Murder in Fleshmarket Close (A Lily Montgomery Murder Mystery #1)

Prologue

KINGS CROSS STATION, LONDON

Lily Montgomery

“You have just enough time to board before departure, miss,” the station clerk behind the counter informed me. He looked up when I did not immediately respond.

“The train is crowded today...” He paused, then added, “I can provide you with a private compartment.”

It was tempting. Yet, I was mindful of the additional expense. The train ticket was expensive enough, and I had no way of knowing how long I would need to remain in Edinburgh.

“The compartment it is then,” the clerk announced before I could tell him that a chair in the passenger car was sufficient.

He retrieved the ticket card from the machine, checked the information, then handed it to me with an engaging smile.

“No additional charge.”

When I started to protest he shook his head.

“There will be only three other passengers in the compartment today. No sense in having empty places when there are those that need to make the trip.”

I thanked him.

“My pleasure, miss.”

I found the rail car at the appropriate platform. The porter made note of my ticket, then nodded. I climbed aboard and entered the passageway, then found the compartment. It was empty as the other passengers had not yet arrived.

I set the portmanteau on the floor nearest one of the outside windows, then placed my travel bag on the long seat beside the window.

I had previously travelled from London to Edinburgh before and made the return trip back through the city from the north of Scotland and a place called Old Lodge.

The country estate belonged to Lady Antonia Montgomery, great aunt of Lady Mikaela Forsythe, who became my guardian after a chance encounter in Edinburgh. Although, as I had learned, few things were left to chance.

Miss Mikaela was an accomplished traveller, successful author, and shared a private inquiry business with Mr. Brodie. She always carried a travel bag that contained notebook and pen, along with other pieces of information discovered in the cases they pursued.

“One never knows what clues might be learned that could be important to an inquiry case,” she once told me. “I write everything down.”

It was a previous inquiry case where our paths had first crossed. Information had taken her to The Church, the whorehouse where I lived and worked as a ladies’ maid.

In an unexpected turn, I was able to assist her with information she was looking for. That encounter had changed the course of my life.

At the conclusion of the case, Lady Mikaela Forsythe made a proposition far different from the usual ones made to the ladies at The Church.

If I came to London, she would provide me an education, an opportunity for a better life than that offered on the streets, and the possibility of travel that she had spoken about.

She was not at all what the ‘ladies’ I worked for described, nobs, as they called them. Those with titles and wealth who had no time or regard for those who worked the oldest trade in a place like The Church.

With the loss of The Church during a fire and the ladies put out on the street, I made my first trip to London by train.

Now I was going back. Not a stop-over trip on the way to Old Lodge in the north of Scotland. I was returning to learn secrets of my past.

Who was I? Why had I been abandoned to the Foundling Hospital without so much as a name other than the one I was given there by the nuns? Who were my parents? What had happened to them?

Miss Mikaela had cautioned me against it when I first spoke of it. She had experienced her own pain in the past from family secrets and had warned that some were best left in the past as they could not be undone.

Yet the questions persisted, like shadows that were always there, pulling me back.

I had left a letter each for Miss Mikaela and Lady Montgomery and explained my reasons for leaving. I owed them both so much and could not bear the thought of the disappointment I might cause when they read the letters.

I thought of my friend Dory, who had rescued me off the streets and seen to it that I had a home, even though it was not the sort of home others might approve of.

Still, she was there when no one else was, and she was only a handful of years older than me at the time, maid to the ladies who worked there.

She had protected me. When Madame informed her that she had to go to work with the rest of the ladies, Dory made certain that I became the new maid for them, still protecting me.

All these years later after I left, we had exchanged letters with the assistance of someone, another friend perhaps, who could read and write, as she could not.

Dory knew my determination to find my family and had agreed to help when I returned. Then, her last letter spoke of something she was able to learn.

“I found where Madame Antoinette has been working since we left The Church. She remembered a name that could be helpful.”

After all the past years!

That letter had arrived two weeks earlier. I had sent an immediate response, then made my plans to return.

The sound of excited chatter pulled me from my thoughts as my fellow passengers arrived.

