Anatomy of Murder

6

Jocasta came to a stop and Molloy continued chewing down on his scrag end of boiled meat for so long, she thought he was never going to come to speaking at all. Sam sat close to Jocasta.

“You know there was murder done at His Majesty’s last night?” Molloy said at last, gave a loud belch and fitted his pipe back into his mouth.

She nodded. “A lass, and her lover slashed his wrists is what I’ve heard.”

Molloy folded his arms together and looked mean at her.

“So it is said-and Christ, how London loves it! I saw three women out on their morning ride with yellow roses in their hair, and two fellas all lace and lavender with red ribbons on their wrists. Stupid fuckers. If they knew how a body felt they’d be less likely to make a romance of it.”

Jocasta shrugged. “Let them do as they will. You’re just fractious you aren’t the man selling flowers this morning. You say it’s all bound up?”

“This little troop of loveliness you’ve thrown a rock at, Mrs. Bligh, have killed two lads and a woman. Why should killing more trouble them?”

“Maybe.”

Molloy paid some attention to his pipe till he was hidden in billows and dances of smoke. “You are a singular woman, Mrs. Bligh, and noted for walking alone. Given I know that, and you know that, will you be guided by me?”

She put her elbows on the table. “That’s dependent which way you are shoving, Molloy.”

“Good enough. Ripley’s right. You need a navy man, but one that’s worth trusting. There’s a few on the river that used to serve. We’ll go and have a chat. And we’re going to let news of the killings spread. No one takes a liking to men that pick off kiddies for sport. Maybe it’ll all come apart easy. But it’s good to have some angry friends at hand if the knot tightens the other way.” He switched his attention to Sam and pointed his pipe at him. “And you, fella, are going up to those kilns.”

Sam found reason to pick up Boyo and hold him. The dog licked his face. “Why so, Mr. Molloy?” He threw a nervous glance Jocasta’s way, and she caught and held it.

“Because, boy,” Molloy continued, “I reckon if you spend some time up there you’re going to find someone that saw something on Sunday when Blondie got herself killed. If your mistress weren’t so used to looking to cards or her own wise self for answers, she’d have thought of that before now.”

Sam opened his mouth, then shut it up.

“The lad can come with us, Molloy,” Jocasta said.

“You scared?” Molloy kept his eyes on Sam.

“Course he’s afraid. He had two of his mates picked off.”

Molloy ignored Jocasta and leaned toward Sam across the table. “When does Tonton Macoute hunt, boy?”

“Night, sir.”

“And what is it now, boy?”

“Day, sir.”

Molloy looked impressed and gave a slow nod, then reached into his waistcoat. There was a flick of his wrist and Sam found himself looking at a folded blade that spun across the table toward him. It had a bone handle, yellow with age and handling. He set down Boyo, but made no move to pick it up.

“You can take that from me, and the dog from Mrs. Bligh. Go. Come back before it gets dark and meet me or her here. Tell Sarah at the bar you’ve got Molloy’s word to pay with, and then stay and wait if you must.”

“Shall I, Mrs. Bligh?”

“If you’re willing, lad.” Sam nodded and took up the knife. He tucked it in his waistband, whistled to Boyo and left the room. Jocasta watched them go. “Ten years I’ve fed that dog. He never even looks back.”

“Ha! He goes where he’s needed.”

“What you give him the knife for? He’s no notion of the use of it.”

“Bit of steel in the pocket, bit of steel in his spine.”

Jocasta turned back to Molloy and watched his dry, cracked face.

“What’s this to you, Molloy? Why you being so helpful when there’s no profit in it?”

He let the smoke slip out of the side of his mouth, till it wavered thin like a last breath. “Maybe there will be. I’ve learned to take a long view in these days. But as much. . I’ve got two boys and a little girl. Eldest wants to get on a boat, younger one is fool enough to like a red coat. The girl I’ll marry to a shopkeeper and get her to tend me in my glorious age. As for the lads, bombs and bullets they’ll have to deal with themselves for their foolishness in choosing so unprofitable a career. But I’ll not have their throats cut by an ink-stained murderous clerk and his bitch mother, nor any fucker who goes round slicing up little kids to feed the Frenchies our news.”

He stood and pulled his cloak around him. Jocasta sat where she was and looked at him with her head on one side.

“Molloy, you tight thieving squeezing crack-faced dog. You’re a patriot!”

“I used to mark you as a woman of few words, and liked you for it. Now you’re running on like a wife. You going to sit there yapping or follow me to where there’s business to be done?”

