Anatomy of Murder

PART VIII

FRIDAY, 23 NOVEMBER 1781

Only the youngest children slept. Graves found Susan and Rachel in the latter’s chamber drinking chocolate and saying little to each other. Rachel, after Graves had told them what had passed, went calmly to wake Stephen, and Graves for a moment took her place by his ward.

“Susan, my dear. This will be another heavy day. And you have had too many in your life.” The girl did not answer but curled her hand around his own. “How would it be, my dear, if, as soon as it is light, you send a note to our friend Miss Chase and ask her to come and sit with you today? Miss Trench should be with Stephen and her sister.”

Susan looked up, searching his face for signs of awkwardness or distress. “I should like that very much, Graves, if it does not trouble you. She and I may look after my brother and Eustache.”

He returned the pressure of her hand, fear and love for her drenching him like a hopeless tide. “It does not trouble me. I think I must learn to swallow my pride a little and accept the care I am given.”

“That would be much more sensible of you. You ask Jonathan and me to accept all you do for us without thanks. It is unfair of you not to do the same.”

He lifted her small hand to his lips and kissed it. She shuffled into his side and laid her head on his shoulder.

“You are growing, little woman.”

Rachel returned. She carried baby Anne sleeping on her shoulder, and led Stephen, white-faced and confused, by the hand.

“Graves, Stephen wishes to bring his model of the Splendor with him. I said we should inquire if there is room enough.”

“Papa likes it.”

Graves got to his feet. “Yes, of course you must bring it then.” He crossed to the little boy and picked him up in his arms. “Susan, will you fetch it and bring it down?” She nodded and scudded out toward the nursery. Graves felt Stephen’s arms link behind his neck and he began to carry him down to the waiting carriage.

“Did the spies attack Father, Mr. Graves?”

“They did, Stephen. Now Mr. Crowther and his friends will hunt them down.”

“Tell Jonathan I am sorry not to be there when he wakes. Sometimes he has bad dreams.”

“I did not know that, Stephen. Thank you. I will see he does not wake alone.”

Once Rachel and the children were comfortable and the model safe he stood back and looked at his coachman.

“Are you armed, Slater?”

“Yes, sir.” He shifted his seat to show the pistol at his side. “As is Gregory.” The footman on the carriage with him touched his hat as he was named.

“Good,” said Graves. “If any footpad tries to delay you, shoot him.”

Mrs. Service met him in the hallway. “Do go in, Mr. Graves. Mr. Palmer, who seems to be the man behind it all, is in the library with the rest. Mr. Crowther has told us what has passed, and now I feel my duties must return to the domestic. It seems there will be a quantity of people coming and going today, and very few of them through the front door. I must speak to Mrs. Martin and the servants. How is Susan?”

Graves leaned against the wooden paneling of the hall as he replied, his hand shielding his eyes from the lamplight. “I have told her to send for Verity Chase as soon as she may.”

“Good,” said the little woman and began to move away.

“Mrs. Service?” She turned back toward him. “You are very calm.”

She let a smile hover over her lips. “I save my vapors up, like Molloy saves his favors. Go in, sir. We all of us have work to do this day.”

Harriet knew quickly that there was no hope that Trevelyan could offer. Having seen her husband made more comfortable with laudanum and cold presses, she dismissed the doctor to see to his other guests, disturbed by the noise and hurrying. Clode did not leave the room, but retired to a chair by the fire and angled his face away.

James’s eyes fluttered open. “Harry?”

“Here, my darling.”

“I fear I am leaving you again.”

She could not reply to this, only wrap her warm fingers around his palm. It seemed colder to her now than a few minutes before. “Harriet, I know I am not what I was. .”

“That is not important, James.”

He breathed a little raggedly, then closed his fingers tightly around her own. “But Harriet, tell me. . before. . It was a good marriage, was it not? I always thought of it so. I remember loving you. .”

Harriet’s voice struggled up through the darkness in her throat. “It was a good marriage, James. Very. You made me happy.”

“I am so glad.” His eyes fluttered closed again, and Harriet watched his chest rise and fall, listening for a carriage on the gravel.

“Then we are decided?” said Mr. Palmer. There were nods around the room. “I thank you for your hospitality, Graves. I must, however, appear at the office if we are not to frighten away our birds, and I must meet quietly with Lord Sandwich. Mr. Crowther will coordinate our activities during the day. I shall take control in the evening. There are four messengers I trust to be discreet. Graves, how far can you trust your people?”

“I recommend them without question.”

“Very well. I shall summon my people.”

He stood up and there was a general stir in the room. Palmer put his hand to Crowther’s shoulder and leaned into him. “Sir, it would be a great boon to the Crown, and the prosecution of these traitors, if Johannes was brought into my custody alive. I believe Molloy and Mrs. Bligh have certain. . forces to draw on. I wish to question the man myself.”

