wherever I was in the city I had no idea. He might have jumped onto the back of the carriage as he’d done when I’d gone searching for Donata. However he’d done it, he now leaned against a crumbling brick wall opposite the magistrate’s house, folded his arms against the rain, and waited.

“Good Lord,” Thompson said after I had told him what we discovered. “I knew you were the man for this. And Mr. Grenville.”

“All too glad to help,” Grenville answered.

Thompson rested his hands on top of the crate. “Indeed, I will send her back to her family to be given a decent burial. I’m afraid the magistrate here cannot help with any sort of coffin, or …”

“I will take care of that,” Grenville said smoothly. “I will contact my funeral furnisher and give him instructions.”

Thompson looked grateful but at the same time wary. A middle-class man like Hartman might not welcome the ostentation of an expensive funeral master—who provided coffins, bearers, horses, mourning decor for the home, and many other services. A funeral for a man of Grenville’s class and a shopkeeper would be widely different.

“Instructions, I said,” Grenville went on. “All will be in good taste. He will send a coffin here, and a conveyance for the young lady to be returned home.”

Thompson conceded. “As to finding her killer …” He sighed, his bony shoulders sagging. “If Mr. Hartman has no wish to prosecute, little can be done even if we discover who killed her. If that killer is still alive. It was a long time ago.”

“
I
will prosecute,” I said. “Too often I have seen men ruin others, either by outright murder or in a roundabout way. I’ve had to stand by and do nothing.”
 

I tasted my anger, remembering Jane Thornton, the first young woman whose circumstances I’d investigated; Lady Clifford, whose husband had made her miserable; and the death of one of Denis’s men at the Sudbury School, where Grenville had been nearly murdered himself. I’d found out many things, but had been too poor, or the circumstances had been too complex, for me to bring the ones who should have paid, to justice.

Now, thanks to Donata, I had money of my own. I disliked spending much beyond what I needed, but I believed she’d have no objection to me funding a prosecution for the murder of Judith Hartman. She’d been moved by the young woman’s death as well.

Thompson only observed me with his dry intelligence. “As you wish, Captain. I will not tell you the road might not be easy. I have the feeling you’d bypass any objections.”

We took our leave then. I touched the top of the crate before I went, and made a silent vow to the sleeping girl inside to find her killer.

I swallowed on sorrow, bowed to Thompson, and followed Grenville out into the rain.

***

It was not done for a gentleman to call on his funeral furnisher. They called on the gentleman instead, at his home. In this instance, however, Grenville was impatient and wanted it done. I had no objection.

Grenville’s family used a man whose premises were in a lane off Houndsditch in the City.

Houndsditch did a thriving trade in clothing of all kinds, from secondhand clothiers to tailors for the middle class, to rag men in their constant search for castoffs. Many of these ragmen and secondhand clothiers were Hebrews, and I studied them as I passed them by with more interest. I was suddenly being thrust into their world, which I had scarcely noticed before.

Any man I’d met of the Hebrew religion had been no different than I was, I’d observed—in fact, many came from circumstances far better than mine and blended into London life more seamlessly than I did. True, I was able to vote or stand for Parliament, had I been reckless enough to do so, and they were not—but how did that make me a superior man?

It did not, in my opinion. A man’s character and honor made him stand above others, not his religion or strata in life.

Grenville, far superior to many on all counts, descended in the turnoff between Houndsditch and Aldgate with as much poise as he did alighting from a carriage at Carlton House.

A young man sitting in the yard, working on a black headstall in his lap, dropped his tools with a clang and bolted into the house as Grenville strolled toward the door.

“Sir?” The funeral furnisher emerged, settling his coat, and fixing a gaze of great surprise at Grenville. “It is not time for you to partake of my services yet, surely. You’re in fine fettle, Mr. Grenville.”

Chapter Twelve

The funeral furnisher was not what I expected. The idea of a man who made a living burying people gave me the picture of a thin, rather cadaverous person, with gray hair and dry, papery skin. Instead, this furnisher was stout from good meals, had black hair and long side whiskers, and a twinkle in his blue eyes that spoke of a merry nature.