Jocasta heaved herself upright.

As soon as Harriet reached Berkeley Square she summoned Mrs. Martin to her room.

“Yes, madam?”

“Mrs. Martin, I wanted to thank you for your tact and help when I returned here last night.”

The housekeeper folded her hands in front of her and gave a quiet nod.

Harriet had wanted nothing more on returning home than to kiss her children and her sister at once, when this woman, waiting half the night in the hallway to do her any service she required, had gently drawn her attention to the blood all over her gown and hands. She had guided Mrs. Westerman to her room, undressed her and wiped the last traces of it from her palms while Mrs. Westerman stared into the candlelight and wept. Then, red-eyed but calm, Harriet had visited her sister and children and seen them safe more like a woman than some devil escaping hell.

“It must have been horrid, madam.”

Harriet thought of Isabella’s body lying across Morgan’s knees. “Yes. It was. The stomach wound had bled a great deal.”

After a short silence Mrs. Martin spoke again. “May I ask how the captain is, madam?”

Harriet put her hand to her neck, and pushed some thread of hair away from her cheek. She had spoken at length to Dr. Trevelyan about the little scene with James and the model boat. The doctor had been encouraging, and thought it interesting that the model boat seemed to have shaken loose some memory, but was cautious as always about James’s prospects of recovery. Telling Trevelyan the history of Mr. Leacroft, Bywater and Isabella had been more difficult. The horror and cost of it had reared up again before her in the shock written on Trevelyan’s usually calm face. She allowed herself to remember the pressure of her husband’s embrace for a moment, the warmth of the breath on her neck as he said her name, and she touched her throat with her fingertips.

“Much the same, Mrs. Martin. Now I have a favor to ask you.”

“Anything, madam.” The housekeeper straightened up and smiled willingly at her. She seemed to be one of those people with the good sense to put down an unpleasant thought and move away from it, treating it as one would a dog of suspicious temper. “Since you came it’s been made clear to us that a word from you is as good as one from Mrs. Service or Mr. Graves.”

“Thank you. But this is not something I can order you to do.” Harriet turned to her and spoke with a slightly brittle brightness. “I wish to borrow some clothes from you, then have you come with me to Lord Carmichael’s house.”

The woman lost her smile, looked a little stunned and gave a mumbling assent, then turned to leave the room. Her hand on the doorknob, however, she seemed to reconsider and turned back toward Harriet.

“May I speak my mind, madam?”

Harriet kept the bright tone as if she might win her point by sheer good humor. “Do, Mrs. Martin.”

“I mean no disrespect, madam, but I think you have in mind to pass for a servant and get into conversation with Lord Carmichael’s household. I need to tell you, I don’t think you’ll pass, madam. Not even if you dress in rags.”

Harriet frowned. “You think I cannot adopt the proper tone?”

“I think you have no notion of the manner of it, madam. How could you? And if you wish to talk to the people there, I know a better way. The beau of Susanna, maid at the house on the opposite side of the Square, he’s a footman at Lord Carmichael’s, and there would be nothing strange about me popping in to give him some message or other on my way to elsewhere.”

Harriet thought at first to protest, but something in the calm certainty of the young woman made her falter. Instead she said: “What is your suggestion?”

“You and I can go in the carriage together. Drop me a little out of the way and I’ll swear if it can be done, I’ll come back with what you need. Now how’s that, Mrs. Westerman? And no need for you to be seen playing at being a servant as if it’s a holiday.”

“It is a better idea, Mrs. Martin.” Harriet hesitated. “I hope I did not insult you with my request.”

The woman paused. “I am not in a position to take offense, madam. You are as good a mistress as many and better than most, I think. But your feet don’t touch the ground in London much between carriage, chair and porch, do they? That restricts your knowing.” She folded her hands in front of her again, and became once more the model of an efficient servant to her house, as if the hand of some deity had passed across her face and masked her from the world. “You’ll wish to be leaving now, madam? I’ll have Slater fetch the carriage round.”

Harriet nodded and looked down at the hem of her dress. It was perfectly clean and colored pale. In the country she could never manage more than half a day without kicking up mud and dust and tearing the thin fabrics on brambles as she went about her estate. How much easier it was to keep decent in Town, for all the blood she walked through.

The river was as crazed with noise and traffic as the Strand. Dozens of wherries with an oarsman or two and little nests of passengers in the stern rowed back and forth across the water. The men held their hats in place and tried to look at ease, while the women pulled their skirts tight around their ankles to keep them out of the wet. Along the river, great merchant ships waited to unload their goods or see to their provisioning, making the Thames a winter forest of masts and ropes.