Crowther looked at him down his long nose. “I am aware of that.”

Palmer chewed his lip. “I am glad. Johannes will not move from whatever hiding place he has found in daylight. No doubt his fear and need will drive him back into Town this evening as we close on Lord Carmichael and these creatures of Mrs. Bligh’s discovering.”

Crowther looked over his shoulder at Jocasta, Molloy and the little boy. “That is the consensus.”

Palmer turned toward the door, saying, “But I note you make me no promise.”

Crowther did not reply, and Palmer met the fate of any man who had tried to stare him down and left the room, shaking his head.

Rachel knocked lightly on the door, and on hearing Harriet’s quiet, “Come in,” ushered Stephen in, in front of her. Clode came immediately toward them, and Daniel had just enough time to take the model from the little boy before he charged across the room and into the arms of his mother. She held him for a second, then seeing that James’s eyes were opening again, addressed her boy.

“Stephen! Stephen, my love, look at your papa.”

The boy struggled to hold his head against his mother, his eyes tightly shut.

James managed to open his lips. “Stephen,” he coughed fiercely. The boy flinched but, feeling the gentle pressure of his mother’s hand, managed to turn his body a little and open his eyes. James smiled at him, and without apparently knowing he did so, Stephen loosed his grip on his mother’s waist and smiled shyly back.

Harriet could not quite bear to look at her husband. She knew how great his pain must be, she could see it in the fine lines around his eyes, the furrows of his forehead. She wondered what part of his mind was serving him now, causing him to try and shield their son from that pain. It spoke a finer understanding than any he had shown since the accident.

“Thank you for coming to see me, my boy.”

Stephen forgot his fear enough to move away from Harriet entirely, and put his small hand on his father’s massive wrist.

“I brought the model for you, Papa.”

“Thank you.” James’s eyes traveled the young boy’s face with a sort of curious wonder. “Let it be put where I can see it.” Clode dragged one of the side tables to the opposite side of the bed and set the Splendor on it. If James noticed or recognized Clode himself, he gave no sign. Only, when the boat came close enough for him to see, he gave a great sigh. Stephen seemed to feel the lack of his attention.

“I found out the name of the song, Papa,” he said, and sang a line or two in a quavering falsetto. “It is called ‘Sia fatta la pace.’ Manzerotti sings it.”

James kept his eyes on the ship, but opened his fingers to take his son’s hand in his own. “Manzerotti. Yes, of course. Thank you, Stephen. It does not seem as important now.”

Jocasta was back on the sofa dealing the cards by the time the first of the King’s Messengers returned. “It seems you were right, sir,” he said, shifting his weight from one shoe to the other as he spoke to Crowther. “Fred Mitchell came out to take the air at lunch, and I saw him meet with Mr. Palmer’s secretary at Whitehall. Then he hightailed it back to his place in Salisbury Street. I’d swear his jacket pocket sat smoother when he came out again.”

“Very good,” Crowther replied, without looking up from his writing. “But your information came from that lady,” his quill pointed out to Jocasta, “not myself.” The messenger cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable.

“Yes, sir.”

“What further?”

“There was a boat taken from a pitch at the bottom of One Tun Alley on Thursday night. Or at least, something queer went on. Fella who owns it came to it in the morning and found the ropes done up wrong and a hearth rug shoved under the bench.”

Crowther lifted his eyes. “What became of the rug?”

“The man took it home to his woman, and she weren’t too pleased to let it go again.”

“And now?”

“The thin lady in the kitchen, Mrs. Service, took it from me, sir. Before she showed me up.”

“Excellent.” The man did not leave. Crowther waited.

“Thing is, sir, seems like there’s a funny mood abroad-down by the river and over the streets. Can’t put my finger on it, but people are on edge. As if they’re watching and waiting. There’s something going on. I haven’t seen so many people with that look on them. . I’ve never seen it, sir.”

Crowther looked at him impassively. “I understand you, sir. You have done very well. What are your further duties?”

“I am to wait near Lord Carmichael’s, sir. Discreet like, till I am called for.”

“Then do so.”

The man backed out of the room. As the door shut behind him, Jocasta stopped laying her cards and studied Crowther from under her brows. The ceasing of the regular beat of her cards disturbed him and he glanced toward her.

“Wasn’t sure of it last night, but now the daylight’s on you, I know you.”

“Do you, madam?”

“Ask me where I was born and when.”

Crowther laid down his pen and sat back in his chair. “Where were you born and when, Mrs. Bligh?”

“Keswick. Seventeen thirty-seven.”

“I see.”

“I don’t hold as a rule with waking up what’s been left resting a long while, my lord. But should you ever wonder about the days of my youth, and what I remember of it, you may find me and ask me.”

