Anatomy of Murder

7

Jocasta liked the look of Proctor as soon as she laid eyes on him. He was taking shelter from the weather in a lean-to close to the Stairs, smoking his pipe with concentration and knocking the ashes out on his stool from time to time as they approached. He saw them coming and kept them under steady observation, then, having heard all they were ready to say, called out to a much younger man who was still jostling for trade across the river farther down the Stairs.

He asked them to repeat what they had just said in the younger man’s hearing. They did so. Then he stroked at his massive beard a while, ending by giving it a good hard tug as if his hand was trying to pull his mouth open and get the words out by main force.

“Man I’d want to see in your shoes is an old captain of mine. Not that he’s old himself, and he’s in London now, which few of the good ones are, what with the Frenchies and the Americans getting all roused.”

He went quiet again. Jocasta was content to wait him out, but Molloy was getting pulled out of shape with the stopping and retelling.

“Why don’t you name him then?” he said, with a narrowing of his eyes.

Proctor knocked out his ash again. “Poor bloke got hit on the head, and he’s gone kind of simple now, it’s said. So I hesitate to trouble him with you.” He cast an eye toward the younger man at his side. “Jackson, I called you here to answer a question, and the question you must answer is this: what do you reckon to handing out his wife’s name? She’s a smart woman and her husband was known and liked enough, so she’ll know a face or two at the Admiralty.”

Jackson lifted his hand to stroke where someday his own beard might grow. “Pither had her in to look at the body, didn’t he? And she didn’t look a fool to me. Her, or that bloke she had with her.”

“What body?” said Molloy with quick interest.

“We found a man.” Proctor pointed into the middle of the river with his pipe. “He was drowned but tethered. Heard him named as Fitzraven, someone from His Majesty’s, is the talk.”

“And this lady came to look at the body? Nice entertainment,” Jocasta said.

“Not sure as it was for a pleasure. She seemed to have some concerns with the business.”

Jocasta folded her arms across her chest. “The opera house? Seems to me this is the lady we need to have words with.”

Proctor and Jackson looked at each other for a long moment, till Proctor turned back toward them and, like a barreled mirror of Jocasta, crossed his arms as well.

“I can’t tell you where she stays at,” Proctor said, “but her name is Westerman, and the fella she had with her was called Crowther. That help you?”

Molloy looked a little confused and wondering for a second, then began to laugh. He let out a “Ha!” Then another one. Proctor frowned deeply, and Jackson crossed his arms as well, looking dark.

“I do not take it kindly, sir,” Proctor said in a low rumble, “that you see that name as an occasion for mirth.”

Molloy wiped his eyes and held up his hands as if to protest. “No lack of respect, Mr. Proctor. None at all.” Then he straightened up, slapping his hand on his thigh. “Never met her, but know her. Know Mr. Crowther too! Never met him neither, but I know him. Know where her friends are!” He turned around to Mrs. Bligh, his grin showing off his three remaining teeth like tombstones set in front of a cave. “What you say to that, Mrs. Bligh?” He shut his mouth and his laughter dropped away like a lock emptying. “What’s up, lady? Seeing ghosts again?”

Jocasta’s mouth was dry as slate in summer. “That’s it. That’s the name.”

“What name?”

“The sailor they had their eye on to do harm. Westerman.”

Molloy grew serious. “It all bundles up together now, don’t it? When you said a sailor was in trouble I thought you meant some bow-legged fool who had staggered in the wrong direction searching out his grog. This is a matter of a different stripe.” He rubbed his nose. “For one thing, they are rich and inclined to be grateful. We need to find our way to Tichfield Street, and smartly so.”

Proctor had stood; his face was red and his beard seemed to stand out from his chin.

“What can be done?”

“Clode! Lord, as I live, Daniel Clode! What-has Sussex run dry of lawyerly business for you?”

Graves had burst out of the back of the shop with long strides as soon as he heard his friend’s voice inquire for him, and now destroyed the space between them in a moment, throwing his arms around Daniel’s shoulders and slapping him so hard on the back, it would have wounded a lesser man.

“Graves! I thought I’d find you here. Let me go, man, I’m stinking with the road. I’m just this moment out of the stagecoach and seeing the hour, thought it better to call here rather than at Berkeley Square.”

