The Thames River Murders

  “Of course.” If nothing else, we’d have made a gentleman happy with an easy sale.

  The front room of the shop was small and dim, the only light coming through the window that gave on to the street. The chamber was more like a sitting room, with the old-fashioned chairs and a round, gate-legged table, and a small case with a glass top resting on the table. The case was empty at the moment, but perhaps Hartman displayed watches in it—an easy thing to carry away to the back rooms and lock up when the shop closed.

  Hartman returned with his assistant, who carried coffee. Hartman was a rather large man, somewhat stout, but more solid than fat. In his younger days, he might have gone in for pugilism. He was in middle-age now, approaching his elder years, his thin hair iron gray. He wore a beard on his round face, neatly trimmed nearly to his chin.

  The assistant was clearly related to him—son, nephew, or grandson—with the same round face, brown eyes, and solid body that would someday become soft. The assistant was clean-shaven, showing a cleft in his chin that perhaps his father—or uncle, or grandfather—also sported under his beard.

  The assistant poured coffee into rather elegant porcelain cups, left the silver pot on a tray, and silently retreated into the depths of the house.

  “He is learning the business,” Hartman said with an apologetic glance at the door the assistant closed. “He is not entirely happy about it, but he is young. My brother’s boy. He wants to be a soldier, but the war is over, thank God. He wants to explore the world now, but my brother fears to let him out of his sight. I am trying to think of ways he can make journeys for me. I hate to break his spirit.”

  “I understand,” I said. I sipped the coffee, which was remarkably good. Far better than the tea Coombs had offered us. “I have a daughter who is quite … spirited. She is about to make her come-out.”

  Hartman laughed, his salesman’s demeanor relaxing slightly. “I have much sympathy for you, Captain. Daughters can be very worrying.” His laughter faded a bit. “Very worrying, indeed.”

  Something flashed in his eyes, a darkness, a grief—only a flash, but I’d seen it.

  I could not very well ask him if long ago, one of his daughters had broken her arm, and was she still alive without it being awkward. I saw Grenville’s gaze flick to me and away. He was also trying to think of a means to introduce the topic.

  I had an idea, though. Not very kind of me, but thinking of the young woman, dead and forgotten, made me impatient and angry. If this watch seller had absolutely nothing to do with the woman, then he would only be puzzled and curious, and we’d go away, having brought him some business.

  Gautier had returned the necklace to Grenville, along with his list, in careful handwriting, of the shops that might sell similar pieces or repair old necklaces like this one. Grenville had handed the necklace to me, so I could take it back to Thompson to return to the boxes of evidence in the cold cellar.

  I removed the necklace, which I’d wrapped in a handkerchief, from inside my pocket, laid it on the table, and opened the folds of linen.

  “I know you sell watches, but perhaps you can help,” I said to Hartman. “Have you ever seen a piece such as this? Or know what jeweler would be able to tell me about it?”

  I had been studying the necklace, its simple gold chain and smooth locket as I spoke. I looked up into heavy silence as I finished.

  Hartman was staring at the locket, his gaze fixed, his face so white I thought he would fall into a dead faint. His dark eyes blazed like obsidian among the stark white, his lips bloodless.

  “Where …” Hartman reached a hand forward, his fingers stiff, movements slow. He stopped shy of touching the locket, as though he feared it would sting him. “Where did you come by this?”

  The words barely came out of him. I lifted the necklace and laid it across his fingers.

  “It was around the neck of a young woman found in the river,” I said. “She died, nearly fifteen years ago.”

  Hartman stared at the necklace on his hand, his chest lifting in a tight breath. Grenville was on the edge of his chair, poised to catch Hartman, who surely would fall.

  Just as I reached for him, Hartman collapsed back into his seat. He brought his hands, clutching the necklace, to his face, and began to weep in long, gut-wrenching, wordless sobs.

  Chapter Eleven

  Grenville and I exchanged surprised looks. I felt a touch a remorse—Hartman was weeping with abandon, his self-assurance gone.