Jocasta and Molloy went along the banks as best they could, each stopping and talking with whomever they could hold onto by the arm for enough time to get a word and a story out. The faces of those they spoke to looked grim and angry, then like as not they shook their heads and carried on. It took hours, and Jocasta was ready to curse Molloy for a fool and wring the neck of the next fella who pointed to the ships-as if a merchant seaman would do her any good-till a youngish man who wore, with a swagger, a neater coat than most, said, when his head shaking and teeth sucking was done, “Try that way, if that’s your liking, mate. If I hear Proctor tell me one more time about the great heroes of the sea he’s served with, I’ll break my oar over his back. You’ll find him down along by the by the Black Lyon Stairs-works there with his nephew, Jackson.”

Jocasta twitched Molloy over with her finger. In turning, he slipped a little in the mud and snapped at the man who steadied his arm.

“We have a beginning,” she said.

“At last,” Molloy grumbled, with a bitter and bitten look. “Though they would point us back all the way we’ve come and a step more. I don’t like water. Never have. I was built to travel on land.”

“I’m of your mind. And the bank stinks worse than the Shambles. Our way lies along it though, so watch your step or the river gods will grab you and drag you down to drown you.”

Harriet was feeling rather content with herself by the time she and Mrs. Martin had returned to Berkeley Square. Mrs. Martin had been greeted as a celebrity in Lord Carmichael’s kitchen, bringing as she did selected gossip of Crowther and Mrs. Westerman’s investigations. She had been there a good while and was a little apologetic on returning to her seat in the carriage.

After relating what she had learned, she added quietly, “I am sorry, ma’am, but I did speak of you coming home last night with Miss Marin’s blood on your dress. It is the sort of picture the cook there reads all the true confessions of Newgate for, and it turned her most confiding.”

Harriet immediately reassured her. “Mrs. Martin, you have been wonderful, and I have no argument with you.”

They carried on together to the workshop of a Mr. Prothero as a result of the information Mrs. Martin had won from the household, and the little shock of Mrs. Martin’s earlier reprimand was salved by Harriet’s own performance as a rich and chatty wife. When the carriage steps were let down in Berkeley Square again therefore, Harriet was most satisfied.

She was keen to share what she had learned, and it was not until she was opening the door to the library that she remembered she was very angry with Crowther. He was standing in front of the fire when she came in, leaning more heavily than usual on his cane. He turned toward her, his expression uncertain. She paused on the threshold.

“Mr. Crowther, do you admit that you are at times a cruel and vicious-tempered cur?”

He bowed toward her. “I cannot do otherwise. Mrs. Westerman, I have been trying at various points throughout this long morning to think how I can apologize for my words.”

“Have you indeed? That must have been very unsettling for you.”

“It was.”

Harriet entered the room and closed the door behind her. There was a silence.

“It would appear nothing appropriate occurred to you,” she said finally.

“I fear not.”

Harriet opened her mouth to protest, then, seeing Crowther looking up at her hopefully, found herself surprised into laughter.

“You are beyond hope, Crowther! Though Lord knows, your manners have never given much cause for optimism.”

He nodded his agreement and shifted his weight off his cane. Those intimately acquainted with him might have noticed a look of relief and satisfaction cross his face in a breeze, but Harriet was too eager to share her findings of the day to take particular note, and not another being in London would have seen it.

“Lord Carmichael had a fair amount of work done on his study a little under a month ago, Crowther.”

“Indeed? That is of interest.” Crowther took a seat in the armchair that had by custom become regarded as his own. “How did you discover this, Mrs. Westerman?”

Harriet looked uncomfortable and began to walk her usual route back and forth in front of the fireplace. “I have to admit my first plan was to dress rather more simply and go and present myself at the kitchen door and ask for work and generally get into conversation. However, Mrs. Martin convinced me that any London servant would know me as a fraud at once. So I left that end of the business with her.”

Crowther raised his eyebrows. “Remarkable. After what you told me this morning, I believe that means you have listened to that young woman’s advice now twice in the space of a few hours. It seems she is unique in the household.”

Harriet frowned at him and he looked innocently up into the air. She continued: “I then visited Mr. Prothero, who coordinated the works for Carmichael, under the guise of possibly employing him myself. I laid emphasis on the fact that my dear husband has fears of security in London, and he informed me that he had recently built a number of secret compartments into the study of ‘a certain gentleman of rank’ to conceal particular items from casual thieves or safe breakers. He spent a long time admiring my husband’s foresight, which was a little wearing. But I believe Mr. Palmer would be very interested to hear of his work, do you not think?”

