Theft of Life

by Imogen Robertson

  ‘Who is “her”?’ Harriet asked carefully.

  Creech looked instead at Bounder, his eyes wide with appeal. Bounder smoothed his lank black hair over his ears with the palm of his hand. ‘Ah, well. Indeed. There was a lady present, but it seemed unnecessary to involve her. I had a wife once. I had a mother. I thought if we told you what you already knew about Sawbridge, then, out of respect for the fairer sex, we might stay quiet about the lady as she hadn’t come up in conversation in the normal way of things. Only Mr Creech does get carried away.’

  Creech sucked in his thin cheeks. His head looked like a blunt hatchet. ‘I do, Mr Bounder. I do.’

  ‘Respect?’ Christopher said. ‘You thought to blackmail the woman.’

  Bounder coughed. ‘That is a terrible accusation from a fellow unaware of the finer feelings of a white man.’ Mr Christopher took a half-step forward and Bounder flinched away, almost tripping over Creech. ‘Just my little joke, sir! A poor one, no doubt, but no offence meant.’

  ‘Who was she?’ Harriet interrupted.

  ‘No idea,’ Bounder said. ‘Haven’t had sight of her since. Thought we might scout about for her after the testifying was done.’

  ‘Or might see her at the trial. Then we could go and have a talk with her,’ Creech added, pleased to be helpful again.

  Bounder lifted his hand. ‘Purely to put the lady’s mind at rest, naturally.’

  ‘A description please, gentlemen,’ Harriet said sharply. She glanced at the magistrate, suddenly conscious that she was usurping his role as questioner. He did not seem to mind, but sat back in his chair and winked at her. ‘Was she old or young?’

  When Francis awoke, the room was already light. It took him some moments to remember where he was. Dauda was in the room, bending over Penny, and Francis started to his feet.

  ‘Peace, Francis’, said the other man. ‘I have no ill intent.’

  Nevertheless Francis went over to join him. Dauda was washing the girl’s face, sitting beside her on the bed with a brass bowl in one hand, a soft cloth in the other.

  ‘You have been tending to her yourself?’

  ‘Yes. Mrs Rogers is a devoted servant, but I thought it best if, when the girl wakes, it is I who hears whatever she has to say.’ He rinsed the cloth, squeezed it out again and gently wiped the girl’s mouth.

  ‘What did you intend to do with her before I came?’ Francis said quietly.

  ‘I hoped she’d die. She still may. If she lived … I thought I might see what bribery could do.’

  ‘Why did he not kill her, the man who brought her here?’ Francis asked. It was a question that had formed in his dreams.

  Dauda examined the bandage on Penny’s head and seemed content. ‘You know what she was before she became a maid, this girl?’ Francis nodded. ‘The man who brought her here knew her in that life, and could not bring himself to throttle her while she lay helpless. He can be sentimental about women, and many men confuse lust and affection.’

  Francis let this sink into his tired brain. ‘And what do you intend to do now?’

  Dauda smiled. ‘I don’t know, Francis. I have thought about sending a message to the man who brought her here, but that could bring nothing but blood into my house. I have decided to wait and see how events unfold.’

  Francis watched as he finished washing the girl’s face and set the bowl aside. ‘Has a doctor seen her, Dauda?’

  He shook his head. ‘There would have been too many questions. But I have some skills in healing. My mother used to take care of the other slaves, and I went at her side.’

  Francis was about to ask him something more when there was a frantic knocking at the front door. Dauda went onto the landing then after a few moments returned. They heard the front door open and close, then the soft step of the maid approaching.

  Mrs Rogers pushed open the door and Dauda lifted his hand. ‘I know who it is, dear. Take her into the garden and then you may go out for a while.’ She looked suspicious and unsure. ‘Hawthorn blossom, my dear. Go and gather great bunches of it. I shall have it in every room in the house.’ Then, when the woman still hesitated, he added: ‘Mrs Rogers, you have treated me well. Leave for a few hours for your own sake and with my thanks, please.’ Mrs Rogers curtseyed and left, then Dauda went to the window at the back of the room and pushed it open. ‘I would ask you to stay here, Francis.’