Crowther felt his throat tighten. “I would prefer you called me simply Mr. Crowther. Or as we are acquaintances from childhood, you may call me Crowther.”

Jocasta did not reply and the cards began to slap down again. Some moments passed before she said, “Sam has returned with the lad that saw my Kate done for.”

“Where are they now?”

Jocasta nodded upward. “Making friends with Lady Susan and her little uncle and that gray-eyed beauty, Miss Chase. That young girl’s a smart one. You could throw her on a dunghill or into a palace and she’d prosper. If they feed my boy macaroons he’ll be sick on their carpet. He’s not used to it.” Crowther was unsure if she meant the dog or Sam. “It’s a queer household this, Mr. Crowther. I turn my cards here, I see blood and harmony all woven together. Strange rope to swing from.”

Crowther’s pen made small scratching movements on the paper. “As good as any. Did you make your arrangements?”

“I did. And Molloy continues with his own.”

Crowther looked across at her. “I will be there?”

“Don’t fash yersel’. You’ll be there, and you’ll be fetched when needed. I wouldn’t walk the rookeries as a general habit, gentleman like you. But tonight you’ll pass in and out again.”

“Thank you.”

Jocasta said nothing but continued at the cards.

The world was becoming simpler again. The strange aching fog that had been battering at his mind, the whistling headaches. . his stumbling senses were beginning to clear. He opened his eyes a little. The ship, his other darling, was there waiting for him, trim and thirsting to be away. He saw old comrades on the deck; men he’d thought drowned or shattered were there whole and urging him toward them. And on the quarterdeck, with the baby in her arms and Stephen at her side, was Harriet. She was wearing the green riding habit she had been dressed in the first time they met. It matched her eyes. And she was laughing, trying to stop the wind driving her red curls across her face and waving to him, telling him to hurry because all was ready and the ship was straining for the off. The smell of the sea flooded his nostrils, the wind stung his cheeks and he began to run down the slope to the bay where the jolly boat was waiting to take him on board; he could already hear the bosun’s whistle, feel the shift of the timbers on the deck as the wind caught her sails, feel his wife’s hand cool and loving in his own as they made their way out into open water.

She held onto his hands as if she could pull him back from the flood, as if by fastening her fingers where his pulse now threaded away to nothingness, she could hold him back from the wastes beyond.

“James?” she said in a whisper, as his breath emptied from him. “James? No, please stay, James! Stay! Stay, my love!” He was gone. She fell forward over his body and promised any god who might listen her breath and bones, offered every sacrifice, every love, she tried to offer them her life, her children, and taking him by the shoulders, buried her mouth in his neck.

Her sister fell on her knees beside her and wrapped her arms around Harriet’s waist and called out to her through her own weeping. Harriet drew her husband’s lifeless arm across her shoulders and swore to die herself, go with him rather than carry on a moment alone.

Taking Stephen by the hand, Clode led him out of the door and called for Trevelyan in a breaking voice. The boy at his side began to cry and the man lifted him in his arms and held him so hard he feared the little bones might break under his hands.

Night began its slow belly slide up over the streets as if it were escaping the Thames. No man or woman with anything worth stealing on their person should be abroad at such a time, but tonight they might walk unharmed. The rookeries swung open and from the hovels of St. Giles, the doss-houses of Clerkenwell, the dens and pits of Southwark, the lost people of London began to move. Men and boys set down their drinks and shrugged into whatever clothing they had, the whores let down their skirts and walked with their eyes clear. So many people on the street, and so serious. They moved out like a fog across the city, nodding each to each, putting aside their other business for an evening. Death sat on their shoulder, pinching their cheeks and pulling their hair every day with his long greasy fingers, but some things should not be done, and some action could be taken.

At the opera house Mr. Harwood sat in his office, his hands clasped on the desk in front of him as he listened to Graves speak. The noise of the arriving hordes danced in through the windows, fought at the padding of his office door, kicked up with the laugh of some diamond-studded female. Winter Harwood, however, heard nothing but Owen’s voice. After a few minutes he nodded, and Graves left the room. Harwood looked down at his hands and swallowed. He thought of the wreckage of his season and even while his mind was white with surprise, some part of him was already thinking of singers and composers who might be available, might be recalled to favor, might come scrabbling to him for another chance at glory in front of his silk-strangled crowd.

The carriage, overdecorated with footmen powdered and liveried, left from outside Carmichael’s porch. Mr. Palmer stepped out of the gardens of the Square and whistled. At once there were men at every entrance to the house. As Mr. Palmer crossed the road he continued to whistle, forming his lips around the aria of Manzerotti. When he reached the door it was opened and flung wide by his men. Others forced the servants to the walls and held them there to allow Mr. Palmer clear passage through; still with the song on his lips, he made his way to the study, the brilliants on his evening shoes dancing with Carmichael’s candlelight. Finding the door locked, he turned and beckoned to one of his men. The man adjusted his cape-he carried a hammer in his arms like a child.

