Anatomy of Murder (25 page)
‘I’m glad to see he was unsuccessful.’
The lady put her hands together lightly in front of her. ‘My roots here are deep, but it was an uneasy time.’
‘What became of the girl?’
‘She ended up working for a butcher in Holborn. Married the son of the establishment last year and I held her flowers for her at the back of the church. But here we are, madam. If you would like to take a seat here, I shall tell Lord Carmichael you are waiting for him.’
Detaining her a moment, Harriet reached for her purse and handed over the money meant for new papers for the salon to the little Matron.
She did not have to wait long; before many minutes had passed, there were footsteps on the stairs behind her and two gentlemen approached. The elder she took for Lord Carmichael, and a straighter back she had never seen. Crowther’s words had conjured in her mind a being weasly and small, slicked with ill-deeds and ill-humour. This man was not such a one. He was wigged and powdered, dressed with a perfection that made Harriet feel slovenly, and he had the figure and proportions to bring the best valet into tears of gratitude. His face was long and his nose aquiline; it seemed when he turned towards her and smiled as if a bust of a classical Caesar had become animated. The intricate embroidery on his waistcoat was in gold thread, the patterns of leaves and tendrils swirling across his stomach glowing. Each item of his dress fitted as if it had been sculpted on to him by some follower of Michelangelo. He was taller than Crowther and his face less lined. Harriet wondered if he dressed himself to take a place amongst his collection; he would be his own centrepiece in that drawing room, making even Manzerotti seem cheap by the comparison.
My Lord’s companion was a much younger man who wore his own hair tied darkly at the nape, and Harriet would have called it a handsome face, as handsome as any young man of her acquaintance, were it not for the fact that the gentleman seemed to be carrying some great distress. His eyes were rather red and he was holding so hard onto his hat in front of him that his knuckles were whitening.
‘Mrs Westerman.’ Carmichael came forward and bowed and looked her carefully up and down. ‘I am glad to make your acquaintance. I am Carmichael. This young man is my stepson, Mr Longley, and I fear because of him I shall not be able to have the conversation with you that was promised.’
‘Indeed, sir? I am sorry to hear that. It is a matter of some urgency.’
Carmichael raised a perfect eyebrow and Harriet wished she had dressed with better care. ‘Is it, madam? I fear Mr Fitzraven will remain a corpse no matter what you do. But perhaps I should leave it to Mr Longley to explain why his affairs carry me away from you.’
Mr Longley swallowed and wet his lips. Harriet put up her hand. ‘No, really, Mr Longley. You have no need to explain your affairs to me.’
Carmichael was watching them both with a smile. ‘Come now. It is my duty to my late wife that he should learn better manners, and my pleasure that he should explain to you how his behaviour has led to this state of affairs. I must insist.’
Mr Longley was on the verge of weeping. Harriet turned a little sharply to Carmichael and said, ‘Yet
I
insist on not hearing it. You may force Mr Longley to speak, sir, but you cannot force me to listen. Very well. I shall bid you good day and hope to speak to you another time.’
I
insist on not hearing it. You may force Mr Longley to speak, sir, but you cannot force me to listen. Very well. I shall bid you good day and hope to speak to you another time.’
‘No – please don’t go!’ Mr Longley held up his hand, and rushed on in a whisper, ‘He will be more angry with me if you do.’
Harriet hesitated, then turned back to them with a nod.
M speak, siy stared at the ground. He could not be more than eighteen. Carmichael continued to watch him, his expression one of indulgent amusement.
‘I have been very foolish and find myself unable to pay a debt of honour. I can get no more from the Jews in Whitechapel, and rather than leave the country unprofitably, my father wishes me to pay my debts in another way. I must travel to Harwich.’
‘Leave nothing out, Julian,’ Lord Carmichael said, caressingly, but watching Harriet.
‘The debt is due today. My father takes me to speak to the gentleman to whom I owe money.’
‘And?’
‘I am a disgrace to my family and my name, sir.’
‘You are not addressing me at this time, Julian.’
The boy turned towards Harriet’s shocked and angry face. ‘I am a disgrace to my family and my name, madam.’