  ‘What is happening, Dauda?’

  ‘I am not exactly sure, dear heart. But I suspect I am about to be the unwilling host of another lost soul.’

  He left the room and Francis went to the window he had just opened. The scents of the spring garden were carried in on a light breeze and Francis could hear the loud trillings of blackbirds claiming their property for another day. The dogs were tied up towards the rear of the garden, lolling in the spring sunshine. He pulled back the curtain a little way. There was a woman dressed in black walking swiftly up and down the small terrace. As Dauda emerged from the back of the house she turned and took his hands.

  ‘You have to help me!’ she cried. ‘Please, darling, they are going to kill me. He had a knife and … oh Brother, our father is dead. Oh, he threatened – he said your name! But I would not! I’ll do whatever they say, but don’t let them take me. Oh, they won’t listen, I know they will not! Is it true the girl is still alive? If she were dead, perhaps they would not desert me. There would be no witness then. I would never threaten the way Father did. Dauda, you have to save me!’

  Francis could not see the expression on Dauda’s face. Only it seemed to him that the young man’s back stiffened. The woman in black began to sob. ‘I was alone all night in London. I had to wait until I could pawn my bracelet, and the man didn’t give me half what he should have done for it. You’re my last hope, Dauda.’

  ‘Lucinda, what have you done?’ Dauda said at last.

  VII.3

  IT WAS NOT LONG before Harriet joined him. He heard her familiar step on the stairs and turned as she entered. The brightness in her eyes faded as she saw the great arc of blood. She put out her hand to steady herself on the doorframe.

  ‘Is it Sawbridge?’

  ‘It is. His throat is sliced through.’

  She lifted her right hand. ‘I have a warrant here for his arrest.’

  He left the body and went to stand at her side. She leaned forward so her forehead rested against his chest and he felt her take a slow, shuddering breath. ‘And another warrant for his daughter.’ He stood back slightly and she looked up at him. ‘She was there. Creech let it drop during the questioning. It was Mrs Trimnell who suggested the mask and whip and delivered the mask to them on the corner as she returned from the theatre. She must have sat through the performances with it under her chair. Sawbridge hired them, but the plan and performance were all hers.’

  Crowther did not know what to say. It should not surprise him that a wife could be so vicious with her husband, but he realised he had accepted Mrs Trimnell as what she appeared to be: a young, selfish, unfaithful wife – and considered her no further. There was a dining chair just by the door. Harriet sat down in it. ‘Why?’ she cried. ‘Why would Sawbridge kill himself? To protect his daughter? But even so, what good does this do her?’

  Crowther knew he lacked the ability to comfort her, so he did what he always had done, and told her what he knew.

  ‘He died at some point during the night – the body has not yet stiffened – from a single blow delivered with a great deal of power.’

  ‘He was at the inquest,’ Harriet said, almost to herself. ‘Even if he knew we were coming with a warrant – and I cannot see how he could have known – he knew the charge would not be murder. He was not escaping the noose. God, I would have thought us lucky if he were even fined. Why then?’

  ‘Harriet, I do not think he was alone when he died.’

  She looked up at him. ‘Tell me.’

  Crowther pointed his cane towards the spray of blood. ‘Look at the pattern here across the mantel.’

 
; Her eyes focused and she frowned. ‘There is a gap,’ she said slowly.

  ‘Indeed. Someone was standing directly in front of Sawbridge when his throat was cut.’

  ‘Good God.’ She was silent for a few moments, examining the blood. It was not a tragedy now, but a puzzle. ‘And someone else was sitting there,’ she added, pointing at an armchair to the left of the fireplace. Crowther had not noticed that before, but she was correct. There were droplets of blood on the back and arm, but there should have been others between them. ‘Who commits suicide with an audience?’ She shuddered. ‘Though a man such as he was … the sort who would want to humiliate his son-in-law so cruelly, perhaps he would enjoy seeing their expressions. He loved to shock, but then? Then the audience leaves quietly and abandons him for the maid to find? No one calls out or attempts to save him?’

  ‘If it was suicide.’

  She looked up at Crowther. ‘Who on earth would want to murder him?’

