The Mourning Bells (13 page)

“Who is the undertaker?” Violet asked, more sharply than she meant to do. Surely Miss Latham had been the hysterical young woman at Brookwood South station whom Mr. Crugg had comforted.

Harry looked curiously at Violet, opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it and returned to the paper. “Hmm, it doesn’t say anything about an undertaker. Do you know the young woman or her family?”

“No,” Violet said quickly, then amended herself. “Perhaps. I don’t know. Does it say anything further about Lord Blount?”

“Well, no, Mrs. Harper, but it isn’t his obituary. What troubles you?”

Violet sighed and put down the tray of tear catchers—glass tubes with which mourners captured their own tears of grief over a loved one—that she had been arranging from the contents of the crate. Susanna was also looking at her questioningly.

“I believe I met this young woman not long ago when I accompanied a body to Brookwood Cemetery. She was at the train station there, and quite distraught by the sight of her fiancé’s coffin.”

Harry was still puzzled. “Only natural, wouldn’t you say?”

“Normally, yes, except it seemed almost as if she was surprised that her fiancé was dead. Yet she had gone there to greet his coffin. Why would someone go to a cemetery’s station and then be shocked to find that her loved one had arrived there in a box? It was mystifying.”

Harry shrugged. “We’ve all seen people act in strange ways in their grief. The more they love, the more irrational and raving they are.”

Susanna, though, was more pensive. “Why are you curious about the undertaker?”

Violet looked meaningfully at her daughter. “Because Mr. Crugg was there that morning and spent time comforting Miss Latham. He was supposed to return with me on the two fifteen train back to London, but instead went back on an early train, as though something happened to make him forget me.”

“Mr. Crugg planned to accompany you? You, the Medusa of Paddington?” Susanna said.

“Susanna, stay on the subject, please,” Violet said. “What’s important is that Mr. Crugg acted as if he’d never seen the woman before, but now I wonder if that’s so.”

“Is this part of your investigation into those two bodies—I mean, two fellows—who were coffined alive, Mrs. Harper?” Harry asked.

“I wish I knew,” she replied.

Was Roger Blount another one of Crugg’s bungled bodies? If so, had he been eager to escort the woman away from Violet before she figured it out? It definitely brought a more sinister specter to mind. Was Miss Latham’s death not only “sudden” but also deliberate ?

What Violet’s mind conjured was unthinkable, yet there it loomed like a graveyard monument. Could Mr. Crugg have had anything to do with Miss Latham’s demise?

Susanna must have read her mind, for she said, “Mother, perhaps it is time to visit Scotland Yard. I also recommend that you not travel with Julian Crugg anymore.”

Violet nodded. Was this the moment to confess what had happened with Mr. Vernon at his shop? She opened her mouth to tell Susanna, then stopped. Why worry the girl any further? Besides, she had no need to visit him again, as her suspicions once again rested entirely with Mr. Crugg.

It always seemed to come back around to that man, didn’t it?

 

Violet’s mind swirled the rest of the day, making her absentminded and inattentive. She had come out of her own woolgathering long enough to ask Susanna not to mention her suspicions to Sam. Susanna agreed, but only on the condition that Violet go to Scotland Yard as soon as possible.

Her distraction led to several strange looks from Sam at the dinner table, but she managed to avoid any conversation about her day, and it wasn’t long before he was snoring in bed with his hands interlocked on his chest as she sat at her dressing table, brushing her hair in long, calming strokes. When she eventually climbed into bed, she unclasped his hands. It was discomfiting to see her husband lying there like a corpse, even if his vitality was strongly signaled in the air lumbering out of his lungs like a train rolling through the Surrey countryside.

Violet lay back against her pillows, but sleep eluded her as she mentally twisted and turned around the events of Brookwood. Was there something criminal going on? Was the commonality Julian Crugg or Brookwood Cemetery itself? Or was it something else she simply didn’t understand? She wished she knew whether Crugg was the undertaker for Miss Latham. More importantly, was he the undertaker for Roger Blount? Why, what if he had actually been accompanying Lord Blount’s body to Brookwood without telling her? Had he laid claim to the coffin as they stood on the platform? Try as she might, she couldn’t remember. Everything prior to Miss Latham’s overwrought display was blurry in her mind.

