Anatomy of Murder

by Imogen Robertson

  Jocasta bent forward to rest her chin in her hands. “Way I see it, boy, the stories and stuff the cards show us are only half the skill of it. Lots depends on opening up and hearing what people are telling you without them knowing they are telling, or even knowing that they’ve got something to tell. Sometimes a fat truth will jump up clear as day without them even twitching. Like Kate’s cards. They had an evil snap to them, but that’s not the usual way. Other times it’s more like the cards are a set of keys and they open up stuff you thought was all dusty and locked in your head, and show you it in a new light.”

  Sam looked serious and put his own chin in his hands. “But the dream? Did God send you it?”

  “Ha! Don’t recall God ever sending me telling other than through the priest, lad.”

  “So how do you know where those writings are?”

  “I’m saying the dreams are like the cards. They shuffle stuff about. Reckon I must have seen something when I went to try and warn Kate. Something odd about that ugly furniture when I looked through the window, or maybe she looked at it funny as she went in, or touched it somehow. Then I had the dream.”

  Sam looked confused and opened his mouth, but Jocasta cut him off. “Sam, I think there are things the mind knows loud, and things the mind knows quiet. Times I think dreams are you working out what’s important or what’s not. Something in my blood wants me to go and look at that table and guess what’s in it. I’ve gotta listen to that. Maybe my blood’s wrong. But we’ll know.”

  She was quiet a space, then put her hand on his shoulder.

  “You ain’t coming tonight, Sam.”

  He started to speak, but she held his shoulder tight and lifted her other hand. “You ain’t coming.”

  He was all white and his eyes looked wet. She could see him searching for words and finding nothing but fear. She narrowed her eyes. “Think, lad. I need you to look after Boyo.” Fear began to change into confusion in his face. She pushed home. “You’re going to be here. Martha will feed you, then shut the lid on you. You’ve got the lock and you don’t open to anyone but me in the night. If in the morning I ain’t back, let Martha in and do as she says.”

  Jocasta could tell the cobbler and his wife were paused in their work. “Sam,” she added, “there’s no use fighting me. I’ll bind you to the chair all night, if needs be. You stay here and look after Boyo. Head down. I ain’t risking either of you on the streets.”

  Sam pulled away from her and threw himself into the heap of blankets in the corner, face to the wall. Boyo looked up at Jocasta and sneezed. She shrugged at him, and he trotted over to Sam’s side and lay down next to him, crawling under his arm on his belly.

  The roars of approval that kept Manzerotti and Marin on stage after the duet were enough to leave Harriet feeling rather deaf and stupid. She was eager to go and find Harwood at once to escape the noise, but as she began to move from her seat, the door to their box was opened and he entered.

  He greeted them, then glanced at Verity and Rachel. Miss Chase got to her feet.

  “I would like some refreshment, I think. Rachel, will you come with me to the coffee room?”

  Rachel was willing, and so with no more loss of time the ladies removed themselves and gave the others the privacy of the box. Mr. Harwood did not waste words on unnecessary preamble.

  “Mrs. Westerman, sir. I must ask you if you believe this business with Fitzraven might put anyone else in harm’s way?”

  Crowther looked at him with a frown. “It is possible. Once a man has become desperate enough to take one life, he may be willing to try and hide the deed by killing others. Such was the case in Sussex last year.”

  Harwood looked very serious. “Then I must tell you I am concerned for Richard Bywater.”

  “For Richard Bywater!” Harriet repeated in surprise.

  Harwood nodded. “You mean . . . ? No matter. Yes, I am concerned for him. I have not seen him here all day. I sent to his house an hour before the performance to ask him what he was about, but my servant returned empty-handed. He had been seen in the morning in apparent health, and his landlady had thought he had returned to his room, but had had no view of him since then. His door was locked and there was no reply to my servant’s knocks.”

  “You think this is cause for concern?” Crowther asked, and tented his fingers together.

  Harwood put his hands to his eyes. “I fear so. Bywater may not be the most talented of men but I never doubted his commitment to this place. He has attended every performance of his own work, or that of others, since I first employed him. He has never been late for a rehearsal, nor late delivering the material we have required of him. This is most unlike.”

