Murder in Blackfriars

1

September 1884

I was enjoying a fine autumn Monday afternoon picnic on Hampstead Heath with my daughter, Grace, and my dearest friend Daniel and his son, James, when an incongruous sight met our eyes. A man as large as a bull in a long coat and battered hat lumbered at quick speed up the hill, making for us.

Our fellow picnickers-prim ladies, nannies with small children, and a few courting couples-raised their heads to stare. One of the nannies gathered her charges and scurried with them in the opposite direction, making for the fine homes that lined the park.

The apparition raised a long arm and waved, pumping the air like an ungainly crane.

Grace leapt to her feet. "It's Mr. Grimes." She waved back as enthusiastically. "Ahoy, Mr. Grimes!"

A few around us relaxed, seeing a respectable girl happy to spy a family friend. Though Grace was a girl no longer. She was a young lady now at nearly fourteen years, as tall as I was.

Mr. Zachariah Grimes, in spite of resembling the hardest tough to roam the south shore of the Thames, wore a sunny expression, which brightened further as he approached. Daniel assisted me from the ground, James springing up beside us with the ease of youth.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Grimes," I said when he reached us. "I tucked away some extra pastries in our basket. May I tempt you?"

In truth, I'd brought only enough for the four of us, but I knew they'd gladly share what we had for a man who'd saved Daniel's life and mine more than once. Indeed, if not for Mr. Grimes, I'd have perished in an inky dark lane off the Strand not long ago. I'd be forever grateful for his timely intervention.

"Won't say no, Mrs. Holloway," Mr. Grimes boomed in his big voice. "Kind of ye."

"Please." I gestured to the blanket we'd spread on the grass.

Mr. Grimes seated himself, folding his bulk under him with surprising ease. Grace plopped down beside him, James on his other side, while I dug out the last of the pastries and presented them to him on a cloth napkin.

Mr. Grimes shoved an entire cream-filled profiterole into his mouth, his eyes widening in appreciation as he chewed. I noted that the four of us, who'd resumed our seats, watched him intently, as though fascinated by his mastication.

"What brings you to Hampstead Heath?" I asked when he'd swallowed and wiped his mouth on the second napkin I hastily handed to him. He'd been about to clean it on his sleeve. "Seeking fresh air?"

South of us, smoke from the chimneys of London hovered like dark clouds on the horizon. The weather had remained warm since August, but nights had begun to cool, and now coal smoke from household fires coated the air.

"Naw, I come to find Danny here." Mr. Grimes indicated Daniel with a broad finger, then stuffed a lemon-filled pastry into his mouth.

"You happened to guess I was picnicking on the Heath?" Daniel's voice held its usual warmth, but I sensed his wariness.

Mr. Grimes swallowed noisily and wiped his mouth again. "Asked your landlady in Southampton Street where you'd gone. She didn't want to tell me, but I said it were urgent, like."

A gust of the breeze that had kept the worst of the smoke from the Heath threatened to dislodge the cap firmly atop Mr. Grimes's unruly dark hair. I thought the wind held a colder note, the premonition of something coming.

"What is it?" Daniel asked. "If it is a message from Scotland Yard, then I will speak to them when it suits me."

Daniel, a few months ago, had at long last given up working for a branch of the police run by a man named Mr. Monaghan. Daniel had indicated he was willing to stay on with Scotland Yard and do any investigating they needed, because he was excellent at undercover work, but so far they hadn't contacted him much, that I knew of.

"Why would I be bringing messages from Scotland Yard?" Mr. Grimes demanded. "I never go near a nick, and you know it. No, there's a cove what wants to speak to ye. Says he has some information you'll want."

Daniel's eyes narrowed. "What sort of information?"

"He wouldn't tell me all of it," Mr. Grimes confessed. "But said it was important enough for me to find you right away."

Mr. Grimes glanced sidelong at James and Grace, who were listening avidly. I was listening as intently, of course.

Daniel noted our attention and climbed to his feet. "Let's have a walk, Grimes."

"Right you are." Mr. Grimes heaved himself up, handing me the empty napkins with thanks.

The two of them strode away, moving steadily down the emerald green slope of the Heath.

