Crowther 02 - Anatomy of Murder

by Imogen Robertson

  “I have elicited no such confession. Have you presented Lord Sandwich with the proper naval strategy to turn the tide in America? I recall a conversation in which you seemed quite certain of your plans, if only they could be followed.”

  Harriet narrowed her eyes. “I had not thought you were listening that morning.”

  “Your tone can be insistent.”

  Harriet laughed, and a woman in front of them in the crowd turned her whitened face toward them. Harriet did not flinch. Crowther made her a slight bow.

  “What of Carmichael then, Crowther? I did see you in conversation. Did you have more success than I?”

  “Yes, your tour of the rooms on Sandwich’s arm made him more amenable than he was this morning. He claims that Fitzraven came to visit him first some three weeks ago with a letter of introduction from a mutual friend.”

  “What friend would that be?”

  “He took advantage of the crush to be vague upon that point. Beyond that, he said only that Fitzraven had called once more last week and seemed rather angry. He told Carmichael that Isabella was madly in love with Bywater, and he with her. Apparently he took it as some kind of affront.”

  “Interesting. Perhaps Fitzraven was hoping his daughter would marry a lord and carry him closer to this shining company.” Crowther glanced across at her. Her mouth was set in a thin line. She continued with a clenched jaw, “For all Sandwich talks about doing business in this room, I cannot see any true or honest thing in this flimflam. I wish I were dining with Michaels in the Bear and Crown, or on the Splendor, or even in the nursery. I have never missed the sea wind as much as I do here among all this scent. I used to think you had sacrificed something, renouncing your title and such society as this. Now I see you gave up nothing.”

  Crowther raised his eyebrows. “You appear to have overcome your earlier nerves, Mrs. Westerman.”

  She grinned at him. Her anger passed as swiftly as it had come, like the shadows of the clouds chased across the hillside he used to watch as a child. “Indeed. With your help I have found a way to feel greatly superior to anyone else in the room, so now I am having a much better time.”

  “I am glad, Mrs. Westerman.” The song ended and the room rattled with the applause of gloved hands, the feathering thud of fans struck against brocade dresses and a flurry of polite exclamations. A new chord rang out on the harpsichord. Harriet leaned toward Crowther again.

  “What it might have to do with the murder, I cannot say, but I am sure Mr. Palmer would be pleased if we managed to discover the identity of this mutual friend that links Carmichael and Fitzraven.”

  Crowther nodded. “I imagine Carmichael’s study will be on this floor. Shall we leave the music for a while?”

  “Why not. Let me add to my disgrace with a little burglary, if at all possible.”

  By the time Jocasta and Sam had reached the end of Chick Lane, Sam was crying hard. He had not put Boyo down again, but was clutching the little dog to his chest as he wept. Boyo did not struggle to get away. It was as if he understood his role as comforter to the frightened lad, and endured his fierce embrace with stoicism.

  Jocasta’s mind felt white with it. She did not believe in Tonton Macoute or the bogeyman, but felt sure now that those two rats on her door had been more than a warning. They were a reckoning of things already done. Spotting an alley, she pulled Sam into the shadows with her.

  “Mrs. Bligh? They’re dead, ain’t they—Finn and Clayton. Tonton Macoute got ’em. Fred got the devil working for him and now they’ll be coming for me.” His voice was rising and gasping and he was trembling hard.

  “You got some place to go, Sam? Any other places you can doss down? Don’t reckon it’s safe being by me.”

  He gave a little wail, and still holding Boyo to him with one arm, he flung the other around Jocasta and buried his face in her side. She almost staggered with his small force. “Nowhere. I don’t know no one. Don’t send me away, Mrs. Bligh. The devil will get me. You knew, didn’t you—before we went? You saw it in the cards! What else, Mrs. Bligh? Am I going to get got by the devil too?”

  Jocasta let her arm drop awkwardly around his shoulders and he clung closer to her.

  “Whist, lad! I saw you standing lonely, but I saw you standing. For now anyways.” She looked unseeing into the dark around them and gripped his shoulder. “It ain’t a devil, it’s a man, my lad. And men can be trapped and stopped and hanged.”

