Crowther 02 - Anatomy of Murder

by Imogen Robertson

  Harriet and Crowther must have looked a little blank at the names. The noise of London was crashing in on them through the windows of the carriage as it bullied its way along Cockspur through horses, carts and bobbing sedan chairs in the gathering dark. The carriage wheels spat mud up the doors as they jostled between ruts, the light had bled out of the day and already the shadows were deepening and the colors folding in on themselves. A pieman, his tray almost empty, chucked the last of his wares to a group of dirty-looking boys who had been following him down the road. After a brief struggle the strongest of them emerged in victory and held his prize high above the heads of the others. He tore pieces of the misshapen pastry off and stuffed them into his mouth, while keeping the rest out of the reach of his mewling, begging band and their long skinny fingers. Hawkers and song sellers walked by them shouting out their produce and prices, occasionally running a casual, assessing eye over the carriage, which here at least moved scarcely faster than they did, and over its occupants. A girl, no more than fourteen but already pox-marked and old in her expression, peered in and whistled at Graves, then noticing Harriet winked at her, and with a swing of her hips was gone. Graves was too busy marveling at his companions’ expressions to notice her.

  “Really, Crowther, Mrs. Westerman,” he said, “you are educated people but your ignorance of music is astonishing.”

  Harriet looked very serious. “Forgive us, Graves! We are new to the capital, and I was in the East Indies in seventy-seven and Crowther was in—?”

  Crowther looked up from his fingernails. “Oh, I was in London. And I went to a concert or two, but my occupations were in general less polite.” And when Graves looked inquiringly at him, Crowther met his gaze and said very evenly, “I was cutting up dead people.”

  Graves cleared his throat and crossed his legs.

  “Then Graves, my dear boy, you must educate us.” Harriet smiled and folded her arms. “Who is this Manzerotti? And who is Isabella Marin?”

  Graves leaned forward with a sudden enthusiasm that reminded Harriet that, for all his cares and responsibilities, he was still not yet twenty-five.

  “Manzerotti is said to be the greatest soprano castrato living. He is much spoken of. It is a marvelous thing to have him in London! They say that with both him and Marin in the company, the serious opera or ‘opera seria’ could equal the success of Creso in seventy-seven, and there were sixteen performances that season.” He sat back again with the air of having delivered a startling revelation.

  Crowther exchanged a glance with Harriet, and lifted his eyebrows, murmuring, “Is that good?”

  Graves gave an exasperated sigh. “It is remarkable! An opera is judged a great success if it manages a dozen performances. And Isabella Marin! Her name is pure gold on the continent, and it is her first appearance on the English stage. It is a sensation.”

  Harriet pulled absentmindedly on one of her red curls of hair, saying, “Are there no English singers who can hold a tune? Why did Harwood need to send Fitzraven to the continent to recruit? Are we not at war with most of our neighbors over there?”

  “Art knows no boundaries or borders,” Graves said a little stiffly, then, throwing his body back into the corner of the coach and smiling, “but it is partly fashion. We English love to see something new at the opera. I think bringing in singers from hundreds of miles away to serenade us makes us feel more important. What is nearby is necessarily unexceptional.”

  He looked up and to his right into the dark of the carriage. Harriet could tell he was imagining the sound of this Manzerotti’s voice in the private auditorium of his mind. Then, coming to himself and noticing the streets outside, he said, “We are nearly arrived. I hope you dine with us this evening, Mr. Crowther.”

  Mr. Crowther bowed and the carriage came to a halt.

  Mr. Crowther was not a regular guest at dinner in Berkeley Square; however he thought it might be politic not to return to his own rented house as yet. He had been late at work the previous night; indeed, dawn had already begun to cough at the windows when he ceased his examination of small lesions on the brain of a young man who had died of a seizure. It had been a fascinating study, but he was not entirely confident that he had tidied away all his samples before retiring at last to bed. If he had been remiss it was likely the maid would have been thrown into hysterics by the discovery of part of a brain in a jar and left her post. He had lost two maids in this way since coming to London, and his housekeeper, Hannah, though loyal, had limits to her patience. He hoped to avoid the punishment of a bad dinner by taking a seat at Graves’s table. However, although the food was excellent, the table was so crowded with good humor he feared his digestion might still suffer.