Graves stood back and looked at his friend as if he were a miracle walking. Clode was a remarkably handsome man with large brown eyes and a face that seemed sculpted more than grown. If he knew what advantages nature had given him in this way, he never showed any sign of it though. Graves had never seen him respond to any of the soft feminine looks cast openly upon him, unless they came from the eyes of Miss Rachel Trench. A look from her was worth the compliments and favors of all other women, it seemed.

“But why are you here? Why no notice of your coming? Is there some problem at Thornleigh Hall?”

Clode looked a little shy. “No, everything is in order in Sussex, and the rebuilding progresses. I was summoned here by Miss Trench and by young Lady Susan. They seemed to believe you might wish to negotiate the purchase of this shop from Lord Sussex’s estate. And I am here to see you do not rob yourself or your future father-in-law too far for the children’s sake.”

Graves looked sorry for a moment, then laughed. “Lord, I am plotted against on every side. Everyone insists I should be happy. But I am very glad to see you, coconspirator that you are.”

“Miss Trench said something in her note about her sister and a murder?”

Graves shrugged and turned to a pile of scores on the counter. They were the latest edition of the “Yellow Rose Duet.” On the title page of each, the name Bywater had been crossed out by hand, and replaced with Composition of a certain Gentleman.

Giving up on ever getting the corners square, Graves spoke over his shoulder. “Yes, Mrs. Westerman and Crowther surround us with bodies and horrors again. I can see why Miss Trench might have some need of your support, as well as wishing to see Miss Chase and I properly bound up and established. I do not see what drives them. . There must be something more to the case, as I cannot think with the captain so ill, Mrs. Westerman would involve herself in such a business for mere amusement.”

Clode smiled, showing an almost unnatural number of good teeth. “Be comforted, Graves. Mrs. Westerman would not do such things without an excellent reason.”

Graves turned back to him and folded his arms. “You are too trusting a person to be a solicitor, Clode. I fear for the children’s fortunes in your hands. But perhaps you are right. You will be a breeze of good sense and clean air among us.”

Clode made a sharp bow, clicking the heels of his boots together as he did, then said more gently, “But what of the captain, Owen? Has he improved?”

Graves sighed and wiped his hand across his brow. “The improvement is slight, but steady. I understand from Stephen that he was both calm and affectionate in his manner this morning, if still rather erratic or childlike in his speech.”

His friend stepped forward and put a hand on Graves’s elbow. “Then I’d say the improvement was considerable.”

Graves looked into his friend’s open face above him, saying, “Was it very bad when he first came home, Daniel?”

Clode nodded and turned away a little before replying. “Past endurance. He was vicious, hardly rational, horribly demanding and dangerous when thwarted. Mrs. Westerman and Miss Trench had so longed for him to return, but when he did it was dreadful. Lord, Owen! If Crowther had not found Trevelyan, it might have become necessary to intervene to keep the children and ladies safe. Did you know their footman and groom at Caveley had twice to forcibly lock their master in his chamber to save Mrs. Westerman’s neck? These are men who had served with him, who had entrusted their lives to him, now forced to confine him in his own home. Equally I saw him at moments when he was no more than a little strange, but still friendly, affectionate to his children. Stephen, however, I think he must have struck at some point. No boy should flinch in that way when his father approaches. No mother should look so fearful when her son and husband come together.”

Graves was quiet a long while. “I had no idea it had been so serious.”

“Yes,” Clode said. “And of course, if during any of his more apparently lucid moments he had sold the estate for less than you keep in your pocketbook, it would have been very hard to retrieve it. There-you see? I do speak like a lawyer from time to time.”

“Was that likely?”

Clode nodded. “One afternoon he attempted it. He tried to sell the estate, his wife and his children for enough money to buy a horse and cover his expenses to regain Plymouth and the Splendor. He even had some of the necessary documents about him. It seems he had sense enough to gather them up when his servants and family refused to have his horse saddled and concealed the cash box.”

“What happened?”

“He made the offer to Michaels at the Bear and Crown who is a better man than most, and smarter.”

“Yes, I remember him. He refused the offer, I assume?”