“I do,” Crowther replied. “The study, you say?”

“Indeed. Mrs. Martin learned that the household were not allowed in the room until the works were complete. Mr. Prothero, however, spoke of how his workers created two concealed spaces ‘convenient for the storage of papers or jewels,’ behind some Latin texts, and behind a false front of a marbled fireplace.”

“Mr. Palmer will, no doubt, be grateful for the specifics.”

“Yes. I feel Mrs. Martin and I have done the work of a squadron against the French today.” Crowther noticed a certain degree of self-satisfaction in Harriet’s face, but as her mind moved on, it slipped away and her expression became serious again. “Also, I think Isabella knew rather more of her father’s involvement with some unsavory business than she was willing to tell us at first.” Drawing Isabella’s last letter from her pocket, Harriet handed it to him before seating herself opposite. Crowther rested his cane against his thigh to take it and read for a few moments in silence.

“I come to you having examined her body,” he said. “I wish she had thought to share this with us before.”

Harriet’s mood darkened a little further. “I must take my portion of blame for that, I fear. Perhaps she expected me to read these letters in a more timely fashion, and unpack her concerns on my prompting. Did you learn anything more from her poor self?”

Crowther shook his head. “Nothing but that she died far too young and in the full bloom of health. Though I had some thoughts as to the shape and form of the knife used. It is consistent with that used on Bywater’s thigh. Speaking of his body, I believe the damage to the femoral artery was given when he was already in the water. A sort of coup de grace.”

“And the wounds on his wrists?”

“They could easily have been made with the same instrument. But the wound on the thigh gives a better indication of the size and shape of the blade; it matches the wound over Miss Marin’s heart quite precisely.” He set the letter down on the table beside him. “To complete my report, I note there were no marks of attempt on the wrists, and the cut was made along, not across the radial arteries.” He glanced up and caught her look. “Most suicides who use a knife, at least those I have examined, make lighter cuts at first before learning what proper pressure is needful, and while they summon their courage. It is also more common in my experience that they cut across the wrists. The blows that killed Bywater were unhesitating and accurate.”

They were both quiet a little while, before Harriet said softly, “We are convinced that Bywater killed Fitzraven.”

“I am sure of it. I do not think that line he wrote could have any other meaning. But I remember what he said to me that afternoon in the British Museum-that he did not put him in the river.”

Harriet sat down and put her chin in her hand, the better to listen. “Tell me a story, Crowther. What could have happened here?”

He picked up the cane again and began to turn it between his palms. “Firstly, I believe that Fitzraven hinted to Bywater that he knew the secret of his inspiration. That meant Bywater went to Fitzraven’s room to find the extent of his knowledge and his intentions. Fitzraven named a price for his silence that was too high, or else used his knowledge to vaunt himself over the young man. Passions ran high. I would be surprised if Bywater went there with the intention to kill. The room told the story of an argument. There were some bruises just fading round Bywater’s wrists.”

Without standing, Harriet crossed her thumbs, trying a stranglehold in the air. Crowther set his cane aside long enough to lift his own hands, curled, in front of his throat as if to resist a throttling ghost. Harriet nodded and sighed and touched the hair at the nape of her neck.

Crowther continued: “I believe that later that day, one of Fitzraven’s associates in the pay of the French came to see him and, finding him dead and fearing Fitzraven’s death might expose him to more scrutiny than he wished, he cleared the place of anything that might implicate him, and disposed of his body-hoping for the case of a disappearance rather than a murder.”

“Very well,” said Harriet, returning her chin to her palm and beginning to rap at her skirts with her free hand. “So why not just be still thereafter? Why the murders of Bywater and Miss Marin?”

He looked at her silently, and watched as a light of comprehension crossed her face, and, crashing after it like wind behind the rain, a sort of horror that dulled her green eyes. She sat up straight.

“Oh, Crowther! Did we cause this by our involvement?”

“I do not know, Mrs. Westerman. But suppose you are the man who disposed of Fitzraven and you see that the investigation into his death is pointing toward Mr. Bywater. Further suppose that you suspect that Miss Marin knows something more than she should of your activities. I would not be at all surprised if Miss Marin, in her rather distracted state after her visit to Mr. Leacroft, betrayed both facts, unwittingly or not, to those who might have been watching her. .”

