‘Mr Crowther, do you admit that you are at times a cruel and vicious-tempered cur?’
He bowed towards her. ‘I cannot do otherwise. Mrs Westerman, I have been trying at various points throughout this long morning to think how I can apologise for my words.’
‘Have you indeed? That must have been very unsettling for you.’
‘It was.’
Harriet entered the room and closed the door behind her. There was a silence.
‘It would appear nothing appropriate occurred to you,’ she said finally.
‘I fear not.’
Harriet opened her mouth to protest,n Mrn, seeing Crowther looking up at her hopefully, found herself surprised into laughter.
‘You are beyond hope, Crowther! Though Lord knows, your manners have never given much cause for optimism.’
He nodded his agreement and shifted his weight off his cane. Those intimately acquainted with him might have noticed a look of relief and satisfaction cross his face in a breeze, but Harriet was too eager to share her findings of the day to take particular note, and not another being in London would have seen it.
‘Lord Carmichael had a fair amount of work done on his study a little under a month ago, Crowther.’
‘Indeed? That
is
of interest.’ Crowther took a seat in the armchair that had by custom become regarded as his own. ‘How did you discover this, Mrs Westerman?’
Harriet looked uncomfortable and began to walk her usual route back and forth in front of the fireplace. ‘I have to admit my first plan was to dress rather more simply and go and present myself at the kitchen door and ask for work and generally get into conversation. However, Mrs Martin convinced me that any London servant would know me as a fraud at once. So I left that end of the business with her.’
Crowther raised his eyebrows. ‘Remarkable. After what you told me this morning, I believe that means you have listened to that young woman’s advice now twice in the space of a few hours. It seems she is unique in the household.’
Harriet frowned at him and he looked innocently up into the air. She continued: ‘I then visited Mr Prothero, who co-ordinated the works for Carmichael, under the guise of possibly employing him myself. I laid emphasis on the fact that my dear husband has fears of security in London, and he informed me that he had recently built a number of secret compartments into the study of “a certain gentleman of rank” to conceal particular items from casual thieves or safe-breakers. He spent a long time admiring my husband’s foresight, which was a little wearing. But I believe Mr Palmer would be very interested to hear of his work, do you not think?’
‘I do,’ Crowther replied. ‘The study, you say?’
‘Indeed. Mrs Martin learned that the household were not allowed in the room until the works were complete. Mr Prothero, however, spoke of how his workers created two concealed spaces “convenient for the storage of papers or jewels”, behind some Latin texts, and behind a false front of a marbled fireplace.’
‘Mr Palmer will, no doubt, be grateful for the specifics.’
‘Yes. I feel Mrs Martin and I have done the work of a squadron against the French today.’ Crowther noticed a certain degree of self-satisfaction in Harriet’s face, but as her mind moved on, it slipped away and her expression became serious again. ‘Also, I think Isabella knew rather more of her father’s involvement with some unsavoury business than she was willing to tell us at first.’ Drawing Isabella’s last letter from her pocket, Harriet handed it to him before seatingerself opposite. Crowther rested his cane against his thigh to take it and read for a few moments in silence.
‘I come to you having examined her body,’ he said. ‘I wish she had thought to share this with us before.’
Harriet’s mood darkened a little further. ‘I must take my portion of blame for that, I fear. Perhaps she expected me to read these letters in a more timely fashion, and unpack her concerns on my prompting. Did you learn anything more from her poor self?’
Crowther shook his head. ‘Nothing but that she died far too young and in the full bloom of health. Though I had some thoughts as to the shape and form of the knife used. It is consistent with that used on Bywater’s thigh. Speaking of his body, I believe the damage to the femoral artery was given when he was already in the water. A sort of
coup de grâce
.’
‘And the wounds on his wrists?’
‘They could easily have been made with the same instrument. But the wound on the thigh gives a better indication of the size and shape of the blade; it matches the wound over Miss Marin’s heart quite precisely.’ He set the letter down on the table beside him. ‘To complete my report, I note there were no marks of attempt on the wrists, and the cut was made along, not across the radial arteries.’ He glanced up and caught her look. ‘Most suicides who use a knife, at least those I have examined, make lighter cuts at first before learning what proper pressure is needful, and while they summon their courage. It is also more common in my experience that they cut across the wrists. The blows that killed Bywater were unhesitating and accurate.’
They were both quiet a little while, before Harriet said softly, ‘We are convinced that Bywater killed Fitzraven.’
‘I am sure of it. I do not think that line he wrote could have any other meaning. But I remember what he said to me that afternoon in the British Museum – that he did not put him in the river.’
Harriet sat down and put her chin in her hand, the better to listen. ‘Tell me a story, Crowther. What could have happened here?’
He picked up the cane again and began to turn it between his palms. ‘Firstly, I believe that Fitzraven hinted to Bywater that he knew the secret of his inspiration. That meant Bywater went to Fitzraven’s room to find the extent of his knowledge and his intentions. Fitzraven named a price for his silence that was too high, or else used his knowledge to vaunt himself over the young man. Passions ran high.
I would be surprised if Bywater went there with the intention to kill. The room told the story of an argument. There were some bruises just fading round Bywater’s wrists.’
Without standing, Harriet crossed her thumbs, trying a stranglehold in the air. Crowther set his cane aside long enough to lift his own hands, curled, in front of his throat as if to resist a throttling ghost. Harriet nodded and sighed and touched the hair at the nape of her neck.
Crowther continued: ‘I believe that later that day, one of Fitzraven’s associates in the pay of the French came to see him and, finding him dead and fearing Fitzraven’s death might expose him to more scrutiny than he wished, he cleared the place of anything that might implicate him, and disposed of his body – hoping for the case of a disappearance rather than a murder.’