I tried to hide my disappointment that Daniel did not invite me along, but I could hardly jump up and race after them, leaving Grace and James behind.

As though sensing my annoyance, Daniel looked over his shoulder and sent me a nod. I hoped it was a promise to tell me all when he could, though I might have to wait for some time before I had the explanation. I could only sigh and turn to packing up the plates from our luncheon.

James misinterpreted my agitation. "Dad will be all right," he assured me. "Mr. Grimes always looks after him."

I wasn't worried about Daniel's safety at the moment, but I nodded my thanks at James. "I know."

"Mr. Grimes can join us in our walk home, if he likes," Grace said. "I'm sure Aunt Joanna can give him some tea."

"We can ask him," I agreed.

I did not believe Mr. Grimes would take Joanna up on the hospitality, but I did not want to dash Grace's hopes. Mr. Grimes lived somewhere in Southwark, in what lodgings I did not know, but he might be uncomfortable with an invitation into the Millburns' home.

Grace and James helped me tidy up, the two young people stretching the blanket between them to fold it neatly.

Grace kept sending me glances, as though she wanted to speak but restrained herself. I would believe her worried about my reaction to Mr. Grimes's sudden appearance, but she'd been doing such things all afternoon.

I'd have to wait to learn whatever worried her, as Daniel and Mr. Grimes had reversed their steps to start back up the hill. James closed the picnic basket, and Grace smoothed the blanket, all of us ready to make our way back to Cheapside.

"Whew, that's a climb, ain't it?" Mr. Grimes announced, out of breath. "But worth it to see the view." He gazed out over the park and the metropolis in the near distance, enraptured.

I agreed that the contrast between the green field dotted with trees, the blue sky with only a few puffy clouds floating in it, and the roofs of the city beyond was lovely, but I noted it in distraction at the moment.

Daniel seemed to have aged since he'd walked away with Mr. Grimes only a few minutes ago. His face bore lines I had not seen before, his mouth set in grim hardness.

I could not ask him what was the matter in front of our collective children and Mr. Grimes, not to mention the other picnickers who still watched us curiously. I only nodded at Mr. Grimes's observation and asked James if he'd be kind enough to tote the heavy basket for me.

We made our way toward the edge of the Heath, James and Mr. Grimes carrying the basket between them while Daniel took the blanket. Mr. Grimes chattered in his outgoing way, interested in Grace's book learning and asking James about how he was expanding Daniel's delivery business. He professed great interest in all of it, to the delight of James and Grace, who answered him readily.

Daniel remained uncharacteristically silent. He trudged along next to me, his gaze on the path ahead of him, the buoyant camaraderie of earlier this afternoon deserting him.

I sensed he'd not be happy with any inquiries I made in front of the others, so I said not a word. Something was very wrong, and though I burned to know what, I realized that prying would not help. I tamped down my rampant curiosity by assuring myself he'd tell me when he could.

When we reached the road that led to Camden Town, Daniel halted and whistled for the nearest empty hansom. The driver sent him a look of irritation but turned his horse and clopped toward us.

"We'll not all fit in that," I pointed out.

"It will take you, Grace, and James to Cheapside," Daniel said, the first words he'd spoken since we'd begun our descent from the Heath. "I have business to attend to."

James regarded him in surprise. "What business, Dad? Do you need me?"

"I need you to see Mrs. Holloway and Grace home," Daniel said firmly. "Make certain they reach it safely."

James drew a breath to argue, but whatever he read in Daniel's eyes made him close his mouth again.

The cab halted beside us, and James handed Grace in and tucked the basket and blanket under the seat. "Mrs. H.?" James held out his hand to me.

I did not want to climb into the hansom and leave Daniel to race off into whatever danger Mr. Grimes had brought to him. That there was danger I had no doubt.

"Please go home, Kat." Daniel's voice was tight, though I heard him attempt to soften his tone. "I will call on you later."

He meant near the middle of the night, where I'd wait for him in the kitchen of the Mayfair home in which I was a cook. It was only four o'clock in the afternoon now, and midnight was a long way off.