“No. I would have done, and I’d have been a fool to do so. Michaels knew that the next man the captain had the ear of might not be so scrupulous. He gave Westerman money and a horse, took the papers and shook hands with him, then sent word straight back to Caveley. Mrs. Westerman’s servants restored her husband to her the following day. He did not resist. Indeed David, the coachman, was convinced he had already forgot his purpose and was merely happy to see faces with which he was familiar. Michaels said he had been desperate when he had seen him to warn the crew of the Splendor that they had a spy on board and England was teeming with more of the same.”

Graves shook his head. “Good God. To have the person you love best redelivered to you, but in such a changed manner. I had no idea. .”

Clode clapped him on the shoulder. “Enough! This is too serious a welcome. Come-smuggle me into your home so I may make myself respectable and greet the ladies of your household looking like a gentleman.”

Mr. Tompkins was delighted to see Harriet and Crowther, and spent the time it took to walk from Mrs. Girdle’s to Gladys’s house telling them so, when he was not remarking on the terror of an audience with Gladys’s mother, Mrs. Spitter. The lady was a tyrant, according to his report: fierce in her opinions, final in her judgments and occasionally crushing in their delivery.

“She loves Gladys, though,” Tompkins admitted. “She’d kill anyone who ever troubled that girl. Funny thing that she is.” Bearing this in mind, they sent up their cards and were swiftly shown into a pleasant parlor on the first floor. The room had generous windows overlooking the main street and by the fire was a low circular table with neat striped settees on either side. The whole gave the impression of modest prosperity, sensibly enjoyed.

Two ladies rose to greet them. Mrs. Spitter was a woman of generous proportions with a firm jaw and shoulders that would have made her a grenadier if she had been born a man. The lines of her dress were certainly severe, bodice and skirt striped purple and black, but what made her appearance a little eccentric was the quantity of jet with which her person was adorned. Three great ropes of glimmering stones hung around her neck, her fingers were hidden to the knuckles with black lozenges, her wrists bristled with beads, bangles and bracelets all pitch polished. They gave her a sort of dark glow. Harriet was sure that in many of the less frequented places she had visited on the globe, Mrs. Spitter would, on first sight, have been acknowledged as some goddess of revenge or queen of the underworld, and Harriet for one would not have thought the natives unwise in their choice.

Next to her stooped a girl whom Harriet guessed to be twenty-five at the most. She was all milk to Mrs. Spitter’s tar. Her face was not unpleasant, but rather blank, and her mouth never seemed quite shut, while her eyes looked and blinked at the company with an air of mildly curious surprise. She was so pale her complexion seemed tinged blue, and her hair was blond but very thin and weak. Her gaze picked out Mr. Tompkins and she gave him such an openhearted smile of welcome that Harriet found herself oddly touched.

It seemed Mr. Tompkins was a little at a loss as to who to introduce to whom, so simply opened his mouth once or twice and shut it again. Mrs. Spitter started to raise her eyebrows, which Harriet guessed to be an unhappy sign, so she took a step forward toward the lady with her hand held out. Something about this matron suggested to her it would be best to state her business with the minimum of flummery.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Spitter. Thank you for receiving us. We would like very much to talk to Gladys about her angel.”

Mrs. Spitter’s eyebrows descended and she smiled. Harriet thought of a dragon folding its wings.

“You are Mrs. Westerman, and that man next to whom Mr. Tompkins is bobbing about like a cork is Mr. Crowther, I suppose.”

“Quite so.”

Mrs. Spitter looked Harriet up and down with great care, then took her hand and shook it firmly. She indicated the unoccupied sofa and, as her visitors seated themselves, said, “You could wear jet with your coloring, Mrs. Westerman. Gladys, of course, could not. But I have seen redheads carry it off to great effect.”

Harriet sensed that this remark was a sign of approval and gave her thanks, and promise to consider it with great seriousness.

“Mr. Tompkins,” said Mrs. Spitter in a tone that suggested he had not been recommended to wear jet, “tells us you have been looking into the business in that house out back.”

“We have. And we have some pictures to show Gladys, if she is willing to see them. We wish to know if we have caught a likeness of her angel,” Harriet replied, and looked at Crowther.