  Mr. Gabriel Crowther was not known for his sociability. Indeed, when the Royal Society invited him to address them it had been more out of respect than in expectation that he would accept. But he had accepted. It was Mr. Crowther who had, in September of this year and after careful correspondence, found and recommended Dr. Trevelyan’s establishment as a suitable place for James Westerman to be confined. It was Mr. Crowther who had written to Graves to advise him of the matter, and his letter that had prompted the family’s warm invitation to Harriet and her family to treat their establishment as their home while James was resident in Highgate. Mr. Crowther had rarely done so much for any other human being. The reward for his unusual activity was to discover in a distressingly short time that he missed the society of the ladies of Caveley, so when the invitation from the Royal Society at Somerset House arrived he drew up a list of reasons why it would be advantageous to spend time in London, and ordered his housekeeper to make the necessary preparations.

  His welcome in Berkeley Square had been warm, and he was forced to admit he had been glad to see them all. However, he had not lost his habits of silence and isolation completely. A noisy table of young people could still feel something of a trial. Lady Susan was giving her guardian an account of her day that included a cruelly accurate impersonation of her Italian master. Miss Rachel Trench, Harriet’s younger sister, was trying hard to interest her sibling with an account of some wallpapers she had seen, which she thought might be suitable for the salon in their country house of Caveley. Graves was torn between listening to Susan and preventing his jugged hare from escaping over the edge of his plate. The candles blazed and the footmen went to and fro setting down dishes or taking them away, and Stephen and Lord Sussex were competing to entertain the table with their story of a dead rat in the cellar and their plans for the corpse in various schemes to terrify the maids.

  At the head of the table, the personification of calm good grace, sat Mrs. Beatrice Service. Her dress was modest and neat, and her gray curls were pinned up neatly under a white cap. Her eyes suggested she found the world an amusing and pleasant place in general. When Owen Graves had taken on the task of constructing a proper household in which these two ennobled orphans, Lord Sussex and Lady Susan, might grow, he naturally turned to those who had already shown themselves to be their friends in their time of poverty and obscurity. Mrs. Service was such a one. She had lived in the street where the children were born, and had known both their parents. A poor widow, albeit a gentleman’s daughter, she had passed her days quietly starving and trying not to cause any difficulty for anyone in the process. Now she lived with Jonathan, Susan and their guardian as friend and companion in Berkeley Square. She had a box at the opera, good food when she wanted it, and thought herself a very lucky woman.

  There was an element of the governess about Mrs. Service’s role, though Susan had masters who visited the house to instruct her in music and, despite her early reluctance, French and Italian, but there was never any question among the household as to her status. Mrs. Service was counselor to Graves; she held the keys to the store cupboards; the housekeeper came to her for directions; and she acted as a sort of honorary grandmother to the children. She was by nature retiring, but her principles were sound and held with conviction, so if she ever had cause to
speak to Susan about the propriety of her behavior, her words carried great force, and were attended to. Just now, she gave the Earl of Sussex a mild look and the speeches about the rat came to an abrupt halt. In the little silvered moment of silence that followed she asked Mr. Crowther how he had occupied his day.

  “Mrs. Westerman and myself have been recruited to investigate a murder, Mrs. Service,” he replied.

  The silver silence became something harder, and the room seemed to still. Graves put his fork down and said, “Susan, Jonathan. I am afraid Mr. Fitzraven, the gentleman from the His Majesty’s Theatre, has been killed.”

  The children were silent a moment, till Jonathan, looking up at Crowther under his pale lashes, asked in a small voice, “Was he stabbed, sir?”

  Crowther watched him carefully as he replied, “No, Lord Sussex. He was strangled and thrown into the river.”

  Lord Sussex nodded. He had, Crowther surmised, been thinking of his own father’s death; it seemed his sister’s thoughts followed a similar trajectory.

