Anatomy of Murder

by Imogen Robertson

  Harwood uncovered his face and looked at Harriet. “I must help get the people out.”

  Harriet did not take her eyes away from Morgan. “Do. I will stay with them.” She heard him stand and move off. “Morgan? What happened?”

  Morgan looked at Harriet again, but this time Harriet thought she did so with some understanding.

  “He killed my little bird, Mrs. Westerman.”

  Harriet came forward till she could slip her arm around the old lady’s shoulders. The woman leaned into her and wept. Harriet almost slipped under the weight of her.

  “Who killed her, Morgan?”

  “Bywater! That fool, Bywater! She’d asked to meet him in the scene room after the second act when it would be a little quieter. He’s been strange, the last day or two.”

  Harriet put her other arm across them, holding Morgan and the dead Isabella in a loose embrace. “Did she see he was not in the pit?”

  “Of course, of course. Though it didn’t seem to surprise her, and she still swore he’d be there to meet her. Said he’d have to be there.”

  “Do you know why she was to meet him, Morgan?”

  She felt rather than saw the old woman shake her head. “No, no. I thought perhaps he was angry with her. Her all followed and courted, and invited places he ain’t. She smiles at the rich men, but it’s her work. She means nothing by it. Do you, little bird?”

  Harriet became aware that she was not alone in listening to Morgan. A couple of the corps de ballet were standing behind them, their heads hanging. Two or three of the chorus singers, the leader of the opera band sitting on the bare stage, his violin dead in his hands. There was a stir in the crowd. One of the servants of the place approached, pale, shaking, out of breath, with Crowther’s soiled handkerchief still in his hand. He knelt beside her, whispering in her ear.

  Harriet nodded and said to him, “Let Crowther know what has happened here and say that I shall wait for him.”

  Jocasta slid into the room like a cat sneaking into a dairy and pulled the door closed just behind her. Then she made for the gray shadow of the side table. The lip was certainly thicker than it needed to be. She slipped her fingers below it, began to feel along the length hoping her heart would calm enough not to leap out of her chest where she stood. It was not as easy as in the dream. There seemed to be no magic spot to make a secret jump free like a jack-in-the-box. For a second Jocasta thought of turning and running and calling the dreams traitor. But there was something wrong in the make of this. She began to feel along the way a little lower down. Fingering for weakness, for an unhappy joint.

  The servant retreated and earnest whispers began to rustle among the groups around them.

  Morgan looked drunk, bemused with grief. “What has happened?” she said.

  “Bywater is dead,” Harriet said simply.

  “Good. By his own hand?”

  “It seems that way.”

  Morgan held Isabella up in her arms again and kissed her forehead. Harriet looked around them. There was a face that looked familiar, young and tear-streaked in the corner. She recognized the assistant from the scene room.

  “Boyle! We are in need of your help. Fetch something to use as a stretcher and two men to carry it.” He nodded and turned to go. Harriet said more softly to Morgan: “Let us take her back to her room, Morgan, where she may be more private.”

  Morgan gave no sign of having heard, but kissing Issy’s forehead again said softly to the cooling corpse, “We shall make you comfortable now, my sweetheart. Did you hear all the shouting and Bravos? Did you hear them calling for you even when the ballet was begun? While you hurried off to see that silly man. But we must rest now, my love. Come to your room and we will make you cozy.”

  Crowther waited till he was sure that he could draw the plan of the room from memory, then stepped into it. He walked the edges of the space. The arrangement of the place was not unlike Fitzraven’s, though the house had none of the pretensions to civility of Mrs. Girdle’s establishment. A clavichord and desk. The latter was covered in manuscript paper. There were many beginnings, many scratched out or torn. On top of them all lay a sheet which Crowther carefully picked up, read and folded into his pocket.