If Crugg was accompanying Roger’s body, he had certainly proved himself neglectful. And if he was accompanying Roger, that meant he was indeed the man’s undertaker—and therefore it was also a possibility that Miss Latham’s family had hired him for her funeral, as well.

The more she reflected on it, the more she thought that perhaps she had more to do to satisfy herself about the situation.

She needed to visit Crugg.

Violet rolled to one side to watch her husband sleeping. She knew he would disapprove of her taking matters into her own hands like this, especially with Miss Latham having died under perhaps peculiar circumstances. She didn’t want to disappoint him. However, she had done well enough in solving a couple of crimes while he was off to Sweden and Wales to explore the possibilities of dynamite. This situation wasn’t nearly so dangerous as those she had investigated on behalf of Queen Victoria.

Ignoring the voice whispering in the back of her mind that she was making excuses so that she could do as she wished and leave Sam in the dark, she rolled over to her other side, to avoid looking at his face. Although he slept on completely oblivious of her racing thoughts, facing away made her feel less guilty than if he could open his eyes and stare directly into her own eyes, and thus into her wildly speculating mind.

V
iolet stood outside Julian Crugg’s shop with yesterday’s newspaper in her hand. She was actually nervous about entering the man’s premises. He would probably consider her visit an invasion, although he had not honored his own peace offering of a joint trip back from Brookwood together. Swallowing her apprehension, she turned the gleaming knob and entered the shop, accompanied by the jangle of bells that could have awakened any corpse.

The shop was silent except for a tapping noise floating from a back room that suggested someone was attaching memorial plates to coffins. Presently she was joined by a man in ill-fitting clothes with hair hanging low across his brow, with no pomade to keep it tamed back and out of his eyes.

“Birdwell Trumpington at your service, madam.” He bowed graciously. Yes, Mr. Crugg called him “Bird,” wasn’t that what Susanna had said? Now that she was face-to-face with the undertaker’s assistant, Violet took an instant dislike to him, although she couldn’t identify why. There was nothing particularly the matter with him; perhaps it was just that he was Crugg’s assistant that made him unpardonably objectionable.

“My name is Violet Harper, and I wish to see Mr. Crugg,” she said.

He frowned, as if her name was familiar to him but he couldn’t quite place it.

“The name of your loved one, madam?” he asked.

“I’m not here about a funeral but to discuss some business.” Did she sound official enough?

He bowed again. “Of course, madam,” he said, and disappeared into the back, where the tapping soon stopped and the indistinct muttering of voices replaced it.

While waiting, Violet spent her time examining Crugg’s shop. As she had recalled from last time, the man’s shop was filled with the tricks and devices Violet loathed. Prominent in the center of the shop was a sample bell coffin. How very interesting. She was bent over, searching for a maker’s plate on it, when the man himself appeared from a back room. “Mrs. Harper!” he barked.

Violet bobbed up and cleared her throat, knowing she was behaving as if she were guilty of something. “Good morning, Mr. Crugg. I came to talk to you about Miss Margery Latham.”

Something flickered in Crugg’s eyes. Was it fear? Uncertainty? Guilt?

“And who might that be?” he asked, clasping his hands in front of him in his best undertaker’s pose of confidence.

“I think you know. She was the hysterical young woman on the Brookwood South platform last week. The one in terrible, raging grief.” She handed him the newspaper, which she had folded open to the obituary.

He glanced at it and licked his lips. “Right you are. Yes, I believe I do remember the lady in question. I encounter so many mourners each week, you understand. . . .”

“I hardly think you could have forgotten Miss Latham, given how you practically had to carry her into the station. What did she tell you about Lord Blount?”

“Tell me? What should she have told me?”

Crugg was stalling, Violet was certain of it.

Trumpington emerged again from the rear. “Sir? I’m having difficulty with something, if I might have your assistance.”

Crugg shot his assistant a look of gratitude as he excused himself.

“I’m happy to wait,” she said.

Crugg handed the newspaper back to Violet and followed Trumpington into the rear. The loud whispers ensued once again.

So his assistant was trying to save his employer from questions. How interesting. Violet was determined to remain until Crugg answered her questions, and returned to examining his shop’s artifices while she waited. As she glanced around, she had to admit that Crugg maintained a properly organized and welcoming shop, even if it was laden with items Violet didn’t like.

Crugg had several miniature coffins in his shop, arranged artfully on a freestanding case with individually slotted niches for them. Each coffin was about six inches wide and ten inches long. It saved space in a smaller shop not to have the floor littered with full-size specimens, and enabled the shop owner to carry examples with him when he visited a grieving family, rather than just showing pictures in a catalog.

