Anatomy of Murder

by Imogen Robertson

  “Is there anything further?”

  Crowther spoke. “The rope that bound his legs together came from this house. We intend to seek his murderer here. If you know anything that would expedite that search, it would be good of you to reveal it, and save us both some inconvenience.”

  Mr. Harwood sighed, and put down his letter very carefully.

  “I doubt I can be of much assistance. The rope came from here, did it? You are sure?” Crowther simply nodded. “How unfortunate.” There was a long pause. Harriet was, she knew, appallingly bad at letting such silences stretch. Her impulse was always to leap into the conversational fray, to charm and chatter those with whom she talked into confidence, but she had learned from Crowther the power of stillness.

  Mr. Harwood looked at them sharply and eventually continued: “I am glad murder is still so rare a thing, even in these fallen days, but we have enough experience of it to know that unless the perpetrator is found with the knife in his hand, or makes the mistake of mentioning his guilt in public, it is unlikely he will ever be found. Is that not the case?” Again, neither Harriet nor Crowther replied. Mr. Harwood frowned. “What use then to tell stories, and force people into slandering their neighbors and colleagues with suspicion? Are there not other amusements in Town sufficient for you?”

  Harwood got to his feet and moved to look out of his window into the street outside, linking his hands together behind his back. Harriet could hear the scrape of iron wheels on stone, the shouts of the chair carriers.

  “I know your names, of course. Do I assume you are once again—now how did that rather colorful pamphlet last autumn put it?—‘taking up the flaming sword of truth on behalf of your king?’” Harwood turned to look at them over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. “Well, I wish you could choose a more noble object for your crusade. Nathaniel Fitzraven was a rather poisonous little man, though he was a good musician in his time. Why make his sordid little life your subject? I doubt he has any hidden heir or suffering children for you to save.” He moved away from the window, and with a gentle nod, continued, “Do you know, one of my colleagues was offered a one-act interpretation of your adventures last summer for the public stage? Were it not for the fact a rather neat little comedy called The Coffee-Shop became available, you would have had a run in Drury Lane.”

  His lip curled a little, whether at herself and Crowther, or at the quality of the drama about them, Harriet could not say. She was annoyed to feel herself blush; she would have given a great deal to hide her discomfort. When Crowther spoke, however, his voice showed no sign of embarrassment or awkwardness. His tone was as dry as Mr. Harwood’s and his words more distinct and glassy. She did not need to look at him to know that his right eyebrow was raised and he was examining the manager along the line of his thin nose.

  “Unlike yourself, Mr. Harwood, I cannot dictate the manner in which the populace chooses to entertain itself. It is not my concern. Mrs. Westerman and I were asked by a magistrate trying to do his duty, a Mr. Pither in Great Suffolk Street, to examine a body. The body, we discovered, was that of Mr. Fitzraven. He was not the victim of some casual robbery, or public confrontation. He was throttled, then some hours later his body was tied and thrown in the river in an attempt, I believe, to conceal the crime and rob him of a proper burial.” Harriet found her discomfort gone and began to enjoy herself as Crowther spoke on: “If he had friends capable and willing to search out his killers, I would gladly hand over those duties to them. It seems he did not, and if Mrs. Westerman and I can discover a murderer, and prevent him from killing again, then we shall do so. Pamphlets, stage plays, orphans and heirs . . . these are irrelevant.”

  Harwood looked at them both with attention as Crowther finished, then having taken his seat again spread his hands wide on the table.

  “Very well.” He closed his eyes for a moment then pinched the bridge of his nose with his right hand before going on. “I will tell you what I can of Fitzraven, though I would request you make no further enquiries in this house today, at least, whatever your suspicions. These people must entertain their Sovereign tonight and nerves are stretched. I do not ask this lightly.” He looked up at them, Harriet met Crowther’s eye then turned back to give Harwood a slight nod. The manager spoke through clenched teeth. “I will speak to everyone after the performance and give them your names. Mrs. Service has a box, of course, and her company are normally invited to the Green Room, but . . .”