He produced the sheets Susan had given him from his pocket and passed them to Harriet without comment, sensing that this conversation was to take place exclusively between the women. Harriet passed them to Mrs. Spitter. The lady turned to her daughter.

“Gladys dear, attend to me.” Gladys’s attention seemed to wander a second then with a slight wobble she turned her face toward her mother and blinked at her. Mrs. Spitter patted the girl’s knee. “Now I wish you to look at these pictures and tell me if you know the people here.”

She held the papers in front of Gladys, showing her each one in turn. Gladys appeared to be delighted to look at pictures, and examined them with interest but no apparent sign of recognition in her expression. Mrs. Spitter lowered the pages and asked, “Do you know any of these people here? I mean, have you seen any of them before? Think now, child. Answer as best you can for your mama.”

Gladys picked through the papers in her mother’s hands and pulled one out with great care, her tongue caught between her teeth as she did so.

“This one?” her mother asked. She was answered with a swift nod. Harriet tried to decide who was most likely to be on the page as it turned. Despite Manzerotti’s tune, she was so convinced the picture would be that of Lord Carmichael that when Mrs. Spitter turned the paper and she saw the familiar picture of Bywater, she was more disappointed than she thought she had capacity for. After a moment she looked at Gladys.

“Gladys, may I ask you a question?”

The young woman bobbed her head happily. Perhaps more important, Harriet caught Mrs. Spitter’s almost imperceptible nod from the corner of her eye. “Thank you. Now can you tell me when you saw this gentleman? Was it the same day that the angel took Mr. Fitzraven away?”

Gladys bobbed her head again and then said in a perfectly fluent voice, but rather high-pitched and rushed, “It was a walk day. When I have seen both of the cats from Mrs. Pewter’s on the roof, but not together, and three birds have sat on each of the chimney pots of Mrs. Girdle’s house, that means God wishes me to walk down to the corner and back three times and pay very close attention to everything I see. Sometimes He tells me to go in the morning. Sometimes I have to wait until afternoon. God made me wait that day till it was afternoon. Five minutes past three o’clock by the big clock in the upper parlor which was my nursery but is still my room where I listen to God, and He instructs me.”

Crowther was looking with fascination at the young woman. Mrs. Spitter was perhaps used to seeing her daughter’s eccentricities mocked. While Gladys spoke she was looking very hard at Crowther-indeed, such was the force of her gaze that the jet about her throat seemed to quiver. When her daughter paused she addressed him very fiercely.

“Mr. Crowther, perhaps you find my daughter’s communications with the deity amusing?”

Crowther shifted his attention to the mother, looked at her for a long moment, and blinked.

“I rarely find anything amusing, Mrs. Spitter. I am not a religious man, but I am convinced we are all unique. If the deity wishes to communicate with us, I see no reason to suspect He would not communicate with us all in unique ways.”

Mrs. Spitter stared a moment longer while she considered this comment, then her face and form relaxed a little and she went so far as to bestow on Mr. Crowther a faint smile. She motioned for her daughter to continue. The girl did so, plucking at the folds of her dress a little with small unconscious, regular movements.

“As I was coming back the second time from the corner, two hack carriages and a wagon passed me by and after the wagon, that gentleman crossed over the road and I saw his face for he was looking out for further passing vehicles and he walked up ahead of me and turned to the left at the top of the road just as the butcher’s boy was coming down toward the house. I saw twenty-three horses in total without turning my head, fourteen coming toward me and nine going away, so more coming than going-so that meant God was pleased with me and I had understood His meaning, and on entering the house I might sit at the window with the picture book and turn a page every time a bird landed on Mrs. Pewter’s chimney pot until I could count fourteen candles in the windows then I might go to bed. And I did that well too, even though I had to wait a long time after my supper was taken away because I saw His angel come and take His servant away-and that is a very special gift from God.”

Harriet tried to stop herself from looking at Gladys’s little hand plucking away at her dress. She noticed the fabric there looked a little worn. Mrs. Spitter gently laid her fingers on her daughter’s wrist. The hand was stilled at once, and the girl looked up at her mother with a grateful smile.

“Indeed it is, Gladys,” Harriet said. “Tell me, when you went to the window with the picture book, did you see Mr. Fitzraven in his room? We think this gentleman in the drawing you have shown us was going to visit him.”

