The Humbug Murders (12 page)

“What,” he said quietly, “what if I had seen something? Someone?”

“Tom, you must tell us,” Adelaide pleaded.

“You'd never believe me.”

“Tell us,” I urged.

He darted away, clawing at his own chest, and stared at the ceiling as if appealing to the almighty Himself. “A black veil. A shroud or cloak. Hands like bones, sharp, terrible fingers. A wretched thing that should not have lived. Killed by the dead, he was. A spirit. A dead thing so like the angel of death itself. Killed by the dead! A humbug. Humbug!”

A chill swept through me like a ghost. Adelaide held her breath, her sparkling eyes flashing from Tom to me and back again.
Many more will die. And then you.

“No, I can see you would not credit it,” Tom whispered as he drew close to us again. “Not that I'd blame you.”

His fists were closed round the bars, gripped so tight his knuckles were white as bone. And there, on the ring finger, was the tell-tale band of pale skin that betrayed a missing ring.

“Where's your ring, Thomas Guilfoyle?” I asked. He jumped, startled, his eyes wide and darting.

“W-what ring?” he stuttered, and his hands vanished back into his pockets.

“Don't play the fool,” I said, then lowered my voice. “Heavy, gold. Red stone set deep in the middle.” The very same that had been spinning on my office floor amongst a pile of cadaver-dust.

“No,” he murmured, his voice coarse and dry. “No, I know of no ring.” His breathing became irregular and panicked, and he retreated to the back of his cell, wildly wringing his hands.

“Of course you do,” I said. “You wore it regularly. Daily, for months. You must have noticed such a permanent element of your attire?”

“Answer the man, Tom,” demanded Adelaide.

“It wasn't my ring! I had nothing to do with that ring, or any of the locks it opened!” He was blathering wildly, loudly, his pleading voice echoing up the corridor. “My wearing it was nothing more than an accident, you hear? It shouldn't have come to me, it wasn't mine to use in the Royal Quarter, not mine! Don't tell Smithson Adelaide, you won't, will you?” He was on his knees now, tears streaming down his cheeks, clutching at Adelaide's skirts through the bars. She fell to his level and held his hands, soothing him with gentle coos.

“Who's Smithson?” I asked. “What's the Royal Quarter?”

“Killed by the dead, Adelaide,” whispered Tom, his face pressed against the bars and the desperation laced in his voice like poison. “By the dead!”

She hushed him and peeled away a strand of hair that was sticking to his sweaty forehead.

“And Annie Piper?” I asked.

“Save her,” Tom begged. “Save Annie, please, you must save her . . .”

I froze suddenly. Heavy booted steps reverberated up the corridor like a rhythmic countdown.

“Constable Crabapple!” called Adelaide, rushing to him. “We have made some progress, indeed. There is a witness, a Miss Annie Piper. She was with Tom on the night in question.”

He ignored her. “What's this of a ring?” he demanded. Tom sank to the floor in the corner of the cell. “This ring?” With a flourish, Crabapple produced the mysterious ring that Fezziwig had been wearing when he was murdered. Tom's opium withdrawal reached its zenith and he doubled over, heaving and vomiting like a poisoned dog.

“He has an alibi, Constable,” Adelaide pressed. “He could not have murdered Fezziwig!”

“Miss Annie Piper, you say? A known prostitute. Not a very credible witness. But the ring—excellent work, Miss Owen, Mr. Scrooge,” said Crabapple. “This new connection will expedite the sentencing. We'll have this butcher hanged within a fortnight.”

Dickens met us at a newsstand a few blocks from the precinct. We told him all that had happened, and he shook his head. “Every paper has informants within the police. It won't take long before that hallucination he described is relayed to one of them. If he keeps talking about it, that is.”

“But what if that's what he truly saw?” Adelaide asked.

“How could it be?” I said.

Her look reminded me of the ghostly vision we had shared. And if one such creature might exist . . .

“A madman running about in a costume meant to strike fear and obscure one's identity. I could see such a thing,” Dickens said. “The Japanese once wore terrifying masks into battle. Others have done the same.”

“The Royal Quarter and this Smithson,” I said. “Mean anything to you?”

“The Quarter, yes. A cesspool of sin, and that's putting it mildly. He said the ring was a key that opened locks in that place? I must learn more. But what weighs on me most heavily is this person Mr. Guilfoyle was certain would swoop in and save him. To whom was he referring?”

We watched Adelaide's face as she turned from us, struggling.

“I understand not wishing to betray a confidence,” I told her. “But you do him no good by holding back.”

“His father,” she said at last.

“You said his parents were dead.”

“Yes,” she said. “Drowned like Mr. Sunderland. And like him, their bodies never found. It's haunted him. And when he is . . . like that . . . he becomes convinced that his father will return and rescue him.”

I tried to envision a version of Thomas Guilfoyle who could possibly have won the heart of a woman like Adelaide Owen. But I could not.

“Didn't it bother you?” I asked. “His whoring?”

“Of course it bothered me!” she snapped. “But it is hardly of the moment now, is it? But if that woman is his only chance for survival, so be it.”

“Well,” Dickens said. “I have further inquiries to make. I will see you both at the wake?”

“You shall.”

Tipping his hat, he bid us a good day.

Miss Owen maintained her composure and waved him off, then instructed me to meet her at Fezziwig's home. She had to return to the hovel in which she rented a room and secure appropriate mourning attire.