  Sam’s voice was muffled. “But how? We spent all day watching and we’re no wiser!”

  Jocasta went down on her haunches so she could look the boy in the eye and took hold of his shoulders. “Neither we are. But we will be.”

  Sam drew in his breath and tried to stop his weeping. “Don’t send me off alone, Mrs. Bligh. Let me stay with you and Boyo. I won’t be any bother. Please, you won’t send me off alone, Mrs. Bligh?”

  She was caught by the asking in his eyes, then shook her head. The relief in his face struck her like a fist and she looked down at the ground between them. Sam put Boyo out of his arms and the little dog nosed his mistress.

  After a few moments Sam spoke in a whisper: “Mrs. Bligh. It weren’t your fault that the devil-man took ’em.”

  Jocasta felt her belly clench. She thought of the two young boys sitting in front of her fire, eating meal and milk.

  “It was, lad. It was. They’re lost over a day’s work I paid them a penny for. I was stupid. And I am now for not driving you off. Cards sometimes see a long way, sometimes close. I haven’t got any promises that you’ll be safe with me.”

  The little boy waited till she looked up at him again. When she did he was standing straight as a soldier, and his fists were closed and tight. “Don’t need the cards to tell me that, Mrs. Bligh. Or you. I know it for myself.”

  She smiled and roughed up the hair on his head. “Do you now? Well, we ain’t going home tonight, but I know a place. Then tomorrow we will see where we are at.”

  Crowther was right. There was a study just adjacent to the room where Isabella and Manzerotti were performing. Crowther began to look through the papers on the desk.

  “Anything of significance?” Harriet asked him. She was standing near the doorway and rubbing the nape of her neck.

  He did not reply but began to open the desk drawers in turn. Harriet looked about her. The walls were high and lined with gold-tooled volumes. Most, it seemed, were in Latin.

  “Is Carmichael a scholar?”

  “He never was. They are show. Everything here is show. There is nothing here. Or I cannot say rather whether there is or not.”

  “Would a spy bring a letter of introduction? ‘Dear Traitor, the man bearing this letter is another such as yourself and in the pay of the French. Make use of him.’”

  Crowther scowled. “It seems unlikely. But there must have been some signal between them. Something that could have been hidden in plain sight, yet which showed they were servants of the same master.”

  Harriet came away from the door and began to walk back and forth on the thick Turkish rug in front of the fireplace, avoiding the draft from the open window.

  “Something that could be hidden in plain sight . . . That a musician might carry across any number of borders, and do so free from fear of detection.” She came to a sudden halt. “Do you remember that gentleman who visited Graves with a manuscript from Mr. Handel? Music! A code, a language of its own. It was in the music Fitzraven was carrying!”

  Crowther nodded and returned quickly to a leather folder on the desk in front of him.

  “There are pieces of manuscript in different hands here,” he said. Harriet watched him, her blood thudding under her skin. In the next room, the music was replaced by applause. “I may have something, Mrs. Westerman.”

  The door suddenly opened and Lord Carmichael stood in the entrance. He looked between them with curiosity. Harriet took hold of the mantelpiece and staggered a little.

  “No, Mr. Crowther, do not trouble looking for the salts a
nymore, I swear I am quite recovered.” She stumbled again, forcing Carmichael to come forward and take her arm. She looked up at him from under her long lashes. “Oh, thank you, my lord. I am so sorry . . .”

  Crowther had to stop himself from staring at her in astonishment. He would at no point in his long career of study, from the ancient wisdom to the best thoughts of the modern day, have believed that the ability to fake a swoon was something he would admire, and that would save him.

  “Carmichael. Do you have smelling salts? Failing that, I was looking for paper to burn under Mrs. Westerman’s nose. It seems to cure a variety of female ills.” Harriet blushed a little. His tone was harsh, impatient.

  Lord Carmichael turned his lined and slightly ashy face between them. No man would have thought the pair in front of him friends or allies.

  “Really, it is not necessary, sir!” she said sharply in Crowther’s direction, then looking at Carmichael said more softly, “I am so sorry, my lord. It is simply I found myself overcome. The song is one of my husband’s favorites. He sings it still . . .” A single tear ran down her cheek and she blinked her green eyes. “You know he is very unwell. Hearing it so beautifully performed . . .”