  “Mr. Crowther and I have no plans to attend the opera tonight,” Harriet said calmly.

  “Good. Fitzraven was an irritant, but useful at times. He was keen to continue his association with the Opera House after we ceased to ask him to play, so I employed him to supervise the copying of parts and run errands. There are two boys we employ during the season who do much the same work, and for much the same pay, but since Fitzraven dressed in a frock coat and talked like a gentleman, mostly, many assumed his responsibilities were more extensive than they were.”

  Harriet lifted her chin and now comfortably meeting his gaze, said, “Yet we are told that this summer you placed considerable trust in him. Did you not send him to Milan to recruit for the current season? Why, if you were doubtful of him, did you do such a thing?”

  Harwood settled back in his chair and seemed to lose himself in contemplation of the far corner of his office. The decoration in this room seemed to find a mean between the plain functionality of the backstage rooms and the gaudy extravagances of the lobby. The decoration was present, but polite. Three or four portraits in heavy gilt frames formed the main interest of the room. They were all of solid gentlemen, richly dressed—the former Managers of the Opera House, if the little plaques under the frames were to be believed. They looked down on their successor with a weary disdain and intense self-satisfaction.

  “I did. It was a risk, but the prize offered was well worth reaching for. I have been attempting via my agents abroad to persuade Miss Marin to come to London each season since I took over management of His Majesty’s. I heard her sing in Paris four years ago and was astonished. I expect all London to be astonished now. However, she was always snatched away from me by another, richer employment elsewhere on the continent, and I fear my voice was only one among many. Then, in the spring, Fitzraven came to me and said he was in private correspondence with the lady, and believed he could persuade her to come for this season if I agreed to let him act as the agent of the theater in Italy over the summer.”

  “And you trusted him?” asked Harriet.

  Harwood shook his head. “No. But he showed me parts of a letter from the lady to himself that seemed warm in its tones and asked him to visit her. I admit I was surprised at his success in eliciting the invitation, but he had managed it and I thought it was worth the risk to send him. I limited his expenses and gave him no great latitude in his negotiations. We have good friends among the bankers of Florence and Milan, and I did not believe they would allow him to damage us with extravagant fees. To this point I have had no reason to regret my decision. Miss Marin is here. I have heard great things spoken of Manzerotti: several influential judges of music told me of his talents, and from what I have heard of his voice, those praises have been justified. Some of the other singers I think may have been selected by Fitzraven more for their ability to put money into his pocket than their skills, but they are . . .” he shrugged “. . . competent.”

  “And how did Fitzraven enter into this correspondence?” Crowther asked.

  Harwood lifted his palms. “I cannot tell you, Mr. Crowther. I heard a story once that the fair Miss Byrne was so moved by correspondence she received from one music lover, it was all her friends could do to prevent her from eloping with the gentleman, sight unseen. I believe he turned out to be the son of a button maker and still in the schoolroom. Perhaps Fitzraven had a similarly convincing epistolary style.”

  Crowther frowned. “Did Fitzraven have a talent with the pen?”

  Harwood shifted in his seat. “He did, from time to time
, send paragraphs to the newspapers in praise of the productions here, or to alert the public of the personages about to appear. Much as your friend Graves did before his sudden change in circumstance.”

  “Graves, I believe, was never in the pay of those about whom he wrote,” Harriet said.

  “Indeed, Mrs. Westerman,” Harwood replied, studying the ceiling. “To our cost and his own, Graves always insisted on his independence.”

  There was a light tap on the door; a servant leaned into the room just far enough to nod at Harwood, then withdrew. “You must excuse me now, however. I am called to see this wondrous duet that closes Act Two. Everyone who has heard it swears it will get half a dozen encores.” Harwood rose, then said as an afterthought, “Come with me. It is a public rehearsal and I shall watch from the King’s Box. I also hear that Mr. Johannes, our master of stage mechanics, has come up with some piece of trickery that will astound me, and you may have sight of the artistes of whom we were just speaking.”

