Imogen Robertson - Anatomy of Murder

Mr. Winter Harwood was very poised.

“You asked me to come here, Mr. Crowther, and I have. It was not convenient, but I came. Is it too much to hope you have found out who killed Fitzraven and that the matter is concluded?”

Harriet found Mr. Harwood a most interesting study. Without appearing impolite he had taken a seat, declined all offers of refreshment and done so with such economy of movement and word, this speech sounded by comparison like an oration. Harriet thought if he were similarly thrifty with his resources at the Opera House, for all its extravagances, he was probably amassing a considerable fortune there. Though the question was addressed to Crowther, it was she who replied.

“Mr. Crowther has been wondering at your continued employment of Mr. Fitzraven after he ceased to play for you.”

A slight frown appeared between Mr. Harwood’s fine sandy eyebrows. “I believe I have already explained, Mrs. Westerman-”

“Indeed,” Crowther interrupted, “running errands, writing puffs in the newspaper and so forth. But I have been wondering, Mr. Harwood, if you did not find it convenient, dealing with the great individuals on and off the stage, to know a little more about them than it was agreeable to ask in person.”

Mr. Harwood’s face gave no sign of shock or anger. Harriet found she was holding her breath. If Fitzraven had followed the leading players of the opera around the place with Harwood’s blessing, it would give them meat indeed for Mr. Palmer. Fitzraven was quite possibly trained in the value-the monetary value-of information before he went to France, and had no difficulty with trading in it.

“You are suggesting. .?”

“I am suggesting that Fitzraven spied for you, Mr. Harwood,” Crowther continued. “You knew his reputation to be bad, but he was obviously of some use to you, even before his miraculous delivery of Miss Marin and Manzerotti. I think you made use for your own purposes of his love of finding out the details of the lives of those influential or renowned beings with whom he came into contact.”

There was a long pause. Very few men had the courage to remain so calm under Crowther’s eye. Mr. Harwood would be a remarkable opponent at the card table.

“You are very blunt, sir.”

Through the closed door to the library the small sounds of the household filtered; a living thing. One of the servants moving through the passageway. A door upstairs opening and closing. Lady Susan was practicing at the harpsichord before retiring; its soft voice curled down the main stair and whispered sweetly under the door.

“Mr. Harwood,” Harriet said, “if Fitzraven was bringing you information about the personalities in your establishment, we would like to know. How you manage the opera is your concern, but if he found something in his wanderings after your employees and patrons and that knowledge led to his death. .”

Mr. Harwood pursed his lips and looked into the fire. Then nodded.

“The arrangement was unofficial and unacknowledged,” he said. Harriet felt her breathing steady. “I may look to the world like a little king in His Majesty’s, but in truth I merely preside over a number of rather independent baronies. The costumers, the singers, the musicians, the magicians of stage machinery, the house poets. . all have their areas of responsibility and expertise, and all compete. Fitzraven would come and see me from time to time, with one tidbit of information or another. It has helped me avoid some minor problems in the past, and take advantage of some small opportunities at others.”

“I see. For example?” Crowther’s voice was dry.

“Aside from making use of the petty jealousies within the theater, it becomes a great deal easier to renegotiate the arrangements for a singer’s benefit if you know he has lost a large sum at cards the previous evening.” Harwood met Crowther’s gaze evenly. He neither defied judgment, nor invited it.

“And you paid for this service?”

“It was usual that having delivered his information, Fitzraven would ask me for some small loan. Those loans were never repaid.”

“And have you made many small loans to him this season since he returned from the continent?”

“No, Mr. Crowther. I was rather surprised, I admit, to find this the case, but since he came back from the continent I have not made one.”

Jocasta had fed the boys with meal and milk, then Finn and Clayton had headed out into the dark looking warmer and brighter for the feeding. Clayton had a place he was sharing in one of the ruined houses in Whitechapel, and Finn always slept in a couple of barns he knew off the Islington Road. He’d never slept in a proper bed. “Don’t think I’d like it, Mrs. Bligh,” he’d said. “I like to have some space about me, and a clear run at the fields. Being inside makes me jittery.” They told her they’d call by the next day and see if she had work for them, then made their way out into the inky blackness of the alleys. She saw the want in Sam’s face though, the little scrap, and gave him a nod. He went out with the others, but ten minutes later was slipping back in through the door like the shadow of a cat, and curled himself up in a corner away from the fire. It was as if he didn’t want to be blamed for stealing the heat of it.

Jocasta didn’t sleep so soon, and Boyo kept her company on the couch. She pulled at his ears and watched the fire burn out, then stood to fetch Sam’s blanket and drop it over him. Strange how already she thought of it as his own. All she could see though was the rock with that blond wisp jammed to it. It would have been quick anyway.

She must have dozed, because something woke her, and she could tell by the taste of the night air creeping in that it was coming up to dawn again. Boyo had been woken too and was looking at the door. He was rearing up against the coverings of the couch, his ears flat and teeth bared, and a low growl starting in the back of his throat. Jocasta frowned, then stood slowly and crossed the room. The latch lifted odd, strangely reluctant under her thumb. She pulled it open, letting more shadows tumble into the room to pile on the heaps of grays already curled around her bed and spilling out from the cold grate of the fireplace. There were a pair of rats, quite dead with their little white teeth showing, slung on a bit of string and hooked around the latch on the outside of her door. Someone had gone to the trouble of tying a noose around each furry throat and pulling it tight. The hallway was empty, and the only noise in the house was the quiet of its people sleeping.

Jocasta threw the bodies into the stink heap in the yard and looked about her. Nothing but the shake of the pear tree, old man Hopps coughing in his sleep in the front room opposite, a light footstep out on St. Martin’s Lane. The little corpses were still warm.

TUESDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 1781

Rachel knew she had upset her elder sister, and however right she believed herself to be, it was in her nature to feel guilty as a result. At breakfast the following morning she fetched her sister coffee and toast and handed her her letters with careful naturalness. She did not dare smile yet, but neither did she frown. Harriet accepted this as an apology, and by thanking her sister gently, but without meeting her eye, made her own.

Lady Susan and Mrs. Service grinned at each other when they thought they were unobserved, and Stephen Westerman and the Earl of Sussex were aware enough of the pleasantly warming atmosphere to start chasing each other around the table until the threat to my lord’s china made Mrs. Service speak rather sharply to them.

The first letter Harriet opened made her give a little cry of delight. Graves had just walked into the room and was peering under the covers in hopes of warm eggs. He almost dropped the lid from his hand.