  Jocasta’s fingers almost missed it. Then she paused and set her hands either side of the circular top. She breathed deep, then gave it a sharp twist. With a little judder of protest the top turned, making the bowl that sat in its center rattle in its place. The sides of the table opened up like a flower, revealing four neat drawers, shaped like petals. Two were empty. Two had rolls of paper in them, done up with string. She pulled one out and unrolled it. Writing, and plenty of it. For a moment she was still, then taking two sheets and laying them on top of the table, she curled up the others again and laid them back in the drawer. With a start she noticed the little brooch that Kate had been so pleased with. She was just reaching for it as if she was in a dream again when she went very still. Footsteps. A woman’s and the front door creaking open. She looked about her. The room seemed suddenly bare and small. Her eyes caught on the door. There was a rattle of a key, a pause. The handle began to turn.

  Mr. Harwood himself and the leader of the band carried Isabella back to her room. Harriet followed behind, trying to support Morgan. She could hear words whispering around her.

  “So much in love . . .”

  “Jealousy . . . it’s killed many a man . . .”

  Harriet kept her head down and tried to keep the woman at her side moving forward.

  When Harwood’s men found Crowther he was stooped over the body in the bathtub. He lifted his head to look at them. One stepped forward and opened and closed his mouth a few times. The lad found himself transfixed. Mr. Crowther removed his hand from the bathwater, and wiped it on the underside of his coat.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  The man struggled to find his voice, and on discovering it somewhere in the chill of his bones, did so.

  The door was beginning to open when Jocasta heard a male shout in the corridor. The voice sounded thick and drunk, but she knew it as Molloy’s.

  “Hey, lady! Give a man a drink and a dance! They’ve thrown me out upstairs!”

  Now a woman’s voice. “Who are you? Who let you visit here?”

  “Come on, sharp-eyes! I’ll sing you a waltz . . .”

  Jocasta looked about her. There was a room with a bed in it just beyond. She twisted the tabletop again, so the drawers disappeared inside, and tumbled toward the open door. The bowl rattled. With a silent curse, she turned again to grab the papers off the surface and dived back into the bedchamber, starting to wedge herself under the frame and trailing blankets as she heard a sharp slap connecting outside, followed by a laugh and the sound of a man stumbling. The front door slammed, and she heard the door to the main room opening, then closing.

  “Freddy! You here? That whore upstairs has had another drunk in the place.” The door to the bedchamber opened wider, and Jocasta felt a body cross the bare light then go again.

  “I’ll throw the bitch out on the street,” the voice mumbled. Jocasta tried to breathe easy. There was the sound of the flint striking and a candle flared.

  When Crowther entered Isabella’s dressing room, he found the general gloom lit by twin candles set in silver, placed either side of the soprano’s head. Some manner of trestle had been set up in the middle of the room, and she lay there as if in state. Her face had been cleaned of its stage makeup, and she looked shockingly lovely in the soft white light of the flames. A sheet was drawn up to her neck. Morgan sat by her head, but did not look up from the corpse when Crowther opened the door. He saw a shift in the shadows and caught sight of Mrs. Westerman sitting in a deep armchair in the corner of the room. He inclined his head and she stood slowly, and having looked a moment at Morgan, followed him out of the room and into the corridor.

  “Has everyone gone?” she said, as the door shut softly behind them.

  “Harwood and some of the servants will remain tonight.
And there is a constable from Bow Street at each of the entrances to the place. I understand your sister and Miss Chase left over an hour ago.”

  “Morgan carried her from the scene room. The blood trail runs all the way to the wings.”

  “What was her intention?” Crowther asked.

  “I cannot say. I think she was become a little mad. She knew Isabella had to be on stage and took her there. I am not sure she even knew she was dead until she set her down and saw how she was covered in blood.” Harriet paused and bit her lip, then added, “Did he kill himself?”

  “We shall talk of that later, Mrs. Westerman. But first there is something I must show you. Something rather strange is happening.”

  He led her in silence through the darkened lobby and past Mr. Harwood’s office to the deserted coffee rooms that overlooked Hay Market. Mr. Harwood was at the window. On seeing them come in he moved to one side without comment, and Crowther guided Harriet to his former place. She looked out. There was a crowd outside, largely silent, and any that spoke did so in hushed voices.