Johannes had managed to bind the leg as he lay in the muck of an overgrown ditch not far from Highgate. He had then set out as soon as he dared, knowing that the way between his hiding place in the hedgerow and the security of his friends in Town was long. He leaned on a length of ash torn green from the tree and thought of his lost knife with a pang, as a man remembers the lover he has just deserted and wonders if the new fields are greener, after all. Then he shuffled forward again along the road.

Despite the fact that the benefit had been announced only the previous afternoon, and the tickets engraved and printed with a haste not compatible with fine workmanship, His Majesty’s was brim full. Most of the women wore or carried a yellow rose, or a paper one, some of these so lush and elaborate in design they shamed nature. Lady Sybil had done something cunning with the family citrines, arranging them in her hair into the shape of the same flower. Many of the men wore red ribbons on their wrists. The applause when Manzerotti appeared on stage was immense. He stepped forward into the footlights and lifted his arms.

“My friends,” he said in that light and delicate voice, letting his eyes travel over the rows and boxes so it seemed to each person present he had called them by name, “for whoever shares this night with me, is my friend.” He placed his hand over his breast, and the auditorium was filled with the breeze of a hundred feminine sighs. “We are brought here together by tragedy and love. This concert tonight is for the memory of my beautiful colleague, the singer who has thrilled kings, courts and emperors with her voice, her talent, her artistry. Miss Isabella Marin.”

The theater flooded with cheers. “Bravo, Marin! Brava, Isabella!” At the back of the gallery a little woman in black felt the noise break over her. It seemed she could gather it all in her aching heart like a cup, and it being filled, offer it up to Isabella.

Manzerotti waited, head bowed, till the waves of sound had ebbed a little way, then nodded to the florid-looking leader of the orchestra who began to play, and into the honey-colored air, he unleashed his voice and let it lift.

Outside the chophouse three men embraced and hit each other across their backs, drawing a belch from the fish-faced man and laughter from all. They turned to go their separate ways, but before any of them had lost sight of the others, three King’s Messengers, their shapes hidden by long dark capes and tricorn hats worn low over their eyes, had stepped free of the shadows. Each man felt a firm hand on his elbow, a murmur in his ear, a pressure pushing him toward the three separate carriages that were even now drawing out of the darkened side street. Two men turned to water and went like lambs. The third, a handsome blond man, began to wriggle and cry, protesting he knew not what through snot and misery. The man at his arm did not even trouble to pause. His grip was secure.

Johannes began to sense there was something wrong in the air as he hugged the shadows in Red Lyon Street. He stopped and lifted his chin. There was a sudden movement in the darkness behind him and a whistle. He heard it to his right, then its echo down the street in front of him. He stood still a moment and swung his gaze like a lighthouse beam around him. Nothing but dark windows. The streets were oddly quiet. A slight frown passed over his brow like the water stirred in a millpond. He hobbled forward, his leg pulsing and aching.

Johannes was sure the wound was beginning to open again. Something curled and uncurled below his ribs. Again that whistle. It seemed to haunt him, guide him-but no one approached. He sensed eyes in the darkness. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and stung, and he realized with a detached surprise that he was afraid. He had seen fear on the faces of others, but had had no experience of it himself till now. He remembered seeing fear on Manzerotti’s face-but only once, when they were children and one of the young students in the musical academy who had not had the operation had struck Manzerotti down and called him a freak, an affront to God. Johannes had knocked the offender on his back and offered the little boy in front of him his hand. At that time Johannes had been the jewel in the school’s crown; his voice was of a clarity declared miraculous, his artistry exceptional. Since coming from Germany he had been treated like a little God. Now a boy brushed past him in the dark street, a fleeing shadow. He put his hand to his pocket and cursed. His money taken. He hissed into the thick gloom where the boy had disappeared. There was a laugh. A soft female voice called from some dark corner: “All fleeced, uncle?” He took a couple of painful steps toward it, but heard the light step of feet running from him. The laugh again. More distant. The whistle, closer and from the other side of the road.

Johannes had begged for the operation; gone down on his knees to his father, a wood turner in Leipzig, with the priest standing behind him. The priest had told them he was a gift from God, that his voice could serve the Church in all its beauty forever. The boy had begged to give himself to his Savior’s glory. Reluctantly his father had agreed, and Johannes had thanked the Lord, though through his ecstasy he could still hear the softened clink of money being placed in his father’s hand. He had left his home that day; traveled with the priest to the local court where a doctor from Italy happened to be staying and seeing to several boys. He heard the soft exchange of currency again and traveled to Bologna at the doctor’s side, overjoyed that God was bringing him to His bosom. Manzerotti, by contrast, had not wished it. Had tried to run. Had failed. Had arrived at the school for a life of daily vocal and musical practice as a possible, a potential-his voice still all thin and empty. Then Johannes had helped him to his feet and looked into those black eyes for the first time.

