A Gentlewoman's Guide to Murder

by Victoria Hamilton

  Dusk was closing in when Gillies brought Emmeline a note that had come secretly to her by way of Josephs; Simeon was outside. Emmeline knew it must be urgent, because Simeon would never risk being seen near Cheyne Walk if it were not so.

  “How do I get out to speak with him?” she fretted, pacing to a window. “It is both too early and too late to go out, if you know what I mean, and I can think of no excuse that will satisfy Birk’s inquisitiveness.”

  Gillies understood, of course; it was too late for calls and too early for evening events. “Aye, but there is Evensong in an hour, miss. I could walk you there?”

  Emmeline sighed in relief and hugged her maid. “Gillies, you are worth your weight in gold.”

  “I’ll tell Josephs to take a message back to Mr. Kaufmann to meet us near the kirk.”

  “Poor Josephs; he never gets a moment’s rest. Nor do you.”

  “Miss, he deems it a great privilege to sairve you, as do I. He’d lay down his life for you.”

  A half hour later, Emmeline, cloaked warmly, set out with Gillies, the whole long tale of what she knew and suspected rolled into a scroll and tied with a ribbon. Birk had appeared startled that they were going to Evensong, but Emmeline said she wished to pray for the royal family in their time of loss. She would swear that the butler, a monarchist to his very marrow, got a tear in his eye as he bowed his head.

  The first-quarter moon was but a sliver in the sky and shed no light, so the walk was dark despite the occasional misty illumination from lampposts. Simeon awaited them near a tree almost at the gates of All Saints church. A cold November wind swept down the river. He pulled his surtout more closely about him with one hand, holding his top hat on with the other. “Mrs. Gillies, Miss St. Germaine, good to see you.” He bowed.

  “Simeon, quickly, please,” Emmeline said, her voice taut with tension. “I feel as if my life is falling apart around me and have no time for niceties.”

  “There is always time for niceties, Miss St. Germaine. It is civility that separates us from the beasts of the field.”

  “Right this moment I think the beasts of the field more civilized than we are. I have written down everything I know about the scheme to sell little girls into what was virtually slavery, for the poor children had no choice and no hope of escape. You will see I have spared no one, not even one member of my own family. I trust you to choose what to publish.” She thrust the scroll at him. “You have news. What is it?”

  His dark eyes glinted as a linkboy’s glowing lanthorn, carried on a long stick as the boy walked ahead of an elderly couple headed to All Saints, swung, illuminating the path. They didn’t speak as the couple passed, nodding at Emmeline, who they knew by sight. She nodded back and smiled as Simeon turned away to regard the river.

  “Hurry, Simeon,” she muttered. “I must go to church, since I have said that is my destination, and Evensong begins shortly.”

  “Evensong … what a lovely word. Yes, I will hurry,” he said, seeing her impatient expression. “I don’t know how much you know about what has occurred today?”

  “Josephs told me they have apprehended one man and are seeking another. Mr. Wilkins, my uncle’s man of business.”

  “This comes perilously close to your uncle, Sir Jacob Pauling,” he said.

  She was silent but gave one sharp nod. It was all in her writing. “The identification was from an anonymous lady who saw Mr. Wilkins behind the Claybourne house the night of the murder, she says, and recognized him from a previous visit to the same household. She heard his name shouted by Sir Henry.”

  An anonymous tip from an anonymous lady … maybe she knew who that was. “I’ve heard, also, that my uncle’s valet has been taken in to be questioned about the murder. How was he identified?”

  “Perhaps as the only Frenchman associated with Wilkins. It is now widely known that an Englishman and a Frenchman were the pair arguing with Sir Henry behind his house. And the authorities now know about Ratter’s murder, and his association with Sir Henry, as well.”

  Emmeline thought of Miss Gottschalk and her distress about Wilkins. The engagement would now be broken, and she would no longer fear for her sister Bertha. That was one piece of good news that would come from it; one young girl saved from predation. “Is that all, Mr. Kauffman?”

  He gazed at her, sadness in his eyes. “You have learned much in the last while that has changed you forever.”