  “Mr. Hartman,” I said gently.

  “Perhaps some brandy for him, Lacey.” Grenville removed a flask from his pocket and handed it to me. His was silver, beautifully engraved, a contrast to Coombs’s rather battered, plain one.

  I did not think Hartman would be able to hold the flask himself, so I tipped a good measure of brandy into his coffee and lifted the cup to him. “Drink.”

  He would not take his hands from his face. Hartman’s entire body shook, sobs catching in his throat, choking him. He began to cough, couldn’t catch his breath.

  I thumped his back. Grenville rose in alarm. I hit Hartman’s spine with the heel of my hand, and finally, he gave a gasp and began to breathe again.

  “Drink,” I repeated firmly.

  This time, Hartman took the cup in his shaking hands and poured the lukewarm liquid into his mouth.

  More coughing, but his color grew better, and finally he drew a long, ragged breath.

  “She is dead, then?” he whispered.

  Grenville returned to the table. He pulled a chair close to Hartman’s and sat, taking Hartman’s gnarled hand.

  “We are not sure who she is,” he said gently.

  Hartman’s look was one of terrible despair. “My … daughter. Judith. She’s been missing for fifteen years.”

  Grenville and I exchanged a glance. Hartman took another gulp of coffee, this time without choking. He held the necklace tightly, not wishing to relinquish it.

  “Your pardon, sir,” I said. “It is possible the woman who wore it stole it from your daughter. As Mr. Grenville says, we are not certain.”

  Hartman stretched the chain between his hands. “It was joined around her neck when her mother gave it to her. It has only been cut once.” He pointed to a broken link. “When it came off her.”

  “The young woman who was found had broken her arm at one point,” Grenville said.

  Hartman nodded. “Yes.” His eyes screwed up, more tears pouring down his face.

  Grenville continued in his gentlest tone. “We’ve visited Mr. Coombs, the surgeon. He said he set the arm of a young lady about that time, but he claims she is alive and well.”

  “No.” Hartman pulled a handkerchief from his coat sleeve and buried his face in it. “We told him, when we went to him, that she was her sister. They look much alike. We decided to do so to let no one know her shame.”

  Her shame? A broken limb was no cause for shame, not that mine didn’t embarrass me. I sensed Hartman meant something deeper.

  Hartman mopped his face. “Forgive me, gentlemen, but I must close the shop.”

  He rose, tottered to the door and locked it, then pulled the curtain across the front window. When he turned back, his breathing was better, but the utter grief in his eyes smote me.

  Grenville had risen. “We will go, then. We are so sorry to have caused you distress.”

  Hartman stopped, looking at us in some bewilderment. “How … how did you gentlemen come to know of this? You are not Runners—well, I know Mr. Grenville is not.”

  “Mr. Thompson of the Thames River Police asked me to help him,” I said. “He had never been able to discover who she was. I have found people before, and so he confided in me.” I was puzzled. “You did not know she was dead before we told you—did you never report her disappearance to the Watch? The Runners? There would have been a hue and cry …”

  “No.” Hartman shook his head emphatically. “We looked for her, of course, did our best. But we did not want the Runners. They are dear, in any cas
e. We searched …”

  He’d not wanted to give up, I saw. He’d clung to hope all this time, forcing himself to go on with his life.

  “By reporting her, you might have discovered the truth long ago,” I said.

  Another shake of the head. “No, Captain. We did not want the Watch or Runners blundering into our business. They could not have helped in any case. Not if she were dead already.” He hesitated. “Where is … she?”

  I hid a flinch. At the moment, Judith Hartman was a jumble of bones in a crate sitting inside Grenville’s carriage.

  Grenville said, “We’ll see that she is returned to you, sir.”

  Hartman stuffed his handkerchief into his pocket and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “For the first time, I am glad her mother is gone. Judith’s vanishing already killed her once.” He let out a long breath. “Now, gentlemen, if I can ask you to leave. I must …”

  He glanced about the shop as though not certain what he needed to do. I took up my hat and walking stick and gave him a bow.

