Lady of Ashes (39 page)

“It will be very befitting of a prince.”

“As you must realize, Mrs. Morgan, Albert must be transferred to the Frogmore Mausoleum when it is complete. It is our desire that you assist Mr. Rowland once again in this. You will then be able to share the details of the ceremony with us afterward. We do believe another, even more private, service is in order. Mostly family members. It is a great honor for you to be thus chosen twice.”

Violet wasn’t sure she could handle this much honor at the moment. “Your Majesty, my little Susanna . . .” she began.

Victoria waved a hand. “Will be found in short order, I’m sure. The prince’s services won’t be for months. You’ll meet with Mr. Rowland straight away to begin planning, won’t you?”

“Of course.” Yes, it was an honor, but how could she possibly focus with the knowledge that Susanna was in the hands of two filthy creatures who might not be feeding her, or had her locked up in a cramped, dingy basement, or had her living with rats, or . . . It didn’t bear thinking about, even though she obsessed on it every night in bed.

“We are glad we’ve had the opportunity for this discussion. And surely your ward will be discovered soon and all will be well. Children are remarkably hardier than their parents.”

Violet’s interview with Queen Victoria was concluded. Now she had to figure out how to fit a royal reburial into her life.

 

It was early morning and the sun was struggling to find its way through an overcast sky. Samuel Harper had hardly slept in days, between searching for Susanna’s kidnappers, making reports to Charles Francis Adams—who was growing impatient—and staking places at various times in front of Violet’s home and shop in hopes of catching Cubby and Slade somewhere before they had an opportunity to commit any other acts against Violet.

He was currently across the street from Morgan Undertaking. No one had passed by in hours who showed any interest in the shop. Perhaps it was time to return to Violet’s home. He could escort her to the shop.

Just as he was about to turn away from the storefront, he saw a gangly legged man with a great paunch saunter up to the shop window. At first, Sam thought the man was peering inside with morbid curiosity, but soon realized he was staring at something in particular.

The man was looking at the advertisement Violet had placed in the newspaper. She’d cut it out and placed it in her window in hopes that a passerby with knowledge of Susanna would notice it and stop in.

The sun had finally won its battle with the morning’s clouds and was warming the street and spreading its rays across the glass windows of stores and eateries all along the block. The man raised a hand to protect the glass from the sun’s reflection as he continued to focus on Violet’s notice.

Samuel casually crossed the street, which was coming alive with foot and coach traffic, and cautiously approached the man.

“Promises to be a fine morning, doesn’t it?” Samuel tipped his hat at him.

“Indeed,” the man mumbled without turning to acknowledge Samuel.

The man’s jacket was stretched tightly across his abdomen and was a peculiar shade of gray, as though it had been laundered too many times. In fact, the man aptly fit Violet’s description of Slade. Was it him? Was he waiting for Violet to arrive this morning? Where was his partner? Keeping watch over Susanna?

Samuel felt his blood simmering under the rising heat of the sunshine. “Planning for a funeral?” he asked.

“What?” The man finally turned to face Samuel. “Oh yes, my . . . aunt . . . just died. I need an undertaker. I hear Morgan’s is a good place.”

“I hear the same thing. You seem interested in the advertisement in the window. What is it?”

“Oh, looks like the proprietor’s daughter is a runaway or has been kidnapped. Seems to be happening all the time in London these days, don’t it?”

“Not in this neighborhood. I’d say it’s most unusual to have happened around here, wouldn’t you?”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “Do I know you? You sound foreign, and I don’t care for your tone. Mind your own business.” He turned back to the shop window.

Samuel reciprocated the feeling, now certain he’d met the vile Mr. Slade. He stepped closer, so that their jackets were touching. Samuel decided to be bold, even aggressive.

“You wouldn’t happen to be a blackmailer with the undertaker’s child in your possession, would you, you cretinous clod? Or should I call you Mr. Slade?”

The man started, but quickly recovered his composure. He was alarmed enough, though, that Samuel knew he had his quarry.

