Anatomy of Murder (10 page)
Mrs Service nodded to her pleasantly. Harriet rested her forehead on her fingertips and closed her eyes. Graves merely looked serious.
‘Mr Crowther, I think you have not tried the salmon,’ Mrs Service said. ‘Let me help you to some.’
As she was so employed she continued, ‘Mr Graves, Susan and I were planning on attending the opening night of the season at the Italian Opera. It is tomorrow, you know. I hope Miss Trench will join us. Will you come with us also, as part of your . . . investigations?’
Mr Crowther looked at the pink flesh of the fish in front of him, the buttered pastry flaking around it, and found his appetite, always light, was gone.
‘I believe we will be at His Majesty’s rather before that, Mrs Service. And of course, Mrs Westerman and I would not wish to expose you or the children to any scenes that might be awkward, or unpleasant.’
‘Of course not,’ Harriet echoed rather wearily.
Mrs Service smiled and beckoned the footman behind her to remove her plate.
PART II
II.1
Saturday, 17 November 1781, London
J
OCASTA SNIFFED AND adjusted her shawl around her shoulders. The fire was going well enough now to drive out any shred of the London fog from the room; her breakfast had been eaten and tidied away and Boyo had had the fat of the chop. She should have been happy as a cat in a blanket, but there was an itching at the back of her neck. She looked down at Boyo. He scratched behind his ears and then licked his mouth with a smack.
OCASTA SNIFFED AND adjusted her shawl around her shoulders. The fire was going well enough now to drive out any shred of the London fog from the room; her breakfast had been eaten and tidied away and Boyo had had the fat of the chop. She should have been happy as a cat in a blanket, but there was an itching at the back of her neck. She looked down at Boyo. He scratched behind his ears and then licked his mouth with a smack.
‘Don’t you be looking at me like that, Boyo.’ Jocasta sniffed again and put up her chin. ‘There’s some as can’t be told and that’s all of it.’
Boyo sneezed.
‘I know, I know. There’s trouble there and it’s a big thick sort of trouble, and that sort of trouble spills. But why should we go looking for it? Best way to avoid getting caught in it is to step away, not step towards. Just because every time you see a big pile of muck you go jumping into it doesn’t mean I have to do the same.’
The fire cracked in the grate. Boyo whined a little. Jocasta narrowed her eyes.
‘Boyo! You are as foolish a dog as I ever knew. A good dog should look after his mistress, not encourage her into all sorts of worry. The cards are saying one thing’s done, and another is following sure as Tuesday follows after Monday night, so what would you have do!’
She was looking fierce at the little dog now, though it didn’t seem to bother him greatly. He sat down smartly and scratched behind his ears again.
‘Yes, I could talk to her again. See if she’ll listen, but she won’t. No woman with a mouth that shape or an eye that blue ever listened to anyone other than the man she’s tied to. You know it. Only three months married. No, she won’t listen till she’s run through six.’
Boyo made no answer. ‘And in November. Who knows how much of the day we might have to wait in the cold? And it’ll be dark early. And you’ll be keening to be back indoors again within the hour. I know it sure as I know Mrs Peterson waters the milk and Granger sells meat that could walk out of the shop itself.’ She paused, then stood suddenly and raised a finger at the terrier. He jumped up and began to dance in little circles on the hearthrug.
‘Well, on your own head be it, lad. Trouble and more trouble and we must go ferreting it out as if it’s all fun and skittles. I give you a fire and fat, but will you stay still and like it? Not a chance, not a hope of it this side of Judgement.’
She tied the shawl fiercely in a great knot and put her hand to the latch. Boyo tilted his head to one side and waited. With a sigh she pulled it open.
‘Well. Awez then!’
‘What is it, Mrs Westerman?’
‘I don’t believe I spoke, Crowther.’
‘Sometimes your silences are speaking.’
The carriage was carrying them briskly along Piccadilly and Harriet had been admiring the passing mansions with her chin in her hand. It was possible that she might have sighed.
‘I still do not feel we can share Mr Palmer’s secrets with anyone at Berkeley Square,’ she said.
‘I quite agree.’
‘Yet I cannot help thinking, did you not sense there was something of a mood of unhappiness at the table when you spoke about Fitzraven and our agreement to help Justice Pither?’
He smiled at seeing the spark in her eye. ‘Perhaps a little. One could characterise it as an affectionate concern, perhaps.’