  “Of course,” I said. “I am terribly sorry to have upset you, sir. If I had known, I would have broken it more gently.”

  Hartman shook his head. “No, no. I am grateful to you for this knowledge. For this.” He held up the necklace he still clutched.

  “If you would like to speak to Mr. Thompson,” I said, “and tell him what you know, it might assist him to find who killed her.”

  “No,” Hartman said abruptly. Deep anger flashed in his eyes. “I do not want inquiries into our private affairs. She is gone. Nothing to be done. Please go, Captain.”

  I bowed again. “If you need any help, Mr. Hartman, any at all, please feel free to call on me.”

  I removed a card from my pocket and laid it on the table. Donata had caused new calling cards to be made for me, ivory rectangles smooth and clean, with my name in fine black script. I took out the small, silver pencil that went with a silver-backed writing book she’d also given me—to help me make notes when I solved things, she’d said. I’d been grateful, but also reflected I had much more in my pockets now to steal.

  I quickly wrote my Grimpen Lane address on the back—if this man craved privacy, I doubted he’d want to arrive at the large and well-populated South Audley Street house.

  I pushed the card across to him with my gloved finger. Hartman made no move to take it. I gave the man another nod and departed quietly with Grenville.

  Not until we were in his coach, and Jackson had headed us along the Strand toward St. Paul’s Churchyard and the long journey to Wapping, did Grenville let out a breath.

  “So,” he said.

  “So, indeed.” I studied the tall and rather drab houses we passed, the throng of humanity wafting down this busy thoroughfare. “The poor man.”

  I’d watched Hartman’s reaction with sharp pain in my heart. For years, I’d not known the fate of my daughter, and I know some of what he felt.

  I’d looked for Gabriella, but been unable to afford a long search. The war with France hadn’t helped—Carlotta had left with a French officer, and I’d not been able to scour that country for her. By the time the war had ended, thirteen years after Carlotta had fled with Gabriella, I had given up all hope of finding her.

  My only comfort had been that she’d gone off with Carlotta. If Carlotta had intended to desert her child, she would have left Gabriella with me in the first place. This gave me some assurance that Gabriella would be looked after.

  As it turned out, Carlotta’s French lover, Major Auberge, had cared for my daughter and raised her as his own. He’d taken care of her, I hated to admit, better than I had been able to.

  Even so, Gabriella had been my child, the love of my existence, and not knowing where she was had torn a hole through me.

  “I want to discover who killed her,” I said. “Hartman should not have had to suffer like that. She shouldn’t have been killed.”

  “I know, old man. I agree with you.” Grenville rested his hands on his walking stick. “But where to start?”

  “Hartman and his family. They must know why Miss Hartman was walking along the Thames docks, or where she’d gone the day or night she’d disappeared. Had she been meeting someone? Running away from someone? Why on earth would Judith want to pretend to be her sister when taken to a surgeon to have her arm set? Why did Hartman call it her shame?”

  “All very good questions. All the same, I am not sure Hartman will embrace you into his family and let you interrogate them.”

  “I had no intention of interrogating,” I said stiffly.

  “You do become zealous, Lacey. Hartman, as you must have surmised, is a Hebrew. Such men do not welcome outsiders into the bosom of their families. While the Rothschilds, Goldsmids, and Montefiores attend my soirees and invite me to theirs, they would not wish me to delve too much into their private lives and their personal business.”

  “Not many families would,” I said. “No matter what their origin.”

  “Yes, but …” Grenville searched for words. “In my experience, Hebrew fathers are particularly guarded about their daughters. More so even than Englishmen. If you wish to discover the truth, you might have to do it without the assistance of Mr. Hartman. Might have to fight him for it, even.”

  “Surely he would want to know. And bring the man—or woman—to justice. I certainly would, were it my daughter.”

  Grenville gave me a deprecating look. “If it were your daughter, my dear Lacey, you would hunt the man down and wring his neck yourself. You know this.”

