Anatomy of Murder

9

Mr. Palmer hesitated as the library door closed behind him some little time later. Instead of Mrs. Westerman or Mr. Crowther he saw sitting in front of the fire a thin, elderly woman with steel-rimmed spectacles and a workbasket on her knee.

“My apologies, madam. I believe I have been shown into the wrong chamber,” he said, and began to retreat.

The lady put down her work. “No, Mr. Palmer. I have news from Mrs. Westerman and Mr. Crowther. Manzerotti, the castrato at His Majesty’s, seems to be the lead of the French intelligence activities in London. Lord Carmichael is the conduit through which the information travels to France, and Johannes is his pet killer and fixer. Oh, and I am Mrs. Service.”

Mr. Palmer was at a loss for words.

“Perhaps you should sit down, sir, and I shall elaborate,” Mrs. Service said with an encouraging smile, and touched a bell at her side. Mrs. Martin appeared in the doorway. “Port for myself and Mr. Palmer, if you please, Mrs. Martin. The gentleman has had a shock. And if our friends downstairs have finished eating, perhaps you might invite them to join us.”

Some months later, Rachel asked her sister what her thoughts had been during the ride to Highgate. Harriet lied, saying that she remembered little of it beyond her growing physical exhaustion and her continual calculations of how many hours of darkness would have elapsed before they could reach Dr. Trevelyan’s house and James. In truth, though, she had awareness of both of these, it seemed that during her ride through the darkness she had seen a steady progression of images, a storybook of her husband since their first meeting. She felt that each view was being held up before her eyes like the pictures Mrs. Spitter had shown Gladys. She would have said it seemed like the pages of her life being turned in front of her. She could not stay with the images she loved, or avoid those she did not. Their progress was inevitable: with each thundering phrase of her horse’s hooves they changed and demanded she see and acknowledge.

There was his face, the first time they had met, her impressions of the line of his throat, the light in his eyes when he talked of the sea, then strange, but exciting, later a trick of movement on his face that would become so familiar; the sight of him in shirtsleeves at the chart table in his cabin, dividers in hand, his smile when he saw her enter. His gray pallor, the stubble on his chin and throat as he supported her by the grave of their first child who lived but a few days under a foreign sun, the expression of hope and belief when he put the key to Caveley in her gloved hand. Even as her fingers gripped the leather of the reins, she felt its weight. She thought of him with Stephen in his arms, looking at the baby as if he were some miracle. You would have thought to see him smile that no man had ever had a healthy son before. Some images were soaked in sea air, some drenched in some taste, sensation. His first kiss came back to her, joyous, clumsy and full of a new and unnameable longing; she bit her lip.

The hooves thudded beneath her, the cold November air drenched her. Then, as they reached the open road, she saw his face altered almost beyond knowing by bitter confusion and frustration; felt the crack of the back of his hand across her face a week after he had returned to Caveley. The pain had been such that for a moment the world shattered into fragments, her vision run over with hot white filigree, but worse than that was looking up from the ground where the force of the blow had thrown her to her knees to see him impassive, empty of any feeling, watching her and waiting for her to rise. Such had been her shock, she had simply stood and left the room, and could have been found only a few minutes later at her desk reading over some of the estate correspondence and apparently her usual self, while black panic and horror washed back and forth in the craters of her mind.

Mr. Palmer turned the pages Jocasta had just given him over in his hands. It was as serious as it possibly could be.

“And there were more like this?”

Jocasta was seated on the settee dealing and redealing her cards with a soft steady slap onto the upholstery beside her.

“Two bundles-like that, as far as I could tell. Reckon there will be more tomorrow. Fred seemed eager to please the thin fella, the one with the voice like a crow.”

“Tonton Macoute,” said Sam. He was lying curled on the hearth rug with the dog beside him, watching the flames. Mr. Palmer looked up with a slight frown.

Molloy would not sit, regarding the fine furnishings with suspicion as if he thought they might tip him out again if he took the chance of denting them with his narrow behind. Instead, he had leaned his thin frame into the corner on the far side of the mantelpiece with his cloak wrapped around him despite the fire. He had his pipe on the go, permission to light it having been politely asked of Mrs. Service, and wholeheartedly given. “It’s the name the street children have given him, him having picked off two of theirs,” he said. “Creole name for the bogeyman. Mrs. Westerman named him as Johannes.”

Mr. Palmer nodded slowly, reading the papers again. The information was accurate and current. The force of His Majesty’s Navy with detailed notes on the location, armament and provisioning of each ship of the channel fleet. If the bundles were more of the same, it could be all the ships available to His Majesty would be described in this way. There were notes here too about the current problems some ships were having with their new copper sheathing. As yet, the French knew only that the coppering of the hulls made the ships faster. If they discovered the weaknesses they also brought with them, especially in the Indies. . Mr. Palmer shuddered. These were not musket shots, but heavy guns. If Manzerotti had the reputation for delivering matter of this sort, no wonder the French intelligence officers had been rubbing their hands and toasting themselves in Paris. Then he frowned and looked again at the drowsing boy.

“Do I not know you, Sam?”

The lad stretched and looked up, the light warming his thin face. “You gave me a shilling once, sir. For bringing a message.”

