Murder in St. Giles

by Jennifer Ashley

  “Get on,” Brewster said to the dog, but it utterly ignored him.

  I stopped. “He seems strangely attached to this place.”

  “Mayhap. Never seen ’im before. Can’t imagine Em’s brother having a dog what liked ’im. She didn’t tell you the ’alf of what I know about Finchie. World’s better off with him gone.”

  “Then I wonder if the dog belongs to whoever struck him down. Was he told to wait and guard? Or is he distressed about the killing? Dogs seem to understand things.”

  “Do they?” Brewster growled. “Can’t say as I’ve noticed.”

  I’d grown up in the country, where dogs were as much a part of the household as the people in it. Dogs had been part of army life as well, officers bringing their favorite animals with them along with their wives. Sometimes the dogs were better treated than their spouses.

  When their masters didn’t come back from battle, the dogs seemed to know that they were gone forever, sometimes even sensed beforehand that they’d not return. Dogs had uncanny instincts, in my observation.

  This hound was grimy and no doubt covered with fleas and other vermin. Donata and her servants would not thank me for returning home infested.

  “What could you tell us, eh?” I said to the dog.

  Brewster’s stance was impatient. “Thought you had a magistrate to see to.”

  “Could you look after him for me?” I asked on a sudden. “Give him a few scraps and keep him near. Don’t let the Watch round him up.”

  Brewster scowled. “I told you, Watch don’t come to St. Giles. I think you’ve gone soft in the head, but all right. But I’m not keeping ’im long.”

  “Long enough for me to journey to Whitechapel and back. I’ll pay for his keep.”

  “You said ye wanted me to guard your missus.”

  “Wait until I return. I believe the cousins have finished with persuasion for the moment.”

  “You really are soft in the head, Captain. Don’t know what His Nibs wants with ye. But I’ll do it.”

  I knew that if the dog were left to go stray, it would be taken by the Watch or other parties who kept the population of London’s dogs at bay. Stray dogs formed into packs that could become dangerous—it had happened.

  I didn’t want this dog to be drowned or shot simply because a man had the misfortune to die. And perhaps, if I found his master, I’d also find the person who’d killed Em Brewster’s brother.

  The hackney followed Holborn and the long, crowded, dusty way to the City. I rode through Newgate Street to Cheapside, to the center of finance at the meeting of Cornhill with Threadneedle and Lombard Streets. Nearby was the great synagogue where I’d sat entranced by the service with my friend Mr. Molodzinski. I reflected that I ought to look up the man, whom I’d not seen since my return from Egypt.

  I left the hackney in Whitechapel and entered the magistrate’s house.

  The success of Henry and John Fielding’s Bow Street Runners had engendered more such men working out of magistrates’ houses across the metropolis—Queen Street, Whitechapel, and others. The Bow Street men were regarded as the best of the crop, but the other Runners did plenty to pursue criminals and bring them to trial.

  I asked to see Sir Montague Harris. I was told he had gone out but was expected back soon, if I wanted to wait.

  The clerks there, knowing I was an acquaintance of Sir Montague, left me alone to sit in a corner out of the way. I studied a notice that a certain woman in a yellow apron had stolen all the clothes and money from three children that had strayed from their nannies. This thief seemed to like working in Hyde Park. Another notice was for a man wanted for questioning about the body of his brother, who’d washed up in the Thames, plus the search was on for a gentleman who’d vanished on the eve of his wedding.

  “He might have, as my lads say, ‘legged it,’” a jovial voice came to me. “Panicked at the last.”

  Sir Montague Harris radiated warmth from his rotund body, along with the scent of wool and pipe smoke. I came to my feet and looked down into his round, wise face as I stuck out my hand.

  “How are you, my boy?” Sir Montague asked in his large voice. “Involved yourself in another crime, have you?”

  A few heads turned our way, including those of pickpockets and street ladies who’d been hauled in by the foot patrol while I’d waited, but once Sir Montague beamed and shook my hand, they ignored me.

  “As a matter of fact …” I began in a low voice.