  True, I’d be too impatient to let the wheels of justice turn in their course. When Gabriella had been endangered a year ago, I’d gone after the man who’d hurt her—Auberge and I had given him a good beating. Hartman, I thought, might feel the same.

  “I will find the culprit, beat him black and blue, and drag him to the Runners,” I said. “I will leave it up to Hartman whether he wishes to prosecute.”

  Grenville looked doubtful. I did not finish that if Hartman didn’t want to prosecute, I’d happily bring suit against the killer. And, if that didn’t work, dispatch him myself. Pomeroy might object, but at this point, I did not care.

  At last Grenville gave me a nod. “Very well,” he said. “You know I will do all I can to help. Where do we begin?”

  ***

  We started by journeying to Thompson in Wapping and returning the crate. I’d left the necklace with Hartman—I did not have the heart to take it from his hands to sit in a box in a cellar.

  Thompson was out when we arrived, but he came in as a patroller ushered Grenville and I, and Bartholomew and Matthias, the two brothers carrying the box, into his tiny office.

  Brewster had followed us, I’d seen as we’d climbed from the coach. How he found me wherever I was in the city I had no idea. He might have jumped onto the back of the carriage as he’d done when I’d gone searching for Donata. However he’d done it, he now leaned against a crumbling brick wall opposite the magistrate’s house, folded his arms against the rain, and waited.

  “Good Lord,” Thompson said after I had told him what we discovered. “I knew you were the man for this. And Mr. Grenville.”

  “All too glad to help,” Grenville answered.

  Thompson rested his hands on top of the crate. “Indeed, I will send her back to her family to be given a decent burial. I’m afraid the magistrate here cannot help with any sort of coffin, or …”

  “I will take care of that,” Grenville said smoothly. “I will contact my funeral furnisher and give him instructions.”

  Thompson looked grateful but at the same time wary. A middle-class man like Hartman might not welcome the ostentation of an expensive funeral master—who provided coffins, bearers, horses, mourning decor for the home, and many other services. A funeral for a man of Grenville’s class and a shopkeeper would be widely different.

  “Instructions, I said,” Grenville went on. “All will be in good taste. He will send a coffin here, and a conveyance for the you
ng lady to be returned home.”

  Thompson conceded. “As to finding her killer …” He sighed, his bony shoulders sagging. “If Mr. Hartman has no wish to prosecute, little can be done even if we discover who killed her. If that killer is still alive. It was a long time ago.”

  “I will prosecute,” I said. “Too often I have seen men ruin others, either by outright murder or in a roundabout way. I’ve had to stand by and do nothing.”

  I tasted my anger, remembering Jane Thornton, the first young woman whose circumstances I’d investigated; Lady Clifford, whose husband had made her miserable; and the death of one of Denis’s men at the Sudbury School, where Grenville had been nearly murdered himself. I’d found out many things, but had been too poor, or the circumstances had been too complex, for me to bring the ones who should have paid, to justice.

  Now, thanks to Donata, I had money of my own. I disliked spending much beyond what I needed, but I believed she’d have no objection to me funding a prosecution for the murder of Judith Hartman. She’d been moved by the young woman’s death as well.

  Thompson only observed me with his dry intelligence. “As you wish, Captain. I will not tell you the road might not be easy. I have the feeling you’d bypass any objections.”

  We took our leave then. I touched the top of the crate before I went, and made a silent vow to the sleeping girl inside to find her killer.

  I swallowed on sorrow, bowed to Thompson, and followed Grenville out into the rain.

  ***

  It was not done for a gentleman to call on his funeral furnisher. They called on the gentleman instead, at his home. In this instance, however, Grenville was impatient and wanted it done. I had no objection.

  Grenville’s family used a man whose premises were in a lane off Houndsditch in the City.

  Houndsditch did a thriving trade in clothing of all kinds, from secondhand clothiers to tailors for the middle class, to rag men in their constant search for castoffs. Many of these ragmen and secondhand clothiers were Hebrews, and I studied them as I passed them by with more interest. I was suddenly being thrust into their world, which I had scarcely noticed before.