Jocasta’s cards slapped softly on the tabletop. The pictures were almost hypnotic: Cups, Swords, Coins. Mr. Palmer thought of the papers that would pass through a clerk like Fred Mitchell’s hands. He could gather the lists of the ships, but these notes on the copper sheeting were something else. “Do you think, Mrs. Bligh, that Fred has been working alone at the Navy Board?”

There was no pause in the rhythm of the cards. If they were telling her anything, she did not share it. “Maybe. Though Sam and I have seen him leaning in close with a couple of others. And they were all free-spending and overbright at St. Martin’s chophouse last night. One has a face like a freckled fish. The other is a fleshy pudding of a man. Lips always wet and his wig stood up as if it’s leaping off his head. Wouldn’t shock me to hear he gathered from them too, by their looks and manner.”

“I know them. One is another of the clerks. The other is my personal secretary. You have good eyes, Mrs. Bligh.”

“I’ve grown practiced at seeing,” she replied, without looking up from the cards.

Sam settled himself again and pulled at Boyo’s wiry mane, saying, “Maybe you should have given them more of your shillings, Mr. Palmer, rather than me.”

Before Crowther could dismount, Clode was already at the top of the steps of Trevelyan’s porch and hammering at the door. The doctor himself opened it, looking at first angry, then amazed. He saw the party racing toward him.

“Mrs. Westerman. .?”

“My husband.”

“In his rooms and quiet, I think.” But she had already pushed past him and made for the stairs. On the first step, she stumbled. Crowther stepped forward to catch her elbow before she fell. He glanced over his shoulder. Clode and Graves had taken up positions at the foot of the stairs and were pulling out their pistols. As he did so, Graves was speaking to Trevelyan.

Harriet threw herself up the stairs and Crowther followed her. Ahead of her he could see the door to James’s room. A slight breeze stirred the drapery around an open window on the landing. She fought forward, lifting her skirts to move faster along the corridor.

As her hand touched the wood of the door, Crowther heard a fierce grunt from within; the door swung open and he saw James bent double in Johannes’s arms. The latter’s right arm was over James’s back, his left under his stomach. Harriet screamed.

Johannes looked up at them, his face as white and smooth and expressionless as the first time they had seen him. Giving a cry, James yanked the knife from his own belly and drove it into Johannes’s thigh. The assassin twisted and swore, rolling James onto the floor. He heaved the blade from his leg and limped toward the window. Harriet fled to her husband with a groan. Crowther fell toward Johannes, wrapping his arms around the ankle of the dragging, injured leg. Johannes turned and hissed, then brought his right leg back and kicked hard at Crowther’s throat and jaw.

There were footsteps and a shout outside; Crowther felt his world dissolve into a red mist. His grip slackened. There was an explosion and the taste of gun smoke in the air. Then the world left him.

The first face he saw on waking was Clode’s, looking down pale and breathing hard.

“Thank God, Crowther! I feared he’d killed you.”

Crowther managed to turn his head a little. “The captain?”

Clode moved slightly to one side. Crowther could see James’s body lying a few feet from his own. His torso was hidden by the figure of the doctor. Crowther could hear the sound of fabric being ripped and folded. Harriet was kneeling on the far side of her husband, holding his hand between her own, looking down at him and whispering. Graves was at his feet holding his legs as they jerked spasmodically. Crowther could see the pool of blood inching toward him. The world went dark again.

When next the room swum toward him he was being helped into a chair. A brandy glass was held to his lips. The first sip he took, the next he pushed away. The captain had been lifted onto his bed. Harriet was seated at his head with her hands on his arm. She looked as if she had been carved from ivory like the figures the Westermans had brought back with them from their stations abroad. On the other side of the bed Trevelyan sat with his head in his hands. Graves was leaning against the door. It was Clode who was still holding the brandy glass to Crowther’s lips. He turned his head to look at him and a spasm of pain tore through the surface of his brain like a knife through wet cloth.

“Did you kill him?” he said in a whisper. Clode shook his head.

“I think I may have winged him as he went through the window,” he said softly. “And Graves loosed another as he fled, but his aim is appalling. I made a quick survey of the grounds while you were unconscious and found his horse, but no sign of him.”

Crowther struggled to his feet, pushing away the arm that tried to support him. He hobbled toward Harriet and stood behind her, looking down at the captain. His eyes were open, and fixed on his wife. His breathing ragged and terrible. Crowther put his hand on Harriet’s shoulder. She lifted her own hand and let it rest on his for a moment, without taking her gaze from her husband’s face.

Crowther crossed to Trevelyan with a firmer step, leaned in close and spoke to him a moment, then, trying to fight down the nausea and bitterness that rose in his throat as he straightened, approached Graves.

“Clode can stay here. We must return to Berkeley Square. You need to bring the captain’s children to him, and I have business to attend to.” Graves nodded, and Crowther looked again at Harriet. She had turned toward him. Her face was calm, and her voice distinct and clear.

“Gabriel, do not let him live.”

“You have my promise, madam.”

She nodded, turned back to her husband, and Graves opened the door.

As he mounted his horse, the pain made him gasp. Graves looked at him in concern.

“Can you ride, sir?”

“Yes.”

“There was a rope. I think he intended to make it seem a suicide, but our arrival surprised him into action, or the captain was too strong.”

“What is the hour, Mr. Graves?”

The younger man removed his pocket watch and consulted it. “A little after midnight, sir.”

Crowther urged his mount into a trot and they began to ride at a pace into the city and the cold dark morning.