“You speak strangely,” Manzerotti had said as he stood upright again.

“I was born in Germany,” Johannes replied in his clear bell-like voice. “I have studied here two years. Every language I speak now, I speak with a foreigner’s tongue.”

Molloy twisted the top of the table and moved away. The King’s Messenger with him stepped forward and pulled out a neat roll of papers.

“There we have it then,” he said. Molloy nodded and began to feel about in the hidden drawers a little more, but the messenger put a hand to his sleeve. “Why don’t we have the witch woman with us, or that boy?”

Molloy pulled his hat down over his ears and wrapped his cloak around him.

“Mrs. Bligh has other business.” He found and picked up the brooch of flowers. The messenger watched him with narrowed eyes, but Molloy put the brooch in his pocket anyhow. The man would make nothing of it, and he had been asked to fetch it. He heard a whistle on the street outside and was satisfied.

Johannes thought of the river. If he could get to the far shore, then to the anonymity of Southwark, he could send to Manzerotti for help from there. He limped toward the crowd of men at the Black Lyon Stairs. The whistle came from behind him. The watermen turned and looked at him a moment, then without speech to him or to one another, each retired to his boat and cast off. Johannes lifted his pocket watch so it caught the light of the oil lamp guttering greasily by the steps to show he had money, but the skiffs and wherries drew away. Johannes swallowed and put the watch back in his pocket. Fear flowered into a sweat on his brow. He turned up the hill again, making for the rookeries of Chandos Street, where he had tracked one of the witch’s spies. There a man could hide. The significance of the watermen pulling away from him so silent and of one mind, he would not think of.

Mr. Palmer stood in the center of Carmichael’s study, a still moment in the activity of the room, and looked through the papers that had been found behind the Latin texts and in the false front of the fireplace. There was a considerable amount of money in banknotes and gold, and a letter in French confirming “the recommendation of the man that carries it, who can be recognized in the usual way.” Fitzraven, Palmer supposed. There were four charts showing details of Portsmouth and Spithead and the arrangement of vessels within them, and a model of a gun he had himself given into the hands of his secretary to be placed in one of the vaults. There was also a dense page of notes full of fresh gossip from the Admiralty and the competing political factions within it. He paused in his reading to push the little model to and fro across Lord Carmichael’s desk.

“Field?” he said.

One of the men shaking out the neat volumes in the rear bookcase paused in his work and turned around.

“Yes, sir?”

“Go and tell Lord Sandwich we are ready for him.”

Johannes did not know at what moment he realized his voice was leaving him. During a practice, a strange hum had begun at the back of his throat. When he spoke, the edges of his words started sounding a little shrill. He thought he was merely tired, as he had sung for the school several times in the evenings, and still had to be awake at dawn for the morning service. It was about a week after he had helped Manzerotti to his feet. He saved the little Italian boy and suddenly the boy’s voice was beginning to flower and grow. A few days later, Johannes had opened his lips to sail across the surface of Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater like a swan on water, and as the first phrase lifted into the second, the ice of his voice had cracked and a strange yelping croak leaped from his mouth like a toad. He had stopped. Horrified. The boys next to him began to look afraid. He gazed across to the singers on the opposite side of the choir, terrified, and had met Manzerotti’s black eyes. They were calm, loving; he gave Johannes the faintest ghost of a smile, then turned his attention back toward the priest.

Johannes bowed his head and submitted; his great grief seemed to rise from the center of the earth, poured up his body through his throat and out into the world. It was a wave of silence, taking whatever was left of his voice with it. He never opened his lips to sing again.

Mrs. Service rapped lightly at the door and went in.

“Mrs. Bligh, a young man called Ripley just called. He said you and Crowther should attend at the place thought of. Do I have the message right?”

Jocasta swept up her cards and pocketed them. Crowther shrugged on his frock coat and smoothed the sleeves.

“Aye, Mrs. Service. You have it right.”

When the audience heard the introduction to the “Yellow Rose Duet” they called and wept afresh. The leader of the band stood and put his violin to his chin, and as Manzerotti gracefully stepped aside and offered him up to the audience, he began to play Isabella’s part. From the back of the stalls Mr. Harwood observed his theater. It was a world of light; the oil lamps blazed above him and cast down across the gilt moldings on the boxes, across the jewels and dresses of the women and threw their shimmerings to and fro like fireworks, blessed by the colors around them.

