Anatomy of Murder

5

Before they left Great Swallow Street Harriet and Crowther had also taken the time to knock up the other lodgers present and found that even with the thin walls and close quarters of the building, no one had heard or seen anything out of the ordinary on Thursday. Various people had heard footsteps on the stairs, but no one had noticed any altercation, nor had seen someone leaving with a body wrapped in a hearth rug over their shoulder in the early hours. Crowther was not surprised, saying simply that if they had done, it was likely they would have mentioned it before now. The lodger they had most wished to speak to, however, had not answered their knock. This was the gentleman who had his lodgings at the rear of the first floor, directly under those of Fitzraven. He was away from home, though Mrs. Girdle was sure he had been present on Thursday afternoon. The young man was apparently living on an allowance from his parents, and attempting to find some position in London from his base in Great Swallow Street. His name was given to them as Tobias Tompkins, so Crowther and Harriet wrote a note asking him to call on them in Berkeley Square in the evening, and hoped that the impressive address might tempt him into making their acquaintance.

They did not return immediately to Graves’s home, however. Crowther, as they rejoined the carriage, instead asked the driver to take them to Somerset House. When he settled back in his seat he realized Harriet was looking at him with her eyebrows raised.

“I have an acquaintance, Mrs. Westerman, who I know will be making use of the Royal Society’s library today. He is an expert in matters dental.” He reached into the pocket of his coat and produced a small silk bag. He pulled the string loose and shook out Fitzraven’s false teeth into his palm.

“Good God, Crowther! Have you been carrying those things with you all day?”

He looked at her with mild innocence. “Does this concern you, Mrs. Westerman?”

Harriet folded her arms as the coach rattled through the muck of the street. “I am only glad I did not know you had them earlier. I do not think I could have listened to poor Miss Marin’s account of her struggles with an easy mind, had I known you were sitting there with her father’s teeth in your pocket!”

Crowther did not seem discomfited, but lifted the teeth to the level of his eyes and clacked them together. “Indeed, it was an affecting tale.”

Harriet raised her eyebrows. “You do not believe it?”

“It is not that, Mrs. Westerman,” he said with some hesitation. “Only I am surprised she was so eager to know Mr. Fitzraven. I heard her reasons, of course, but she had a powerful motive for revenge. The man mistreated her mother quite horribly, for one thing, and for another he knew that her official biography is a lie. He could have turned her from the feted star of the season into a laughingstock.”

“I liked her.”

“That is charming, Mrs. Westerman, and so did I, but it is not evidence. Fitzraven’s accounts indicate that he was receiving money from someone recently arrived in London. She would seem a likely candidate. We may well find that he died because of some treachery more minor than Mr. Palmer thinks.”

“You may have your suspicions, but I cannot think Isabella likely to throttle a man, then hurl him in the river. Now, please do put those horrible teeth away.”

Crowther slipped the teeth back into the bag without protest. “Yes, I believe that women, when they turn murderess, more often use poison. And seldom tidy up.”

Harriet settled into her corner and turned her head to look out of the window as they turned off Oxford Street. There was some sort of commotion on the road beside them-an open cart with a man and older woman sat up in the back. The woman had her arm around the man’s shoulders, which were shaking with sobs. Harriet recognized them as two members of the little walking party they had seen passing earlier in the day.

She looked down into the back of the cart as they passed. There was the third, the pretty blond woman. Her husband was holding her in his lap and rocking her back and forth. Her arm hung loose by her side. As their coachman waited to negotiate a way through, a man in a dirty coat emerged from the barber-surgeon’s where the cart was stopped. He climbed up in the back in a rush and felt for the woman’s pulse.

Harriet craned around as the coach worked itself free and held the picture in sight long enough to see the man shake his head and pat the younger man awkwardly on the shoulder. The cart driver crossed himself. Then they turned the corner and the sight was lost.

Harriet leaned out of the window and shouted up to the driver “Slater! What was all that?”

The man sucked his teeth and half-twisted to shout back without taking his eyes from the traffic in front of them.

“Accident, ma’am. Young woman slipped and fell, up by the brick kilns. Stove her head in.”

Harriet retreated into the carriage again and met Crowther’s inquiring eye.

“What is it, Mrs. Westerman?”

“Nothing of significance, Crowther. Some other little tragedy.”