Chapter 6 #2
In the next moment, Hannah was beside me. I jumped, and she grinned at me, her good humor restored.
I hadn’t noted her approaching, and I wouldn’t have recognized her if I had. She’d donned a plain, slim-skirted, dark gray frock and a subdued, thin brimmed hat trimmed with only a hint of black netting. She also carried a furled black umbrella, ready for the rain that threatened.
It was the ensemble of a poor but respectable woman, the sort who survived by becoming the companion of a wealthier aunt or other relation. Garb that told people she would never dream of commanding attention for herself.
“What on earth are you wearing?” I demanded.
Hannah never lost her cheerfulness. “I didn’t pinch it, if that’s worrying you. Plenty of secondhand clothes in the market. I reasoned that no landlady would let me into a bloke’s rooms dressed as meself. We’ll be his grieving sisters or cousins, or some such, come to look after his things.”
“We’d better hurry,” I said. “Before the landlady in question clears out his chambers to rent them to the next man coming along. Good rooms to let are scarce.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” Hannah slid her arm through mine and drew herself up in a dignified fashion.
“Shall we, sister?” Her voice changed to the tones of a middle-class, virtuous woman who disdained lesser beings.
Hannah was masterful, like Daniel, at absorbing herself into whatever role she chose.
We started across the bridge. The fog thickened as we strode along the walkway, while wagons, carts, vans, and drays rumbled heavily past us. The mist obscured the river below and was dense enough to thread itself through the stone balustrade.
By the time we reached the other side of the Thames, gas lamps were already being lit, casting eerie glows into the foggy air.
We passed the Blackfriars goods depot, where freight trains were being loaded with whatever had come off the docks. Busy Southwark Street led us to a jog that bent around to become Holland Street.
A brewery took up one corner of this road, coating the air with the thick odor of malt. Behind it rose a gasworks, its square tower poking grimly into the air, the upper reaches swallowed by mist.
Houses marched along in the tower’s shadow, including several boardinghouses. We inquired in two before we found the one that contained the lodgings of Mr. Howard Banks.
Hannah had been correct that the landlady would be suspicious.
The woman, who gave her name as Mrs. Duggan, listened to Hannah’s tale that we were cousins to Mr. Banks with a skeptical eye but didn’t immediately chase us off.
Hannah embellished the story to say we’d not been close to Mr. Banks but were unhappy to learn of his death.
Could we look in his rooms and see if he left anything that had sentimental value to us?
“Police been here,” Mrs. Duggan told us.
She had a lined, leathery face and iron gray hair and wore a gown as plain as Hannah’s.
“Likely they’ve tossed his things all about.
You’re welcome to cart away what you want, because I’ll have to sell the rest. Mr. Banks don’t have no solicitor or heirs as far as I know, excepting yourselves. ”
“The police visited us as well,” Hannah replied in a somber voice. “It is very sad, though, as I say, we had become estranged from Mr. Banks of late.”
“He was an orphan, as far as I knew.” Mrs. Duggan frowned, then shrugged. “Never spoke of any family, anyway. Glad to know he had someone, at least. He was a quiet gent, never caused me no trouble.”
“He had friends, though, surely,” I pressed. “I hate to think of him alone.”
“One or two,” Mrs. Duggan answered. “A mate would come around from time to time, and Mr. Banks got on well with the other boarders. Now, up you go, loves. Here’s the key—bring it back when you’re done. I have supper to get on the boards.”
So saying, she dropped the key into Hannah’s hand and marched away, returning to the business of running her house.
Mr. Banks had let a single room in the back of the house, on a higher floor, its location indicating it was cheap. Hannah unlocked the door, and we went inside.
The chamber was quite dark. The one window, which would give on to the gasworks, was shuttered, making the little room gloomy indeed.
Hannah took up a candlestick from a table by the door and found matches in a match safe hanging on the wall. With a scratch and small burst of flame, we had a bit of light to see by.
There wasn’t much to see. A narrow bed crouched under the eaves, with a plain table next to it.
A table and two wooden chairs reposed across the room from it, next to the chimney, and a small wardrobe stood near the window.