It was a woman in one of the boxes closest to the stage who began it. With trembling fingers she undid the yellow rose from her bodice and threw it down onto the stage at Manzerotti’s feet. Then, from the box opposite, another woman in red silk did the same. Soon the theater was alive with the rustle of foliage and paper, and the roses began to flow forward. Those who could not reach the stage dropped their flowers into the stalls, and they were passed forward and overhead till those nearest the footlights could gather them in armfuls and, passing them over the heads of the musicians in the pit, lay them with the other tribute.

Manzerotti began to sing his line, stepping forward so the petals made a carpet for the jeweled heels of his shoes to rest on. That clarion call of his voice. . it seemed to Harwood that the song of duty and loyalty was not simply the voice of a single man, but the spirit of all he loved about the opera sculpted into sound. He knew he was an illusionist and a businessman, knew better than any the petty betrayals and rivalries, the viciousness of ambition and ambition thwarted that lay behind the music and the golden stage; knew too his house was full because his audience came to see where blood had been shed, and try and imagine they could see the stains, but for a moment he let his spirit rest on the glories of Manzerotti’s voice and forgot that anything else had ever existed in time but music and light.

Lord Sandwich watched Carmichael across the auditorium. He was observing the stage with such profound satisfaction one could believe Manzerotti was his man, not his master. Lord Sandwich was not a man easily shocked, but the story Mr. Palmer had laid out for him that morning in his office at the Admiralty had shaken him. Worst was the note he had received telling him that Carmichael’s stepson Longley had been killed attempting to flee the King’s Messenger sent to stop him at Harwich. He had panicked and been trampled to death by a startled horse on the main thoroughfare of that town. They had hoped to turn him. Give him a chance to redeem himself in their service, but on being approached, the child had only thought of the executioner’s noose and knife, and was dead before Palmer’s letter could be put into his hand.

And there sat Carmichael in his box as assured and comfortable as a cat on silk. Sandwich crushed in his hand the note received from Mr. Palmer’s man. It was a singular pleasure to be about this business himself. The First Lord then bent over the delicate white palm of the lady with whom he was seated and with a smile left her to flirt with her fan alone for a little while. He closed the door to the box behind him and began to walk the corridor around to the other side of the auditorium, nodding to a man waiting there as he went.

Johannes was becoming dizzy from the pain in his leg. A black-skinned boy appeared from the shadows behind him. Johannes looked about him. The braziers were lit, but the filth-floored roadway was deserted. There had been people here before.

The boy, when he spoke, did so with the soft-water French accent of a Creole. “All alone, Tonton? Do you need a place? I’ll show you somewhere warm.” Johannes gritted his teeth and nodded. The boy took him by the hand and began to lead him forward through the leaping shadows, the flames thrown up on either side. The whistle again. Another laugh.

The door to Carmichael’s box opened, and he twisted around in his chair. Seeing the First Lord of the Admiralty enter he started to stand, but Sandwich placed one hand on his shoulder.

“No, no, Carmichael. Do not get up.” He took a seat next to him and whispered to Carmichael’s heavily rouged companion, “My dear, I have confidential business with this man. Would you be so kind?” She gave him a bold look, then smiled and cocked her head so the jewels about her handsome throat glimmered. She made her way out into the corridor. Sandwich watched her go with an appreciative eye.

“Carmichael, I congratulate you. I had no idea you could afford a whore that fine.” Then Sandwich leaned into him, murmuring, “Tell me, does she fuck your friends for tidbits useful to the French, or is she pure recreation?”

Carmichael’s arm spasmed and he tried to stand, but Sandwich had him firmly pressed to his chair. He continued in his pleasant whisper.

“No, no, my dear. Do not attempt to leave. Do you not wish to answer? No matter, we shall ask her ourselves.” Again Carmichael made an effort to stand; again he was forced down. “Really, Carmichael, be still. There is a gentleman outside the door to whom I have paid a large sum of money for his assurance that he will shoot you if you try to leave. And I think Harwood has had enough blood spilled in his theater in the past few days. Shortly we shall return to your house to discuss matters more fully, but for now, stay still. Enjoy the end of the aria. It will be the last music you ever hear, you know. He sings prettily, does he not?”

“Yes.”

“How it must have burned, to have him sent here to take control of your activities. A half-man like that, a performer. Yet he would never have tried to use your stepson to carry messages. I am sure that was your plan, and not approved. Longley was too young, too honorable; even given his debt to you and fear of you, he was bound to be too open in his ways. Manzerotti did far better with the woman who sells coffee and oranges here, and that runt Fitzraven. Did you even notice that Longley told Mrs. Westerman he was going to Harwich? You were too busy flaunting your power. Your wish to see others dance to your tune has made you a bad spy, Carmichael, and the boy is dead with some of your papers still on him. All that chatter about corruption in the Admiralty, and who in London supports the rebel cause. You did well there, I admit.”

