Imogen Robertson - Anatomy of Murder

“Dr. Trevelyan,” Harriet said very slowly, “does Mr. Leacroft continue his musical pursuits? Does his condition prevent. .?”

The doctor turned to her with his kind gray eyes a little confused, but as frank and honest as ever. “No, Mrs. Westerman. Theophilius Leacroft has a harpsichord in his chamber and spends most of his hours at the keyboard.”

“What does he play?”

“A great quantity of works of the masters, ancient and modern, I understand. And he finds some relief from his melancholia in composition.”

Dr. Trevelyan found himself at liberty to return to Highgate very shortly afterward. The moment Harriet stepped into the hallway of the house in Berkeley Square, she asked for the carriage to be sent around as soon as it could be managed, then began to pace up and down the corridor.

“It must have been Bywater who visited first, Crowther. Surely!”

“But it must be proved.”

“Fitzraven must have followed him on one visit or another, and having seen the music for the ‘Yellow Rose Duet’. .”

“Concluded that Bywater had not had a sudden inspiration, but had rather stolen the tune for his great triumph. Indeed, Mrs. Westerman, I think it likely. But we cannot assume that it is true. Mr. Leacroft had many pupils when in health. Some gentleman may have just returned to Town and decided to call. We are building castles in the air.”

Harriet came to a sudden stop. Her skirts eddied around her ankles. “Crumley has not yet completed his portraits to identify the angel Gladys spoke of, but perhaps he has done Bywater already. I asked Susan to help him yesterday.”

“Yes, we did Mr. Bywater,” said a sleepy voice from the stairs. They turned to see Lady Susan descending the main stairway in search of breakfast. She rubbed her eyes and smiled at them. “Shall I go and fetch it? I brought it home. It’s in my Italian book.”

Harriet clapped her hands together. “Oh, yes, Susan. Please do.”

The girl spun on her heel and dashed back upstairs again, all the sleep shaken off her.

Crowther frowned. “Mrs. Westerman, we are neither of us great musicians.”

“Truly said, sir,” she replied with a grimace.

“Suppose that Mr. Leacroft’s compositions are the source of the ‘Yellow Rose Duet’-will we know it for sure?” Crowther fretted. “If it has been altered in some way, will we be able to swear?”

Harriet shook her head and began to bite the edge of her thumb, still pacing the corridor. When Susan came skittering down the stairs again, a paper in her hands, she asked her, “Susan, where is Mr. Graves this morning?”

“He had to go and see a lawyer. Something to do with investments of Grandpapa’s just coming to light, I think.”

Harriet thought for a second, then took the girl by the shoulder, saying, “My dear, we need you to come with us. Go and fetch your cloak.” Brightening with excitement, Susan turned to ran upstairs again.

Crowther had taken the piece of paper from her before she went and looked approvingly at the profile and full-faced image of Richard Bywater. The picture was accurate. Once again, it seemed as if much of his and Mrs. Westerman’s luck seemed to depend on the people their friends chose to employ.

Gregory approached. “The carriage is ready, ma’am.”

“And where is Mrs. Service?”

Susan came downstairs again at a pace. “Oh, she is teaching Uncle Eustache his ABCs. Shall I tell her we are going out?”

Harriet glanced impatiently at the door. “No need, my dear. Gregory, will you tell Mrs. Service that Mr. Crowther and I have taken Lady Susan out and will return before dinner?”

The footman nodded and Harriet took Susan’s hand and made for the doorway.

“What is the day, Sam?”

“Wednesday, Mrs. Bligh.” Sam was looking better for a sleeping, though his eyes were still red. He ate the bread he was handed with an appetite but Jocasta could see the thought of his friends pass over his face from time to time.

“An opera night. . Does the servant from the house work there on opera night?”

He shrugged. “I should think. She was following on when the Missus and Milky Boy were coming back that night I watched.”

Jocasta looked unseeing at the cobbler’s tools around her, hung up and waiting for their master-dead things till a man put his hand to them and gave them purpose.

“Boy, we have business today. Ripley first, another place later. You fed?”

Sam swallowed and nodded.

“Right then. Let’s be off.”

Mr. Gaskin was much impressed by the carriage, and Harriet’s first thought as Slater guided it into the driveway was that she was very glad she had had Crowther’s counsel when finding a place for James to recover. It was not that the house in Kennington Lane was particularly unpleasant; Harriet knew enough from accounts published that some institutions where those whose wits were troubled found themselves were hells almost beyond imagining. Mr. Gaskin’s establishment was a pleasant villa, not unlike Dr. Trevelyan’s home and place of business, but there was an air of neglect here that made its atmosphere very different to the neatness and calm good order in Highgate. The garden borders were obviously only occasionally tended; the floors in the public areas of the house were swept badly, and the woodwork on the sash; windows at the front of the building had grown rotten and not been replaced. Harriet wondered if the friends and relatives of those confined here visited a great deal. She imagined not. It was a place where people were forgotten, and only thought of, briefly, when the bills for their accommodation and care arrived on some sunny breakfast, then were forgotten for another quarter.

The air of general neglect spread to Mr. Gaskin himself. He was a short man, and very broad. His coat was a little dirty, his linen gray, and his wig oddly yellow in places. He resembled nothing so much as a bundle of clothing done up for the laundress to take away and beat back to a civilized appearance. When he smiled, Harriet’s eye was drawn to a loose wooden tooth set in the front of his mouth and looking as unsound as his windowframes. There was nothing to disgust immediately in his manners, but his breath stank.

He bowed low as Crowther presented himself, Harriet and Lady Susan. Harriet watched her young friend steel herself as Gaskin bent over her hand on the weedy gravel of the driveway, and was proud of her.

“Lady Susan! A delight! An honor to have the scion of the noble house of the Earls of Sussex in our establishment.”

Crowther explained calmly to Gaskin that they wished to see Mr. Leacroft and ask about his other visitors. He withdrew a folded sheet from his pocket.

“Was this the man who visited first?” he asked.

Mr. Gaskin took the paper and squinted at it, holding it at various distances from his slightly yellow eyes and cooing: “Oh yes indeed! To the life! What a fine hand!” He bent his almost spherical body toward Susan. “Is this perhaps the work of my lady? I sense a certain feminine grace in it.”

Susan edged a little closer to Harriet. “I cannot draw. Jonathan can, but I cannot.”

“Lady Susan is a musician,” Harriet said. “We should like to introduce her to Mr. Leacroft.” It was not until the words were in the air that Harriet wondered about the wisdom of bringing the child to a place such as this, to meet a man of uncertain temperament; to involve the ward of her host in such an investigation as this. Still, it was done now and Mr. Gaskin was, with a variety of speeches to which Harriet did not closely attend, leading them toward a room in the back of the house.

The general grime seemed to thicken as they found their way. On the walls of the corridor hung a number of inexpert watercolors. The artist had been productive, but his or her works had been carelessly treated. The frames were cheap and ill-fitting, and several had slipped to show the torn edges of the sketchbook from which the drawings had been taken.