  ‘Mrs Westerman, I cannot possibly say. All I do say is that the wound to his throat is very deep. Also, the wound curves upwards on the right-hand side. That suggests to me it was someone standing behind him who delivered the blow. It is not conclusive, but …’

  She squeezed her eyes shut. ‘Crowther, I think he was left-handed. Certainly he used his left hand to drink his tea, but I thought at the time that it meant perhaps his right was injured.’

  ‘If we can find someone to swear he favoured his left hand in the general run of things, then I can suggest this is murder, not suicide.’

  ‘Might a woman have done this?’

  ‘Possible, but improbable. It would take a great deal of strength to cut so deep.’

  He was waiting for her to speak again, but instead she lowered her head and folded her cloak around her as if she wanted to hide from the world entire.

  ‘I thought standing in that hovel listening to Bounder and Creech would be the worst of it, Crowther,’ she said at last.

  ‘What can I do to be of help to you?’ He took the warrant for Sawbridge’s arrest out of her hand and saw the other for Mrs Trimnell. ‘Is it facing Mrs Trimnell that distresses you? I shall go and root her out of Portman Square and give her the news of her father.’

  ‘Oh Gabriel, there is no need to tell Mrs Trimnell,’ she said. She nodded over towards the side table, on which lay forgotten a pair of black gloves with pearl fastenings. ‘If she did not kill him herself, then she certainly watched while someone else did.’ She looked up at Crowther, her green eyes slightly dulled. ‘Then she did not fetch help. She did not fight whoever attacked him, or try to stop the bleeding. She just ran.’

  ‘You don’t understand, Dauda!’ The voice of the woman’s pleading swept up and down with the urgency and drama of a swallow’s flight, reaching Francis as he watched and listened from his hiding place. ‘He had become a monster! He only spoke to me to rant about God. He was humiliating me, running around London begging for forgiveness from slaves. Dear God, he wanted to adopt some mulatto bastard of his! And I did not mean to kill him, only give him the punishment he deserved – that he craved. I swear I was so sorry to hear of his death, I fainted away the moment I was told.’

  Dauda had folded his arms across his chest while the girl still marched up and down the terrace as she spoke, her arms always in movement so she became a whirl of words and hands.

  ‘I know you would not want another “mulatto bastard” in the family, Lucinda. Humiliating you? How many hours had you been in London before you managed to get Randolph Jennings into your bed for bangles and beads. Don’t think I was not told. I have only ever been a whore out of necessity. With you, it was a choice.’ The obscenity shocked Francis, like a blow across the face, but it did not check the woman in black.

  She span round and put out her arms. Francis could see her thin white wrists, her long fingers. ‘I loved Randolph, always! I believed he loved me. I was destroyed when he said he would not marry me.’

  ‘You love yourself and money in that order, Lucinda. You have always believed yourself better than you are, and Father encouraged you in that. It cost him his life.’

  ‘Brother, I was good to you,’ the woman whined.

  Dauda stared at her. ‘Good to me? Do you remember the day I was sold, Sister? Do you remember how I ran to you and begged for your help? How I hid in your room and sobbed and asked you to hide me? You called for him. Our father. Do you think I’ll ever forget the look of satisfaction on your face when they tied my hands and carried me out of the house?’

  She was breathing hard, her hands held together in front of her now, concentrating. ‘I was jealous, Dauda. Father loved your mother more than mine. She was not even buried when Father moved your mother out of the slave huts and into our home.’ She dropped to her knees. The black silk of her dress spread out around her on the pale polished marble of the terrace. ‘We are still brother and sister. And I did not know about the manuscript he wrote describing all his “sins” until he was already dead. Dr Fischer told us about it. Please, Dauda, I am begging you for my life.’

  Francis heard the name Fischer and his mind went white. The man who had paid over the odds for all the paper in Eliza’s shop – it was the sneering verger who had directed him from St Mary Woolnoth to Fischer’s home.