Naturally, most of the samples were outfitted as miniature safety coffins.

She was holding one of the samples in her hand with the newspaper tucked securely under her arm when Crugg and his assistant finally reemerged. Crugg was openly disappointed to find Violet still there.

“Yes, Mrs. Harper, is there something else I can do for you?”

She put the coffin down on the counter and handed the paper back to him.

“This obituary states that Miss Latham died suddenly. I thought you might know how a perfectly healthy young woman died suddenly?”

“How would I know? I’m not her physician. You should talk to her family.”

“I’m asking you because I suspect you knew Miss Latham. In fact, I suspect you were Roger Blount’s undertaker, which is why she fell upon you at the station. Don’t you find it interesting that these two young lovers died so closely together?”

There was that look of uneasiness flitting across Crugg’s face again. Mr. Trumpington spoke up. “Are you now an official detective inspector, Mrs. Harper? No? Then what right do you have to question my employer?”

Trumpington’s defense served to give Crugg more courage. “Inspector or not, I have nothing to hide. Surely you don’t believe that every Londoner who dies comes under my care, Mrs. Harper? That every corpse shipped on the Necropolis Railway is mine?”

“No, but there have been some curious coincidences between your presence and the mysterious . . . condition . . . of bodies being sent to Brookwood.”

Crugg laughed incredulously. “Need I remind you that you have been present for more of these strange sightings than I have? Using your logic,
you
should be the one to explain Miss Latham’s death.”

Crugg was turning the tables on her, manipulating her.

“That may be true, but I maintain an honest business, without resorting to trickery or shameful practices.” She picked up the coffin once more and shook it at him before slamming it back on the counter.

“I give my customers whatever they desire,” Crugg retorted. “It would seem that you moralize and preach and screech about what is legitimate in the eyes of the perfect and pure Violet Harper, who is the only undertaker in the queen’s empire who has knowledge of such things. Besides, by your own admission, you yourself have witnessed the value of the safety coffin on two occasions.”

Their short interlude of peace at Brookwood notwithstanding, Crugg’s outrage was expert and biting. And constant. Violet tried another approach.

“Have you ever experienced anything odd with a corpse? Perhaps had one become . . . shall we say damaged? Or gone missing?”

“Only once. When you stole Lord Raybourn’s body.” Crugg said this smugly. Apparently that raw wound was not healing well.

“Perhaps your choleric temper causes your customers to abandon you,” she shot back. “Typically there should only be one party wailing and moaning during a funeral.”

“Your insinuation is insulting, Mrs. Harper. Shame on you.”

“I hardly think I am the one to be shamed. I am convinced that you knew either Roger Blount or Margery Latham, if not both of them, and that I will learn of your connection to them if I dig down far enough.”

“Careful, dear lady, that you don’t dig yourself an early grave.”

Was that a threat? If it wasn’t, why did Violet feel a February chill run up her spine in the middle of August? If only she were better at interrogation than this. Instead, she always just managed to irritate and provoke. She would like to be as subtle as Detective Chief Inspector Hurst was blunt.

In evidence of her poor questioning, which had resulted in absolutely nothing of substance, Crugg offered an even nastier rejoinder as he pointed to the door. “Next time you have business with me, send your daughter in your stead. She is at least a little less odious.”

Once more, the door’s bells jangled loudly behind as she departed, as if berating her on behalf of Julian Crugg. She felt Crugg’s and Trumpington’s eyes on her until she was out of view of the shop.

Violet sighed in frustration. Well, that hadn’t gone as planned. She wasn’t sure, though, whether she considered Julian Crugg more or less guilty than before.

 

Violet and Mary stepped down from a cab in front of the temporary hippodrome erected to house the circus at the southeast end of Hyde Park, while Susanna and Benjamin emerged from one behind them. A gas-illuminated sign proclaimed that this was “Sanger’s Hippodrome.”

Knowing that Sam had plans for dinner with one of his bankers—Violet was losing track of their names—Susanna had suggested attending an evening circus performance. Violet enthusiastically embraced the idea and sent word to Mary about it.

The circus had entered London two weeks ago in an impressive parade that featured decorated and gilded coaches pulled by elephants and camels. The animals now made soft snorts and snuffles, cloaked behind brightly painted walls that reached at least thirty feet into the air.