  Harriet and Crowther rose with him. As she moved aside to let him lead the way out of the room, Harriet remarked lightly, “I have always been astonished at the marvels the stage can contain. All those descending angels, mountain ranges a man can climb and so on.”

  Harwood bowed a little. “It is part of the spectacular—though we have had our failures. Some years ago I was convinced into releasing live birds during one scene. The effect was brief, and the inconvenience considerable. The coronation scene that followed did not benefit from one of the chorus getting a sparrow caught up in her headgear.”

  4

  Jocasta would not have chosen Salisbury Street as a place to live. Not while there was a dry corner anywhere else in London. The mist never cleared from these alleys that bent toward the broad Thames, and the whole street had that air of miserable decay that comes on any creature or place forced to stay damp the majority of the time.

  Walking up to the door of the first house, she rapped once and hard. A pinched-looking face appeared at the window. A second later, the door was opened a crack and a frighteningly thin nose appeared. So narrow was the face behind it that Jocasta felt she was talking to a door wedge.

  “Mitchell?” it said in response to Jocasta’s question. “Third house down.” The door snapped shut again and Jocasta thought about spitting bad luck onto the step for bad manners, but decided against. Instead, she had a tap at the door of the third house down, peered into a parlor done up nice enough but empty, and getting no answer or sight of any person, settled herself on the step opposite. Boyo turned twice and burrowed at her feet. Then put his paws over his nose.

  Jocasta lifted her head and said with a nod, “True enough, Boyo. Too much river water in the air here. Still, I’ll have no complaints from you. You know sure enough this was all your plan, and I’m just too much of a silly old fool to do anything but listen.”

  Then she waited. Through her mind danced a pattern of swords and a clatter of gold.

  As they took their places, Harwood called down to a young-looking man at the harpsichord in the pit that he was all attention, then added in a lower tone to his companions, “As we have not the libretto to hand, I shall act as chorus. Mademoiselle’s character is mourning for her lover, played by Mr. Manzerotti, whom she believes lost to her forever. They meet by accident in the rose garden and she sings this aria to him, ‘C’è una rosa.’ It is the sorrow of a woman deeply in love whose love has now been rejected. Mr. Manzerotti tells her it is inevitable and asks for her forgiveness. He continues to do so as she restates her love and incomprehension at his changed heart.” Harwood covered his mouth with a hand and yawned. “He does love her, of course. They are kept apart by Manzerotti’s loyalty to the enemy of Miss Marin’s father. Very tragic and noble. This opera is largely a pasticcio.” He noticed the confused expression on the faces of his guests. “That is to say, it is made up from segments of other operas by a variety of composers, and there are certain arias that performers prefer and of which they make a showcase. We agree to include them in any performance. However, I wished to have at least a couple of original songs, and this is one. Our young composer, Mr. Richard Bywater, went walking all summer in the Highlands, I understand, to gather his ideas, yet they seemed remarkably thin still when he returned. I only hope inspiration has struck finally with considerable force and the performers have the tune down.”

  Harriet began to take in the scene as her eyes became used to the darkness of the auditorium; only the stage and pit where the musicians huddled were afforded any light. There were any number of people moving around the shadows, however, though it was still empty by comparison with the heaving and pushing crowds she was used to seeing in the pits and galleries of an opera house. Some scattered ladies and gentlemen had attended the rehearsal as part of their afternoon’s entertainment. She could also see three or four women at work in the boxes, polishing the fittings and neatening the arrangements of chairs. Two men were at the same business of cleaning in the pit, with a lad following them throwing lavender down in loose handfuls on the floor. At the side of the stage another pair of men were at work on one of the hoop chandeliers, filling the little oil lamps and trimming the wicks.