  “Excellent. Let us adjourn.”

  Sir Montague used both his walking stick and the staircase railing to haul himself upward, grunting as he went. We reached a stuffy upper floor and a room in the back with one window overlooking a grimy courtyard. Sir Montague seated himself in a sagging chair and waved me to the only other seat in the chamber.

  “Before we begin with the sordid business of crime, tell me how your extraordinary wife is faring. And your children? All in good health?”

  “All are well, thank you,” I answered, warming. “My daughter Anne is … quite robust.” Her cries filled the night, the nurse distressed that she’d wake the master and mistress. I journeyed often to the nursery in the small hours to walk with Anne until she quieted again. “Peter is tired of lessons and longs to run about in the country, and my older daughter, Gabriella, is due to arrive on Saturday.”

  Sir Montague gave me his hearty laugh. “The pride bursting from you is good to see, my friend. I always knew you needed someone to look after you. Now, what is this crime you’ve come to consult me about?”

  I tucked aside my eagerness to speak about my children and gave him a truncated version of the tale of the dead Mr. Finch, never mentioning Brewster or his wife.

  Sir Montague watched me with a shrewd sparkle in his eyes. “St. Giles, eh? Dead bodies turn up there all the time. Beaten, stabbed, left in the street for the rats, pushed into cesspits. Why does this one merit your attention?”

  The answer slid from me reluctantly. “Because I do not want the wrong man arrested.”

  “Ah, now we come to it.” Sir Montague sat back, the chair groaning. “A friend is involved. Do not worry, I will not ask you which friend, not at this point. I will guess not Mr. Grenville, as he can pay for fine gentlemen of law to keep him from trouble. Plus, I gather, he has not yet returned from Paris?”

  “He has written that he will be home by summer.” Lucius Grenville, one of the wealthiest and the most famous gentleman in London had vanished in February with his mistress to Paris and hadn’t been seen in London since. Talked about at length, yes, with the conclusion that Grenville had become quite mad since he’d taken up with the actress Miss Simmons.

  “Then we have no fear for Mr. Grenville, except perhaps in his domestic arrangements.” Sir Montague’s chuckle vibrated the room. “I will guess not Mr. Denis, as most crimes committed by him or for him are not so obvious, or even known of by the rest of the world until many years later. I will keep my speculations about why you did not consult him first to myself.”

  “Murder is against the law,” I said in surprise. “Why would I not report it?”

  “Why not, indeed? Well, Captain, I will send my most trusted Runner to have a look, though crimes in that area belong to Bow Street or Queen’s Square. I will also not speculate as to why you did not want one of those Runners to rush to St. Giles.”

  Sir Montague had likely already tumbled to whom I was attempting to protect, but he was also kindhearted enough to let me go through the motions.

  “The Runners who would come in response to my information are not the most discreet of men,” I said.

  Milton Pomeroy and Timothy Spendlove, both of Bow Street, would be more than happy to confine Brewster to Newgate until they could be convinced he had nothing to do with it—Pomeroy good-naturedly, Spendlove with grim satisfaction.

  “You are quite right,” Sir Montague said, eyes alight. “Neither Spendlove nor Pomeroy will do. I’ll send the best man for the task, Captain, I assure you. He will,
no doubt, ask you many pointed questions, but he won’t rush after the first man he sees, nor will he threaten you for information. He’s a good lad. Not long in London from Aberdeen, but he’s canny, quite canny.”

  I imagined a tall lanky Scotsman with an indecipherable accent, but if Sir Montague recommended him, I would reserve judgment.

  Sir Montague and I exchanged a few more pleasantries, he commenting that his wife was already clamoring to leave London for their country home, where she spent the summers in the clean air while he remained sweltering in Whitechapel.

  I replied that this summer my family planned to divide our time between Norfolk and the Breckenridge seat in Hampshire. This reminded me of Donata’s troubles with her husband’s family, and I moved impatiently.

  Sir Montague at last rose to his feet and stepped down the hall, calling at a bellow for one of the underlings of the house to send for Mr. Quimby. After a time I heard his rumbling voice and answers in a lighter tone.