“As I said, I’m just looking for a funeral man. My aunt and all. Good day to you.” He ambled away, pretending a nonchalance that didn’t deceive Samuel for even a second.

Samuel waited several moments before following Slade. When Slade jumped onto an omnibus, Samuel scrambled to find a hack to follow the public transport. The driver looked at him like he was a Bedlam escapee—“Why would you want to pay my fare to follow an omnibus you could ride for yourself?”—but did as Samuel asked, staying some distance behind the transport. Slade exited the omnibus at Whitechapel. Samuel quickly paid the driver and stepped out after his prey, who seemed unaware of Samuel’s presence.

Samuel was unfamiliar with this neighborhood, but it immediately conveyed that it was seedy and undesirable. A prostitute stepped out from nowhere to offer her wares.

“Shh.” Samuel raised a finger to his lips and reached into his pocket for a coin.

Realizing she didn’t have to do anything to earn the money, she quickly accepted it and disappeared again.

Slade was still within sight and hadn’t noticed what went on behind him. He paused in front of a tavern and contemplated the building, as if wondering whether it was too early for a pint of ale. Thirst won any internal argument over the matter, and he stepped inside.

Samuel stayed back for several minutes, waiting until Slade would have ordered his glass and retreated to a table. Hopefully he was sitting with his back to the door—Samuel needed the element of surprise.

After patiently counting backward from one hundred, Samuel entered himself. Why were taverns in poor neighborhoods always so dark? Old buildings, lack of glass windows, and insufficient gas lighting, he supposed. It stank of urine inside. After taking a few seconds to adjust his eyes to the darkness, he scanned the room. Even at this early hour, there was no shortage of patrons, none of whom took notice of the tall American lawyer at the door.

Luck was with him. Slade sat in a booth with his back to the entrance. Samuel quietly ordered an ale and carried it over. Sliding into the booth across from Slade, he offered the glass to him.

“What do
you
want?” Slade snarled, any pretense of friendliness having fled now that Samuel had so obviously invaded his own territory.

“I know who you are, Slade.”

Slade’s eyes widened in surprise. He took the glass Samuel offered and drank it down in several swallows. “What of it?”

“Finish your other ale. I’m Samuel Harper and we’re going to talk.”

Slade picked up his glass but set it down again right away. “Don’t take orders from the likes of you. Now, what is it you want? Before I get angry.”

Samuel leaned forward, dropping his voice to nearly a whisper. “You’re in no position to be angry. Both the British and U.S. governments are very interested in your whereabouts”—a bit of a stretch, but good enough for his purposes—“so either you’re going to produce Susanna or you’ll find yourself in a short stay in Newgate before your hanging. If I don’t strangle you myself first.”

“Don’t play the stuffed peacock with me, Mr. Harper. Why would the authorities of two governments be interested in me? I’m not a perfect man, but I’m no murderer or traitor or anything.”

“You’ve blackmailed an innocent woman who is a friend of the queen’s, for a large sum of money.”

“ ’Tisn’t blackmail to collect what you’re owed.”

“Owed for
what,
exactly?”

“That woman’s husband needed money for a trading scheme. It sounded illegal to me, and although I’m not one to stand in the way of another man’s business, I’ve got to protect my own interests, don’t I? Risky propositions mean I have to take lengths to be sure I get my investment back. Mr. Morgan wanted enough that I didn’t even have the total to lend him, so had to bring in a partner. Can’t always trust partners.

“When Morgan proved himself unreliable and disappeared off to America without paying his debt, I couldn’t sit by, could I? So my partner and I went to collect from his only living relative I could find. She, too, has been quite disagreeable—”

“So you took her child in payment?”

“—Although my partner has gone off somewhere, too, and I don’t like going on collection jobs myself and—what? Took a child? The one in the window notice? Why would I do that?”

“In revenge for Mrs. Morgan not responding to your threats.”

Slade looked at him incredulously. “What would I do with a brat, and a girl besides? They need food, they cry, they escape. Always thought kidnappers were the stupidest blokes. Sorry, I have far better ways to collect from my customers than to kidnap a child. Again, it’s all about risk. Children are too risky.”

