Anatomy of Murder

4

Jocasta would not have chosen Salisbury Street as a place to live. Not while there was a dry corner anywhere else in London. The mist never cleared from these alleys that bent toward the broad Thames, and the whole street had that air of miserable decay that comes on any creature or place forced to stay damp the majority of the time.

Walking up to the door of the first house, she rapped once and hard. A pinched-looking face appeared at the window. A second later, the door was opened a crack and a frighteningly thin nose appeared. So narrow was the face behind it that Jocasta felt she was talking to a door wedge.

“Mitchell?” it said in response to Jocasta’s question. “Third house down.” The door snapped shut again and Jocasta thought about spitting bad luck onto the step for bad manners, but decided against. Instead, she had a tap at the door of the third house down, peered into a parlor done up nice enough but empty, and getting no answer or sight of any person, settled herself on the step opposite. Boyo turned twice and burrowed at her feet. Then put his paws over his nose.

Jocasta lifted her head and said with a nod, “True enough, Boyo. Too much river water in the air here. Still, I’ll have no complaints from you. You know sure enough this was all your plan, and I’m just too much of a silly old fool to do anything but listen.”

Then she waited. Through her mind danced a pattern of swords and a clatter of gold.

As they took their places, Harwood called down to a young-looking man at the harpsichord in the pit that he was all attention, then added in a lower tone to his companions, “As we have not the libretto to hand, I shall act as chorus. Mademoiselle’s character is mourning for her lover, played by Mr. Manzerotti, whom she believes lost to her forever. They meet by accident in the rose garden and she sings this aria to him, ‘C’e una rosa.’ It is the sorrow of a woman deeply in love whose love has now been rejected. Mr. Manzerotti tells her it is inevitable and asks for her forgiveness. He continues to do so as she restates her love and incomprehension at his changed heart.” Harwood covered his mouth with a hand and yawned. “He does love her, of course. They are kept apart by Manzerotti’s loyalty to the enemy of Miss Marin’s father. Very tragic and noble. This opera is largely a pasticcio.” He noticed the confused expression on the faces of his guests. “That is to say, it is made up from segments of other operas by a variety of composers, and there are certain arias that performers prefer and of which they make a showcase. We agree to include them in any performance. However, I wished to have at least a couple of original songs, and this is one. Our young composer, Mr. Richard Bywater, went walking all summer in the Highlands, I understand, to gather his ideas, yet they seemed remarkably thin still when he returned. I only hope inspiration has struck finally with considerable force and the performers have the tune down.”

Harriet began to take in the scene as her eyes became used to the darkness of the auditorium; only the stage and pit where the musicians huddled were afforded any light. There were any number of people moving around the shadows, however, though it was still empty by comparison with the heaving and pushing crowds she was used to seeing in the pits and galleries of an opera house. Some scattered ladies and gentlemen had attended the rehearsal as part of their afternoon’s entertainment. She could also see three or four women at work in the boxes, polishing the fittings and neatening the arrangements of chairs. Two men were at the same business of cleaning in the pit, with a lad following them throwing lavender down in loose handfuls on the floor. At the side of the stage another pair of men were at work on one of the hoop chandeliers, filling the little oil lamps and trimming the wicks.

Two figures sat on chairs placed on the right of the stage. The male figure, the great castrato Manzerotti, was unusually tall and slender. He wore a coat of the most startling scarlet, decorated with a profusion of gold braid, and the high heels of his shoes were an electric blue that so engaged the eye, even from this distance, Harriet thought they must be made of lapis lazuli. They seemed to spark up toward her and sting her eyes. The lady sitting next to him, the writer of the warm letters, Miss Marin, wore many folds of dove gray, gathered at the waist and flowing into a remarkably full skirt. It was balanced by the extravagant size of her hat, whose broad sweeping brim must render, Harriet thought, half the world a mystery to her.

These figures now lazily stood and moved to opposite sides of the stage, exchanged words with unseen watchers in the wings, and waited. Mademoiselle Marin noticed them where they were watching and smiled upward. It was a pleasant smile-rather shy, almost apologetic. Harriet found herself returning it, and regretting her promise to Harwood not to have conversation with the singers before the morrow. Then the first note was struck on the harpsichord and the fiddlers, still finishing their own conversations in the pit, took up the theme.

The stage did indeed look very like a rose garden, though Harriet could see no blooms. Patterned panels created a vista that seemed to stretch for half a mile into the distant depths of the stage, ending with a folly perched on a hilltop. Nearer to the singers on either side were clumped patches of deep green foliage, and in the center of the stage a fountain depicted Apollo and Leucothea embracing and pouring over each other’s forms water that flowed from the cups they held above their heads.

Then Isabella began to sing.