A shabby coat hung from a hook near the door, and there was the tiny table where Hannah had found the candlestick beneath that.
Mr. Banks must have been in straightened means, which explained why he’d been eager to touch Daniel for money. More evidence that he might have been roping in Daniel with lies and knew nothing of value.
Why had Mr. Banks been killed, though? Was I right that he’d encountered the wrong footpad, who’d decided to stick a knife into him?
However, Mr. Grimes believed that his pockets hadn’t been emptied. Either the killer hadn’t had time to go through them, or Mr. Banks had been murdered for another reason.
In any case, Mr. Banks had been heading to meet Daniel, certain of obtaining another crown or even more. Why then should he wander among the warehouses instead of going directly to the pub where we waited?
Too many things did not add up.
While I ruminated, Hannah had begun a swift but thorough search through Mr. Banks’s meager belongings.
I’d brought her along not only because I’d not wanted to venture into Southwark alone as the day waned, but also because Hannah was a master of turning over a room. Her younger days thieving had given her knowledge of where a person would most likely hide their treasured belongings.
She’d opened the wardrobe and was now bent deep into it, so I wandered to the bed and lifted the pillow, finding a nightshirt folded neatly under it.
How very sad. Mr. Banks had slid this here in the morning, not realizing that he wouldn’t return to use it tonight.
I gently replaced the pillow, then ran my hands beneath the tick mattress. I found nothing there and crouched to look under the bed. The floor there was well dusted, indicating Mrs. Duggan’s diligence as a housekeeper, but revealed nothing else.
“Here’s something.” Hannah straightened up from the wardrobe with a small box in her hands, which she opened and turned around to show me. “He ain’t had much, but he kept this nice.”
Inside lay a round silver disk attached to a faded blue ribbon. The disk was stamped with a face in profile of a very young Queen Victoria and the dates 1854–1855. The medal had only a tiny bit of tarnish on it, as though Mr. Banks had polished it often.
One clasp on the ribbon read Balaklava, the other Sebastopol.
“He was in Crimea,” I said softly. “Poor bloke was a soldier.”
“Unless he pinched this,” Hannah countered. “Medals are worth something to the right purchaser.”
I took the disk from her and carefully turned it over in my gloved hand. The reverse side depicted what looked like a Roman soldier with a winged woman holding a crown of leaves over his head. This side was indeed stamped Crimea.
“I don’t think he stole it,” I observed. “As you say, he kept it nice. He could have sold this for more than the crown Daniel gave him, and you can see he needed the cash.”
Hannah shrugged. “Can’t eat a good meal on sentiment, can ya?”
“A good meal is soon gone, but this had meaning to him.” I studied the medal again, noting how the ribbon was barely frayed, though it was thirty years old.
“Reminded him he survived, at the very least. From what I have heard of Crimea, the battles were very hard, with so many dying, both of wounds and disease.”
“It’s why I’m glad I’m not a man,” Hannah declared. “And why me Sean is staying far away from the army. They’d send him to the ends of the earth to fight people we’ve never heard of who were minding their own business in the first place.”
“How was a war veteran surprised in a back lane in London?” I wondered. “And couldn’t beat off his attacker?”
“He were a soldier thirty years ago,” Hannah pointed out. “He might have grown hard of hearing and creaky in his joints, especially if he were a builder, like you said. All that hammering. Or he knew who attacked him and didn’t fight back out of surprise.”
“All of that could well be.” I folded the ribbon and returned the medal to the box. “I don’t like to leave this here. The police obviously didn’t find it relevant, but Mrs. Duggan will just sell it to a shop.”
“Why shouldn’t she? She’s out rent now.” Hannah shook her head. “That’s why you’d never make a good tea leaf, Katie. You see stories in a thing, not just its value.”
I wasn’t certain why that was so undesirable, but I tucked the little box into my pocket. If we could find any of Mr. Banks’s real family, they might want it.
A scrape of foot and the odor of tobacco smoke alerted me, though Hannah had already swung around.
“ ’Ere,” she said loudly. “Who’re you?”
“Who’re you, missus?” the rough-faced, beefy man who hovered in the doorway countered. “And what you doing going through Banks’s things?”