  Susan looked up at her guardian. “Graves, did he have any children? He never mentioned any.”

  Graves reached out his hand to touch her hair. “No, my love. He was alone in the world. That is why Mr. Crowther and Mrs. Westerman must try to give him some justice.”

  The argument, Crowther thought, sounded a little weak. He and Harriet had already agreed that Mr. Palmer’s role in the case should not be known to anyone else in the household. It would seem to involve unnecessary risk to all concerned. However, noticing as he did now the tightening of the muscles around Miss Rachel Trench’s jaw, he wished his conscience would let him be more frank. He then became aware that Lady Susan Thornleigh was looking at him with wide and thoughtful eyes.

  “You are going to find out who killed Mr. Fitzraven, then? I am glad.” Her glance returning to the plate in front of her; the little girl chased some morsel of meat through its gravy with her fork like a god idly steering ships onto rocks or toward treasure. “Though he was never very nice to me till I became rich. Then he smiled much too much. Before then he used to just ignore us and try and impress Father with talk of the opera. Isn’t it foolish to like someone just because someone else has died and left them money and things?”

  He nodded. “Yes, my dear. Very foolish.”

  Rachel stood up rather suddenly. “I had thought you in better spirits this evening, Harriet. I hope this new adventure is not the reason for that. Forgive me, Mrs. Service, I have a sudden headache. I fear you must excuse me.”

  Mrs. Service nodded to her pleasantly. Harriet rested her forehead on her fingertips and closed her eyes. Graves merely looked serious.

  “Mr. Crowther, I think you have not tried the salmon,” Mrs. Service said. “Let me help you to some.”

  As she was so employed she continued, “Mr. Graves, Susan and I were planning on attending the opening night of the season at the Italian Opera. It is tomorrow, you know. I hope Miss Trench will join us. Will you come with us also, as part of your . . . investigations?”

  Mr. Crowther looked at the pink flesh of the fish in front of him, the buttered pastry flaking around it, and found his appetite, always light, was gone.

  “I believe we will be at His Majesty’s rather before that, Mrs. Service. And of course, Mrs. Westerman and I would not wish to expose you or the children to any scenes that might be awkward, or unpleasant.”

  “Of course not,” Harriet echoed rather wearily.

  Mrs. Service smiled and beckoned the footman behind her to remove her plate.

  PART II

  1

  SATURDAY, 17 NOVEMBER 1781, LONDON

  Jocasta sniffed and adjusted her shawl around her shoulders. The fire was going well enough now to drive out any shred of the London fog from the room; her breakfast had been eaten and tidied away and Boyo had had the fat of the chop. She should have been happy as a cat in a blanket, but there was an itching at the back of her neck. She looked down at Boyo. He scratched behind his ears and then licked his mouth with a smack.

  “Don’t you be looking at me like that, Boyo.” Jocasta sniffed again and put up her chin. “There’s some as can’t be told and that’s all of it.”

  Boyo sneezed.

  “I know, I know. There’s trouble there and it’s a big thick sort of trouble, and that sort of trouble spills. But why should we go looking for it? Best way to avoid getting caught in it is to step away, not step toward. Just because every time you see a big pile of muck you go jumping into it doesn’t mean I have to do the same.”

  The fire cracked in the grate. Boyo whined a little. Jocasta narrowed her eyes.

  “Boyo! You are as foolish a dog as I ever knew. A good dog should look after his mistress, not encourage her into all sorts of worry. The cards are saying one thing’s done, and another is following sure as Tuesday follows after Monday night, so what would you have me do!”

  She was looking fierce at the little dog now, though it didn’t seem to bother him greatly. He sat down smartly and scratched behind his ears again.

  “Yes, I could talk to her again. See if she’ll listen, but she won’t. No woman with a mouth that shape or an eye that blue ever listened to anyone other than the man she’s tied to. You know it. Only three months married. No, she won’t listen till she’s run through six.”

