Mrs Spitter’s eyebrows descended and she smiled. Harriet thought of a dragon folding its wings.
‘You are Mrs Westerman, and that man next to whom Mr Tompkins is bobbing about like a cork is Mr Crowther, I suppose.’
‘Quite so.’
Mrs Spitter looked Harriet up and down with great care, then took her hand and shook it firmly. She indicated the unoccupied sofa and, as her visitors seated themselves, said, ‘You could wear jet with your colouring, Mrs Westerman. Gladys, of course, could not. But I have seen redheads carry it off to great effect.’
Harriet sensed that this remark was a sign of approval and gave her thanks, and promise to consider it with great seriousness.
‘Mr Tompkins,’ said Mrs Spitter in a tone that suggested he had
not
been recommended to wear jet, ‘tells us you have been looking into the business in that house out back.’
‘We have. And we have some pictures to show Gladys, if she is willing to see them. We wish to know if we have caught a likeness of her angel,’ Harriet replied, and looked at Crowther.
He produced the sheets Susan had given him from his pocket and passed them to Harriet without comment, sensing that this conversation was to take place exclusively between the women. Harriet passed them to Mrs Spitter. The lady turned to her daughter.
‘Gladys dear, attend to me.’ Gladys’s attention seemed to wander a second then with a slight wobble she turned her face towards her mother and blinked at her. Mrs Spitter patted the girl’s knee. ‘Now I wish you to look at these pictures and tell me if you know the people here.’
She held the papers in front of Gladys, showing her each one in turn. Gladys appeared to be delighted to look at pictures, and examined them with interest but no apparent sign of recognition in her expression. Mrs Spitter lowered the pages and asked, ‘Do you know any of these people here? I mean, have you seen any of them befoe ladThink now, child. Answer as best you can for your mama.’
Gladys picked through the papers in her mother’s hands and pulled one out with great care, her tongue caught between her teeth as she did so.
‘This one?’ her mother asked. She was answered with a swift nod. Harriet tried to decide who was most likely to be on the page as it turned. Despite Manzerotti’s tune, she was so convinced the picture would be that of Lord Carmichael that when Mrs Spitter turned the paper and she saw the familiar picture of Bywater, she was more disappointed than she thought she had capacity for. After a moment she looked at Gladys.
‘Gladys, may I ask you a question?’
The young woman bobbed her head happily. Perhaps more importantly, Harriet caught Mrs Spitter’s almost imperceptible nod from the corner of her eye. ‘Thank you. Now can you tell me when you saw this gentleman? Was it the same day that the angel took Mr Fitzraven away?’
Gladys bobbed her head again and then said in a perfectly fluent voice, but rather high-pitched and rushed, ‘It was a walk day. When I have seen both of the cats from Mrs Pewter’s on the roof, but not together, and three birds have sat on each of the chimneypots of Mrs Girdle’s house, that means
God
wishes me to walk down to the corner and back three times and pay very close attention to everything I see. Sometimes He tells me to go in the morning. Sometimes I have to wait until afternoon.
God
made me wait that day till it was afternoon. Five minutes past three o’clock by the big clock in the upper parlour which
was
my nursery but is still
my
room where I listen to
God
, and He instructs me.’
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 towards the house. I saw twenty-three horses in total without turning my head, fourteen coming towards 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 picturebook and turn a page every time a bird landed on Mrs Pewter’s chimneypot 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 picturebook, 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 picturebook 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 towards 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 ighteenth 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 realise 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 colour 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 are
His
angel. But this one . . .’ she merrily plucked the picture of Manzerotti from the pile and pushed it towards 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 colours? 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 colour,’ 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, rather than by the revelation of her angel.
‘We must have Mr Crumley draw Johannes too, if one of us has a moment to give e description, do you not think so?’ she said, as they mounted the steps towards 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 spy-master, 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 realised 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.’
‘I would like to see in what hand he writes music. That fragment of “
Sia fatta la pace
” you found in Carmichael’s study was likely his signature and seal. Well, now we may return to the usual pattern of life, though we have very little we can say against Manzerotti. His activity in this, all we can lay at his door at this point, is caught in two rather lost and searching minds and that scrap of music.’
‘I would pay a fair proportion of my fortune to have that young woman’s brain under my knife,’ Crowther replied.
He was spared the commentary of Mrs Westerman by the flinging open of the street door and a great number of voices telling them all at once that Daniel Clode had arrived and they were all very pleased to see him. The principal descended the stairs with a smile and a blush at all the fuss his arrival seemed to be causing, and Harriet gave him her hand with great pleasure. She glanced at her sister and saw a bloom on her that made her both happy for Rachel, and perhaps a little jealous. Crowther’s retreat was prevented by Mr Graves none too subtly closing the front door before he could escape.
‘Excellent! Let us dine. You too, Mr Crowther – you will be part of the party if you like it or no. And Mrs Westerman, a man left a message for you during the afternoon. It is that Mrs Wheeler’s friend will call during the course of the evening – if that means anything to you.’
Harriet acknowledged the message and made her way upstairs to dress. The light had almost faded from the day.
Molloy put all his weight behind it and released a thunderous knocking on the door of Adams Music Shop.
‘Open up! Open the door, damn your eyes! I see a light in there and I will not stir from here till I have speech with you! Now open the door!’
Jocasta had made her way to Tichfield Street via the Pear and Oats and came up to join him now at a brisk pace, with Sam and Boyo at her heels. As she reached his shoulder there was a stir of movement in the shop and a young woman’s face appeared at the window.