The Humbug Murders (23 page)

We stared at one another in stunned silence, then she laughed, took my hand, and curtsied. A fit of madness must have then overcome me, because I felt my heart leap into my throat, my nerves burst to a tingling mass of needles. I cupped her face in both my hands and tried to press my lips to hers. So many things I wished to say, so much forgiveness I wished to beg, and all, all, I was certain, would be encapsulated in this magnificent gesture.

Our lips did not meet. She shrugged out of my grasp and shoved me away. I heard titters from the group of society wives clustered together under a rich sprig of mistletoe and sewn to the hip of the plump Lady Gertrude, who was clutching her stomach and looking mortified. But within seconds they had moved on to tastier nuggets of humiliation and gossipy ruin.

Belle's fury reddened her words. “Ebenezer, you can distinguish, can you not, between that which is past, that which is present, and that which is future?”

I could not meet Belle's gaze. “I apologize. I don't know what came over me. I am delighted to see you well.”

I scanned the room and saw several bulky men in ill-fitting suits watching Belle from a distance. The guardsmen Dickens had hired.

“I would not see the light from your eyes extinguished,” Belle said with a softness and generosity I did not deserve. “It is a fair and good thing to see. But the flames should not be lit for me. You know this.” She looked to Adelaide. “What of that one? She hasn't stopped looking your way all evening!”

Adelaide stood gay and charming as ever, a shimmering star that had drawn the attention of many men and made satellites of them, Lord Rutledge included. Her misery of only a few moments ago had miraculously vanished. Though she made each of the men about her feel as if he had her complete attention, her gaze flickered back to me time and again.

I cleared my throat roughly. “Her? She's a . . . a business acquaintance. We seek to profit by means of a common end, nothing more.”

“Profit, then? It is still all that guides you?”

“It does not betray me.
It
can be counted on to be fair and just.”

“My hope for you has come to pass,” she said distantly. “You are happy in the life you've chosen.”

“Undoubtedly.”

Her wan smile was the last I saw of her as she breezed over to a clutch of friends.

Dickens regained my side, a crystal tumbler of hot brandy in hand. “Is it not a curious thing?” he asked. “How much easier a lie passes one's lips, like a perfectly struck note off a finely-tuned instrument, than the flat and heavy thing that is so often the truth?”

“You're drunk.”

He nodded. “Doesn't make me wrong.”

“What of
your
conquest?”

He sighed and raised his glass in the direction of a radiant young lady whose circle of male admirers put Adelaide's to shame. “I thought there might be some future with me and that one . . . but, though I had been led to believe otherwise, that is clearly
not
how she sees things between us. She's nothing but a dirty puzzle.” Under his breath he muttered, “Blast that Havisham woman!”

I nodded, but I could not share his current disdain of the other sex. I had deserved Belle's thorough rebuke. Perhaps, I thought as I gazed at Adelaide, it was time I looked to my future. . . .

“Blast that Havisham woman?” said a willowy voice at our backs. “I would second that—with interest!”

A handsome woman, close to ten and thirty in years, bore down on us. Dickens blanched at the sight of her.

“Miss Shelley,” he said. “How very pleasant to see you again.”

“Oh, Mr. Dickens, really now. You must know that my feelings towards you
entirely
mirror yours to me.”

He frowned. “Delightful. Then we shall have no misunderstandings between us.”

She smiled. “If that's everything?”

He breezed before her. “I understand we share a mutual friend. A Mr. Jingle?”

Her smile fell. “That reprobate. Why am I not surprised the two of you are acquainted?”

Shrugging, Dickens admitted, “We're not. I may have stretched the truth on that point. I have never met him.”

“But you seek him out? For a news story, I presume?”

“A criminal exposé, yes.”

“I suppose I should be grateful that you are not scurrying about my coattails seeking an endorsement for some ridiculous novel. How tiresome.”

Dickens bristled, then caught himself. “Clearly not, madam.”