  Boyo made no answer. “And in November. Who knows how much of the day we might have to wait in the cold? And it’ll be dark early. And you’ll be keening to be back indoors again within the hour. I know it sure as I know Mrs. Peterson waters the milk and Granger sells meat that could walk out of the shop itself.” She paused, then stood suddenly and raised a finger at the terrier. He jumped up and began to dance in little circles on the hearth rug.

  “Well, on your own head be it, lad. Trouble and more trouble and we must go ferreting it out as if it’s all fun and skittles. I give you a fire and fat, but will you stay still and like it? Not a chance, not a hope of it this side of Judgment.”

  She tied the shawl fiercely in a great knot and put her hand to the latch. Boyo tilted his head to one side and waited. With a sigh she pulled it open.

  “Well. Awez then!”

  “What is it, Mrs. Westerman?”

  “I don’t believe I spoke, Crowther.”

  “Sometimes your silences are speaking.”

  The carriage was carrying them briskly along Piccadilly and Harriet had been admiring the passing mansions with her chin in her hand. It was possible that she might have sighed.

  “I still do not feel we can share Mr. Palmer’s secrets with anyone at Berkeley Square,” she said.

  “I quite agree.”

  “Yet I cannot help thinking, did you not sense there was something of a mood of unhappiness at the table when you spoke about Fitzraven and our agreement to help Justice Pither?”

  He smiled at seeing the spark in her eye. “Perhaps a little. One could characterize it as an affectionate concern, perhaps.”

  Harriet arched her eyebrows. “Yes, I suppose one might, Crowther. But that is not what troubles my conscience the most. I feel I must confess it is likely that had Mr. Palmer not called, had the note arrived from Mr. Pither without introduction, I should probably have found myself in that outhouse and driving with you to His Majesty’s this morning in any case.”

  “I see, madam. You feel you are become the monstrous and unfeminine ghoul some have already made you out to be, and you feel Miss Trench does not approve?”

  “My sister made it perfectly plain to the whole house that she does not approve, yet I feel neither monstrous nor less a woman than I was two years ago.” She turned toward him and folded her arms. “I will do what seems right to me, but I have to allow that Rachel has a better sense of social niceties than I do, just as her sense of music is superior to mine. I make myself appear foolish at times, and that reflects on my family.”

  “Miss Trench has wished you to have something other to think of than your husband’s illness, madam.”

&
nbsp; Harriet smiled a little unhappily. “Yes, Crowther, but I think she would rather I was diverted by her plans for redecorating the salon at Caveley than by whatever corpses we find strewn in our way.”

  “She must accept the sister she has, Mrs. Westerman. I can only hope she does not raise your temper by suggesting you should behave in any other fashion. I have noticed you are at your most sharp when you suspect you are in the wrong.”

  “I shall put it down to your influence, and you shall shoulder her disapproval for me.”

  “I would if I were able, madam, but I fear Miss Trench will not be diverted. She is quite as stubborn as yourself in her way.”

  This time Harriet certainly did sigh.

  When at last they exited the carriage in the middle of Hay Market, Harriet looked up at the simple frontage of His Majesty’s Theatre with curiosity. She was no great admirer of the opera herself, though she had found it pleasant enough the few times she had attended such performances on the continent. She knew, however, that many of the most fashionable and most influential men and women in England proclaimed the opera a marvel and cast themselves into this place like the devotees of some new religion scrambling for a seat near an altar. The king and his family were indeed often entertained here, as were many hundreds of his subjects in the course of a season. On Saturdays and Wednesdays from November until Easter they would tumble in from their carriages with high expectations and strong opinions. They paid their twenty guineas for a box for the season, then came to look at each other and admire the diversions the management gave them in dance and song. Indeed, as well as confirming one’s idea of oneself as a creature of elegant tastes, the operas often provided great spectacle. One might see gods and ancient warriors here, beasts and men flying through the air, armies of chariots crossing the stage, storms and summer days re-created on its grand platform. It was as if all places in the world and all history were gathered roughly up, set to music and squeezed into the theater behind this simple frontage to be poured down the throats of the crowd like the pap fed to infants.