  Crowther continued to consider his fingernails. “I see.”

  Harwood turned to Harriet. “But madam, am I to understand that Bywater is under some sort of suspicion himself? I cannot see the man as a murderer.”

  Harriet replied seriously, “We have as yet no proof that he is. But we do know he is a plagiarist. The ‘Yellow Rose Duet’ was composed by a gentleman called Leacroft who is confined in a madhouse in Kennington.”

  Harwood looked genuinely shocked, then stood up angrily. “The fool! I thought it more than a touch beyond his talent, but to take such a risk! His reputation is destroyed. He will not find further employment here or in any other place in London.”

  Crowther looked up at him. “Are not such accusations common? Would it destroy him so completely?”

  Harwood’s voice was utterly cold. “Completely. Accusations are common, since it is only natural to borrow from your betters, but direct borrowings are acknowledged. It may be that if it were only some minor matter . . . but ‘C’ è una rosa’ is the shining star in this work. Graves has sold two hundred copies already, and the street singers are warbling it after a single public performance. Are you certain?”

  Crowther continued to observe him and simply nodded.

  “Fool! Damned fool! The scandal will taint his name forever, and he has not talent enough to redeem himself. If that is all he is guilty of, he is nevertheless condemned. He may eke out a life teaching piano to provincial gentry, but he’ll never be spoke to here again. If Marin continues in her affection for him now, she will condemn herself utterly as well. Fitzraven knew?”

  “Yes,” Harriet said quietly.

  “Yet he told me nothing! What is afoot here? Fitzraven knew he could ask me for a loan of twenty pounds for information such as that.”

  Crowther spoke. “We suspect he wished to use the information to warn Bywater away from Miss Marin.”

  Harriet noticed that while they had been talking, a ballet had begun on stage. She thought she could recognize the individual Susan had thought less competent than the rest.

  Harwood spoke again, more calmly. “But perhaps then, there is no cause for great concern for his personal safety. If Bywater is guilty of what you accuse him of, even if he had no role in Fitzraven’s death, it is likely he may have fled the town.” Then, frowning, he asked Harriet, “Might Bywater have known you had found out about this gentleman?”

  “He cannot know we have discovered his plagiarism,” she replied, “but Mademoiselle Marin visited Leacroft yesterday.”

  The ballet was finishing, but it seemed the opera enthusiasts far outnumbered the lovers of dance that evening, and the applause was lukewarm. Harwood grimaced. “That reception will put Master Navarre and his troop in a rage. No matter. He must realize the crowd will have its favorites every season.” He leaned against the wall of the box. “Mademoiselle Marin has visited this gentleman, you say?” Harriet drew breath to explain, but Harwood put up a hand to stop her. “No, Mrs. Westerman. Say nothing more. I have heard revelations enough this evening.”

  Crowther stood. “Give me Bywater’s address if you please, Mr. Harwood. And the services of one of your men. If Bywater will not answer his door, I am afraid we must knock it down. If he is fled, he might have left some trace of the direction he has taken. If he is there,
we shall speak to him.”

  Harwood nodded. “Of course. He has a room in Charles Street, a moment away. He would have taken up residence in the theater itself, if I had allowed it.”

  Harriet looked up at Crowther’s thin, frowning face. “You wish me to remain here and speak to Isabella after the third act, sir?”

  “If that is acceptable, madam.”

  Harriet managed to resist the temptation to roll her eyes. “Naturally. I will send the girls home, and you must come and collect me when you are done turning over Bywater’s rooms.”

  Harwood opened the door to the box and bowed Crowther out, then bowed Miss Trench and Miss Chase back in, each with an orange in their hand and sparkling with good humor. They found Harriet hunched over, too busy with her thoughts to speak to them and her fingers rapping on her skirts.

  Jocasta was almost spitting with impatience when Molloy reached her. He swaggered up and grinned at her mirthlessly.

  “Not got your familiars with you tonight, Mrs. Bligh?”