I stepped back, unsure of what this exchange signified. Then I recalled Dickens' promise that he was nearing the whereabouts of Miss Annie Piper. He did not trust in the pledges of Fagin and his gang to arrange an audience, and Fagin's initial hesitation to set the meeting nagged at him greatly. This Jingle must hold important knowledge, I wagered.

“Suppose I help you? As our American friends might say, what's in it for me?”

“What would you have of me?”

“St. Raphael's Hospice for Paupers. Go there. Report on the brave men and women staffing that hellhole. Report on the wretched conditions that force fallen women and the helpless to go there. Promise me you will shine some light on that pit of darkness and perhaps assist in its desperate needs for funding by letting the public know what you see . . . will you do that?”

A strange look came into Dickens' eyes. Fortified steel. “Whether you help me or not.”

She nodded and took his arm. “Come this way, I'll tell you what I know. . . .”

So intent had the two writers been on one another—and the clear spark that existed between them, despite, or perhaps because of, their evident friction—my presence had never been acknowledged. Though perhaps that was for the best, considering the mention of St. Raphael's. I had been there numerous times attempting to collect what was owed me. . . .

“Mr. Scrooge!” Lord Rutledge cried as Adelaide led him straight to me. He was the tallest man in the room on account of his preposterous and frankly outdated wig. “I have heard of the successful outcome of your rail scheme. Congratulations are in order!”

“Not just yet,” I said, nodding at Adelaide as she melted back into the crowd.

“Well, as I was saying to Miss Owen there, a delightful woman, I understand what you see in her . . . my country estate, you see, has become quite the bother. I've held on to it for sentimental reasons, but it is a sin to see such a lovely place sit empty. A new owner is in order, surely. You should see it, Scrooge. Newly fitted Doric columns, a hedge maze, and so much more!”

I shrugged. “What you call taste is living proof that nature does not abhor a vacuum.”

Rutledge stiffened. “Sir?”

I smiled. “And here I might have thought your true motive for selling was because you're in debt up to your eyeballs, as they say.” It took only moments for me to recount the information I had gleaned from young Billy Humble's research. Lord Rutledge was on the brink of complete financial ruin. And in his circles, that meant also social devastation.

“Oh, you tried to marry off your daughters, but the price you sought was too high, the dowry exorbitant for ladies a bit beyond the freshness of the ones you seem to like,” I said, nodding at the clutch of debutantes who now looked his way.

“You're the devil,” Rutledge murmured.

“Then fear me, because I could bring about your ruin with a few well-placed words. Do not even consider having me harmed or what I've learned will find its way to the press almost instantly.”

Trembling, the blood draining from his cheeks until his face was as white as his hairpiece, he gripped his walking stick and nodded sharply. “What is it you want?”

I thought back to Jack Colley, and a mad gambit sprang to my mind. It seemed my group of suspects liked to use odd phrases to hide their secretive and dark dealings.

I began to hum the nursery rhyme. When I neared the end, I gently sang, “And pretty maids, all in a row.”

He buckled, tears suddenly welling in the corners of his eyes. Through gritted teeth he said, “Ask . . . your . . .
questions.
”

“Tell me what you know of ‘The Lady' and ‘Chimera.' The connection between you and Sunderland and the Colleys. The rings, the Royal Quarter. Tell me all of it. And do not lie to me. I'll know if you're lying.”

He snatched a drink from a serving tray moving at nearly a blur and downed it greedily. Wiping his mouth, he said, “Do you know one of the loveliest things about having a title before one's name? It frees you to speak simple unvarnished truth. Particularly to those who are lesser than you. Mr. Scrooge, I cannot possibly be the first to tell you that you are an insufferable bore. Worse, you are a conniving, clutching, cold-fisted beast whom I would see put down.”

“But not today.”

“No,” he agreed in a trembling tone. “Not today.”

“Out with it. Tell me. I mean to know why Fezziwig was murdered.”

Rutledge stopped short at that, confused. He acted as if I had just completely changed the subject. Then he steadied himself and said, “I only know parts of it. ‘Chimera' is simply something I overheard once, in somewhat low company, and when I inquired as to its meaning, my life was threatened by those I counted as friends.”