The girl shook her head rather violently. “I did not see Mr. Fitzraven until His angel came to fetch him. He was sitting at his desk making his own picture book when God told me to go for my walk. But he was not there when God told me to come back.”

Crowther frowned. “The corner is not far away. If you saw Mr. Bywater arriving, walked your path one more time then returned here, his visit must have been very brief.”

Gladys looked at her hands. “If the man in the picture is Mr. Bywater then his visit lasted not more than twenty-three minutes. It does not take that time to do the walk, but I had to wait, and Mr. Bywater, if that is his picture, was one of the persons who released me.”

Harriet leaned toward her a little. “I’m sorry, my dear?”

“When I have finished my walk I must wait very quietly with my eyes down until three pairs of shoes have gone by in front of me. Sometimes I have to wait a long time, particularly if the weather is dirty, and sometimes when people see me waiting they walk a ways away, then I cannot see the shoes, even if I hear them, and that does not count. I was released by a lady who I did not see the face of, by Mrs. Little who is not little but very nice and always makes sure she walks where I can see her too, for I have told her about what God wishes and she always wears black shoes and white stockings not very much muddy, and by him.”

“Are you sure it was him?” Harriet asked. “Only seeing the shoes?”

“Yes. I had already seen his shoes and his buckles so I knew them again. Then I looked at my pocket watch and it was seventeen minutes from the moment I had to wait, to the moment he crossed past me, and that was six minutes from when I saw him first. When were you born?”

“I was born on the eighteenth of April, Gladys.”

“What year?”

“Seventeen forty-eight, my dear.”

“Thursday. A blue day. I like Thursdays.”

Gladys turned and looked very directly at Crowther. It took him a moment to realize what was being asked of him before he said, “The twenty-seventh of July, Miss Spitter, in seventeen twenty-nine.”

“Oh, a Sunday which is green, and the best day! Mr. Tompkins was born on a Monday which is the color of,” she pointed very carefully at the stripe on the settee on which she sat, “this.”

“I see,” Harriet said, somewhat amazed. She kept her voice soft. “But you do not see the angel in the pictures?”

Again she gave a violent shake of her head. “No. None of these is His angel. But this one. .” she merrily plucked the picture of Manzerotti from the pile and pushed it toward them “. . he looks a little like His angel. And he came in earlier, before I had my supper.

Everyone was very still. Mrs. Spitter said to her daughter, “Dear, will you tell us what you saw of this gentleman.” She tapped Manzerotti’s picture, and the jet on her fingers clicked.

“Yes, Mama. It was between the seventh picture and the eighth. I saw that man in Mr. Fitzraven’s window. He waited by the window a second and looked down. Then he went past, then two minutes later he walked back. Then a long time after supper there was a candle lit in the room and I saw His angel pick up Mr. Fitzraven to carry him to heaven. Perhaps this gentleman was a lesser angel come to see where the great angel should come to later, for there are many sorts of angel in heaven all ready to do His will. But even if he was an angel he was not Fitzraven’s angel. God let me see Fitzraven’s angel only after the fourteenth candle was lit.”

Crowther swallowed and said carefully, “Gladys, what do great angels wear? Do they wear bright colors? I think I would expect to see an angel in gold or silver. .”

Gladys leaned forward very eagerly. “No, not at all. I thought His angels would be dressed in gold too, but no! His angel dresses all in brown. This color,” she added helpfully, tapping the knee of the astonished Mr. Tompkins’s breeches. “Which is also Saturday, but only the mornings.”

Harriet turned to Crowther in astonishment. He gave a twisted smile in return. “We did not ask Mr. Crumley to draw Johannes, Mrs. Westerman.”

Harriet was a little angry to find Crowther’s interest was as much awakened by the strange condition of Gladys Spitter as by the revelation of her angel.

“We must have Mr. Crumley draw Johannes too, if one of us has a moment to give the description, do you not think so?” she said, as they mounted the steps toward the door of Berkeley Square. “Then I think we must ask Mr. Palmer’s advice. Surely he must have the power to employ the King’s Messengers and press the Bow Street Constables to service. We have done all we can. Bywater murdered Fitzraven, Manzerotti is the spymaster, and Carmichael most likely the channel through which information flows. Probably he is making use of his poor stepson to carry information to France even now.”