“No, indeed,” Grenville said. “My health is robust thus far. Though one never knows. Today, I have come to ask a favor for another.”

“I could have called upon you.” The man looked hurt. “You had only to send for me.”

“Unusual circumstances, Mr. Wilkinson.”

Wilkinson shrugged and gestured us into the house. Instead of the sumptuous parlor I’d imagined, we went to a very plain sitting room with dark-paneled walls and straight-legged, shield-back chairs.

Without preliminary, Grenville explained the errand. Mr. Wilkinson’s ruddy face showed sympathy.
 

“The poor lamb. You leave it to me, Mr. Grenville. I’ll take fine care of her. Now, does the family want a walking funeral, or a carriage? I have some new headstalls in—with ostrich plumes that are the most beautiful, straight, well-dyed things I’ve ever seen. Quite stylish. And the finest cloth for draping the parlor. You give me some indication of what he wants, and I will arrange it.”

“I am afraid I don’t know,” Grenville said. “I promised to deliver the young woman home. After that, it is up to him.”

“I understand. I understand. Grief is a difficult thing. That is why so many leave the choices to a trusted friend, like yourself.”

“If he does want more, you send the bill to my man of business,” Grenville said. “Thank you, Wilkinson. I know she’s in good hands.”

We rose and took our leave. Wilkinson, whose head came up to my chin, peered at me with professional interest.

“We never like to think of bereavement,” he said. “But consider me when the time comes, sir. Giving loved ones the send-off they deserve is important, I think. And for yourself, sir, if you forgive me. Though that day I am certain is far in the future.”

I’d never been sized up quite so frankly for a coffin before. I had known a coffin-maker in the army with an eccentric sense of humor, who would measure officers before battle to make sure he had enough boxes with the right dimensions. Since the officers he put his ruler to usually made it back in one piece, it became a mark of good luck to have him come at one with a tape measure.

I made my bow to Wilkinson and followed the very amused Grenville out.

“He’s quite proud of his business,” Grenville said as we rolled away. The rain had ceased, all to the good. I had an appointment to ride in the park with Donata’s son. “But very skilled at it. The processions he arranges go off with aplomb and never drift into the vulgar. He is rubbing his hands, counting the days before I fall off the twig. It will be the grandest event London has ever seen, he says.”

“Then your demise will cheer at least one person,” I said. “The rest of us will be morose.”

“I am certain I will have enraged enough men with my haughtiness by then that there will be a line of rejoicers,” Grenville said. He sighed. “I grow weary of this life, Lacey.”

“You long to be off.”

Though the rain had ceased, a dampness pervaded the town. London was awake and alive, men and women, horses and carts moving through the streets in a great press, regardless of the weather. High brick walls hemmed us in, cutting off any view but stone and humanity.

“I do,” Grenville said. “Dr. Johnson observed that when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, but I am missing the rest of the world. One can only remark upon the cut of another man’s coat so often. Although the bright green thing I saw upon the back of young Lord Armitage last night made me choke. And then I felt old. He is twenty-three, uninterested in the opinions of a man of forty. He, like Wilkinson, looks forward to my departure.”

“Stop.” I gave Grenville a stern look. “You are plunging into melancholia—I know the signs. Go home and make your plans for your Egyptian excursion in the winter. I have told you I will accompany you, and I will.”

Grenville brightened. “You’re right, Lacey. That will be just the thing. The weather there is appallingly hot, even in January, and there is dust everywhere, along with poisonous snakes and insects. You will heartily enjoy it.”

“I believe I will,” I said.

We talked of places in Egypt we’d visit and what I looked forward to seeing, as the carriage wedged its way through the damp press of London and dropped me at my front door. I took my leave of Grenville, feeling better, and went to find Peter to go for our ride.

Hyde Park after a rain, when the sun was beginning to emerge, was a fine place. Trees and brush sparkled with raindrops, the air had freshened, and the open expanse of the park was invigorating after the narrow streets of the metropolis.

It was not yet the fashionable hour, when the entire
haut ton
would turn out in carriages and on horseback to parade in their finery and greet one another with wit both pleasant and biting. Peter and I had a stretch of the Row to ourselves, though others were walking or trotting horses in the distance.