Anatomy of Murder

3

Jocasta didn’t go to see Kate buried, guessing that if Fred and Mrs. Mitchell caught sight of her, she’d be up in front of the magistrate before the grave was full and that he’d impose more “fines” on her than the constable had. She sent Sam and the two boys he’d fetched along with him though to keep an eye on them, and gave him some scraps of copper and a few words before he went. He’d taken Boyo with him too. The terrier liked him, and she knew he’d get fretful, shut in with her all morning.

Her time between readings she spent in contemplation, thinking over the years of her childhood between the death of the baron and her coming away. There had been a fuss about his death, and much was left to lie, that even as a child she thought should have been dug up and shook about in the air. The bad feelings, the bitterness at being ignored had rotted and poisoned a place she loved. She’d escaped as far as Kendal by means of an early hopeless marriage, then abandoned that as no way near far enough, and made her way to London. It had taken four weeks of walking, and when she set her bundle down in Charing Cross, she’d sworn never to go back up north, and never to marry again either. Marriage seemed to her just a way to find someone to lie to every day.

Sam came trotting in eventually with a pair of pies and plenty of news.

“Don’t think they noticed me at all, Mrs. Bligh.” He wiped the crumbs off his face. “Milky Boy’s twice given me money now to run about with his messages, and he still wouldn’t know me if I kicked him. For all his reading and writing, I think the fellow is daft.”

“He doesn’t see you, Sam. He just sees a child and doesn’t think to mind you.”

Sam shrugged. “Anyway, it was just the two of them and the priest, and they made quick work of it. I did as you asked. Clayton is keeping an eye on Milky Boy, and Finn’s going to follow her about. What are we going to do?”

Jocasta looked at the boy. “What age have you, Sam?”

He fed the last of his pie to Boyo and scratched the terrier’s ears. The dog licked his lips with a smack and leaned into Sam’s hand. “Don’t know, Mrs. Bligh. I went into the workhouse in Camberwell two winters past when my mom died of fever. I think I was about eight when we went in, so ten now, I suppose.”

“Know your birthday?”

He shook his head. “No. Once when Dad was red with the gin he gave me a belt round the ear and told me it was a birthday gift. That was in the spring.”

They sat in silence for a while till their food was settled. Then Jocasta got up with a grunt. Sam scrambled to his feet.

“Where we going, Mrs. Bligh? Are we going to visit the grave?”

Jocasta frowned. “What use would that be? Think she’ll leap out and tell us how it was and how to prove it?” Then, relenting: “Maybe later, lad. First we are going up to the kiln. I want to see where she fell.”

Having concluded their conversations with Manzerotti, Crowther and Harriet made their way to visit Graves at the music shop, it lying, as it did, on both their ways. They found a notice in the window informing them that all copies available of the “Yellow Rose Duet” from the opera Julius Rex had been sold, but that more would be available the following morning. Smiling to see it, Harriet pushed open the door. She found not only Graves and his assistant Jane in the little shop, but also her sister Rachel, and Lady Susan. Susan was playing the harpsichord, her first instrument, in the center of the shop while the adults around her were occupied in setting the room straight. Graves was counting the large amount of money he found in the cash box in front of him.

“Dear heavens!” Harriet exclaimed, looking around her. “Have the musicians of London been rioting?”

Lady Susan looked up from the keyboard and grinned. “Mrs. Westerman! Can you believe it? There was such a crowd here, Graves had to send to the house for Alice and Cecily to help. So Rachel asked Mrs. Service if we might come along and see, and she said yes, so we came here and I played, then you wouldn’t believe it but Miss Marin herself came in and we sang together and everyone was very nice!”

“You play and sing beautifully, my dear-I am not surprised they were nice,” Harriet said.

Rachel sighed. “It was remarkable, Harriet. Miss Marin sang some selections from the Ranglegh songbook too, and I do not think there is another copy left of that here either.” She turned to curtsy to Crowther. “I think my sister might have enjoyed the sight, had she not been out chasing murderers while we enjoy these lesser excitements, but I think Mr. Crowther would have disliked the crush.”

Crowther failed to repress a shudder.

“How interesting that Mademoiselle Marin happened past,” Harriet said, choosing to ignore Rachel’s other remark, and wandered over to the counter to at the few remaining songbooks on display.

Graves’s lips thinned a little as he commented, “I do not think it was an accident. I am sure she planned the whole thing very neatly, and there was a man I recognized here from the London Advertiser. He was not buying music. I should not be at all surprised if we read of this in the paper tomorrow morning. I am sure there will be mention that Susan was playing here. I should not have let her perform.”

Lady Susan had abandoned her place at the keyboard and come over to join them. Mrs. Westerman put her arm around the young girl’s shoulders.

