Imogen Robertson - Anatomy of Murder

“Yes, do. And give me my knife back.”

Sam passed it across with some reluctance. Molloy looked at the blade and tucked it into his waistband.

“Not stuck any malefactors with it then, I see?”

Sam lifted up his chin. “Maybe I just wiped it after, Mr. Molloy.”

“Ha! You improve upon acquaintance, young one. Now tell me who you found.”

Sam settled into the corner of the coach. “There’s a boy spends time round the kilns. Gets pennies off them for bits of work, and sleeps there most nights for the warmth. He’d seen it. Said it was the woman what did it. Raised the rock and brought it down hard.”

“And the rest.”

Sam rubbed his nose hard on his sleeve. “He said he started peering because he heard them arguing like. When he looked, he said the girl was pulling away and shaking her head, but Fred was holding onto her hand and being all pleading and that’s when Mrs. Mitchell picked a brick up and struck her.”

“Did he not think to tell anyone?” Jocasta asked.

Sam wrapped his thin arms around himself. “He was scared. Ran away for a few days, but it’s cold, so in the end he went back. He’s littler than me.”

Jocasta felt a pang of memory tickling her throat and thought of the rainy fell all those years ago, her trembling and confusion. She hunched her shoulders in the shadows.

“You got a name for him? A promise to bide where he is?” Molloy said.

“Yes, sir. He is called Evan. And I gave him the rest of the sugarcane the cobbler’s wife bought for me, and a promise of another if he waits till I come again. He’ll bide for that.”

Though they did not as yet know the particulars, the household realized that Harriet and Crowther’s investigation into the affairs of His Majesty’s Opera House had reached some sort of conclusion. That, and the arrival among them of Mr. Daniel Clode, made for something of a holiday atmosphere as they went in to dinner. It was one of those rare moments when it seemed everyone in the company was looking at each other with satisfaction and affection. The women, from little Lady Susan to Mrs. Service, looked beautiful, the men handsome and wise.

“We received cards from Mr. Harwood, Mrs. Westerman,” said Graves, pushing the game pie toward her over the tablecloth, and spilling gravy onto it in the process. “Manzerotti is to give a benefit tomorrow night, and all profits of the occasion are to go to the Foundling Hospital in Mademoiselle Marin’s name.” Harriet helped herself to the food, but made no immediate comment. “I suppose,” Graves continued, “that it is a civilized gesture. But it seems terribly quick.” He examined the air in front of him, full of candlelight. “Perhaps they were afraid the town’s supply of yellow roses and paper would have become completely exhausted, were they to delay any longer.”

“Perhaps,” Harriet said mildly, and allowed herself to watch Clode and Rachel for a moment. Clode was talking to Crowther, or rather listening with furrowed brow as he encouraged Crowther to talk, and Rachel was making some remark to Mrs. Service about the egg dishes, made with the latest consignment from Caveley, but their delicious consciousness of each other was touchingly clear. Harriet had a slight pang for Lady Susan. The little girl loved Rachel dearly, but was likely to become rather quiet when Clode was in the room.

There was a sudden knocking at the street door, so loud it could not be ignored and conversation around the room fluttered to a halt. A door in the hall opened and closed and a voice, cracked and raised, bounced its way along the corridor and into the room.

“I don’t give a damn if he’s at dinner. I need him now and I’ll have him!”

Lady Susan leaped excitedly to her feet. “It’s Molloy!” she said, and ran to the double doors at the bottom of the table and threw them open. The party turned to see the man himself in the doorway, tall and slightly stooped in his greasy hat, occupied in knocking the hand of one of the footmen off his sleeve. Beside him stood a woman of middle age and comfortable stature. She wore a skirt made from a patchwork of many pieces of colored material; blues and green mostly. There was something of the Gypsy about her, though her coloring indicated an Englishwoman. As they stared, from behind her emerged a little boy of about Susan’s age, holding a grizzled terrier in his arms.

“Mr. Molloy! How do you do?” said Susan happily. “And you have brought friends with you.”

Molloy touched the brim of his hat to her and, letting his eyes trace the faces in the room, said to Susan, out of the corner of his mouth, “How do, Your Ladyness.” Susan giggled. “Now can you tell me, sunbeam, which of these gentlewomen is a Mrs. Westerman. I have some business touching on her.”

Harriet stood up, her wrap settled in the crook of her arms. “I am Mrs. Westerman.”

Molloy nodded to her. “I am Molloy, and though Graves there will tell you gladly I’m not normally allied with respectable company, he’ll also tell you I have a useful bone or two in my frame.”

Harriet looked over at Graves. He folded his napkin and gave her a slight nod, saying, “It was Molloy here who gave us a warning when it was most needful last year. He has made no attempt to capitalize on the help he gave as yet.”

Molloy’s face crumpled with a frown. “Don’t think I won’t yet, son. I save my favors and maybe add to them, is all.” He turned his attention back to Harriet and, perhaps a little belatedly, took off his hat. “This Mrs. Bligh here,” he jerked his thumb behind him at the woman in the patchwork skirt, “has heard a man wish danger on a sailor called Westerman. Might that be your husband, ma’am? Some matter of treachery and information. Mention of the French with whom we are all at odds.”

Harriet felt very cold; she sensed the eyes of her friends on her. Crowther looked shocked and the muscles in his jaws clenched. Graves and Clode were intelligent men; she could almost feel them shaking up the incidents of the last days and weeks and seeing them settle into some pattern that chilled them. “It might.”

Jocasta stepped forward and the patchwork on her skirt rippled as if the individual fragments of cloth remembered when they had been in elegant rooms like this by wax candlelight, and were inclined to dance again. “I was where I shouldn’t have been, ma’am, for reasons there’s no need to waste air on the telling of. He’s a serious fella, this man-he said his boss wanted Westerman quieting, had heard he might know something he shouldn’t. Thin. Was wearing brown each time we’ve seen him, and I think he’s done for two little friends of this boy in my care and through my fault. Voice like a dove being throttled. Works by night. It’s dark now, and he don’t seem a man who delays. Is your man here?” She was looking into the faces of the men around the table. None of them looked simple, or like a sailor to her eyes. “Can you guard him?”

Harriet steadied herself on the table. “Johannes. James. Highgate.”

There was a moment of silence, then Graves was suddenly on his feet and hallooing the household together.

“Don’t bother with the carriage! Mounts for four! At once.” The footman stood back from Molloy and hurried off. “Mrs. Westerman, go and change your dress. Miss Trench, help her. Clode! There are a pair of pistols in the study. Susan, go look to the children. Mrs. Martin?” The housekeeper appeared swiftly in the doorway. “Would you take Mr. Molloy and his friends to the kitchen, please, and see they are fed.” Graves then turned to Crowther. “Sir. I presume you will ride with us?” Crowther nodded, then as the party dispersed, calling for cloaks, boots and horses, Crowther turned to Mrs. Service.