  Presently, Sir Montague returned, shook my hand, and told me Mr. Quimby would await me below.

  I walked downstairs to find a gentleman of small stature with dark brown hair and very blue eyes, in a black suit that was neat if not well made.

  “Good morning, sir,” he said, with only a hint of a Scottish accent. He bowed as I came off the last step. “I am Mr. Quimby. Lamont Quimby. Sir Montague tells me you have a dead body you’d like me to have a look at?”

  Chapter 4

  Mr. Quimby travelled back through London with me. He was quiet, not offering conversation, as our hackney pressed through the busy city.

  His accent, what there was of it, was northern Scots, speaking of rolling Highlands and blue waters I’d only seen in paintings. His appearance and name, however, did not bring to mind the wild Highlanders in plaids and claymores who’d followed Bonnie Prince Charlie to within a hundred miles or so of London seventy years ago.

  Mr. Quimby was fairly young, perhaps just into his third decade, but he had a calmness about him that suggested age and wisdom. His hair and eyes, dark brown and blue, suggested a Celtic ancestry rather than Saxon or Viking. He held his hands carefully on his lap, his small fingers in leather gloves resting precisely in the same place on each knee.

  We reached St. Giles, descending where Broad Street ended in the curve of St. Giles High Street before it became the northward Tottenham Court Road.

  The church of the parish lay beside us, a square building of Portland stone with a fairly austere facade popular with architects of a hundred years ago. St. Giles was a very old parish, and this church was only the newest of many that had risen here.

  I liked its simple face with arched windows of plain glass and a spire that rose to a graceful point a hundred feet above us. The modern gate to the churchyard, added at the turn of this century, was incongruous, a pseudo-Roman affair with a very busy scene of the Resurrection in its arch.

  I led Mr. Quimby from here into the warren of streets where Brewster had left the body.

  The day had commenced, which meant the lanes were full. St. Giles was a crowded place, where the poor who’d flooded to London from the country in hopes of a better life drifted when they needed to make ends meet. Lodgings were cheap, and cheaper still if one was prepared to live with a score or so others in only a few rooms.

  A makeshift market had been set up in the middle of one street, with baskets of wilted beans and spring greens presided over by a woman whose face and hands were covered with sores. Dogs wandered about as did cats, who paid no attention to the rats skulking in the shadows.

  Mr. Quimby took this in without a flinch or even a change of expression. The denizens gave him a sharp look, as they did me. They’d seen me before in the company of Brewster, and knew him for my protector, but they stared hard at Quimby.

  The end of the lane Brewster had showed me was deserted, as though the residents of St. Giles had sensed where trouble was and avoided it.

  I unlocked the door with the key Brewster had given me, and let Quimby into the tiny room. The noise of outdoors faded in this deserted place, and I lit the lantern Brewster had left behind.

  Quimby leaned down, hands on knees, and studied the man, his nose almost on the body. He viewed Finch’s battered face and his fingers now frozen into curled fists. Quimby bent nearly double, looking over the corpse from head to foot.

  “Poor fellow,” he said, straightening. “He fought hard, but the other—or others—beat him thoroughly.”

  “You think there was more than one?” I asked, startled.

  “Difficult to say. But I’d guess so. He’s a large man, looks capable of defending himself. This fist …” Quimby balled his own hand and placed it against the marks on the neck. “This one is quite big. But this …” He moved the man’s shirt open to reveal a similar mark on his upper chest, almost covered in wiry black hair. “This fist was smaller, much smaller. I’d say even a woman’s, if it hadn’t delivered the blow with such force.”

  “A woman can strike hard if she is desperate,” I said. “And some farm women are quite strong.”

  “Oh, yes, I am familiar with the strength of country lassies.” A smile darted across Quimby’s lips. “I grew up with ladies who thought nothing of scrapping, even with men, but they were not dainty and small, no.”

  “We are looking for a man with petite hands, then.”