“Oh!” the young girl exclaimed with surprise as she entered the compartment. “Good mornin’!”

“Good morning,” I replied as we were joined by a man and woman, who appeared to be her parents, the three travel companions the rail clerk had spoken of.

The girl, no more than fourteen years, introduced herself with a shy smile. Her name was Sarah Gilmartin.

The man wore a dark suit of clothes with an overcoat and bowler hat. His wife wore a grey gown with a coat over, while the girl was dressed in a high-necked dress with a coat as well, the skirt reaching just to the tops of her boots, and a brimmed felt hat with satin ribbons.

Sarah had brown hair beneath the brim of the hat, with inquisitive brown eyes in spite of her initial shyness.

Her father introduced himself and his wife, John and Amelia Gilmartin.

“Are ye going to Edinburgh by yerself?” Sarah inquired with that unmistakable Scots accent.

“Yes.” I then added that I was meeting a friend there.

Her father was a professor at the University of Edinburgh. They were returning from a visit with her grandmother.

“Are ye keeping a diary?” Sarah asked with curiosity as she saw my notebook that lay unopened on the seat beside my travel bag.

I replied that I made notes when I travelled.

She frowned. “I’ve only travelled as far as London to visit me grandmother.” The smile returned. “I would like to travel one day. I’ve read about so many fascinating places.”

As her shyness disappeared, she struck up a lively conversation as the train departed the rail station.

She had a private tutor, she revealed, making a face and leaning in as if sharing a secret.

“He’s old and smells bad.”

“He’s very highly regarded,” her father reminded her, with some effort to hide his amusement at her description.

“Next year you might be able to go to Paris, to finish,” her mother added. “And then study at the university.”

It seemed that she had aspirations of becoming a physician, a profession not usually open to a young woman.

“Have ye been to Paris?” Sarah asked.

I had not, I replied.

I had chosen to work the past two years with Miss Mikaela and Mr. Brodie when at my studies. Much to Miss Mikaela’s initial disapproval. Mr. Brodie had persuaded her otherwise.

As midday approached, a rail attendant arrived to inform us there would be an extended stop in York for those aboard the train who had not brought lunch with them, to take lunch near the rail station.

“Perhaps coffee,” I replied when Sarah insisted that I accompany them to a nearby restaurant that served passengers.

I had not brought anything to eat with me, as it would have drawn attention from Cook at Sussex Square that I was leaving. And in spite of several more hours’ travel before reaching Edinburgh, I decided that I would rather save the money than spend it on a meal.

“You must join us,” Sarah’s mother insisted. “The food is quite good. And you should have more than coffee.”

Her father insisted as well.

“You must join us,” Sarah added.

We arrived in York just after midday and departed the train at the station with other passengers.

The restaurant nearby, obviously aware of the rail schedule, provided a quick meal of sandwiches and soup. Sarah’s father paid for their meal as well as mine.

When I would have objected, he explained, “Sarah becomes quite bored on these long trips. It is a pleasure to have you join us. I insist that you be our guest.”

With luncheon over, the other guests began to return to the train, and we followed them.

We returned to the compartment, several hours’ travel still looming ahead of us. I was inclined to agree with Sarah that it could all be quite boring. We had no sooner returned to our seats than she pulled out a box that looked very much like a book.

She opened it, then laid it between us on the long seat across from her parents.

“It was a gift for my birthday,” she announced as she opened the ‘pages,’ which were in fact cardboard lids over two compartments that contained black and white wood disks. The ‘cover’ of the book opened to reveal a game board.

“Will you play?” she asked me. “Father refuses. He says that I’m too clever for him.”

After Professor Gilmartin paid for my lunch and with some distance yet to go before reaching Edinburgh, it seemed the perfect way to pass the time. I nodded.

“White or black?” she asked as she retrieved the disks and began to separate them.

A young girl should have the white disks, I thought, and chose the black. With the board set up, we began.

“When is your birthday?” Sarah asked as she took one of my black wood coins, then began a systematic attack, obviously determined to collect as many of mine as possible.