  It seemed every class of Londoner was represented in the mass of people. There were boys in ragged coats and rag-bound feet, neat-looking servant women, standing with their arms linked. The local watchman, leathery and decrepit, rested his weight on his stick. Women in silk and men in evening dress stood in small groups, and as Harriet watched, two sedan chairs stopped and a prosperous-looking gentleman stepped out of one, and handed his respectable-looking wife out of the other. But it was not this that drew a sigh from Harriet and made her lift her hand to her mouth. The flower women stood with their baskets empty, the boys were curled up across the road cutting paper as fast as they could and putting them into the hands of the men and women who approached them. The pavement was covered in roses; all along the front of His Majesty’s and ankle-deep in places, the pavement was covered in yellow roses.

  PART VII

  1

  THURSDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 1781

  “Mr. Pither! if you will only look about you one moment and consider!” It was rare that Crowther found himself to be the most heated person in the room, but his patience had snapped like kindling this morning. It was Harriet, pale and leaning against the broken door of Richard Bywater’s room, who managed to remain calm. Crowther was forced to consider that a night of marginal rest had managed to create some strange exchange in their characters. He was all impatience and movement; she still and speaking little. Yet she did speak now, shaking her head as Mr. Pither once again, under the guise of congratulation, insisted that the investigation was complete.

  “Dear sir,” she said, “it may well be that Bywater killed Fitzraven to hide his plagiarism, or more likely in a rage on finding himself blackmailed—”

  “Undoubtedly!” Pither interrupted with great glee. “Then on hearing that Mademoiselle also knew of his treachery, and perhaps suspecting this heinous crime, he killed her at the opera house, and then himself in a fit of remorse! Mr. Crowther found his confession in this very room.”

  Harriet could not help noticing that Mr. Pither had gained a certain fluency now he believed his case was made. She did her utmost to remember that Pither was one of the better justices of London, but his pleasure, undisguised, with Bywater’s corpse still lying before them was difficult for her to forgive. She suspected him of imagining the newspaper paragraphs dancing before him.

  “Please, sir,” she tried again, “the note Crowther found was only three words long. ‘I killed him.’ Not them, Mr. Pither. My dear sir, do you not think if he had just run back in haste from the murder of Miss Marin in order to bleed to death before Crowther could get here and gain entry, he would have said, ‘I killed her’? or ‘I killed them both’?”

  Mr. Pither opened his mouth, but before he could restate his case, Crowther had begun to speak again.

  “And the valise, Mr. Pither. What man packs his belongings before slicing his wrists? Bywater’s intention was to leave London yesterday, not to die.”

  Pither folded his arms and stuck out his lip, reminding Harriet of nothing so much as her little boy when he was told the orchard could not be converted into a boating lake. “He may have at first thought to flee, then decided death was an easier exit,” he said very firmly.

  Crowther stepped forward to the body and lifted the chin. Harriet watched calmly, but Pither flinched. “What of these bruises round the face? What of the empty gin bottle on the mantelpiece? I will swear to it I shall find most of this bottle in his belly.”

  Pither’s voice became a little keening. “Well you might, sir. What could be more natural than to take a drink before committing such a desperate act. And the bruises may arise from any chance encounter in the street. I think your theory much more far-fetched than mine, Mr. Crowther.” He attempted a dismissive laugh. It was not a great success, but he continued undaunted: “You really think he arrived here, was forced to drink gin enough to render him insensible, was stripped, placed in the bathtub and had his wrists slashed all in the thirty minutes between the beginning of the second interval and your arrival here?”

  The growl in Crowther’s voice grew almost to a roar. “Mr. Pither, I suggest no such thing!”

  The justice gave a little instinctive skip away from him.

  “What Crowther is suggesting, Mr. Pither, is that Bywater was killed some time before the performance, and therefore could not have been the murderer of Miss Marin.”