  She stiffened her backbone. “You will read it all in what I have written for you. It is not I who have suffered, it is others.” Her brothers would be horrified. They would be forced to disown Sir Jacob; she would do so willingly. Her uncle had shown no remorse, nor even any understanding of the lives he had damaged. The fear that remained with her was that he would use against her the secret he now knew. If he did, it would be out of pure malice, for revealing it would gain him nothing. “Is that all?” she repeated.

  “No, Miss St. Germaine, it’s not all. I know the name of the anonymous informer, the one who identified Mr. Wilkins and Pierre LaLoux.”

  “Who is it?”

  He confirmed her guess. “Miss Aloisia Hargreaves.”

  “Miss Hargreaves!” Emmeline exclaimed. “I was going to visit her this morning, but my day was … was upset.”

  “I fear for her life and for yours, given the powerful men who are a part of that devilish cabal whose trade is little girls. Be careful, please, and warn her if you can.”

  Evensong was lovely, and there was a special prayer for the royal family as they mourned the passing of Princess Amelia. The vicar made oblique reference, too, to the troubled mind of the king himself, and the burdens placed on the Prince of Wales. Emmeline had little respect for Prince George and no hope that he would prove to be a good king one day. The movement was already afoot to finally make him the regent, which would solve his financial problems for the moment, though the only lasting solution for that would be if he could manage to stop spending money like a drunken sailor on shore leave.

  But Simeon’s fears never left her mind; he was worried about Miss Hargreaves, and his worries became her worries. Should she, as he suggested, warn Aloisia that because she was an informant against the men who may have been behind Sir Henry’s death, she, herself, could be in danger? It seemed ludicrous; her uncle, as bad as he was, could not be allied with killers.

  Could he?

  The next day, fog rolled in off the river and they were housebound. Looking out a window was like looking into a gray blanket. Fidelity was withdrawn and silent. Emmeline wrote letters. No word came all day concerning her uncle or the other men of the Maidenhead Canal Company. One moment, Emmeline was sure they must all be involved in the plot to procure young children to abuse at their leisure, but the next she was equally positive there could not be so many disgusting men in all of Britain, much less among her uncle’s acquaintance.

  She was at first certain of one thing: Sir Jacob, no matter his faults, could not be involved in the murder of Sir Henry Claybourne. Surely that must have been Wilkins’s own wicked plan. Except … if Pierre LaLoux was involved too, then he would not have gone along with Wilkins without his employer’s consent or even urging. Was the knight’s murder her uncle’s command? Every time she thought she had come to the end of the horrors, some new possibility occurred to her. And what about Aloisia Hargreaves; if she had indeed been behind the anonymous letter identifying Wilkins and LaLoux, was she in danger from the other men in the Maidenhead Canal Company? It was impossible to believe, and yet … she must consider it.

  Josephs ventured out and obtained the latest newspapers. Emmeline pored over them as she sat with Fidelity, who buried herself in the latest gothic novel, preferring imaginary horror over the real life horror that went on. Though much of the news was contradictory, and many stories still focused on the Avengeress and her supposed part in the murder, it was clear that the magistrate was determined to fi
nd the real killer. Mr. William Cobbett-Smythe, magistrate in the district of Clerkenwell, wrote to The London Guardian Standard that he implored anyone with true information on the despicable murder of Sir Henry Claybourne to come forward. He sternly stated that all manner of spiritualists, mesmerists, and persons with grudges had already given him their opinions, but he would not charge someone on that basis. His office had some evidence and was acting upon it, but every bit of information could help.

  There was immense pressure upon Mr. Cobbett-Smythe to act, she could tell that from the newspaper stories. Londoners were up in arms, as evidenced by letters to the editors of every paper, Whig, Tory, and Reformist alike, with many gentlemen asking why the scandalous woman who had shown herself to be a danger to the community had not been found and prosecuted? The hangman’s gibbet was the only fit pedestal for such a treacherous female. Had she not crept into the murdered man’s home and made away with a child and the silver? Was that not proof that she was the danger, not some imaginary men?