“Yes,” Crowther replied with a slight drawl, “I suppose there was no ‘mutual acquaintance’ in Milan. Manzerotti realized Fitzraven would be of use placing him at the heart of society in England, and sent him to France, then England to warn Carmichael of his coming and prepare for it.”

“I would like to see in what hand he writes music. That fragment of ‘Sia fatta la pace’ you found in Carmichael’s study was likely his signature and seal. Well, now we may return to the usual pattern of life, though we have very little we can say against Manzerotti. His activity in this, all we can lay at his door at this point, is caught in two rather lost and searching minds and that scrap of music.”

“I would pay a fair proportion of my fortune to have that young woman’s brain under my knife,” Crowther replied.

He was spared the commentary of Mrs. Westerman by the flinging open of the street door and a great number of voices telling them all at once that Daniel Clode had arrived and they were all very pleased to see him. The principal descended the stairs with a smile and a blush at all the fuss his arrival seemed to be causing, and Harriet gave him her hand with great pleasure. She glanced at her sister and saw a bloom on her that made her both happy for Rachel, and perhaps a little jealous. Crowther’s retreat was prevented by Mr. Graves none too subtly closing the front door before he could escape.

“Excellent! Let us dine. You too, Mr. Crowther-you will be part of the party if you like it or no. And Mrs. Westerman, a man left a message for you during the afternoon. It is that Mrs. Wheeler’s friend will call during the course of the evening-if that means anything to you.”

Harriet acknowledged the message and made her way upstairs to dress. The light had almost faded from the day.

Molloy put all his weight behind it and released a thunderous knocking on the door of Adams’s Music Shop.

“Open up! Open the door, damn your eyes! I see a light in there and I will not stir from here till I have speech with you! Now open the door!”

Jocasta had made her way to Tichfield Street via the Pear and Oats and came up to join him now at a brisk pace, with Sam and Boyo at her heels. As she reached his shoulder there was a stir of movement in the shop and a young woman’s face appeared at the window.

“Jane! It’s Molloy here. Open up, girl!”

She did quick enough and held the door open with her foot, her hands being occupied with holding and guarding a candle flame. At the doorway to the parlor behind, Mr. Crumley appeared patting his mouth with a napkin.

“Molloy! What do you want here?” Jane said. “I know for a fact there isn’t a person here owes you a penny.”

“I need to know where Graves is. And better yet, Mrs. Westerman’s address in Town, if you know it.”

Jane scowled at him. “Of course I know it, but why should I tell you? What you got to say to either of them?”

Molloy breathed hard. “I hate to make it habitual but I’ve a warning and it touches on Westerman. You know me as a serious type, Jane. Do I look like I’m playing the fool to you?”

The girl made her decision quickly and stepped back into the parlor, leaving the door ajar.

“Wait there.” She returned with a handful of coins and thrust them into Molloy’s hands. “Berkeley Square-number twenty-four-and use this for a hack. Mrs. Westerman’s in the same place.”

Harriet heard the knock at the door as she was finishing dressing, and expected her sister to come in when she issued the invitation, but was surprised to find it was Daniel Clode who had entered the room.

“Mr. Clode!” she said, and dropped the comb she had been fastening her hair with in surprise.

The young man hesitated a second, then stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him.

“Mrs. Westerman, forgive the intrusion, but I wished to have some private conversation with you. I have been speaking to your sister.”

Harriet turned back carefully to her mirror and made another attempt with the comb. “If it is regarding an engagement with Rachel, you know you have my hearty approval, but I had hoped you might wait, given the state of my husband’s health, before speaking about that.”

He took a step farther into the room. “No, it is not that. But I suppose it touches upon it.”

Harriet finished with her comb and turned toward him. The candlelight made the red of her hair glint as if it had its own fire. She never powdered it when they dined at home. “If you come to bring further weight to bear on me regarding my behavior, I wish you would not trouble yourself. The business, it seems, is successfully concluded. We have, we think, found who is responsible and will inform those who need to be informed this evening. There our involvement in the matter will end.”

