Imogen Robertson - Anatomy of Murder

Crowther was looking with fascination at the young woman. Mrs. Spitter was perhaps used to seeing her daughter’s eccentricities mocked. While Gladys spoke she was looking very hard at Crowther-indeed, such was the force of her gaze that the jet about her throat seemed to quiver. When her daughter paused she addressed him very fiercely.

“Mr. Crowther, perhaps you find my daughter’s communications with the deity amusing?”

Crowther shifted his attention to the mother, looked at her for a long moment, and blinked.

“I rarely find anything amusing, Mrs. Spitter. I am not a religious man, but I am convinced we are all unique. If the deity wishes to communicate with us, I see no reason to suspect He would not communicate with us all in unique ways.”

Mrs. Spitter stared a moment longer while she considered this comment, then her face and form relaxed a little and she went so far as to bestow on Mr. Crowther a faint smile. She motioned for her daughter to continue. The girl did so, plucking at the folds of her dress a little with small unconscious, regular movements.

“As I was coming back the second time from the corner, two hack carriages and a wagon passed me by and after the wagon, that gentleman crossed over the road and I saw his face for he was looking out for further passing vehicles and he walked up ahead of me and turned to the left at the top of the road just as the butcher’s boy was coming down toward the house. I saw twenty-three horses in total without turning my head, fourteen coming toward me and nine going away, so more coming than going-so that meant God was pleased with me and I had understood His meaning, and on entering the house I might sit at the window with the picture book and turn a page every time a bird landed on Mrs. Pewter’s chimney pot until I could count fourteen candles in the windows then I might go to bed. And I did that well too, even though I had to wait a long time after my supper was taken away because I saw His angel come and take His servant away-and that is a very special gift from God .”

Harriet tried to stop herself from looking at Gladys’s little hand plucking away at her dress. She noticed the fabric there looked a little worn. Mrs. Spitter gently laid her fingers on her daughter’s wrist. The hand was stilled at once, and the girl looked up at her mother with a grateful smile.

“Indeed it is, Gladys,” Harriet said. “Tell me, when you went to the window with the picture book, did you see Mr. Fitzraven in his room? We think this gentleman in the drawing you have shown us was going to visit him.”

The girl shook her head rather violently. “I did not see Mr. Fitzraven until His angel came to fetch him. He was sitting at his desk making his own picture book when God told me to go for my walk. But he was not there when God told me to come back.”

Crowther frowned. “The corner is not far away. If you saw Mr. Bywater arriving, walked your path one more time then returned here, his visit must have been very brief.”

Gladys looked at her hands. “If the man in the picture is Mr. Bywater then his visit lasted not more than twenty-three minutes. It does not take that time to do the walk, but I had to wait, and Mr. Bywater, if that is his picture, was one of the persons who released me.”

Harriet leaned toward her a little. “I’m sorry, my dear?”

“When I have finished my walk I must wait very quietly with my eyes down until three pairs of shoes have gone by in front of me. Sometimes I have to wait a long time, particularly if the weather is dirty, and sometimes when people see me waiting they walk a ways away, then I cannot see the shoes, even if I hear them, and that does not count. I was released by a lady who I did not see the face of, by Mrs. Little who is not little but very nice and always makes sure she walks where I can see her too, for I have told her about what God wishes and she always wears black shoes and white stockings not very much muddy, and by him.”

“Are you sure it was him?” Harriet asked. “Only seeing the shoes?”

“Yes. I had already seen his shoes and his buckles so I knew them again. Then I looked at my pocket watch and it was seventeen minutes from the moment I had to wait, to the moment he crossed past me, and that was six minutes from when I saw him first. When were you born?”

“I was born on the eighteenth of April, Gladys.”

“What year?”

“Seventeen forty-eight, my dear.”

“Thursday. A blue day. I like Thursdays.”

Gladys turned and looked very directly at Crowther. It took him a moment to realize what was being asked of him before he said, “The twenty-seventh of July, Miss Spitter, in seventeen twenty-nine.”

“Oh, a Sunday which is green, and the best day! Mr. Tompkins was born on a Monday which is the color of,” she pointed very carefully at the stripe on the settee on which she sat, “this.”

“I see,” Harriet said, somewhat amazed. She kept her voice soft. “But you do not see the angel in the pictures?”

Again she gave a violent shake of her head. “No. None of these is His angel. But this one. .” she merrily plucked the picture of Manzerotti from the pile and pushed it toward them “. . he looks a little like His angel. And he came in earlier, before I had my supper.

Everyone was very still. Mrs. Spitter said to her daughter, “Dear, will you tell us what you saw of this gentleman.” She tapped Manzerotti’s picture, and the jet on her fingers clicked.

“Yes, Mama. It was between the seventh picture and the eighth. I saw that man in Mr. Fitzraven’s window. He waited by the window a second and looked down. Then he went past, then two minutes later he walked back. Then a long time after supper there was a candle lit in the room and I saw His angel pick up Mr. Fitzraven to carry him to heaven. Perhaps this gentleman was a lesser angel come to see where the great angel should come to later, for there are many sorts of angel in heaven all ready to do His will. But even if he was an angel he was not Fitzraven’s angel. God let me see Fitzraven’s angel only after the fourteenth candle was lit.”

Crowther swallowed and said carefully, “Gladys, what do great angels wear? Do they wear bright colors? I think I would expect to see an angel in gold or silver. .”

Gladys leaned forward very eagerly. “No, not at all. I thought His angels would be dressed in gold too, but no! His angel dresses all in brown. This color,” she added helpfully, tapping the knee of the astonished Mr. Tompkins’s breeches. “Which is also Saturday, but only the mornings.”

Harriet turned to Crowther in astonishment. He gave a twisted smile in return. “We did not ask Mr. Crumley to draw Johannes, Mrs. Westerman.”

Harriet was a little angry to find Crowther’s interest was as much awakened by the strange condition of Gladys Spitter as by the revelation of her angel.

“We must have Mr. Crumley draw Johannes too, if one of us has a moment to give the description, do you not think so?” she said, as they mounted the steps toward the door of Berkeley Square. “Then I think we must ask Mr. Palmer’s advice. Surely he must have the power to employ the King’s Messengers and press the Bow Street Constables to service. We have done all we can. Bywater murdered Fitzraven, Manzerotti is the spymaster, and Carmichael most likely the channel through which information flows. Probably he is making use of his poor stepson to carry information to France even now.”

“Yes,” Crowther replied with a slight drawl, “I suppose there was no ‘mutual acquaintance’ in Milan. Manzerotti realized Fitzraven would be of use placing him at the heart of society in England, and sent him to France, then England to warn Carmichael of his coming and prepare for it.”