It was a flimsy excuse, but I said nothing and only watched her go, her silhouette illuminated as the winter sun glaring over the icy streets of London. She was nearly halfway down the cobbled road before I saw her clutch at a streetlamp and break into what looked like racking sobs.

She reminded me of my dear sister Fanny, whose strength had also been severely tested, and turned away, giving Miss Owen the only boon I might provide: her privacy.

FLOCKS OF PEOPLE
gathered outside Fezziwig's home: scores of weeping women and somber-faced men, all dressed in black rags and clutching baskets of holly and roast chestnuts or other humble gifts for the widow. My friend and former mentor had touched many hearts, by the look of it. My stomach clenched painfully as I realized with sadness that I, clearly amongst the wealthiest of Fezziwig's friends, had brought nothing but Adelaide and my own guilt. Mrs. Fezziwig had once been like a mother to me, and I had shamefully prepared to offer her nothing more than my condolences. For once, I was ashamed of the tight-fistedness that had built my career.

With Adelaide by my side, I stood at the bottom of the stone steps leading up to Fezziwig's wide-open front door. An iron dread suffocated me, pressed on my lungs and heart. Taking a deep breath, I checked my nerves by holding my trembling black-gloved hand out, steadying it, and gripping my cane tighter than necessary.

“Please, sir,” came a hoarse voice, and I felt a tugging at my jacket. I turned to see a filthy wretch of a woman. Her hair was matted like flocks of wool, poking from underneath a ragged mourning veil. She lifted her syphilitic eyes, deep set and dark from want, squinting through a film of tears so thick she looked almost demoniacal. The skin on her face was blotched from crying and grey with cold and lack of nutrition. But she seemed to have forgotten to be shameful about her appearance as she beseeched me.

“Please, sir, are you visiting Mrs. Fezziwig? Are you, sir? They're only admitting close friends and family, they say. Ain't lettin' none of us lot in, close as we were to dear Fezziwig . . .” The beggar woman's voice cracked and she pressed her lips together. Blinking tears away, she continued. “Would you give this to her, sir? To Mrs. Fezziwig?”

She handed me a silk kerchief, a delicate thing adorned with a tiny embroidered partridge in one corner. “S'all I 'ave, sir, me mother gave it to me. I want Mrs. Fezziwig to 'ave it, can't give her nothin' more.”

My hand went to my purse—there was some coin left, but I had not attended business since Sunday and my money was dwindling. Still, if this miserable woman was to gift her only possession of value . . . I reluctantly resolved to give Mrs. Fezziwig two pounds towards the funeral.

“Will you pass it to 'er, sir? She'll know me name, it's Rosie, and tell her Fezziwig was a good man, a very good man, will you, sir?”

I took a deep breath, but just as I was about to turn away from the wretched woman, Adelaide squeezed my arm, leaned forward, and kissed the woman on the cheek.

“Of course, we will, Rosie,” she said, her voice as soothing and safe as warm milk. “Fezziwig was a good man, indeed, and Mrs. Fezziwig shall be so comforted by your kind thought.”

When Adelaide had carefully folded the kerchief and tucked it safely away to the comfort of the weeping beggar woman, we ascended the steps, rising above the crowd of grieving paupers. I felt Adelaide tense beside me. Was Fezziwig waiting for us inside? His decaying body, would it be standing there, pointing at us with its black fingernails, demanding a resolution to this gruesome mystery?

I tapped the head of my cane against the open door, and a man appeared in the doorway.

“Bless you, Ebenezer,” he said, shaking my hand. “Thank you for coming. And thank
you
, miss. Please, do come in.”

My heart lifted when I saw that it was Dick Wilkins, a former friend who had studied alongside me in the days I apprenticed with Fezziwig. A good man, his face betrayed sorrow and anguish, but his manner demonstrated none of his own pain, simply compassion for mine. He took my hat and Adelaide's cape, and led us into the main drawing room where a number of visitors loitered round the table of refreshments.

“Mrs. Fezziwig asked me to attend to the visitors,” Dick said. “She is simply too weak. Terrible business, Ebenezer. What do you suppose could have driven a man to do such a thing?”

He went to a waste-paper basket and retrieved a crumpled newspaper. “Look what was delivered to poor Mrs. Fezziwig this morning.” He smoothed out the front page and thrust it at me. “Have they no decency at all? Our poor friend.”

The headline was no worse than those run in the late edition that boy had peddled at the pub or the pickets held up outside the police station. Thomas Guilfoyle was cited as the murderer, his name printed in capitals next to a fairly accurate sketch of his face. I tried to fold it back up before Adelaide spotted “her Tom's” name, but she snatched the paper from me.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. Her eyes welled up, and with a sudden flourish, she screwed up the paper and tossed it back in the wastebasket.

“Quite,” mumbled Dick, his voice somber and his eyes deep with sympathy. “The press has no shame. Well, at least they didn't get wind of what happened to poor Arthur.”

“Arthur?”

“Arthur Greville. First, his mother passes, then some ruffian had him tied up in his own home for days for heaven knows only what purpose as he came and went. Suddenly, wonder of wonders, the man freed him and fled. At least Arthur is well, though we live in mad times.”

I nodded. The moment Fezziwig's ghost had appeared and Crabapple had come to take me, I had let slip my vow to set the constables on Greville's impersonator if I did not receive a visit from the true article, who I hoped would come by to reward me for saving him.

So much for gratitude.

Dick shook his head. “Do excuse me, but please, make yourselves at home.”