Her voice was clear as water and produced apparently without effort or any sign of strain. Strange pictures and memories began almost at once to dance behind Harriet’s eyes. She thought of her husband. She knew a little Italian, but not enough to understand what was being sung. The music had to bring everything to her and it seemed, as the music continued, as if it was sadly dropping rose petals into her palm. The melody that had begun simply, a lilting lost thought, circled and grew more complex till it took the soprano’s voice to heights that seemed to Harriet impossible, inevitable, then fell away again in a rapid waves of triplets that sounded like tears. Then, as Marin’s voice faded like a ghost, exhausted and distressed, Manzerotti began to sing. It was a sound unlike any other human voice she had ever heard. Its pitch was as high as Isabella’s but so strong it made her think of gold polished white. She thought of bells, hunting horns. It cut its way up and under and between the players in the pit like a scarlet ribbon woven into a cloth of some coarser stuff. The voices joined, waters flowing together, a strange alchemy.

Suddenly Harriet noticed that on stage in front of them, roses were beginning to bloom. Yellow roses, apparently drawn into life by the song, pushed their way silently out of the deep foliage around them. They appeared first severally as buds, then as the song swelled, each one opened a full and heavy bloom till the stage was full of them. As the voices peaked once more, together, one lost in grief, the other tender but inflexible, the water of the fountain was transmuted into gold, and glittering showers ran over the carved muscles of the statues. The band yearned upward, and as the lovers reached the end of their song, still separated and unresolved, the woodwind called out three high and reaching chords that made Harriet’s hands clench together in her lap, such was the force they carried, their bitter, painful sweetness. Mademoiselle Marin turned to the pit, and the young man at the harpsichord, and kissed her fingers to him. He blushed and looked down.

Silence fell. Harriet blinked and looked about her. All activity in the auditorium had ceased. The cleaning women stood mute and unmoving in the boxes, their cloths held unnoticed at their sides. The men and boy sweeping the pit had stopped their work and turned to the stage; the men changing the candles were held, open-mouthed, staring at the singers. All conversation between the ladies and gentlemen had ceased.

Manzerotti smiled and turned toward the King’s Box. The moment passed and the listeners began to go about their business again. Harriet saw the musicians in the pit lean back and sigh; the cellist covered his eyes with his hands briefly. Isabella turned and smiled frankly at them again, then without waiting for any sign, exited the stage. Only the young man at the keyboard did not move, but remained head bowed over the keys. Harwood nodded toward the stage, then seemed to slip back into himself, staring up at the painted ceiling of his little world.

“Good,” he said simply.

Harriet heard Crowther cough slightly and turned to look at him. He seemed as surprised as she felt herself. He wetted his lips slightly and said, “Remarkable.”

Jocasta and Boyo had a long, cold wait of it, but toward the middle of the afternoon the little terrier sat up and barked, and Jocasta turned to see Kate Mitchell stepping down the lane. She almost stumbled over Jocasta before she saw her, and gasped when she recognized the old woman.

“Mrs. Bligh! Are you waiting for me?”

Jocasta spat over her shoulder. “I am, lass. We are to have words.”

Kate hesitated for a second, then shook her head firmly. “No, Mrs. Bligh. I don’t think we shall.”

Some children who had made the mistake of teasing Boyo had felt the surprisingly strong grip of Jocasta Bligh on their arm. Kate felt it now.

“You spoken with your husband?”

“No, not yet.” She shivered a little. “He was home late last night, and out of sorts. I’ll pick my time.”

“Pretty brooch you have there. That the one your boy got you?”

Kate looked down at the little paste flowers on her shoulder. “Yes, it was a present from Fred, Mrs. Bligh. I told you. Do you-do you. . want it?”

Jocasta flung her arm away from the girl and spat again. “I don’t want to rob you, you daft child. I want to know how a clerk affords such things. Doesn’t sound like you get much help from his mother.”

Kate rubbed her arm a little sulkily. “Well, I don’t know. They’ve been working awful hard. Perhaps they gave him a tip. When the Navy Board is sitting he can be there all night. There’s a war on, you know, Mrs. Bligh. Or maybe he won it at the cockfight, and he just didn’t want to tell me he’d been in such a low place.”

Jocasta rolled her eyes. “He’s doing something, and he’s being paid. And you know as well as I do it’s not honest work.”

Kate folded her arms. “I know no such thing, and if I find it so, I shall make him stop. There. Now leave me alone, Mrs. Bligh. I thank you for your trouble, but there’s no need for it.”

“Look, you daft piece, I know some swift bad is coming to you.” Jocasta jabbed Kate’s shoulder with her finger. “You, personal. Now you gather your papers and we’ll see what we can figure out. But if you stay in this house, St. George and the dragon together wouldn’t be able to save you.”

Kate hesitated, her hands closed round the reticule. Jocasta wondered if she’d been hanging onto those papers all night and day. Jocasta willed her on in her mind. See it, girly, she thought. See it how it is, then come away.

“I can keep an eye on you, girly,” she said, a little more softly.

Kate shook her head again. “No, Mrs. Bligh. This is my husband you’re talking of. This is my place. I’m not leaving it.”

With that she turned to the house and let herself in. Jocasta watched the door and saw her shape moving round in the room at the front, but her eyes were clouded with The Tower card, the great cascades of sparks.