‘Very well,’ said Harriet, returning her chin to her palm and beginning to rap at her skirts with her free hand. ‘So why not just be still thereafter? Why the murders of Bywater and Marin?’
He looked at her silently, and watched as a light of comprehension crossed her face, and, crashing after it like wind behind the rain, a sort of horror that dulled her green eyes. She sat up straight.
‘Oh, Crowther! Did
we
cause this by our involvement?’
‘I do not know, Mrs Westerman. But suppose you are the man who disposed of Fitzraven and you see that the investigation into his death is pointing towards Mr Bywater. Further suppose that you suspect that Miss Marin knows something more than she should of your activities. I would not be at all surprised if Miss Marin, in her rather distracted state after her visit to Mr Leacroft, betrayed both facts, unwittingly or not, to those who might have been watching her . . .’
Harriet spoke slowly, letting the thoughts unfurl even as they moved across her lips into the receiving air between them. ‘You decide it is safer for your enterprise that Bywater should kill himself rather than be subject to arrest and trial, and arrange it so. An admission of guilt, and no living man to say that he neither disposed of the body nor took anything from Fitzraven’s room.’
Crowther began to spin the cane again; it gave a soft regular
thrupp
across the fibres. He carried on her thought as if it had been his own. ‘In the process, you learn that Miss Marin has arranged to meet him in the scene room.’
‘The second bird flies into your hand.’
‘Indeed, Mrs Westerman. And we see how readily the law, at least in the figure of Mr Justice Pither, is convinced everything is neatly tied.’
Harriet stood and walked over to the window, where the daylight was already beginning to weaken. She wrapped her arms around herself and swung from side to side. A neat little curricle went barrelling past, containing a party of young people laughing and urging the flush-faced young man driving to increase his speed.
‘Crowther, this is a bold and bloody mind! Is Carmichael man enough to do such a thing?’
‘Perhaps, but I have always thought him a sneaking sort of beast – one well-versed in secrecy and covert business – but this smacks of a decisive forward stepping intelligence I do not see in him. Am I right in assuming you think Harwood guilty of no more than a sharp nose for business?’
‘Therythins so. His distress last night was palpable. I believe he loves his opera house. Beyond his human sympathy for Miss Marin and Bywater, I think the scandal washing over his place of business was horrible to him.’
‘I would agree, so I must look around the place for another figure of authority, a man ready with his knife . . .’
The door swung suddenly open and Stephen stumbled into the room, followed by Lady Thornleigh, who was laughing and telling him to wait. Harriet turned round with a frown.
‘What is it, young man?’
‘Sorry, Mama. I just had to say, I sang Papa’s tune to Susan and she knows what it is.’
Harriet sighed and smiling, turned to Crowther. ‘Forgive me, Crowther. James was troubled by a returning melody this morning during our visit. Perhaps knowing the name of it will give him some relief.’ Then, getting up from her seat and crouching to be on a level with Stephen, she prompted, ‘Tell me then, my dear.’
It was Susan who answered. ‘It’s just funny, Mrs Westerman, because it is the same tune that Mr Crowther sent over
very
early this morning on the scrap of paper. It is “
Sia fatta la pace
”, Manzerotti’s favourite aria.’
Crowther’s cane came to a sudden stop. ‘I sent some of the manuscript from Lord Carmichael’s study, but it was untitled. Is that what it is, Lady Thornleigh?’
‘Yes, sir. But Mrs Westerman, I am surprised you did not know it yourself when the Captain sang it to you. Did you not hear it last night? It is his last aria.’
Harriet swallowed and answered calmly, ‘There was no Third Act last night, Susan.’
The young girl blushed and looked down. ‘Of course – Miss Marin. I am stupid ‒ I forgot. She was so lovely.’
Crowther stood and walked over to her, setting his cane very firmly in the space between them. ‘Lady Thornleigh, can you explain to me exactly to what degree are the aria and the man interlinked.’
Susan considered carefully. ‘As near as they can be, sir. I do not think anyone who knows any music thinks of Manzerotti without hearing that tune, and no one hears that tune without thinking of Manzerotti. It has been popular here some time, and always with the notation that it is as sung by him.’
She looked nervous. ‘Did we do right to come and tell you?’
Harriet put out her arms and hugged both the children to her, briefly and fiercely.
‘Very right,’ she said. ‘Very right.’
They had neither of them noticed that Susan was carrying a neat roll of papers in her hand>
‘Oh, and here,’ she said, holding them out with a slight blush of pleasure. ‘Mr Crumley and I have finished the pictures.’
As soon as the children had been sent back out of the library, Harriet stumbled through a more detailed account of that morning’s visit with James and his play with the boat.
‘The song came to him as he spoke about the Frenchman in the sick-bay. He said . . . he said . . . Oh, Crowther, I think my husband may have tortured that man to get that song from him!’
Crowther did not look at her. ‘It was a hard engagement, I think, was it not?’
When Crowther looked up he saw there were tears in her eyes and she was biting her lip. ‘Indeed, the French Captain struck their colours, then fired again. Only when he was killed did they surrender. When James’s First Lieutenant spoke to me, he was still so enraged by it he shook.’ She was looking at him with a desperate sort of appeal in her eyes. Crowther would have been glad to tell her he thought it impossible that James would have resorted to abusing a prisoner in his care, that whatever the battle or the stakes involved he would have behaved righteously, but though he hardly knew Captain Westerman at all, he knew something of men. He offered her the only comfort he could.
‘I am sure Captain Westerman thought only to serve his country.’
Harriet choked slightly and put her hand over her mouth.
‘Mrs Westerman, we must make use of these pictures.’