Harriet arched her eyebrows. ‘Yes, I suppose one might, Crowther. But that is not what troubles my conscience the most. I feel I must confess it is likely that had Mr Palmer not called, had the note arrived from Mr Pither without introduction, I should probably have found myself in that outhouse and driving with you to His Majesty’s this morning in any case.’
‘I see, madam. You feel you are become the monstrous and unfeminine ghoul some have already made out to be, and you feel Miss Trench does not approve?’
‘My sister made it perfectly plain to the whole house that she does not approve, yet I feel neither monstrous nor less a woman than I was two years ago.’ She turned towards him and folded her arms. ‘I will do what seems right to me, but I have to allow that Rachel has a better sense of social niceties than I do, just as her sense of music is superior to mine. I make myself appear foolish at times, and that reflects on my family.’
‘Miss Trench has wished you to have something other to think of than your husband’s illness, madam.’
Harriet smiled a little unhappily. ‘Yes, Crowther, but I think she would rather I was diverted by her plans for redecorating the salon at Caveley than by whatever corpses we find strewn in our way.’
‘She must accept the sister she has, Mrs Westerman. I can only hope she does not raise your temper by suggesting you should behave in any other fashion. I have noticed you are at your most sharp when you suspect you are in the wrong.’
‘I shall put it down to your influence, and you shall shoulder her disapproval for me.’
‘I would if I were able, madam, but I fear Miss Trench will not be diverted. She is quite as stubborn as yourself in her way.’
This time Harriet certainly did sigh.
When at last they exited the carriage in the middle of Hay Market, Harriet looked up at the simple frontage of His Majesty’s Theatre with curiosity. She was no great admirer of the opera herself, though she had found it pleasant enough the few times she had attended such performances on the continent. She knew, however, that many of the most fashionable and most influential men and women in England proclaimed the opera a marvel and cast themselves into this place like the devotees of some new religion scrambling for a seat near an altar. The King and his family were indeed often entertained here, as were many hundreds of his subjects in the course of a season. On Saturdays and Wednesdays from November until Easter they would tumble in from their carriages with high expectations and strong opinions. They paid their twenty guieneas for a box for the season, then came to look at each other and admire the diversions the management gave them in dance and song. Indeed, as well as confirming one’s idea of oneself as a creature of elegant tastes, the operas often provided great spectacle. One might see gods and ancient warriors here, beasts and men flying through the air, armies of chariots crossing the stage, storms and summer days recreated on its grand platform. It was as if all places in the world and all history were gathered roughly up, set to music and squeezed into the theatre behind this simple frontage to be poured down the throats of the crowd like the pap fed to infants.
When Harriet woke from her thoughts, she saw that Crowther was reading a notice pinned neatly to the wall by the closed theatre gates. He felt her attention on him, and read aloud: ‘“The owners of His Majesty’s Theatre are pleased to announce the first performance of a new opera with music by several eminent composers, under the direction of Mr Bywater.
Julius Rex
ll be performed tonight, seventeenth November 1781. Primo Umo, Sengor Manzerotti, Prima Donna Mademoiselle Marin”. There are also several other names.’
Julius Rex
ll be performed tonight, seventeenth November 1781. Primo Umo, Sengor Manzerotti, Prima Donna Mademoiselle Marin”. There are also several other names.’
He stooped forward a little to better read the printing. ‘Ah, they will be providing three ballets between the acts, also. And the scenery is new painted.’ Looking up at the theatre, he went on, ‘What a costly business we make of entertaining ourselves. Well, Mrs Westerman, shall we go in and deliver the sad news of the demise of Fitzraven to the management here? Though from what Graves has said, I’d be surprised to notice much genuine grief.’
His eyes scanned the frontage, the firmly bolted outer doors through which the pleasure-seekers of London would pour during the evening. ‘The front door does not look very likely an entrance. Let us find another way into this Temple of Art, madam. One often learns so much more by approaching a place from an unexpected direction.’
II.2
H
ARRIET AND CROWTHER were lucky in the moment and direction they chose. Final preparations for the evening’s performance meant that the stage doors had been propped open to allow the traffic of various servants of the place to fetch and carry from the little yard. It was a pleasingly busy scene. Men and women came and went full of the whistles and calls of their professions. A woman in plain wool with her hands on her hips seemed to be in heated negotiations with a boy carrying a string of unplucked pheasants. Harriet and Crowther had to step back smartly to avoid collision with a man who carried what seemed to be the head of some antique Colossus through the outer gates at breakneck speed, then in the next moment their eyes were caught by a woman so engulfed by the quantity of flowers she was carrying, they seemed to be watching the progress of an ornamental border with legs. They followed her as she ducked into the building itself, scattering rose petals and scraps of foliage as she went, and found themselves in a high, wide corridor that seemed too long and deep to be accommodated behind that ordinary-looking frontage. There were a number of doors open along its length, and their attention was caught by a shout behind the one nearest to them. The voice was deep, angry and powerful.