  Two figures sat on chairs placed on the right of the stage. The male figure, the great castrato Manzerotti, was unusually tall and slender. He wore a coat of the most startling scarlet, decorated with a profusion of gold braid, and the high heels of his shoes were an electric blue that so engaged the eye, even from this distance, Harriet thought they must be made of lapis lazuli. They seemed to spark up toward her and sting her eyes. The lady sitting next to him, the writer of the warm letters, Miss Marin, wore many folds of dove gray, gathered at the waist and flowing into a remarkably full skirt. It was balanced by the extravagant size of her hat, whose broad sweeping brim must render, Harriet thought, half the world a mystery to her.

  These figures now lazily stood and moved to opposite sides of the stage, exchanged words with unseen watchers in the wings, and waited. Mademoiselle Marin noticed them where they were watching and smiled upward. It was a pleasant smile—rather shy, almost apologetic. Harriet found herself returning it, and regretting her promise to Harwood not to have conversation with the singers before the morrow. Then the first note was struck on the harpsichord and the fiddlers, still finishing their own conversations in the pit, took up the theme.

  The stage did indeed look very like a rose garden, though Harriet could see no blooms. Patterned panels created a vista that seemed to stretch for half a mile into the distant depths of the stage, ending with a folly perched on a hilltop. Nearer to the singers on either side were clumped patches of deep green foliage, and in the center of the stage a fountain depicted Apollo and Leucothea embracing and pouring over each other’s forms water that flowed from the cups they held above their heads.

  Then Isabella began to sing.

  Her voice was clear as water and produced apparently without effort or any sign of strain. Strange pictures and memories began almost at once to dance behind Harriet’s eyes. She thought of her husband. She knew a little Italian, but not enough to understand what was being sung. The music had to bring everything to her and it seemed, as the music continued, as if it was sadly dropping rose petals into her palm. The melody that had begun simply, a lilting lost thought, circled and grew more complex till it took the soprano’s voice to heights that seemed to Harriet impossible, inevitable, then fell away again in a rapid waves of triplets that sounded like tears. Then, as Marin’s voice faded like a ghost, exhausted and distressed, Manzerotti began to sing. It was a sound unlike any other human voice she had ever heard. Its pitch was as high as Isabella’s but so strong it made her think of gold polished white. She thought of bells, hunting horns. It cut its way up and under and between the players in the pit like a scarlet ribbon woven into a cloth of some coarser stuff. The voices joined, waters flowing together, a strange alchemy.

  Suddenly Harriet noticed that on stage in front of them, roses were beginning to bloo
m. Yellow roses, apparently drawn into life by the song, pushed their way silently out of the deep foliage around them. They appeared first severally as buds, then as the song swelled, each one opened a full and heavy bloom till the stage was full of them. As the voices peaked once more, together, one lost in grief, the other tender but inflexible, the water of the fountain was transmuted into gold, and glittering showers ran over the carved muscles of the statues. The band yearned upward, and as the lovers reached the end of their song, still separated and unresolved, the woodwind called out three high and reaching chords that made Harriet’s hands clench together in her lap, such was the force they carried, their bitter, painful sweetness. Mademoiselle Marin turned to the pit, and the young man at the harpsichord, and kissed her fingers to him. He blushed and looked down.

  Silence fell. Harriet blinked and looked about her. All activity in the auditorium had ceased. The cleaning women stood mute and unmoving in the boxes, their cloths held unnoticed at their sides. The men and boy sweeping the pit had stopped their work and turned to the stage; the men changing the candles were held, open-mouthed, staring at the singers. All conversation between the ladies and gentlemen had ceased.

  Manzerotti smiled and turned toward the King’s Box. The moment passed and the listeners began to go about their business again. Harriet saw the musicians in the pit lean back and sigh; the cellist covered his eyes with his hands briefly. Isabella turned and smiled frankly at them again, then without waiting for any sign, exited the stage. Only the young man at the keyboard did not move, but remained head bowed over the keys. Harwood nodded toward the stage, then seemed to slip back into himself, staring up at the painted ceiling of his little world.

  “Good,” he said simply.

  Harriet heard Crowther cough slightly and turned to look at him. He seemed as surprised as she felt herself. He wetted his lips slightly and said, “Remarkable.”