Harriet spoke slowly, letting the thoughts unfurl even as they moved across her lips into the receiving air between them. “You decide it is safer for your enterprise that Bywater should kill himself rather than be subject to arrest and trial, and arrange it so. An admission of guilt, and no living man to say that he neither disposed of the body nor took anything from Fitzraven’s room.”

Crowther began to spin the cane again; it gave a soft regular thrupp across the fibers. He carried on her thought as if it had been his own. “In the process, you learn that Miss Marin has arranged to meet him in the scene room.”

“The second bird flies into your hand.”

“Indeed, Mrs. Westerman. And we see how readily the law, at least in the figure of Mr. Justice Pither, is convinced everything is neatly tied.”

Harriet stood and walked over to the window, where the daylight was already beginning to weaken. She wrapped her arms around herself and swung from side to side. A neat little curricle went barreling past, containing a party of young people laughing and urging the flush-faced young man driving to increase his speed.

“Crowther, this is a bold and bloody mind! Is Carmichael man enough to do such a thing?”

“Perhaps, but I have always thought him a sneaking sort of beast-one well-versed in secrecy and covert business-but this smacks of a decisive forward stepping intelligence I do not see in him. Am I right in assuming you think Harwood guilty of no more than a sharp nose for business?”

“That is so. His distress last night was palpable. I believe he loves his opera house. Beyond his human sympathy for Miss Marin and Bywater, I think the scandal washing over his place of business was horrible to him.”

“I would agree, so I must look around the place for another figure of authority, a man ready with his knife. .”

The door swung suddenly open and Stephen stumbled into the room, followed by Lady Susan, who was laughing and telling him to wait. Harriet turned around with a frown.

“What is it, young man?”

“Sorry, Mama. I just had to say, I sang Papa’s tune to Susan and she knows what it is.”

Harriet sighed and smiling, turned to Crowther. “Forgive me, Crowther. James was troubled by a returning melody this morning during our visit. Perhaps knowing the name of it will give him some relief.” Then, getting up from her seat and crouching to be on a level with Stephen, she prompted, “Tell me then, my dear.”

It was Susan who answered. “It’s just funny, Mrs. Westerman, because it is the same tune that Mr. Crowther sent over very early this morning on the scrap of paper. It is ‘Sia fatta la pace,’ Manzerotti’s favorite aria.”

Crowther’s cane came to a sudden stop. “I sent some of the manuscript from Lord Carmichael’s study, but it was untitled. Is that what it is, Lady Susan?”

“Yes, sir. But Mrs. Westerman, I am surprised you did not know it yourself when the captain sang it to you. Did you not hear it last night? It is his last aria.”

Harriet swallowed and answered calmly, “There was no third act last night, Susan.”

The young girl blushed and looked down. “Of course-Miss Marin. I am stupid-I forgot. She was so lovely.”

Crowther stood and walked over to her, setting his cane very firmly in the space between them. “Lady Susan, can you explain to me exactly to what degree are the aria and the man interlinked.”

Susan considered carefully. “As near as they can be, sir. I do not think anyone who knows any music thinks of Manzerotti without hearing that tune, and no one hears that tune without thinking of Manzerotti. It has been popular here some time, and always with the notation that it is as sung by him.”

She looked nervous. “Did we do right to come and tell you?”

Harriet put out her arms and hugged both the children to her, briefly and fiercely.

“Very right,” she said. “Very right.”

They had neither of them noticed that Susan was carrying a neat roll of papers in her hand.

“Oh, and here,” she said, holding them out with a slight blush of pleasure. “Mr. Crumley and I have finished the pictures.”

As soon as the children had been sent back out of the library, Harriet stumbled through a more detailed account of that morning’s visit with James and his play with the boat.

“The song came to him as he spoke about the Frenchman in the sick bay. He said. . he said. . Oh, Crowther, I think my husband may have tortured that man to get that song from him!”

Crowther did not look at her. “It was a hard engagement, I think, was it not?”

When Crowther looked up he saw there were tears in her eyes and she was biting her lip. “Indeed, the French captain struck their colors, then fired again. Only when he was killed did they surrender. When James’s first lieutenant spoke to me, he was still so enraged by it he shook.” She was looking at him with a desperate sort of appeal in her eyes. Crowther would have been glad to tell her he thought it impossible that James would have resorted to abusing a prisoner in his care, that whatever the battle or the stakes involved he would have behaved righteously, but though he hardly knew Captain Westerman at all, he knew something of men. He offered her the only comfort he could.

“I am sure Captain Westerman thought only to serve his country.”

Harriet choked slightly and put her hand over her mouth.

“Mrs. Westerman, we must make use of these pictures.”