ARRIET AND CROWTHER were lucky in the moment and direction they chose. Final preparations for the evening’s performance meant that the stage doors had been propped open to allow the traffic of various servants of the place to fetch and carry from the little yard. It was a pleasingly busy scene. Men and women came and went full of the whistles and calls of their professions. A woman in plain wool with her hands on her hips seemed to be in heated negotiations with a boy carrying a string of unplucked pheasants. Harriet and Crowther had to step back smartly to avoid collision with a man who carried what seemed to be the head of some antique Colossus through the outer gates at breakneck speed, then in the next moment their eyes were caught by a woman so engulfed by the quantity of flowers she was carrying, they seemed to be watching the progress of an ornamental border with legs. They followed her as she ducked into the building itself, scattering rose petals and scraps of foliage as she went, and found themselves in a high, wide corridor that seemed too long and deep to be accommodated behind that ordinary-looking frontage. There were a number of doors open along its length, and their attention was caught by a shout behind the one nearest to them. The voice was deep, angry and powerful.
‘No! Not at all! Fool! Have you never seen a tree! Do you never step back from your work and consider? The panel must be done again. I will not be disgraced by you tonight, and if we get wet paint on the costumes, Bartholomew will scream to the heavens. Get a fire in here.’
Crowther pushed the door wide with the flat of his hand, and Harriet moved into the doorway beside him. The room was very large, and light even on such a dull day. The smell of paint was almost overpowering. Crowther’s eyes smarted a little from the fumes as he looked upwards.
The room was double the height he expected. The most exacting hostess would have been pleased to hold a ball for fifty people in such a space, but the place was almost bare of furniture, and the walls only rough plaster. It was not empty, however. A number of large painted canvas panels were strung from the high ceiling by a combination of ropes anchored on capstan, pully and cleats. Crowther’s eyes skipped through them, catching at their overlapping edges shreds of various views and interiors. A flower garden, some part of a city street, some rey stonework on canvas that suggested a temple of antiquity, a forest, ruins of some castle. They hung at various heights, and were in various states of repair. It was like looking into the memories of an old and romantic traveller, flashes of time and place and mood, layered and confused.
On the long wall opposite them, Harriet saw panels of sky and sea, and leaned up against them a ship, its prow standing some eight feet above the stone floor. No, not a ship, rather the flat ghost of a ship, rudely, roughly cut off twenty feet along its length; and not wood, but the simulation of wood on a canvas frame. Along its edge were painted wavelets so delicately done, she could almost hear the sounds of the ocean, and thought she could taste the familiar tang of salt on her lips.
In the centre of the space available stood a high stool. On it sat, or rather crouched, the figure of an extremely tall man dressed uniformly in deep brown. His hair was the same shade of chestnut as his clothes, and unpowdered. He sat with his black shoes hooked over the bar halfway up the height of his seat. It seemed to almost fold his body in two, like a pen-knife blade, just open. Poised with his hands on his knees, all his attention was focused on the far end of the room.
Where he looked, stood two other men. The elder of them, his coat off and his shirtsleeves rolled up, was towering over a boyish figure in an apron who seemed near to tears. The younger man held a painter’s palette in his left hand. He was biting his lip and looking down at the floor. Behind him was a painted scene of trees. It looked to Harriet extremely well done. Without noticing the new arrivals in the doorway, the older man crossed the room towards the gentleman sitting on the stool, looking sorry and concerned. When he spoke, they recognised the voice they had heard from the corridor, although its volume was now low, and its tone suddenly respectful and apologetic.
‘I am sorry, Mr Johannes. You are quite right. Boyle here has made an error. I am sorry I did not take note of it before, though some might call it only a small thing . . .’ The man on the stool looked up sharply at this, and Boyle’s tormentor hurried on nervously, ‘But of course, no error is unimportant, and there is time to correct it before evening.’ When the man on the stool did not move, the other realised that more was asked of him. He cleared his throat and carried on. ‘I am most terribly sorry not to have taken note of it before. It is the last piece, and the . . .’ he paused, ‘the
ingenious
nature of your designs have put us a little behind. My apologies.’
ingenious
nature of your designs have put us a little behind. My apologies.’
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