  “But her maid Morgan says—”

  Harriet continued, “Her maid says only that she intended to meet Mr. Bywater. Her note to that effect is also on the table. Perhaps he was composing a note to her to be delivered rather than keep his appointment. Morgan found Isabella dying in the scene room. She did not see who attacked her.”

  “And more than that, look!” Crowther’s voice was another angry shout. He rocked the body over in the tub, splashing the pink waters on his shirtsleeves. Pither lifted his chin as if attempting to see what was indicated without approaching any nearer. “No, in all damnation come closer.” Pither gave a look of appeal to Harriet, who simply shrugged, then inched toward the tub trying to avoid the suspicious pools on the floorboards. “His femoral artery has been severed. That was done with a knife. I’d swear his wrists were cut with the same blade. Not with . . .” he let the body fall back into the water then picked up a handkerchief from the mantel, shaking it open to reveal a bloody razor “. . . this cheap shaving kit.”

  Mr. Pither gave a little shiver at the sight of the blade. “It is all bloody!”

  “Yes—but in the wrong way! All smeared and pasted on, though Bywater’s hand is clean. This is a performance—a trick.”

  Pither peered at them. “But can you swear, either of you, that he absolutely could not have died after Miss Marin?”

  Crowther slammed the razor back down on the mantelpiece. “The room was warm; the body in warm water . . .”

  Harriet raised her head again. “No one, not a single person, Mr. Pither, saw Bywater at His Majesty’s at any point yesterday.”

  Mr. Pither became prim, trembling a little with a glorious sense that he was regaining some control of the situation. “That was not my question.”

  Crowther said quietly, “I know of no way to ascertain precisely the time of death. With the wound to his leg he would certainly have died in minutes. That could have been at any time between five o’clock and my arrival here. The fire was low, but healthy.”

  Mr. Pither almost smiled. “So he could have arranged to have the bath prepared. Popped out to the theater to murder the lovely Miss Marin then back to kill himself in despair. And you cannot prove otherwise. As to the knife, perhaps he stabbed his leg then . . . then . . . threw the knife into the street, where any vagabond passing might have picked it up!” He looked pleased with his inspiration.

  As Harriet’s shoulders slumped and Crowther turned away in disgust, Pither continued, “As to these strange theories of yours, you can provide neither myself nor the magistrates at Bow Street with a
ny suspect to interrogate, so I see no reason to regard them seriously.”

  “But the evidence,” Crowther growled again.

  “The evidence is quite clear to any reasonable human being,” Mr. Pither said, his mouth pursed together like a rosebud. “Indeed, I am sorry you could not capture Mr. Bywater before he killed poor Miss Marin, but there it is. Your assistance has been invaluable. I shall instruct the coroner and am very happy to inform the newspapers of the debt we all owe you.”

  “The papers be damned,” Harriet said in the same weary voice she had used all morning.

  Pither sniffed. “Whatever you say, Mrs. Westerman. Mr. Leacroft’s authorship of the duet will be acknowledged in due course. Or rather we will keep his name out of it if the gentleman wishes to be left alone. Miss Marin’s unfortunate origins need not be exposed. She will be honored as a martyr to truth, sacrificing love and her life so that Leacroft’s work would not be stolen. I understand a number of notable ladies are already in the process of arranging a subscription for a monument to that effect—one has already been in contact with my wife. Now I wish you good day.”

  He turned and scurried out of the place, with nothing but Crowther’s black looks to follow him.

  2

  Jocasta called softly at the cellar entrance, half-expecting she’d have to knock loud before the boy woke up, but the bolt flew back in a hurry and before she could step back, she had Sam throwing himself against her and Boyo yapping around her feet.

  Sam released her almost at once and ran back into the dark of the workshop, hiding himself under the blankets with his face to the wall.

  Jocasta came and sat by him, then pulled a fold of newspaper full of fried bits of meat from her pocket. His swift hug had made the grease run, but she divided what was there and put his share by his side, chucked Boyo some scraps and began to eat her portion.

  “I thought you were dead.”