  Something about the Avengeress’s daring and boldness despite her sex, her determination to take chances and move without restraint, albeit in a cloaking costume, provoked male fears. If she had been masked for the titillation of a man, as at a masquerade ball, it would have been winked at. But the men who wrote into the paper to express their anger seemed more outraged by her incursion into a gentleman’s home than they were concerned about the men seen at his home arguing with the knight long after the marauding woman had disappeared into the night. She had gone against society’s rules; she must be guilty of something, and it was up to authorities to discover what.

  There was no mention of Aloisia Hargreaves in the stories. That was good, and spoke against Simeon’s fears. She hoped the young woman was not in danger. Emmeline shivered. Fidelity glanced up. There was no point in worrying her, especially not when she seemed to have found a few moments of respite from her own tortured memories, so Emmeline smiled reassuringly and her companion went back to reading.

  As for the crime of buying little girls to seduce, Emmeline knew there would be no outcry as the girls were not from the gentry or peerage, and their molesters were gentlemen. Except in the hearts of those already committed to social justice, there would be no outrage. Compassion could not be forced; it must be felt, and in her experience there was little motivation to develop sympathy toward the less fortunate, since it obliged one to recognize one’s own failure to deal benevolently with other humans.

  She read further, finishing finally with the last few pages of The Prattler, where the personal advertisements sometimes held a message to herself from her editor. And there, at the bottom, it was. It read: To Miss E. S. … Miss S. K. wishes to inform her that the fears S. K. expressed last night are more than ever likely to be true. Men are cruel; men inspired by fear of disclosure are the most treacherous of all. Miss S. K. wishes she could do something for their mutual friend, Miss A. H. herself, but circumstances forbid.

  Simeon was telling her that his fears for Aloisia Hargreaves now had further justification. He worried that the men who killed Sir Henry would seek to silence Miss Hargreaves. Emmeline paced to the window and flicked back the curtain; night was falling. The mist that had enclosed them all day was now being blown away as a lashing wind strengthened. The Avengeress must return to the scene of the crime, if only to protect the woman possibly responsible for turning in two murderers. Or guilty of concealing who really committed the crime. Emmeline still was unsure.

  Twenty-Eight

  Emmeline commanded Gillies, against her maid’s conscience, to stay home and look after Fidelity, assuring her that Josephs would protect her should danger threaten. She left the house without a word of explanation to Birk.

  But she had forgotten what day it was. It was the holiday to celebrate the capture of a notorious criminal, or maybe to celebrate his legendary plans to blow up the parliament—she was never sure which: Guy Fawkes Day. The recent bereavement of the royal family should have stopped the noisy annual celebrations, but it did not. On this night even Clerkenwell, a moderately safe area of London and its environs, was lit up with bonfires, gusted into roaring blazes by the wind. She watched out the window as Josephs guided the horses past bonfires. Crudely masked folks drunkenly danced and chanted a poem, of which there were many versions:

  Don’t you remember,

  The Fifth of November?

  ’Twas gunpowder treason day!

  I let off my gun,

  And made’em all run.

  And stole all their bonfire away.

  Samuel Street and the neighborhood surrounding it was no exception. There was a bonfire ahead, where Blithestone and Chandler streets met. It was the perfect night for the Avengeress, for a mask on such an eve would not be looked at askance.

  Josephs brought the carriage to a halt and jumped down, then helped Emmeline, masked and cloaked, out of the carriage. His lined face twisted in a grimace of concentration, he reached into the trunk under his seat and brought out a couple of Guy Fawkes masks, representations of the gunpowder plotter, with exaggerated features and facial hair. “Use this ’un instead, miss. It’ll conceal yer better.”

  “Thank you, Josephs. You’re a wise man.” She took off her velvet masquerade mask, tossed it inside the carriage, and donned the Guy Fawkes disguise.

  “I won’t be leavin’ ye alone, miss,” he said, tension threading his gruff voice. “Not tonight. Stay hidden until I return.”