Although Susanna had remained in her borrowed black dress from Violet after a day of working in the shop, Violet had actually shed her customary black and made a pleasant transformation into a bronze gown accented with a cream collar and matching lace cuffs that peeked out of flared sleeves. It seemed ironic that Violet was hiding her newfound elegance tonight in a darkened performance venue.

Mary was surprising in her charcoal-gray dress, a color she customarily wouldn’t wear until her year and one day of mourning was over—if she didn’t go into second or third periods of mourning, and Violet doubted she would—adorned with several strands of jet and a pearl brooch. It was amusing to see Mary exhibiting such rebellion. Although Violet loved mourning traditions, she wasn’t too distressed that Mary was abbreviating her grieving period for George, who had proved himself most unworthy of the title of husband.

The area in front of the circus was bustling with patrons, performers in brightly colored stage garb, trinket sellers, food vendors, eight-year-old cutpurses, and a couple of garishly dressed prostitutes selling their own special wares. An itinerant preacher stood atop an overturned crate, exhorting passersby on the evils of gin.

As Violet waited for the circus’s curtained doors to open, she saw a dirty, rumpled man in a tattered overcoat stumble toward the preacher and kneel down before him, as if receiving benediction. Other patrons in line also turned their attention to the drunkard bowed before the preacher, who curtailed his sermon, stepped down, and laid a hand on the man’s shoulder.

But Violet and the others gasped as the man recoiled from the preacher, removed a bottle of clear liquid from somewhere inside his overcoat, unstoppered it, took a long pull . . . and proceeded to spew it from his mouth, spraying the preacher in the face with what was presumably the very liquid the reverend had just admonished against. They all held their collective breath to see what the preacher would do.

The man of the cloth never acknowledged that he had liquor dripping onto his clothing and matting his hair. Instead, he squeezed the other man’s shoulder, then pulled a few coins from his pocket and handed them to him before stepping back onto the crate and asking everyone to pray for the poor soul before him.

Violet was greatly sobered by the preacher’s reaction. Why couldn’t she be so placid when faced with such unexpected vitriol?

She forgot the scene as they paid for admission and entered the cool, darkened hippodrome, with its extraordinarily tall ceiling that drew warm air from the ground and sent it out through several holes in the canvas roof. Various wires and trapezes dangled from the ceiling like old cobwebs. The circus ring, which was strewn with sand, bales of hay, cones painted with stars, and a curved stage at one end, was surrounded by tiered seating. They settled onto wood benches that had depressions marking where each rear end should be placed. Violet supposed the depressions were intended to prevent overcrowding on the seating, but they did nothing for comfort.

Violet estimated that the makeshift hippodrome held nearly a thousand people on five tiers of benches. The program listed tonight’s activities, which included trick riding, jugglers, aerial acts, and comic pantomimes; with the performance to be concluded with something called “air walking.” Whatever that was, Violet looked forward to it. The program promised that attendees who returned on Friday would be treated to an aquatic circus, with the ring flooded with water and horses executing dance steps with riders standing on their backs.

Violet leaned over to Susanna and pointed to the description of Friday’s event. “Should we return?”

“Do you have the time?”

“I think so. There is certainly nothing notable with my supposed investigation. I imagine Sam would like to come along.”

Susanna nodded and the show began. They gasped and aahed and oohed with the rest of the audience as clowns tossed balls in the air and caught them while running in between and around prancing horses. They cheered a reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo. They clapped over aerialists who gracefully released their trapeze bars and landed on the backs of elephants whose trunks were wrapped around children whom they swung backward and forward.

When a pair of comic tramps were caught stealing jewelry and ran away from comic policemen, the pair ended up stuck in a tree, while the police tripped over hay bales into a mud puddle. The audience all laughed uproariously until Violet was certain she would pop the buttons off her dress.

It was good to clear her mind of everything that had to do with Brookwood Cemetery.

The humor was nearly ruined by a woman sitting nearby who sniffed in disapproval and said, “This is ridiculous. I’ve been to America, you know, and Mr. Barnum’s museum is vastly superior. He has Siamese twins, a giantess, and even Commodore Nutt—a perfectly miniature man. Such freaks and eccentricities to entertain the mind. This is all so, so”—she wrinkled the nose that was already sweeping the air—“so common,” she finished with a satisfied nod.