  It could not be long now before Mr Sanden returned with a constable. Harriet had got to her feet and gone into Sawbridge’s bedchamber. Crowther let her go without comment, unsure if she wanted to look through the dead man’s possessions, or wished only for privacy. Until she returned or summoned him, he gave his attention again to the patterns of blood on the wall and floor. Whoever was seated in the chair could have easily left the room without smearing the blood. The person who was standing in front of Trimnell would certainly have disturbed the traces if he had not moved from that position with great care. Whoever it was, had nerve. To remain still in such circumstances and wait suggested a great deal of control.

  So Sawbridge, his daughter and two other men had been in the room. One standing in front of the fireplace, and one standing behind the murdered man, poised to cut his throat. Sawbridge cannot have feared them. He was seated, defenceless and unsuspecting, while his guests were standing. He had obviously made some miscalculation about who held the balance of power in the room.

  Crowther’s first thought was of Randolph Jennings. But why would he want Sawbridge dead? Was Sawbridge pushing him to protect Mrs Trimnell if the scandal of her husband’s death became public? He thought over the motives for murder he had ever seen or heard discussed. Madness? Certainly there was a little madness in every killing, a failure of reason. Money or power? Sawbridge was a moderately successful man in moderate circumstances, judging by the room and its furnishings, so it was unlikely he had enough of either to serve as a motive. Knowledge? What better way to silence a man than cut his throat? He thought of the mouthless mask again. There was another act of silencing.

  ‘The razor is part of a matching set.’ He heard Harriet’s voice and turned to see her in the doorway. ‘Whoever did this was calm and clever after the fact. They killed him, fetched the razor and dropped it where it would have fallen, had he done the deed himself.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Which causes me to believe they had good reason to kill Sawbridge.’

  She nodded. ‘He must have known something that would bring great shame on them – but why would Sawbridge overplay his hand so badly? Suppose the truth of Mr Trimnell’s death had been made public. There would have been a scandal, but also sympathy for the widow of a mad man in some quarters. She and Sawbridge would have been able to expect some quiet assistance. If he and his daughter had been accused of murdering someone by their own hands on these shores, then of course even the West Indian community would have cast them off. They might try to blackmail the wrong person for protection or help in escaping the country …’ The expression on her face changed. ‘Crowther, I think we may have been investigating the wrong killing.’

  ‘Mrs Westerman?’


  She left her post in the doorway, reached into her reticule and produced the handbill for Willoughby’s prayer meetings, then lifted it close to her face so she could read the fine print at the bottom of the page. She then passed it to Crowther to read. At the bottom of the page where the copperplate had sunk into the paper, he read Engraved by Mrs Eliza Smith, Paternoster Row. At once he was back in the chill stables again, bending over her fire-blackened corpse in the candlelight.

  ‘I remember that Willoughby said that Trimnell arranged and paid for the printing,’ he said slowly. ‘So they knew each other. A strange coincidence, but why would that lead to the murder of Mrs Smith?’

  ‘She was a bookseller, Crowther. And Martha said that Trimnell spent his time while he was wearing that mask, writing. Remember, no one would listen to him. He was crazed with the wish to confess his sins, but no one listened! They threw him out of the coffee house, Mr Christopher could not stand to hear him repeat his crimes, and even Willoughby had not the strength to listen!’

  ‘He wrote out the confession,’ Crowther said at last. ‘And gave it to the bookseller and engraver whom he had met, in hopes of a wider audience. But how would anyone but Trimnell and Mrs Smith know that?’

  Harriet’s eyes were glowing again as she followed the thought down. ‘I saw her, Crowther! I saw her speak to Dr Fischer on the morning she was killed. Fischer was a trader. He’d known Trimnell for years. What if his sins were in there alongside Trimnell’s? Oh, do remember! Sir Charles said Fischer and Trimnell had known each other well in their youth. And Mrs Smith liked Dr Fischer, just as Mrs Service does. Tell me, if someone gave you a manuscript, claiming that I was guilty of all manner of monstrous crimes, you would tell me of it, would you not?’

  He smiled. ‘Not before I had burned it and beaten the man who gave it to me in the street, but I understand you. So you think Mrs Smith told Dr Fischer and he alerted his friends to the existence of the manuscript?’

  ‘Yes, and who better to go and ask for its return than the grieving widow and her father? What reasonable person would refuse to give it back to her?’