Imogen Robertson - Anatomy of Murder

“Lord, Crowther! This place tells us as much as his poor corpse did. You must prepare another paper for the Royal Society.”

Crowther turned to her. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Westerman. Yes, perhaps. Though unless the French Navy have a passionate interest in the Italian Opera in London, I cannot see how the information Mr. Fitzraven has gathered might be of use to them.” Harriet shrugged, and Crowther found himself smiling at the gesture.

“Do you see there is no candle on the desk there, but there is one in the fireplace?” she said.

“I see that. So what do you conclude, Mrs. Westerman?”

“I observe-I make no conclusions. You have warned me against them, repeatedly. Someone lit a candle and placed that candle unusually in the room. Now what shall we say to the chairs, Crowther? They were moved after the fight took place, the newspaper behind the chair leg shows us that.”

“I do not know. Fitzraven was probably killed here and left lying for some time, until darkness came and the body could be hidden. The patterns of pooling blood in his tissues tell us that much. But why create this space for a man to lie in the middle of the room, rather than leave him where he fell?”

He imagined the vigil of the killer. A figure seated in one of the armchairs, panting with the effort of having killed another man, waiting for darkness and keeping company with the cooling corpse, while all around them London continued to live as it liked best, in ignorance and noise.

“Thieves!”

Harriet and Crowther turned to the open door to find Mrs. Girdle standing there, one hand covering her mouth, the other pointing at the floorboards. Her gray curls quivered with indignation. “I have been robbed! Where is my hearth rug?”

There was a moment of silence before Harriet smiled, showing her neat white teeth. “I rather believe, Mrs. Girdle, that Fitzraven’s body was wrapped in it before being removed from your house.”

Mrs. Girdle paddled her hands around her face. “Oh, the horror!” She beat a swift retreat from the doorway.

Crowther raised his eyebrow at his companion. She folded her arms across her bodice. “Yes, perhaps that was a little cruel. But the woman is very wearing.” She crossed to the door to the bedchamber. “Now, shall we see what else we can learn?”

Sam was back quick, and his visage was red with running. Jocasta wondered how such a wisp of a thing could survive friendless in London. Indeed, not many did, but here was a miracle catching its breath by the fire. Put a bit of bacon in him and a scrap of warmth and he was already looking a bit brighter and dashing about. A week of half-decent food and he’d look like a lad who’d grown up chasing around Bassenthwaite and drinking real milk.

“They’ve gone on a jaunt, Mrs. Bligh. That’s what their maid said, anyway. Gone out walking. Left straight after church.”

Jocasta frowned and rubbed her nose. That didn’t sound so bad. Perhaps Kate had pulled her boy back from the edge and The Tower would stay whole and all would be well and healthy.

Sam still hunched over with his hands on his breeches, panting hard.

“And I took the note to Ripley. He sends his respects to you, ma’am, and says the words say ‘I think Kate knows.’”

The faint warmth of hope in her belly twisted into something sharp and black. Jocasta got that cold feeling again, as if she’d swallowed an icehouse. She was up on her feet before Sam could shut his lips together again. “What is it, Mrs. Bligh? I haven’t done wrong, have I?”

Jocasta put her hand hard on his shoulder.

“Which way did they go?”

The bedchamber was small, but between the chest and bureau that shared the space with the bedstead, more informative in the practical truths of Fitzraven’s day to day than the bare parlor. Crowther watched Harriet’s lip curl in distaste as she opened the drawers of the man’s chest.

“It must be done, Mrs. Westerman. The dead have no privacy, I am afraid.”

Harriet nodded, then turned away from him. Some little time passed and having found nothing but clean linen, a few trinkets and another full book of newspaper cuttings about His Majesty’s, she slammed home the last drawer and sat on the bed with a sigh.

“Anything, Crowther?”

That gentleman looked up from his examination of a neat little bureau tucked into the corner of the room.

“Perhaps. Mr. Fitzraven seemed to take great pleasure in reckoning his expenses.” He passed a little green journal to her, and she leafed through it. “It was tucked away at the back of his bureau.” As Harriet looked at the pages her attention became focused. The numbers were neatly penned and each page tallied. They had a story to tell, certainly.

“Indeed, Crowther. The start of this year he is buying only the bare necessities, yet this month he has been buying fobs and snuff and new cravats as if he were a rich man. Is that his snuffbox there?” Crowther looked where she was pointing and handed it to her. It was a rather flashy object. She spun it in her fingers as she continued to read. She paused and snorted, then in reply to Crowther’s look of inquiry said: “Oh, only he spent almost two pounds on a pair of breeches. He was a fool as well as vain. Do you think his trip to the continent gave him such riches to idle away like this? I see no note here of his incomings.”

“It is possible he did very well from his trip, especially if, as Harwood suggests, he was bribed to engage some of the singers. But there are some considerable sums here. And the rent for these rooms is far in excess of what he was paying earlier in the year, so he must have taken them in expectations that his income would continue high. Yet I have found no ready money in his bureau-though there are some empty pigeonholes here. He may have been robbed as well as murdered. Also, if you observe, while he was more generous to himself after his trip, it was only some three weeks ago that he began to spend with real extravagance.”

“I wonder what happened three weeks ago?” Harriet said, squinting at the journal.

“I think that is when the company engaged for this season arrived in London.”

“Now that is an interesting coincidence.” Harriet passed the little book back to him, and Crowther slipped it into his coat, then her eye was caught by the violin case that lay open on the bed beside her.

“Poor orphan,” Harriet said, and let her fingers rest on the honey-colored wood. It was her thought that if Fitzraven had no relatives to claim the estate of newspaper cuttings, some printed music and clothes, it would in all likelihood be sold by Mrs. Girdle to cover the rent he had agreed to pay. She wondered about buying the violin herself as a present for her son. Graves could tell her who was best to teach the boy. James would have loved his son to develop an affection for music like his own. Would have. She had squeezed her eyes shut, trying to close the thought away and on opening them again lifted the instrument from its case. She was turning it in her hands to catch the light creeping apologetically in from the street outside, when Crowther picked up the case and turned it upside down, shaking it vigorously.

“Good Lord, Crowther, what on earth are you. .?” Then Harriet found herself interrupted by the sound of the case’s inner lining giving way and a little tumble of letters fell onto the bed between them. She picked one up and had just unfolded it, hoping for state secrets but catching only a flowing feminine hand, when she heard footsteps in the outer room. Turning toward the door in expectation of seeing Mrs. Girdle, she was surprised to find herself looking into the shocked face of Isabella Marin. From behind her, as if appearing out of the folds of the soprano’s skirts, a short, bullet-headed woman stepped forward, saw what Harriet held, and whistling put her hands on her hips.