  Carmichael looked at her cautiously. “Of course, madam. Quite understandable.”

  “And Mr. Crowther assisted me from the room.”

  “How good of him.”

  “How is your son, Lord Carmichael—Mr. Longley, whom I met yesterday?”

  Carmichael’s smile was unpleasant. “He is atoning for his sins.”

  Crowther looked sternly at Harriet. “Recovered then, Mrs. Westerman? If so, I think it best if we take you back to Berkeley Square where you may more comfortably indulge your grief.”

  Harriet lowered her head as if chastened. Crowther turned to his host.

  “Oh, Lord Carmichael. On this sordid little business of the opera house—is Mr. Johannes in residence here? I understand he goes everywhere with your house pet Manzerotti.”

  Lord Carmichael led Harriet to a chair and seated her there with a low bow before replying.

  “Manzerotti is an artist, not a house pet. Johannes makes his own arrangements in Town. He would not be comfortable here, I think. He is an artisan, and from time to time a very useful one. But he is not a guest in this house.”

  Harriet looked up at Carmichael as if he was a savior. He touched the bell and said, “Emotions seem to be running very high this evening. Miss Marin was so overcome by her own performance she had to leave immediately after the duet.”

  The carriage was summoned and Carmichael moved to leave the room, adding to Crowther with a bow, “Ah, women, Keswick. Such delicate ornaments to our society. They should be protected, yet you drag this poor woman through the mud. What an oddity your family has become.” Then he left the room before Crowther could find any answer to give.

  Jocasta fell asleep as soon as she had arranged the blankets around her. She and Sam had gone cautiously through the streets till they reached the cellar of a cobbler Jocasta knew. She had read the cards for the man a number of times and he, his wife and children thought her as great a sage as any in London. She had directed the man to a lost brooch of his wife’s, and predicted in a cloudy way the coming of a stranger who would do them a good turn the night before a careless maid had begged him to mend a shoe of her mistress she had broken at the heel. Maid and mistress were so pleased with the work he had done, he had found himself with a new steady stream of commissions from that lady and her friends. The new income had allowed the family to take an additional room where they now slept, so they were more than happy to let Jocasta and Sam lay their heads down in the cellar workshop. It had been a struggle not to let them give up their own beds. Now Sam and Jocasta slept with the one entrance to the place shut and fastened, and the family promising them secrecy and peace.

  Jocasta dreamed. It felt as if she had woken; sudden. The room seemed quiet enough, Sam and Boyo both snoring away in their corners, though it had a soft, buttery sort of feel to it, as if she were in a painting of the place rather than the flesh of it. Then it seemed to her that Kate was standing right in front of her and beckoning. For all the stories in the cards, Jocasta had never seen anything like a ghost before, so she was puzzled to find there was no sort of fear on her. She was curious, was all, and felt more friendly and trusting of the vision than she was of most living creatures she knew.

  She stood up from her bed, and Kate took her hand and turned to lead her off. As she did so, Jocasta caught what seemed like a glowing glimpse of the back of her head. It was red and matted, and the sight of it sent a tremor through her that Kate’s ghost seemed to feel. She turned again and shrugged with a twisted smile. Then without waking or sleeping, with no space in time you could slip a card in, it seemed that they were in the front room in Salisbury Street. There was a big ugly dresser in the corner of the room, made of heavy wood and squat on the floor as if it was hunkering and frowning. Then in front of it, a pretty little table in rosewood, oddly placed in the room. Kate led Jocasta toward it and, taking hold of both of Jocasta’s hands in her own, lifted them to the overhanging lip. Kate’s hands seemed very cool and dry; there was no clammy deathliness about the touch. She placed Jocasta’s fingers on the hidden surface of the wood, and moved them along a bit. Jocasta felt a button, a space in the wood, and pressed. There was a click deep inside the wood, and with a shuffling whisper, a long, thin drawer popped out from under. There were papers in it, smoothed very straight and flat, and all covered tight in black writing.