  “Never mind that, Molloy. You got no mind to the hour? I’ve been waiting for you for longer than I like.”

  He winked. “I’ve got a good mind for the time, never you worry. It’s just my little test like. If you ain’t willing to wait, you ain’t got a serious eye to the business, and if you ain’t got a serious eye, then I’m not about to risk sticking my head in a noose for you.”

  “You could have found some other way, you dog.”

  “Watch your mouth,” he said, though his voice was still mild enough, just rough with pipe smoke and old beer. “Now where are these doors you need to ghost through?”

  Harriet could not have said at what moment the atmosphere in the auditorium began to change. The crowd had chattered or applauded its way through some piece or other from the pit and spat out sunflower-seed shells onto the sawdust on the pit floor for a period, till softly the whispering began to change its tone. Harriet looked up, seeing what was around her for the first time in some minutes. The occupants of the boxes looked irritable and a number of the ladies were hiding yawns behind their fans. The musicians were exchanging shrugs and shaking their heads. Those on the upper part of the gallery began to clap, slow and regular, a few at first, then more and more joined till the walls seemed to shake with the regular rhythm of it. One or two ladies began to follow the beat with their closed fans rapping on the velvet lips of their boxes. Harriet was confused; Rachel leaned over to her to explain.

  “The third act should have begun some time ago.”

  The pace of the handclap began to accelerate. Harriet found herself beginning to stand, a confused wonder and fear crawling up her spine. The thud of the clapping reached a frenzied climax and collapsed. Catcalls, whistles and shouted complaints began to echo around the walls in its place.

  “Rachel, Miss Chase . . .” Harriet said slowly. “I think you should go home at once. Send the carriage back for us when you are safe at Berkeley Square.”

  It was Rachel’s turn to look confused. “But Harriet—”

  Before she could say any more, there was a scream. A woman’s voice, full of rage and grief, poured into the air and scorched it silent. The voice came from somewhere in the wings. For a moment everything was still, then as if the touch of the sound had burned the skin of the audience, everyone began to shout at once. Other feminine cries of distress around the theater echoed the first. Harriet found herself unable to move. On the stage below them, arranged as for a temple with a sea glittering blue in the back, Mr. Harwood staggered out and approached the footlights. His arms raised for quiet.

  The flames threw strange shadows up his face and over his arms, and made his shape huge and crowlike on the canvas seascape behind him.

  “Ladies and gentlemen—please!” The noise level ebbed away and the audience leaned forward. Harriet found her hands were trembling. “Tonight’s performance of Julius Rex cannot, I am afraid, continue . . . One of our performers is no longer able—”

  The scream came again, vicious and angry. Harwood paused, his arms still raised, and looked off stage. He seemed terrified, like a man who finds himself fallen suddenly into hell. From the wings a figure in gray crawled forward.

  “Morgan,” Harriet whispered through dry lips.

  The figure screamed again and lifted her hands; her voice when she spoke was hardly human. “Who has murdered my songbird?” It asked raging and blind. “Who has killed my Issy?” Her hands were caught in the lights. They were red with blood.

  Pandemonium. Harwood unfroze and dropped to his knees and put his arms around the stricken woman, trying to help her offstage again. The musicians all stood and craned their necks to look up. The entire theater was full of cries and weeping, every man and woman on their feet and hurrying to be somewhere but knowing not where or how to flee the horror of it. Harriet spun round to the white faces of her sister and friend.

  “Lock the door behind me. Stay here until the theater has emptied—the crush could be deadly—then go. Do not wait for me.” Rachel had started to sob. Harriet hesitated, but met Miss Chase’s cool gray eyes.

  Verity took Rachel’s hands firmly in her own, and said in a voice steadier than Harriet’s, “Go, Mrs. Westerman. I’ll look after Rachel.” And when Harriet still wavered, Verity stood up and opened the door of the box.

  “For the love of God, Harriet, go!” Harriet ran out and, gathering her skirts, dashed down the corridor and toward the artists’ apartments as if the devil himself were at her heels.

