Imogen Robertson - Anatomy of Murder

“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.

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 Pieta, 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. Crowther 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.”

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.