“Like Shen?”

He shook his head. “Others. So I have said nothing of it since. The Lady, she is some kind of rival to Smithson and the Colley Brothers. She trades in the foreign, the exotic; that's all I know.”

“How would Fezziwig have known of her?”

“I haven't the first notion,” Rutledge said earnestly. “But it was the mention of her, in his summons, that prompted me to be at his place that terrible morning. If he knew of her, he might know of my other . . . pursuits.”

“You feared he might blackmail you? Expose you?”

“No, no, never,” Rutledge said. “I feared for him. I worried he had stumbled across something and did not understand its true nature. That he might unwittingly put himself in danger. And, now that I consider things in such light, you're right: that may be just what happened.”

“I need more. This Humbug
will
strike again. First Fezziwig, now the lad we found and assumed to be the murderer. Sunderland is dead. Of the small group of us that were thrust into that room, the numbers dwindle. Much as I normally admire the trait, now is not the time to be stingy, Lord Rutledge.”

“Yes, yes . . . There is one who can illuminate these matters far better than I. He . . . It's just . . . You see, when one has the means afforded to me, the usual pleasures lose their luster. One seeks the new, the different, the perverse, to be blunt. I found a place that provides it. A person who provides it.”

“Smithson.”

“Yes. Smithson is the spider in the web, all right, but that's not his true name. Smithson is what you would call an alias. In truth, he is a man of business, much like you. Respected. Above board, so the world thinks. But the truth of it is he has his hands in every kind of filth you might imagine.”

My heart raced as I pressed him further. “A name, Rutledge. Give me a name, and I will forget all I learned about your problems and . . . transgressions.”

He quaked with rage, sweat beading on his forehead. Then his knees buckled, and I grabbed his arm to steady him.

“The wine, the wine!” he said jovially as others rushed to help and he dismissed them with a wave of his hand. Leaning in close to my ear, he whispered, “Marley. Smithson's true name is Jacob Marley. Now leave me and never speak with me again!”

Lord Rutledge composed himself, smiled, and waded back into the crowd, though his step was far less sure than it had been.

I too felt unsteady. Jacob? My once friend, my once partner . . . could he have truly fallen so? But then, his fortunes had risen dramatically since we parted, and he had expressed little hesitation in dabbling in wretchedness like the Black Trade.

Reeling from it all, I determined to flee this place, but a commotion at the edge of the room where the passage to the library resided caught my attention. Constable Crabapple was there, clutching a piece of paper, waving it in the face of Inspector Foote while Lord Dyer looked on in red-faced fury.

“Well, now, look at that!” Dickens said, swooping in beside me and clutching another drink. He looked about, took in the crowd's sudden fixation on the business ahead, and removed his flask. He emptied his drink into it and screwed on the top. “Might get chilly later.”

“I think it is time we take our leave. Have you seen Miss Owen?” I asked, a terrible unease settling in as I thought of how easily she had hidden her distress earlier. She was an expert at hiding things, it seemed, and there were many things she'd hidden from me.

“I have not,” he said curiously. “And in that dress she wore tonight, she is a bit hard to miss. Curious!”

We pressed towards the fracas and searched for Adelaide, but to no avail. Finally, I nodded to a side door, where we might make a discreet exit.

“I've learned much tonight,” I said.

“As have I,” Dickens said. “It seems our Miss Annie Piper is now the consort to Smithson himself.”

“How—”

“I have my ways,” he said, not even attempting to hide his smug expression.

Ahead, Crabapple was peering past Foote's shoulder and waving a fist at the party's host. “Explain yourself, Lord Dyer! Why would my prisoner, Thomas Guilfoyle, the Humbug Killer his own self, be writing to you from his prison cell only hours before he was struck down? Why should he beg and plead for you of all people to save him? What's the connection? Tell me, sir!”

Pinpricks rippled through my flesh as I staggered back, physically struck by the revelation. I thought of Guilfoyle in his cell, madly certain that “he” would come and provide salvation. And later, Adelaide's teary story that Tom, in his drug-addled state, was referring to his dead father.