  Quimby shrugged. “Possibly. I will rule out nothing yet.”

  Brewster’s ham fists were candidates for the larger prints. My throat tightened.

  Quimby examined the body closely once more, and I leaned with him, curious.

  “His hands,” Quimby said, turning one over. “What do you make of them?”

  “He’s worked hard with them. I’d thought he’d been transported, but I have been told that no one escapes and lives to tell the tale.”

  “Not necessarily. A man can make a friend of a guard or promise him a fortune if he gets free. Guards do not have the best life, watching over dangerous men, keeping them shut away. Compassion can enter into things as well—a guard hears a man missing his family, lonely, mayhap not as deadly a criminal as he was made out to be …”

  “The guard assists him,” I finished.

  “And he finds his way back to London. His hands and face are rather sunburned, as is his neck and chest. That tells me he’s done labor in a sunny clime, shucking his shirt to keep cool.”

  Sent to the Antipodes, he meant. I knew of another man who’d been transported across the ocean to either New South Wales or the large island south of it, Van Diemen’s Land. He’d managed to return without anyone being the wiser.

  That man was a surgeon, who was now more or less in Denis’s employ. He’d saved Brewster’s life once upon a time, and made certain my wife and daughter lived through Donata’s rather difficult labor this New Year’s.

  The surgeon had slim, competent hands, as thin and deft as a woman’s.

  I wondered very much if Jack Finch had met the surgeon on the far side of the world. The surgeon would be executed if it were discovered he’d returned from a penal colony.

  Perhaps he’d spied Finch inquiring about Brewster among Denis’s men, and feared Finch would betray him, even inadvertently. The surgeon could have followed Finch, watched Brewster drag him into this small house, and finished him off once Brewster was gone. He’d know exactly where to strike to kill, even with his bare hands.

  I tried to keep my expression neutral as these pictures formed and dissolved, but Quimby watched me with interest in his eyes.

  “You have a theory?”

  I shook my head, discarding the idea. “I can think of nothing that fits.”

  The surgeon, if he’d wanted Finch dead, would have made a quick and efficient kill, and it was quite likely no one would have ever found the body.

  Quimby waited for me to say more, but I pressed my mouth closed, and he returned to his scrutiny of Mr. Finch.

  Presently, he rose again and flexed his shoulders as though easing
out soreness. “He will have to be taken to the coroner for examination, and then the coroner will conduct a hearing. His family—if the poor bastard had any—must be told. But in finding the family, we might find the culprit. That is so often the case.”

  I had not known Quimby long, but I already discerned that he was no fool.

  “What will you do now?” I asked, trying to appear ingenuous.

  His brief smile flickered. “In the usual case, I would canvass neighbors and passers-by for witnesses. But in a place like St. Giles, I have no doubt that out of the thousands who roam these streets each night, exactly no one will have seen anything at all. Therefore …” Quimby straightened his hat. “I will try to discover who he is, where he came from, and whether he had enemies, which seems likely. Those enemies I will question until I find one or two whose hands fit the prints on his body and who have no alibi for the crime. But you must know this, Captain. You have assisted the Runners before.”

  I gave him an acknowledging nod. “But the Runners I am acquainted with have their own methods. I wondered what yours were.”

  “Ah, I am familiar with Mr. Pomeroy and Mr. Spendlove.” His eyes sparkled with mirth. “I am not gifted with their bulk, no, and so I must tread more carefully before I arrest a man—or woman. I must be certain of myself before I strike, and also take with me several stouthearted foot patrollers.”

  I believed him. If he tried to arrest Brewster, he would need a mob.

  “I am afraid, though, that we will have to involve Bow Street, as they are the nearest house.” Quimby shot me an apologetic look.

  “Indeed,” I said, as he seemed to wait for my answer.

  Quimby led the way out and closed the door. He told me to lock it and then asked me for the key, which I gave him with reluctance. He did not ask me how I came by the key, which made me more nervous than relieved.

  “I will fetch the coroner and have this fellow removed,” Quimby said. “I will break the news to Bow Street myself after that.”