  8

  Harriet pushed open the doors at the end of the corridor, and escaping the pandemonium of the auditorium, found herself in the chaos of the backstage. She fought her way past the Roman women of the chorus weeping and fainting and holding each up in small groups. The god she had watched descend from the clouds at the opening of the scene sat on a plaster boulder in his costume, his Olympian wreath bent out of shape and his heavy makeup running. He rocked from side to side. Manzerotti suddenly appeared beside her and took her arm. He still wore gold, though his magnificent plumes he held now in his hand.

  “Mrs. Westerman. God be praised.” His black eyes had a glitter to them, and there was sweat on his upper lip. “Come with me.” He took her arm and dragged her through the crowds and across the stage. The auditorium was still breaking under waves of noise. He dragged her just behind the side panel stage right and released her.

  Harwood was on his knees, his head in his hands. In front of him, like a mockery of the Pietà, Morgan knelt, Isabella’s body hauled up across her thighs and chest. There was blood everywhere, blackening the blue satin of her bodice and skirts. Only her face and neck were clean of it, though they were heavy with her stage makeup: the skin dead white, her open eyes heavily lined, her mouth wide with red paint. Her natural hair had escaped its pins and fell in black about her temples. Harriet noticed the diamonds in her ears.

  Getting down on her knees, Harriet crept toward them, as if approaching a holy and dreadful thing.

  “Morgan?”

  The old woman’s head flicked up and stared at her. Harriet crept closer and put her hand around Isabella’s wrist. Still warm. “Morgan? It’s Harriet Westerman. What happened?”

  Morgan shifted her grip on the girl’s body, holding it still closer to her with a keening whine, and continued to rock her. Her face was flushed and so flooded with tears her skin seemed honey-glazed. She touched Isabella’s cheek with a fingertip, then seeing that she had dirtied the skin with blood, tried to wipe the mark off with her sleeve, smearing Isabella’s rouge.

  “Morgan? Can you tell me what happened?” Harriet found herself becoming oddly calm. The other clamor of the place dropped away. There was just her in the world and these two women, one dead, one grieving for the dead. She looked swiftly along the length of the body. Two wounds. One in her belly that had bled hard and fast. The other was a neat straight line above her heart. It had hardly bled at all.

  The wood around the lock splintered at the second attempt. Crow
ther nodded his thanks to Harwood’s man, and stepped into the room. He became still at once. The fire behind them was burning with a fierce light; in front of it, at right angles to the door, was a tin bathtub. Bywater was in it, eyes closed, naked and very white. He had slumped down far enough so that his shoulders were underwater. The firelight swum over it. It was the same color as Graves’s Madeira. One arm hanging over the lip of the tub had prevented the dead man from slipping entirely under the water. The wrist was an angry red mouth. Crowther had time to note that the cut had been made along the artery rather than across it before he was distracted by the sound of Harwood’s servant vomiting in the corridor behind him.

  “Molloy? How long will you be at this?”

  “Hush, woman. Street door you could open with a fish bone. This one into the family rooms is a little more fancy . . . little bit more sophisticated, you might say. Needs more than a tickle and a slap to get this lady to open up.”

  Jocasta folded her arms. He felt her look even in the darkness of the lobby and laughed softly. “Patience, Mrs. Bligh. I’m nearly there.”

  Crowther waited till the sounds of sickness had passed, drew a handkerchief from his pocket and threw it over his shoulder without pausing in his careful scrutiny of the room.

  “Go back to His Majesty’s,” he told the other man. “Tell Harwood and Mrs. Westerman that Bywater is dead. Tell them to send to Bow Street and inform them of what has passed, and to Justice Pither on Great Suffolk Street and tell him Mr. Crowther would be happy to meet him here tomorrow morning early and inform him of developments. Then send two men here to guard the place. I will pay them. Make sure they have stronger stomachs than you yourself.”

  He hardly heard the mumbled thanks and apology. The man’s footsteps retreated down the stairs at a pace. Crowther set his cane in front of him and leaned on it. But made no further move.

  “There, Mrs. Bligh! You’re in. Just pull it to sharp as you come out, and no one will know different. I’m away and good luck to you.”