Anatomy of Murder (34 page)
The air of general neglect spread to Mr Gaskin himself. He was a short man, and very broad. His coat was a little dirty, his linen grey, and his wig oddly yellow in places. He resembled nothing so much as a bundle of clothing done up for the laundress to take away and beat back to a civilised appearance. When he smiled, Harriet’s eye was drawn to a loose wooden tooth set in the front of his mouth, and looking as unsound as his windowframes. There was nothing to disgust immediately in his manners, but his breath stank.
He bowed low as Crowther presented himself, Harriet and Lady Susan. Harriet watched her young friend steel herself as Gaskin bent over her hand on the weedy gravel of the driveway, and was proud of her.
‘Lady Thornleigh! A delight! An honour to have the scion of the noble house of the Earls of Sussex in our establishment.’
Crowther explained calmly to Gaskin that they wished to see Mr Leacroft and ask about his other visitors. He withdrew a folded sheet from his pocket.
‘Was this the man who visited first?’ he asked.
Mr Gaskin took the paper and squinted at it, holding it at various distances from his slightly yellow eyes and cooing: ‘Oh yes indeed! To the life! What a fine hand!’ He bent his almost spherical body towards Susan. ‘Is this perhaps the work of my Lady? I sense a certain feminine grace in it.’
Susan edged a little closer to Harriet. ‘I cannot draw. Jonathan can, but I cannot.’
‘Lady Thornleigh is a musician,’ Harriet said. ‘We should like to introduce her to Mr Leacroft.’ It was not until the words were in the air that Harriet wondered about the wisdom of bringing the child to a place such as this, to meet a man of uncertain temperament; to involve the ward of her host in such an investigation as this. Still, it was done now and Mr Gaskin was, with a variety of speeches to which Harriet did not closely attend, leading them towards a room in the back of the house.
The general grime seemed to thicken as they found their way. On the walls of the corridor hung a number of inexpert watercolours. The artist had been productive, but his or her works had been carelessly treated. The frames were cheap and ill-fitting, and several had slipped to show the torn edges of the sketchbook from which the drawings had been taken.
Gaskin saw Harriet looking at them and commented, ‘The works of one of our former guests, the daughter of a churchman whose habits of piety became rather hysteric when she reached thirty and found herself still unmarried. Such things can twist the delicate constitution of a femalee shook his head very sadly. ‘She is returned to her family now, however. Her father was widowed and she keeps house for him. One of our successes.’
‘Have you many?’ Crowther asked, peering at a rather fantastical landscape of ruined towers and distant mountains.
Gaskin lifted his eyebrows and nodded sagely with a satisfied smile. ‘Indeed, indeed. Mostly we offer care to those not fit for the wider world, and give what comfort we can before their enfeebled constitutions fail, but oftentimes people leave us ready to rejoin their families in safety and health. Though I do not know what prospects I hold out for poor Theophilius. He is sustained here by a legacy of his father’s.
That wise gentleman arranged for the interest to be paid directly to this house quarterly after his death, which melancholy event occurred soon after his son’s removal here. It is nearly sufficient to cover dear Theo’s care. The rest of our usual fees I waive.’ He turned and forced his smile on Harriet and Susan. ‘I am a fool to myself perhaps, but one must be charitable.’
Crowther sighed rather audibly and said, ‘What is the state of Mr Leacroft?’
Gaskin stroked his chin and drew his brows together. ‘He is melancholic, sir. With some hysteric symptoms. At times he will laugh and sing, and try to teach his nurses and fellow patients to do the same and remain without sleep for a week, playing at his harpsichord and scribbling notes on any piece of paper he can find. Then he will spend a month barely able to raise his head. It is all we can do at such times to persuade him to take nourishment.’
‘What do you do with the music he writes, sir?’ Susan asked softly.
‘We use it to light the fires, Lady Thornleigh.’ Harriet felt Susan stiffen at her side, but she made no further comment. ‘But how interesting that you ask. The young gentleman in the picture asked the very same thing.’
‘Indeed?’ Harriet said. ‘And what did the other gentleman who visited ask you, sir?’
Mr Gaskin put his nose in the air. ‘Hmph. That gentleman . . . I did not take to him, madam. I confess I did not. He asked nothing, and told me no more than his name.’ He tilted again towards Susan. ‘I sensed no breeding in him,’ he added, and winked.