I glanced at Mr. Grimes, who nodded encouragingly at me. My heart twinged with misgivings, but I let James help me into the cab.

Both Daniel and Mr. Grimes led hazardous lives, and I'd been caught more than once in the peril that surrounded them. Indeed, it was because of one of Daniel's investigations earlier this year that Mr. Grimes had been obliged to rescue me.

This did not mean I was sanguine with running off home and leaving them to it.

I would have been more persistent in pursuing the matter if not for Grace. I would do anything to keep her from harm, and if that meant quashing my current impatience, so be it.

Daniel and Mr. Grimes waited until I was settled and James had leapt in behind me before they departed. Daniel told the cabby to take us to Clover Lane and stepped back to let the hansom begin our journey.

When the cabby turned a corner, I craned to peer back to the street we'd left. Daniel and Mr. Grimes were gone, leaving no trace of which direction they'd taken.


Grace remained silent on the ride home. She neither peppered me with questions about where the two men might have been going nor speculated on what Mr. Grimes had told Daniel, which was unusual for her. She rode in silence, occasionally flicking those unreadable glances at me.

James, on the other hand, was restless. He knew his father had walked off into some intrigue-how dire it was remained to be seen. James continually leaned out of the cab to study the road behind us and gazed down the side streets as though expecting to find Daniel in one.

Once we reached Cheapside, James helped Grace and me to the pavement, handing me the basket while Grace folded the blanket over her arm. Refusing my invitation to take tea in Joanna's home, James touched his cap and sprinted away along the road toward St. Paul's before I could even utter a good-bye.

Daniel had paid the cabby in advance, I learned when I fumbled in my coin purse for the shillings. The cabby shook his head at me, touched his horse with his long whip, and clattered the hansom back into the road's traffic.

Grace hastened ahead of me the short distance along Clover Lane and flung open the door to the small house near the end, announcing we'd returned.

I was breathless when I caught up to her but gladly entered Joanna and Sam Millburn's welcoming home.

Joanna served tea and treats to me, Grace, and the Millburns' two daughters in the sitting room. The boys rarely joined us, and they did not today. Matthew, who was now fifteen, was in the school in Dulwich where he'd gone on a scholarship, and Mark was upstairs studying hard so that he too might enter a school that would help him on his way.

I made myself relax in the familiar sitting room, which was cluttered with baskets of knitting and mending, books and slates on a table where the children did lessons, and now the tea things. A true home, I observed with envy as I sipped from my cup. I longed for it.

I might have such a thing within the year, I reminded myself. Daniel and I had come to an agreement to wed, though we were waiting to iron out the direction our lives would take.

Some nights, though, I woke with my impatience raging, urging me to rush out of the house, find Daniel, and elope with him, to settle the matter once and for all. Today that wish came back to me as I stewed and wondered what troubles might threaten to take Daniel away from me this time.

"Thank you, Grace," Joanna said to my daughter.

I came out of my woolgathering to find that Grace and Joanna's oldest daughter, Jane, were strolling out of the room, encouraging ten-year-old Mabel to come with them. Mabel clearly did not want to, scowling her displeasure.

"Where are they going?" I asked in surprise. Tea with Aunt Kat was a weekly event Joanna's girls looked forward to most assiduously.

Instead of answering, Joanna rose and closed the door behind them.

"I wished to speak to you privately," Joanna said, resuming her seat.

We faced each other over the tea table, me on the small sofa I'd shared with Grace, Joanna on an upholstered chair.

A chill seeped through me. "What about? Is everything all right? Is anyone ill?" Fever could so easily carry anyone off, and it was a constant worry underlying all our lives.

"No, no," Joanna answered quickly, relieving me somewhat. "Sam and the lads are right as rain. As are the girls, as you could see. But . . ." She lifted her teacup but only held it nervously and did not drink.

"Do tell me, Joanna, please. You are making me ever so anxious."

Joanna quickly set down the cup, which clattered into its saucer. "Forgive me, my friend. It is actually good news. Sam has been offered a position connected with the solicitor who employs him. They are expanding one of their offices and wish Sam to be head clerk there. To run the nuts and bolts of the business for them, in other words," she finished proudly.