Harriet stepped forward, and ignoring Carmichael put a hand on the young man’s arm.
‘I am sure you are no such thing, Mr Longley.’ The latter choked a little. ‘Every man makes mistakes. It is how we learn! Do not think yourself worthless so young. You have a whole life in which to redeem yourself.’
‘Do
you
learn from
your
mistakes, Mrs Westerman?’ Carmichael said. Harriet ignored him.
you
learn from
your
mistakes, Mrs Westerman?’ Carmichael said. Harriet ignored him.
Longley looked into her face, his eyes red and lips trembling. He seemed to her very far away, like a man drowning who sees his ship carried further from him by the waves and knows it is beyond his strength to reach it.
Lord Carmichael touched his arm, and he flinched and withdrew a step or two from Harriet. Carmichael turned towards her with a bow. ‘Forgive me, madam. As you see, we must do a little tour of my stepson’s debtors. I hope I shall see you at my house tomorrow evening.’
Harriet found she could do no more than nod, but as Lord Carmichael led the boy away, holding him firmly under the elbow, she called out: ‘You will be in my thoughts, Mr Longley.’
The young man looked back and tried to smile bravely at her as Carmichael pushed him forward out on to the gravel forecourt where his carriage waited.
The guardians of the British Museum were still basking in the acquisition of Sir William’s remarkable collection of Greek pottery and very ready to show them to anyone who made an appointment. It seemed, from the nods Mr Bywater received and the information he imparted, that he was a regular visitor there. He spoke in hushed tones with knowledge and affection of the shards in the display cases as their little group was encouraged from exhibit to exhibit.
Crowther could not see the appeal. The Greeks had been of use to the sciences, but he saw nothing remarkable about that which was in front of him other than its age. In the end, he thought, we all become old. Instead, he watched his companion. He seemed rather young, Crowther thought, to hold so high a position in the opera house, but he recalled that such a position often involved hack-work and wondered if Harwood had paid for his expensive performers by employing a cut-rate composer. His face was blandly handsome, and occasionally attractive when he spoke with animation. His manner was nervous, however, and his gaze flicked on and off Crowther’s face as if it was afraid of settling there. His eyes were darkly shadowed and their were ink-stains around his cuffs.
‘Do you tend to work at night, Mr Bywater?’ Crowther said.
‘I do. Though it is foolish during the season when there is so much work to be done in the day. I should not exhaust myself.’ Bywater looked surprised. ‘How could you tell?’
‘I am familiar with the signs.’
As the main group moved forward, Crowther lingered and took the chance offered by their relative seclusion to say, ‘Did you kill Fitzraven, Mr Bywater? We have been told he was following you around the town and the annoyance may have provoked you to murder.’
It was said in the same light conversational tone they had been using for the last half-hour and Crowther did not look up from the display case in front of him as he spoke. He glanced up as he finished however.
Bywater had gone white. He opened and closed his mouth once or twice, then went red.
‘I most certainly . . . Of course not – how could you think . . .?’
‘You’re quite sure? It would so enhance the reputations of Mrs Westerman and myself if we could offer up a felon to Justice Pither with such expediency.’
Bywater stifled a gasp. ‘Of course I’m sure. Look, I am most sorry, of course, to do damage to your reputations, but I cannot help you. It is not by my hand that Mr Fitzraven found himself in the Thames.’
‘You did not know he was following you then?’
‘No, I did not. Was he, indeed?’
Crowther had apparently become more interested in the pottery than his wandering gaze had hitherto suggested.
‘Strange. He seemed to flaunt the knowledge he got rather than conceal it.’
‘I have known Fitzraven three years. It was my experience that he liked to pretend he knew a great deal, but tended to say very little specifically – perhaps to Harwood, but not to the principals involved. Really, Mr Crowther – why would
I
put Fitzraven in the river? This is not a reasonable suggestion, sir.’ He attempted a laugh, not with any great success.
I
put Fitzraven in the river? This is not a reasonable suggestion, sir.’ He attempted a laugh, not with any great success.
‘Murder is seldom reasonable, I think. The motivations of men are mysterious. What is valuable to one, may mean nothing to another.’