  “I appreciate your support, Josephs. I’ll be in the shadows by the alleyway running between the backs of Blithestone and Samuel. I wish to check on Miss Aloisia Hargreaves while here; Simeon is worried for her safety. As much as I would be happy of the outcome, I am not certain Mr. Wilkins is responsible for the murder of Sir Henry. I’d like to be sure.”

  “Bide wary until I join ye. It’s an odd night, God’s truth, and there be evil-doers about made bold by th’masks, and so I’d not have ye walk wiv me all that way from the stable to here.”

  “I’ll not be foolish, I promise.” A woman alone was an invitation to molestation, as if by virtue of being unaccompanied she forfeited courtesy. It made no sense, but there was much in humanity that didn’t.

  The view through the mask was distinctly odd, everything framed by the eye slits; she felt removed, though she blended into the street scene as every other person there. She moved to the wall by the gate into the alley behind the townhomes to await Josephs’ return. A rowdy group stumbled toward her, and she slipped through the arch into the alleyway to avoid them, listening as they passed, drunkenly singing a Guy Fawkes song.

  Along the alley she could hear voices; she suspected that further down on the Blithestone side, at least, servants armed with cudgels sat by doors, protecting the household from riotous celebrants. To pass the time while she awaited Josephs’ return, she counted down the back of the Samuel Street shops and apartments above, noting what she thought was likely Aloisia Hargreaves’s bedchamber window, given the layout of the building. Simeon hadn’t said how he had discovered that she was the one who’d identified the two men at Sir Henry’s back door, but she well knew the powerful chain of servant gossip, having used it often for Rogue articles. But how could she have possibly identified either man from her window, with the view foreshortened, in the dark and from such a distance?

  Curious to test her theory, Emmeline crept down into the darkness, the occasional long patches of yellow lantern light spilling from windows giving her faint vision. She counted the townhomes; there was the Claybourne residence. She slipped into its courtyard, moving past the convenience at the bottom of the yard and toward the back door, and then she looked across the alley, finding the window she thought must be Aloisia’s.

  It was much too far. Unless Miss Hargreaves had been down in the alleyway, she could not have identified Mr. Wilkins. However, even if she had lied about where she was, it didn’t mean she had lied about who it was she saw. Em
meline eyed the gate to the courtyard. If Aloisia had been in the alley for some reason, she may have seen Wilkins and LaLoux. Had she witnessed the murder? She was hiding something, but surely that wasn’t it.

  A door opened and Emmeline was suddenly clasped by the shoulders, bony hands dragging her backward. She fought, but she was off balance, and the hand over her masked mouth was strong. The stiff papier-mâché mask bit into her cheeks, and her vision obscured as the mask shifted. She tried to scream, but it was no use.

  The city might as well be burning like the great fire of yore, the way it blazed with bonfires on every corner, teased into great sparking heights. Josephs had found a place for his team and carriage at an inn two streets over and was making his way back to his mistress, worried that he had been gone so long. Nonsense night that it were, it was filled with danger for a young lady. A buxom tipsy female grabbed him into a dance by one fire—not something he’d object to on any other night—and he had to pull himself away. Josephs gave another group a wide berth and made his way past another gang of drunken revelers, but was seized once more and forced to drink a dram in honor of the Guy, an effigy on a cart by an open green. He drank, laughing obligingly, knowing that surliness would get him into a fight, and then pulled away, anxious to get back to Miss Emmeline. He was starting to feel uneasy, like they’d made a mistake.

  He was almost to the alleyway when he was seized again. He swung at the drunken fool, only to have the feller duck and said, “Hey now, Josephs, it’s Dr. Woodforde.”

  “Good ’eavens, sorry, doc.” Josephs squinted up at the doctor’s face in the shadowy darkness, relieved. “Whatcha doin’ ’ere?”

  “I went to Chelsea and spoke to Gillies; I know you’ve brought Emmeline here. Where is she?” The doctor’s voice was panicked.

  “She’s back where I left her, sir, by the alleyway between Blithestone and Samuel.”

  And the young fellow was off, as Josephs trudged after him.