I had no way of knowing when I was born. It had been the topic of more than one conversation after I first arrived in London.

“Nonsense!” Lady Antonia declared. “Everyone has a birthday. Often more than one, depending on whom you speak with.” She insisted that I share her birthday.

“It is the 25th of April,” I replied.

She looked up from the board only briefly as she took another of my black disks.

“Mine is the 12th of April! We could be sisters.”

We were not, of course, but she was obviously delighted at the possibility.

Clever indeed, I thought, as she manoeuvred to take three more of my disks. It was fascinating to see the concentration on her face.

There were other stops through the afternoon—Darlington, Newcastle, then just before the border into Scotland.

I hardly noticed as I concentrated on my moves...

as well as hers. And then finally Dunbar, just before reaching Edinburgh.I had been soundly defeated over three games.

I looked up to find Professor Gilmartin watching me with some amusement as he tamped the ash from his pipe, then put it away as the attendant announced that Waverly Station at Edinburgh was the next stop.

It was not long before the train began to slow. The checkers were tucked away in the box, and my travel companions prepared to depart.

There was a slight jolt, and the train was pulling in under that iron and glass domed roof of Waverly Station.

The professor assisted his wife with her coat, then retrieved his hat and coat as Sarah tucked the game board into her suitcase.

He leaned slightly toward me. “Thank you.”

“For what?” I replied.

Yet the look he gave revealed that he was fully aware that I had let Sarah win all but one of the rounds of checkers.

He pulled a calling card from a leather case in his inside coat pocket and handed it to me.

“If you should need assistance of any kind, Miss Montgomery, you must call on me. While I realize it is unlikely that you would have need of a profession of sciences, Mrs. Gilmartin and I would be pleased to assist in whatever way we can.”

He then asked, “Will your friend be waiting your arrival at the station?”

“Might we share a carriage and see you to your friend’s place?” Mrs. Gilmartin suggested.

I knew the area where Dory lived. St. Mary Street was not the sort of place where the professor and his family would usually travel. I thanked them but declined their offer.

“I will be meeting her,” I replied.

That was true as far as it went. I could easily walk the few blocks to St. Mary Street and save any fare.

“Might Lily take supper with us while she’s in Edinburgh?” Sarah asked of her mother.

“Of course,” Amelia Gilmartin replied. “Where can we contact you?”

While I would like very much to see all of them again, that did present a problem.

“I’m not certain yet how long I will be in Edinburgh.” I tucked away the calling card the professor had given me. “I will send round word after I have met with my friend.”

“Of course,” the professor replied. “We shall look forward to seeing you once more.”

Quite unexpectedly, Sarah took hold of my hand, then threw her arms about my shoulders and leaned close.

“I know that you let me win,” she whispered. “You are the only one who has. You must allow me to challenge you again.”

I smiled. “Of course.”

We left the train, and I watched from the platform as they departed, Sarah impulsively turning and waving farewell.

I tucked my travel bag under one arm and retrieved my portmanteau, then followed the direction they departed until I left the station and stepped out onto Market Street.

It was late in the afternoon, dark clouds surrounding the rooftops. Yet the sights, sounds, and smells from the street were familiar in that way of a place I had once known quite well.

What had Dory discovered? What would I find?

My hand tightened over the handle of the portmanteau as a familiar cold, different from that in London, numbed my fingers, and snow began to fall as crows filled the air overhead.

One swept close, landed, then mimicked the sing-song sound of a nearby street vendor as the man called out to customers.

That sleek dark head angled toward me.

“I don’t have any food for you,” I told the crow, as if he could understand, and apologized.

Even as a child, I thought them to be like clowns, hopping about in search of food. Or very successful thieves, calling back and forth to one another as they plotted and conspired to find their next meal, while other people thought quite differently of them.

The bird ruffled its feathers, gathered itself, then leapt into the air once more.

“It’s going to snow. Where will you go, Mr. Crow?” I remembered the childhood rhyme.

I could have sworn it replied in a loud mawkish cackle.

Yet when I looked back, it had disappeared.