“No, not that either. Really, Mrs. Westerman, if you wish to know what I have to say, it would be as well to let me speak!”

Harriet was silent.

“Thank you. It is simply this. Miss Trench has, I feel, placed far too much weight on what damage any totally unreasonable remarks may be made from the steps you have taken in this, and in previous matters.” He blushed and looked at his boots. “Madam, I have the honor, in relative youth, to be one of the men trusted with the affairs of one of the great estates of the country. I handle many legal and financial matters for the estate of Thornleigh.” He lifted his hands and said with a sigh like a man abandoning a prepared speech, “Really, Harriet, you could dress as a heathen and ride a donkey from St. James’s to the Pulborough Hotel and you will do me not one ounce of damage. As long as my association with Thornleigh continues, I shall have to spend my best efforts avoiding the kindnesses of every person of quality in the neighborhood, rather than searching them out. Rachel underestimates the force of the Thornleigh name, seeing it embodied in Jonathan and Susan rather than in the estates and investments held in their names, and I have just told her as much.”

The image of herself dressed as a heathen and the loving exasperation in Clode’s voice drew a laugh from Harriet. “Oh Daniel, I thank you. But I fear I may be an awkward sister to have. Graves would probably agree with Rachel. He was angry with me yesterday.”

“Nonsense. Well, perhaps. But know this: Owen would defend you and your actions to the bitter end. To you he will voice his concerns, but if anyone else spoke of you in terms of less than respectful admiration, he would horsewhip them. As would I.”

Harriet felt a warmth creeping through her body. “And what of the damage I do my daughter?”

Clode grinned at her, and Harriet almost wished herself young again. “I understand Lady Susan herself has given you her own assurance on that point.”

Harriet stood and placed her wrap around her shoulders, then crossed the room to take his arm. “You are perfectly correct. Clode, I am glad you are here.”

“I hear the captain improves.”

“It changes from day to day. This morning he was well, but last week he called me a whore and a spy and drove me from his room.”

“I am very sorry to hear that, madam.”

She sighed then patted his hand. “But in general, I believe he improves. Now take me down to dinner. In a few hours all this shall pass away from us and we may concentrate on more suitable occupations. Crowther suggested at one point that if I couldn’t sit still, perhaps I could devote my energies to writing religious tracts.”

“Dear God!” said Clode. “I presume he was trying to read his paper at the time?”

Harriet laughed again.

“I’ve never ridden in a carriage before, Mrs. Bligh.” Sam knew the urgency of their journey, but the novelty of watching the streets pass at such a pace was too bright a thing not to be loved and held tight.

“Do not. .” said Molloy from his corner, and briefly removing a toothpick from his mouth “. . get used to it.”

Jocasta allowed herself a half smile in the darkness. “Tell Molloy what you found today, Sam.”

“Yes, do. And give me my knife back.”

Sam passed it across with some reluctance. Molloy looked at the blade and tucked it into his waistband.

“Not stuck any malefactors with it then, I see?”

Sam lifted up his chin. “Maybe I just wiped it after, Mr. Molloy.”

“Ha! You improve upon acquaintance, young one. Now tell me who you found.”

Sam settled into the corner of the coach. “There’s a boy spends time round the kilns. Gets pennies off them for bits of work, and sleeps there most nights for the warmth. He’d seen it. Said it was the woman what did it. Raised the rock and brought it down hard.”

“And the rest.”

Sam rubbed his nose hard on his sleeve. “He said he started peering because he heard them arguing like. When he looked, he said the girl was pulling away and shaking her head, but Fred was holding onto her hand and being all pleading and that’s when Mrs. Mitchell picked a brick up and struck her.”

“Did he not think to tell anyone?” Jocasta asked.

Sam wrapped his thin arms around himself. “He was scared. Ran away for a few days, but it’s cold, so in the end he went back. He’s littler than me.”

Jocasta felt a pang of memory tickling her throat and thought of the rainy fell all those years ago, her trembling and confusion. She hunched her shoulders in the shadows.

“You got a name for him? A promise to bide where he is?” Molloy said.

“Yes, sir. He is called Evan. And I gave him the rest of the sugarcane the cobbler’s wife bought for me, and a promise of another if he waits till I come again. He’ll bide for that.”