  Jocasta looked up at Kate, who didn’t move or smile. She gave no nod, she spoke no word, made no plea for justice, gave no news of what waits on the far side of the grave. She simply moved to Jocasta’s side. Jocasta felt a light touch in the small of her back, Kate’s other hand drifted over Jocasta’s eyes and rested on her forehead, and she pushed. Jocasta felt her center give way.

  Then found herself in another place, struggling to get back onto her feet in some version of the rookeries around behind Chandos Street. Strange fires leaped in the braziers, and the drunks lolling around them were interspersed with other figures. She recognized them from the cards. A man in motley with a staff over his shoulder and a sharp little beard was dancing for the drunken Irishman and his girl. When he laughed, you could see his crooked gums, his teeth all black and yellow stumps or gone. The High Priest stumbled past, his red and gold cloak trailing in the muck and his layered hat on backward; spittle hung from his fat open lips. Jocasta felt her elbow knocked and her hand went to her purse; she found herself looking into the blank eyes of The Magician. He was throwing up a ball in his cup and catching it again. He moved past her, and behind him she saw a figure sitting on the step of a doss-house on the other side of the way. He was winged like a bat, and the thin skin of his wings twitched slowly. On his head were horns that seemed to move and taste the air like the soft stalks of a snail. They reached about him, moving shadows thrown by the flames of the brazier. He lifted his head and looked straight at her. She saw a face made of burned and twisted roots, his skin like charred bark. He had his familiars with him—winged, sharp-eared and naked—the shape of young boys. They turned toward her with terrible slowness. Their faces were those of Finn and Clayton. The Devil hissed.

  She sat bolt upright in her bed in the cellar and waited for her heart to slow. Boyo and Sam slept on, just as she had seen them. But there was no ghost in the room and the air felt damp, rotten and familiar. Jocasta lay back down, turned to the wall and wondered.

  PART VI

  1

  WEDNESDAY, 21 NOVEMBER 1781

  Stephen Westerman’s day had begun well. He had been overjoyed to be woken by his mother and taken out to play a while in the gardens of Berkeley Square before he had even washed his face, and skipped among the shrubberies in front of her, describing the various anchorages and landing places, the haunts of strange tribes that would amaze even Captain Cook, which he and Lord Sussex had discovered between the rhododendron
s. It felt like a sort of miracle to have her complete attention. She had laughed and praised his courage, gasped when he described his battles with the French and Spanish navies and nodded sagely as he described his negotiations with the natives of the newly christened isles of Servicia and Gravesonia.

  But then one of the servants had come out of the house with Jonathan and leading Anne by her fat little fist. The woman had spoken to his mother out of his hearing, and she left him at once, only wishing him fair sailing and kissing him distractedly on the top of his tousled head. He watched her go and meet two figures on the far side of the lawns. One was Mr. Crowther; the other he could not recognize at this distance.

  The little boy hated watching her grow small in his sight, and wondered if he had missed breakfast, and how he could be forgotten so quickly. Would she remember that he still had her ring? It was tucked in his waistcoat now. Part of him hoped that she had forgotten, as that meant she would not ask for it back. Some other part told him that it was bad if she had done so. That the ring, like himself, should not so easily be dismissed.

  Just then, Jonathan slapped him between the shoulders and began to dash along the path in front of him. It was a challenge, and could not be ignored. Turning, Stephen began to race after him, ignoring the cry of the nursemaid to mind his step.

  “Good morning, Crowther, Dr. Trevelyan.”

  The good doctor looked worried. Harriet was so used to his demeanor of calm good sense, she hardly knew him with his eyebrows drawn together and his chin low. Her heart fluttered and her mouth became dry.

  “Sir, is my husband well?”

  Trevelyan placed his hand on her arm and said quickly, “Indeed he is.” Harriet’s world steadied again and the sounds and sights of the Square returned to her.

  “He is quite well, I did not mean to alarm you,” the doctor went on. Harriet managed a faint smile and drew in her breath. “It is on the matter of Mr. Leacroft I wish to speak to you, and I am sorry to call so early in the day. I met Mr. Crowther as I was hesitating on your doorstep.”