He watched Lord Carmichael’s face for any reaction. The man did not move, but he looked as if some light had disappeared from under his skin.

“What will happen to my collection, Sandwich?” he said finally as on stage Manzerotti extended his arms to the painted skies.

“We could arrange for it to be donated to the British Museum. Anonymously, of course. In a month, Lord Carmichael, it will be as if you never existed at all.”

“This way, Tonton,” the boy said, and led him up the last few steps to the attic. “You shall be taken care of here.”

Johannes could barely see, but if it was the pain or the gloom of the place, he could not tell. He guided himself up the stairs leaning his palm on the plaster walls. The love he had given to Manzerotti was the greatest glory of his life. His own talents with the trickeries and artistry of the scene room were insignificant to him, their only merit being that they allowed him to travel at Manzerotti’s side and do his bidding. Manzerotti traded government to government across Europe, charmed them into thinking him their own creature, but never loyal to anything other than his music and himself.

There had been a hard time in Paris three years ago, when Johannes had found himself cornered and alone. He had managed to get a message to Manzerotti, but no help had come. Three days later, having freed himself and left a cellar gory by his escape, he had made his way to Manzerotti’s rooms and fallen at his feet, asking to know why he had been forsaken. Manzerotti had paused in his practice only long enough to look at him, but had made no response and recommenced his work. After an hour Johannes had crawled away and presented himself at the proper time the following day. Manzerotti had greeted him as usual and the matter was never spoken of again. His belief was that he had been tested and succeeded.

Johannes thought of the moment when he had looked up at the Christ hanging above him in the church, sad and sorry. He had realized that he had been punished for his pride, that his role in loving God was not to sing His praises but to serve His true instrument-the boy with the black eyes. The sense of complete submission filled his heart and seemed to burst it open. His love poured from the cracked vessel of his soul in a flood. It was joy, freedom, a certainty that had never left him again.

The Creole boy pushed the door open in front of him. Johannes saw a shadowy attic; at a stove in its center an obscenely fat women was staring at something in a pan. Johannes’s fear suddenly screamed through him as she turned his way. He spun around to flee but found his passage blocked. Two boys and two men had followed them silently up the stairs. One raised a rough wooden truncheon and brought it down behind his ear. He fell to the ground.

The bravos were hysterical. As Sandwich helped Carmichael to his feet, feeling the man trembling under his coat, he looked down onto the stage. Manzerotti was bowing deeply, but lifted his head and looked directly into Sandwich’s eyes. The earl did not acknowledge the look but pushed Carmichael angrily out of the box and through the empty corridor and lobby while the ecstatic yells of the crowd still echoed behind them. He paused by the man outside.

“The woman?”

“We have Mrs. Mitchell, my lord.”

“And Manzerotti?”

“It is all arranged as you requested, sir.”

“Good. I am taking Lord Carmichael home.”

Johannes awoke to find himself bound to a greasy chair. The room was full of people. He hissed at them, and one or two of the ragged boys stepped back. He picked out the witch woman and the last of her little rats. By her side stood a tall man, dressed like a gentleman. He recognized him as the one who had caught hold of his leg the previous night. He was pleased to see an ugly bruise gilding his throat.

“Let me go.” The voice was between a hiss and a croak. “Let me go, and I will not hunt each and every one of you down. You do not know with what you meddle, you filth.”

Crowther stepped forward and slapped the man across his face with enough force to swing his head around.

“Oh yes, we do, Johannes. Carmichael, Mitchell, his friends, Manzerotti-all are taken.”

Johannes laughed and shook his head. “You will never touch my master. He is beyond you.” His eyes were bright, exultant.

Crowther said calmly, “If he escapes tonight, he will be taken tomorrow. He has nowhere to hide.”

Johannes’s eye was beginning to swell. “He does not need to hide!”

Crowther hit him again, and drew a gasp. The fat woman nodded her head in approval.

“Where are the two boys buried, Johannes?”

Johannes tasted the blood in his mouth. “In the tenter grounds where they stretch cloth off Holborn, unless the rats have eaten them already.”

Crowther struck him again. Then began to pull on his gloves. A voice or two in the crowd murmured; they began to creep forward. A woman in rags spat at the seated figure. Her yellow bile crawled down his face. A man balled his fists. Johannes looked around.

“You leave me here?”

Crowther felt the comfortable stretch of leather over his knuckles. “Yes, I do.” He turned to the fat woman. “You know where to take the body. Make sure it is before dawn.” She nodded and Crowther looked toward the prisoner again.

“Why, Johannes? You have renown, money of your own. Why do you serve as Manzerotti’s knife man?”

A look of bliss crossed Johannes’s bloody and bruised face. He looked up at the ceiling as if transfixed by some vision of ecstasy, some untouchable joy.