Mr. Harwood made no immediate move to leave the King’s Box after the duet was done.

Harriet said quietly, “I can understand now how Fitzraven valued his connection to the opera. It would be hard to hear such things, be near to them, and then give them up.”

Harwood was shaken free of his reverie. “You do him too much credit, Mrs. Westerman. He did have musical ability, but he was not. . sensitive. It was not the music that attracted him to us, that made this place valuable to him, but something else.”

“What else is there here but music?” Harriet asked.

It was Crowther who answered, though Harwood gave a short, mirthless bark of laughter. “There is fame, Mrs. Westerman. There is renown, and wherever fame and renown are known to be, there is money to be made. Am I correct, Mr. Harwood?”

“You are,” that gentleman replied. “Fitzraven was one of those individuals whose passion is to be close to those the public celebrates. He had a talent to amuse, perhaps, with his gossip and a sharp tongue, and he knew how to flatter. It was to that I ascribed his success in recruiting those singers of quality he brought us here. But he was desperate-and I use the word without unnecessary theatricality-desperate to be near those whose names we read in the newspapers, and think himself their friend. He would have done much to feel himself of significance in their lives. It is a sickness that comes over many. By the close of the season I will have another dozen men and women who will need to be watched for at the door, or they will create havoc and distress trying to get close to the objects of their devotion. They become convinced they have a particular bond with some performer they have spotted and made a focus for their admiration.” His eyes flicked up to Crowther. “I know a woman in Milan, of good family, was killed last year throwing herself under Manzerotti’s coach. She carried his portrait snipped from a newspaper in her locket as a lover would. She was not the first, nor will she be the last to die for love of a person she has never met.”

“How. .” Harriet paused to pluck the right word out of the air “. . oddly pathetic.”

Harwood tilted back his chair, running his eyes over the gilt and splendor of the King’s Box. It was twice the size of the other private boxes, though the Prince’s Box at the other side of the stage was also generous, and had a little divan at its rear. All the boxes were ornate, but here everything was just a little more. The velvet draperies had a few more folds, the chairs a little more room for gilded wreaths, the upholstery a little more plush. Harriet found herself thinking that where she sat this afternoon, a king would sit in the evening. It gave her a little cold thrill of connection.

“Indeed,” Harwood went on, “I know Fitzraven was not here for the music. He obviously made some useful connections in Italy. He told me he had received a letter of introduction from someone-he did not say from whom-to Lord Carmichael’s house, for instance, and had been invited back to attend that gentleman more than once. He did not go there for love of art. Lord Carmichael has little to recommend him, I believe, other than his wealth.”

“Lord Carmichael?” Crowther said. Harriet was impressed with how much disdain Crowther could invest only two words. She wondered briefly if there might be some sort of mathematical formula for it. Perhaps she should suggest it to her new acquaintances at the Royal Society.

Harwood smiled at the ceiling. “I see you know Lord Carmichael, Mr. Crowther.”

“I knew the gentleman in my youth. A man I would go some way to avoid. It seems Mr. Fitzraven was not very particular in his choice of friends.” Harriet looked at Crowther with surprise. He seldom spoke with such passion about anything he had not recently dissected.

“I would agree,” Harwood replied evenly. “However, he is a peer, very rich, and since making his acquaintance Fitzraven reveled in the connection.” He let the queen’s chair tip back onto four legs and turned with a slight smile to Harriet. “I say this so you do not mistake Fitzraven’s devotion to this place,” a casual wave of his hand took in performers, music, audience, waves of gilt, “for a devotion to art or music. He was one of those strange hollow men. I do not think he existed in his own self at all. He was all light reflected. Sometimes from us here, sometimes from a creeping acquaintance with the great and good.”

Harriet rested her chin on the palm of her hand. “Can you tell us, sir, what were Fitzraven’s last duties for this place?”

Harwood considered. “I should imagine preparing the parts for the duet you have just heard. He readied them on Wednesday for its first rehearsal on Thursday morning.”

Crowther turned toward the manager and said very evenly, “Mr. Harwood, are you sure you have been quite frank with us about the nature of Mr. Fitzraven’s duties here?”

Winter Harwood met his look, and said with a polite inclination of the head, “Of course, Mr. Crowther.”

Jocasta was almost back at her own door again, and walking so quick that Boyo had a job of it to keep up with her, when she came to a sudden halt. He stubbed his nose on her ankle and yelped.

“I don’t want to speak of it now, Boyo,” Jocasta said. “I’m too ruffled and fretted.” She stayed where she was, though, the people passing on the pavement occasionally turning to give her a quick, sidelong stare, then moving on. She sighed and thrust her hand into another pocket under her skirts, pulling out a handful of dirty coins.

“All right then, Boyo. I will if it’ll keep you quiet. Though we must work in the morning if you want meat this week.”

Boyo smacked his lips and Jocasta turned again and made her way back toward the chophouse, jingling her money.