‘All that is valuable to me, is my art.’ Bywater crossed to a display case on the other side of the room and tapped on the glass. Crowther joined him. In the adjacent room a group of three ladies were standing by a display case of burial ornaments. Two were only girls, perhaps a year or two older than Lady Susan. They stared around the ceilings with wide vacant eyes, only looking at the case to admire their own reflections in it. The other lady, Crowther thought their governess perhaps, was keeping up a steady commentary on what was before them, though without, it seemed to Crowther, any genuine hope or expectation of capturing their interest. Education for the ladies and gentlemen of the growing empire. Crowther wondered if they would learn anything more than the appearance of sophisticated taste, but perhaps, in this instance that was the aim of the lesson; those not able to achieve real learning would study how to give the impression of it, and grow the wealth of the nation by consuming what they were taught was good and never have to trouble with forming an opinion of their own.
Bywater wished him to look at another piece of pot. ‘Do you see what this says, Mr Crowther?’
Crowther peered through the glass and examined the Greek lettering. ‘
Androkidias made me.
’
Androkidias made me.
’
‘Think of that, sir. To have created something that can last through the centuries in this way. A man made this, but through his art, through his talent and craft, he has become an immortal.’
Crowther smiled a little. ‘And luck, of course. Better pots, better painted, might have been crushed under the heels of careless Greek housewives.’
Bywater flushed. ‘No. Look at the beauty here. Art of this quality, art of great quality
must
survive and carry the name of its creator forward.’
must
survive and carry the name of its creator forward.’
‘Do you mean the shape of the vessel or the designs drawn on it? One man might shape, another paint – and who of us can say whose name it is that we read here? It may be the man who owned the house where the craftsmen worked.’
The effect of this speech of Crowther’s was rather more extreme than he expected. He had spoken only to dampen the fire in Bywater’s upturned eyes, but somehow his words seemed to have extinguished it entirely. His shoulders drooped and he turned away as if to hide symptoms of distress. If Crowther had, with the force of a man twenty years his junior, struck the composer in his belly, he could not have produced a reaction any more marked. He looked at the younger man with naked surprise. Noticing this, Bywater made an effort to straighten his back.
‘I choose to believe this object was made by the man who put his name to it, and that because of this thing of beauty his name shall live’, he said a little hoarsely.
‘You must believe what you wish, of course. I do not deny you that right.’ Crowther worked his thumb ovilver head of his cane. ‘You expect immortality because of your duet?’
Bywater waved his hand as if troubled by a moth. ‘No, no. That is nothing. I am surprised by its success. I have written much better pieces, and will write greater works in the future. Though its popularity might be of use.’
‘In what manner?’
‘I need time to give voice to the music of which I know I am capable.’ His words were suddenly passionate, coming out in an angry hiss. ‘That means I require commissions, patronage. If some rich music-lover is seduced enough by the “Yellow Rose Duet” to provide me with that, it will have served its purpose.’ He seemed alarmed at his own vehemence and said, more lightly, ‘Perhaps, sir, you would like to have a Mass I have been in the process of composing the last three years dedicated to you. It wants only a little work before it is ready for performance.’
‘I am no expert judge of music,’ said Crowther, ignoring this last, ‘any more than of pottery, but I have been told by people who are, that “
C’è una rosa
” is a far greater piece of work than anything you have accomplished hitherto.’
C’è una rosa
” is a far greater piece of work than anything you have accomplished hitherto.’
Bywater clenched his fists. ‘Nonsense,’ he ground out.
Crowther sighed, and wary of another request for his patronage, said, ‘Tell me, Mr Bywater, how far have your investigations into the fate of Mr Theophilius Leacroft progressed?’
Again the young man started. Crowther was almost sorry to rain down so many blows on his thin shoulders.
Other books
Every Living Thing by James Herriot
El nacimiento de los Estados Unidos (1763-1816) by Isaac Asimov
Pets: Bach's Story by Darla Phelps
The Quilt Before the Storm by Arlene Sachitano
The Scorpion's Tale by Wayne Block
The Girl in the Garden by Nair, Kamala
The Enchanted Land by Jude Deveraux
The Professor by Robert Bailey