Imogen Robertson - Anatomy of Murder

“I did not know that, Stephen. Thank you. I will see he does not wake alone.”

Once Rachel and the children were comfortable and the model safe he stood back and looked at his coachman.

“Are you armed, Slater?”

“Yes, sir.” He shifted his seat to show the pistol at his side. “As is Gregory.” The footman on the carriage with him touched his hat as he was named.

“Good,” said Graves. “If any footpad tries to delay you, shoot him.”

Mrs. Service met him in the hallway. “Do go in, Mr. Graves. Mr. Palmer, who seems to be the man behind it all, is in the library with the rest. Mr. Crowther has told us what has passed, and now I feel my duties must return to the domestic. It seems there will be a quantity of people coming and going today, and very few of them through the front door. I must speak to Mrs. Martin and the servants. How is Susan?”

Graves leaned against the wooden paneling of the hall as he replied, his hand shielding his eyes from the lamplight. “I have told her to send for Verity Chase as soon as she may.”

“Good,” said the little woman and began to move away.

“Mrs. Service?” She turned back toward him. “You are very calm.”

She let a smile hover over her lips. “I save my vapors up, like Molloy saves his favors. Go in, sir. We all of us have work to do this day.”

Harriet knew quickly that there was no hope that Trevelyan could offer. Having seen her husband made more comfortable with laudanum and cold presses, she dismissed the doctor to see to his other guests, disturbed by the noise and hurrying. Clode did not leave the room, but retired to a chair by the fire and angled his face away.

James’s eyes fluttered open. “Harry?”

“Here, my darling.”

“I fear I am leaving you again.”

She could not reply to this, only wrap her warm fingers around his palm. It seemed colder to her now than a few minutes before. “Harriet, I know I am not what I was. .”

“That is not important, James.”

He breathed a little raggedly, then closed his fingers tightly around her own. “But Harriet, tell me. . before. . It was a good marriage, was it not? I always thought of it so. I remember loving you. .”

Harriet’s voice struggled up through the darkness in her throat. “It was a good marriage, James. Very. You made me happy.”

“I am so glad.” His eyes fluttered closed again, and Harriet watched his chest rise and fall, listening for a carriage on the gravel.

“Then we are decided?” said Mr. Palmer. There were nods around the room. “I thank you for your hospitality, Graves. I must, however, appear at the office if we are not to frighten away our birds, and I must meet quietly with Lord Sandwich. Mr. Crowther will coordinate our activities during the day. I shall take control in the evening. There are four messengers I trust to be discreet. Graves, how far can you trust your people?”

“I recommend them without question.”

“Very well. I shall summon my people.”

He stood up and there was a general stir in the room. Palmer put his hand to Crowther’s shoulder and leaned into him. “Sir, it would be a great boon to the Crown, and the prosecution of these traitors, if Johannes was brought into my custody alive. I believe Molloy and Mrs. Bligh have certain. . forces to draw on. I wish to question the man myself.”

Crowther looked at him down his long nose. “I am aware of that.”

Palmer chewed his lip. “I am glad. Johannes will not move from whatever hiding place he has found in daylight. No doubt his fear and need will drive him back into Town this evening as we close on Lord Carmichael and these creatures of Mrs. Bligh’s discovering.”

Crowther looked over his shoulder at Jocasta, Molloy and the little boy. “That is the consensus.”

Palmer turned toward the door, saying, “But I note you make me no promise.”

Crowther did not reply, and Palmer met the fate of any man who had tried to stare him down and left the room, shaking his head.

Rachel knocked lightly on the door, and on hearing Harriet’s quiet, “Come in,” ushered Stephen in, in front of her. Clode came immediately toward them, and Daniel had just enough time to take the model from the little boy before he charged across the room and into the arms of his mother. She held him for a second, then seeing that James’s eyes were opening again, addressed her boy.

“Stephen! Stephen, my love, look at your papa.”

The boy struggled to hold his head against his mother, his eyes tightly shut.

James managed to open his lips. “Stephen,” he coughed fiercely. The boy flinched but, feeling the gentle pressure of his mother’s hand, managed to turn his body a little and open his eyes. James smiled at him, and without apparently knowing he did so, Stephen loosed his grip on his mother’s waist and smiled shyly back.

Harriet could not quite bear to look at her husband. She knew how great his pain must be, she could see it in the fine lines around his eyes, the furrows of his forehead. She wondered what part of his mind was serving him now, causing him to try and shield their son from that pain. It spoke a finer understanding than any he had shown since the accident.

“Thank you for coming to see me, my boy.”

Stephen forgot his fear enough to move away from Harriet entirely, and put his small hand on his father’s massive wrist.

“I brought the model for you, Papa.”

“Thank you.” James’s eyes traveled the young boy’s face with a sort of curious wonder. “Let it be put where I can see it.” Clode dragged one of the side tables to the opposite side of the bed and set the Splendor on it. If James noticed or recognized Clode himself, he gave no sign. Only, when the boat came close enough for him to see, he gave a great sigh. Stephen seemed to feel the lack of his attention.

“I found out the name of the song, Papa,” he said, and sang a line or two in a quavering falsetto. “It is called ‘Sia fatta la pace.’ Manzerotti sings it.”

James kept his eyes on the ship, but opened his fingers to take his son’s hand in his own. “Manzerotti. Yes, of course. Thank you, Stephen. It does not seem as important now.”

Jocasta was back on the sofa dealing the cards by the time the first of the King’s Messengers returned. “It seems you were right, sir,” he said, shifting his weight from one shoe to the other as he spoke to Crowther. “Fred Mitchell came out to take the air at lunch, and I saw him meet with Mr. Palmer’s secretary at Whitehall. Then he hightailed it back to his place in Salisbury Street. I’d swear his jacket pocket sat smoother when he came out again.”

“Very good,” Crowther replied, without looking up from his writing. “But your information came from that lady,” his quill pointed out to Jocasta, “not myself.” The messenger cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable.

“Yes, sir.”

“What further?”

“There was a boat taken from a pitch at the bottom of One Tun Alley on Thursday night. Or at least, something queer went on. Fella who owns it came to it in the morning and found the ropes done up wrong and a hearth rug shoved under the bench.”

Crowther lifted his eyes. “What became of the rug?”

“The man took it home to his woman, and she weren’t too pleased to let it go again.”

“And now?”

“The thin lady in the kitchen, Mrs. Service, took it from me, sir. Before she showed me up.”

“Excellent.” The man did not leave. Crowther waited.

“Thing is, sir, seems like there’s a funny mood abroad-down by the river and over the streets. Can’t put my finger on it, but people are on edge. As if they’re watching and waiting. There’s something going on. I haven’t seen so many people with that look on them. . I’ve never seen it, sir.”