“I did not ask you first, Graves,” the girl said kindly. “And you were too busy to stop me.” Her guardian continued to look guilty. “They will call me ‘tragic Lady Susan’ again, won’t they? And talk about how Papa died here.” She looked at the space in the middle of the room where she had cradled her father as he bled to death. Her look was sad, but not horrified. Harriet remembered a midshipman who had lost his arm under her husband’s command. He had been up in the rigging again within a month: the capacity of the young to heal was remarkable. She did not reply, merely stooped and kissed the top of her head. Susan looked back up. “But I wanted to play, and I had many happy times here with Papa, too. And all the concerts he used to have here.” The memory brightened her.

Graves continued his attempts to reckon up his money. “It is not really fitting, Susan.”

“Pah! Papa often had me play to his customers.”

“You were not Lady Susan Thornleigh then, my love,” Graves reminded her.

“Pah again! I was. It was just we didn’t know it, is all.” She sighed very deeply. “I wish Miss Chase had been here to hear it.”

At this remark, Graves seemed to lose his place in his numbers for a moment.

“Do stop saying ‘pah,’ Susan,” he said stiffly. “If we cannot make you behave in a manner fitting to your rank, at least make some effort to speak like a lady!”

Having said this, he turned his back and Harriet found the little girl looking up at her dismayed. She gave a half-shrug and a small smile and Susan looked down at the ground ashamed.

The music shop sold a variety of scores and songbooks, most of which were engraved in the workshop that took up most of the yard behind the house. There, Lord Sussex and Lady Susan’s father had worked with copperplates, hammers, scrapers, punches and press to record and disseminate the music of London’s composers and players, having chosen independence over fortune and rank. Now the room was the kingdom of a Mr. Oxford Crumley; a taciturn gentleman without wife or family who had arrived in response to Graves’s advertisement for an engraver of music. He took up residence above the shop, nodded over the tools provided, had Graves arrange an apprentice for him, and settled down to work without further comment. Graves had as yet learned little of him other than he was more than proficient at his work, sober in his habits and showed his much younger master a friendly respect for which Graves was very grateful.

When Harriet had been introduced to Mr. Crumley, soon after her arrival in London, she had remarked to Crowther: “He is rather like you, I think. He sits all day in a single room surrounded by strange metal tools, so fixed on his art that the place could burn down around him before he even noticed the heat. However, his trade has its advantages. He ends his day covered only in ink.”

Crowther had not replied, but only continued to read his newspaper.

Mr. Oxford Crumley now hovered in the doorway to the parlor and back rooms of the shop. He nodded to Harriet and Crowther then made his way to the counter and Graves, and without a word pushed a song sheet toward that gentleman. Graves glanced at it, then smiled broadly.

“Susan, Mrs. Westerman, Mr. Crowther, do come and see this.” Graves turned the sheet toward them, and Susan clapped her hands together with a little shriek. Mr. Crumley’s work was worthy of her applause. It was the music for the “Yellow Rose Duet,” but rather than a plain statement of the notes such as the shop had been selling that morning, this had a frontispiece of a full-blown rose curled as it might be on a coat of arms, and framed by the profiles of Isabella and Manzerotti. The work was finely done. Mr. Crumley saw they were properly impressed and almost smiled into his cravat.

“I was at work at it last night, and in the day, but have only just had the time to finish it, Mr. Graves. Might it do?”

Graves reached out a hand and rested it on the older man’s shoulder, still admiring the paper in his hand.

“Very well, Mr. Crumley. I had been wondering how many more copies we could possibly sell, especially as every back room in Town will be trying to copy and produce their own versions as we speak, but this will draw them in. You have caught Miss Marin’s likeness very well. I did not know you saw her before today, or Manzerotti for that matter.”

Mr. Crumley shrugged his shoulders. “Neither I had, but the boy was in the pit on Saturday night and I got him to describe them both as I drew.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder to where his apprentice skulked, inky and shy in the doorway. Susan waved at him cheerily. He blushed to his ears and withdrew. “It’s a little like riding blind, but once you get the idea of which questions to ask, it’s no great thing. Though I was glad when I glanced in earlier to see that Miss Marin at least was a match.”

Harriet beamed at the paper in front of her. “You have Manzerotti to the life as well.”

Crowther spoke for the first time since entering the shop. “I must leave you to the admiration of Mr. Crumley’s artistry. I have an appointment at the British Museum.”

Harriet handed the song sheet back to Graves. “And I am to go to the Foundling Hospital and meet Mr. Fitzraven’s most recent patron. I hope for the sake of his soul I shall find one being in London who will speak well of him.”

Graves placed the sheet on the countertop. “As do I, though the hope is not strong, Mrs. Westerman.”