“I had to serve him. He is my voice.”

Crowther did not look around again, though he sensed Jocasta and Sam following him down the stairs. As they paused on the road, from the top of the house they heard the sound of blows, and a muffled sobbing scream.

They hastened in silence to the outer limits of the rookery, where the carriage of the Earl of Sussex stood waiting for them. Jocasta sniffed, recognizing The Chariot again, and nodded to herself, seeing the right and the pattern of it.

“We’ll walk from here, Mr. Crowther. My sorrows and blessings to Mrs. Westerman.”

The footman leaped down from his perch and opened the door. Crowther began to climb into the carriage, then stopped and turned toward her.

“I shall come and ask you of your childhood memories, Mrs. Bligh, when this is done and the grieving passed. I thank you for offering them to me.”

“They’ll do you as much hurt as good. But such is the way of the world.” She let her hand rest on Sam’s shoulder and Crowther took his seat. The footman closed the door on him and fitted the latch. “You know where to find me, Mr. Crowther. Me and Sam.”

He tipped his hat to her and struck his cane on the roof. The coachman stirred his horses into movement and the carriage rattled off into the deserted streets.

“What’s that, Mrs. Bligh?” Sam asked.

“Old wounds that still bleed, lad. But that is for another time. Let us to our own sleepings now.”

Lord Sandwich and Mr. Palmer put the matter very clearly to their reluctant host. Once Carmichael had understood, he was frank with them and explained every part of the business quite thoroughly. He had indeed communicated with the French from time to time and been rewarded for it. At first it was simply for the pleasure of seeing great and influential men listen to him with care and praise, then the habits of subterfuge had become part of him, and he thirsted for the risk of it. He had met Manzerotti in the distant past, but knew of him only as a talented singer until Fitzraven had arrived and presented himself with the letter from Paris and instructions to take Manzerotti into his home and confidence. Fitzraven had been all but drooling when he told Carmichael that Manzerotti had suggested the construction of some hiding places in his home. He had resented the intrusion, but realizing he had little choice, acquiesced.

From the moment Manzerotti arrived, Carmichael was forced to admit he was a master spy and recognize that he himself had only been a dilettante till now. Manzerotti had seen something in the hard features of the woman who ran the coffee room in His Majesty’s and found out her son was an Admiralty clerk. He had then made Johannes his go-between, and soon Carmichael’s hiding places were overflowing with material for France. His public snubbing of Fitzraven went hand in hand with private confidence. He had encouraged the man to try and whore his own daughter for information, and sympathized with his annoyance over their estrangement and her partiality for Bywater. When he found Fitzraven dead he had emptied the room of anything he thought incriminating and summoned Johannes.

Manzerotti’s reasons for ordering the murders of Bywater and then Marin were much as Crowther and Harriet had speculated. He saw the chance to put an end to their investigations before Bywater confessed and the question of how the body ended up in the river grew pressing, then when he heard of Miss Marin’s note he saw the chance to neaten matters still further. Carmichael told them that he only heard of Harriet’s connection to the Marquis de La Fayette at his party, from Sandwich’s own mouth. He was aware of who had been on the ship, but not the name of the captain who had taken the prize, and when he heard Harriet speak shortly afterward of her husband’s returning memory and his talk of spies, he had decided to take action.

Carmichael’s words were written out for him by a trembling clerk, and his signature was made and witnessed while Palmer wondered if it was possible to conceal this last from Harriet. The clerk then left the room and a few moments later so did Sandwich and Mr. Palmer. The latter turned the key in the lock and they made their way down the stairs in silence, pausing only briefly when the report of a pistol shot rang out from behind the closed door.

“I know you would wish a trial, Palmer. You are young enough to look for justice. But it is better so,” Sandwich said.

“My lord,” was all Palmer had by way of answer.

Crowther spoke briefly to Graves in the hallway when he returned to Trevelyan’s house, and to Rachel and Clode in the parlor where they rocked baby Anne in the firelight, before letting himself quietly into the room where Harriet sat vigil by the body of her husband. She looked up as he entered. She held her sleeping son on her lap. Her face was calm, tearstained, still. He came into the center of the room and placed his cane on the ground before him, resting his weight on it with sudden realization of his own exhaustion.

“It is done, Harriet.”

“He is dead?”

“Yes. They beat him to death, and the surgeons will have use of his body. Manzerotti, I am grieved to tell you, escaped.”

She stroked the head of her sleeping child and kissed his white brow. “I know. Graves has told me.” Crowther watched her for a second longer, then with a sigh turned back toward the door. His fingers were on the handle, still wrapped in black leather, when he heard her speak again.

“Thank you, Gabriel.”

He turned and bowed deeply to her, then left the room.