Although Samuel loathed the man before him, his sense told him that Slade was speaking the truth. Unfortunately. “But if it wasn’t you, then who was it?”

Slade shrugged. “There’s good business in finding children to work for people who don’t particularly want to pay wages.” He considered for a moment. “Or . . . I do remember the girl, quite comely. She may have been snatched for a brothel. Many possibilities. Now if you’ll pardon me . . .”

Slade moved to exit the booth, but Samuel grasped the man’s wrists and pressed down on the veins underneath. Slade slid back into the booth.

“You said your partner has disappeared. Where do you think he went? Might he have Susanna?”

“Cubby? Nah. He wouldn’t do anything without my say-so. Dumb as toast, he is. Besides, he’s been missing since the day after we visited Mrs. Morgan and the notice said the girl’s only been missing a week. He even missed our second collection appointment with Mrs. Morgan, which she also ignored. I’ve not been as particular about her debt at the moment, since Cubby’s gone. You’re barking up the wrong tree full of sparrows, Harper. Now I’ll be going. Don’t follow me again.”

Sam let him go, lost in his own thoughts. Slade wasn’t lying. Sam’s law experiences had made him an expert in knowing when a witness’s testimony was false or not.

Yet where did this leave him and Violet in the search for Susanna, when her kidnapper wasn’t making any formal demands or providing even a hint as to why the girl had been taken?

 

The question came to a rest after he saw Violet at the shop. She’d just returned from a visit to Windsor, where the queen had invited her to participate in Albert’s reinterment at Frogmore.

“Another great honor for Morgan Undertaking,” he said.

“Yes, so the queen informed me. Sam, how can I possibly put my mind to it with Susanna missing?”

“I’m afraid I have both good news and bad news on that score. I found Slade, but I don’t think he did it.”

Sam relayed his visit with Slade in detail. “I don’t believe he was lying, Violet.”

“But what does it all mean now? A kidnapper taunting me with no intention of making his desires or Susanna’s whereabouts known?”

“My thoughts exactly.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the mail carrier’s rap on the door and several letters dropping through the slot. Violet picked them up and sorted through them. Her face drained of all color as she let everything else fall except for one letter.

“I know this handwriting. It’s him.” She offered it to Sam. “I can’t bear to read it.”

As he opened the envelope Violet said, “Do you realize he knows where I live and where my shop is? He took Susanna from my home, to which I’ve only recently moved, yet he sends his curious poems here.”

“We’ll find him and Susanna, Violet. She’ll be fine. Her abductor, however, may not make it all the way to Newgate, much less his trial and hanging, as my patience is wearing thin.”

He read aloud the missive, which had the familiar slanted handwriting like the first one.

He looked up, expecting Violet to be trembling. Instead, her face was mottled with rage. “How dare he hold Susanna’s life in his palm like this! She’s an innocent child. He never tells us what he wants. It’s as though torturing me is the goal.”

“Maybe that’s it. Maybe his goal is your agony, so he dangles you like a toad over a pot of boiling water. Have you angered any of your customers?”

“Not that I’m aware of. Many of the grieving become angry, but not until after the shock of the funeral wears off, and typically it’s family members turning on one another.”

“Let’s go through your records for the past six months or so and talk about each of your customers and their dead relatives. Maybe it will revive a memory of a dispute with someone.”

Violet shook her head. “I can’t imagine. Unless Graham angered someone.”

“At this point, it’s all we’ve got.”

 

While Violet was engrossed in conversation with Sam over what families she had serviced over the past few months, they were interrupted by the jangle of the door’s bells. Mary and George came in. Mary held a handkerchief to her eyes and George comforted her.

“Violet, dear, I’ve been so worried. I haven’t heard from you since Susanna first disappeared. George and I have been so concerned. We were talking about it and he suggested we simply come right over and check on you. Good afternoon, Mr. Harper, you remember Mr. Cooke.”