Both Harriet and Crowther were drawing breath to ask something further when they heard a long keening wail from the upper storey. Lady Susan started and reached for Harriet’s hand. Mr Gaskin merely looked annoyed.
‘Mrs Lightfoot!’ He looked between the ladies with a wet smile. ‘A tragic case. Confined here only a fortnight ago by her husband. Her behaviour had become so troubling he had no other choice, poor man. She resents it – but she will learn in time. However, you must excuse me. Mr Leacroft’s room is at the end of the corridor. You may go in. I fear I am required elsewhere.’ He bundled back the way they had come.
elt Set looked with speaking rage at Crowther. He found he could do nothing but drop his eyes.
Jocasta left Ripley and the chophouse satisfied, and found Sam and Boyo waiting for her opposite the door. When she emerged she couldn’t help seeing how Sam’s eyes were darting about the street. While she was standing and guessing a way through the carts and horses that mired the road, she noticed a tall thin man pass by Sam, and though he gave him no look or word, the boy cowered to the wall. Again Jocasta wished she’d shut Sam up in the cobbler’s cellar and fetched him when all was done and laid down, but the one thing the lad hated more than being out and about was being anywhere without her, and remembering the loss she had let fall on him, she couldn’t deny him. He beamed when he saw her, and even more when she put a pie into his hand. It was still hot from the oven and he had to pull his raggy sleeves forward to hold it.
‘What’s the word, Mrs Bligh?’ he said, as he blew on it.
‘Fred will be in there tonight, and Ripley will find a way to hold him a while. Now be ready to eat that and trot too. We’re up to Seven Dials now. Time for you to meet a very old friend.’
Sam took a great bite of his pie and wiped the gravy off his chin.
VI.3
C
ROWTHER KNOCKED LIGHTLY on the door of the room Gaskin had indicated, then opened it as Harriet
and Susan waited in the shadows beyond. He looked into the room for a second, then gesturing at them to follow him, he stepped inside.
ROWTHER KNOCKED LIGHTLY on the door of the room Gaskin had indicated, then opened it as Harriet
and Susan waited in the shadows beyond. He looked into the room for a second, then gesturing at them to follow him, he stepped inside.
The apartment in which they found themselves was large, but shabby. It was lit by a high bay window, and a number of books and papers were scattered around the surfaces and floors. Some servant of the place had a care of Mr Leacroft, however. The furniture might be worn or fraying, but it was cleaner than the hallway from which they had come. Someone had made an effort to wipe the lower panes of the window to provide a view; a metronome and tuning fork were arranged like ornaments on the top of the mantelpiece, and above it hung a watercolour of a man at a keyboard. Harriet recognised the hand of the artist whose works filled the hallway. She showed herself a better artist in this study than in her landscapes.
The room depicted was recognisably the one in which they now stood, but in the picture it was lit with summer sunshine and there were fresh flowers on the desk in the window. The figure at the keyboard was touchingly caught as if in mid-flourish with one hand raised from the instrument. The whole figure leaned forward into his playing; energy flew from him. It seemed Theophilius Leacroft still had the power to inspire at times.
The contrast between the image and the present gloom of the chamber was distressing. The keys of the harpsichord were covered and the stool tucked firmly away. It took Harriet a few moments to see the model of the player in the room itself, but as they reached the centre of the chamber Mr Leacroft moved in his seat, and her eyes found him in the gloom. He was lost in the folds of a great armchair that looked through the streaked window into the ill-kept garden beyond. He turned towards them, and Harrie was surprised to see a much younger man than she had expected. He could be no more than forty, and his face was unlined. His head had been shaved, but though he wore no wig, he was decently dressed. An auburn stubble marked out the edge of a high forehead and his eyes were as green as Harriet’s own. He looked very tired, and having blinked once at the company who had intruded on him, turned back towards the garden.
‘Angel, demon or fool? Who visits today?’ he said. His voice had the weariness of all time about it, but was still clear and cool. Its habits of musicality could not, it seemed, be hidden even in this air of fatigue. Harriet approached.
‘We are none of these, Mr Leacroft, I believe, and we are sorry to trouble you but there are some things we must ask you.’
He continued to stare into the garden and sighed but did not speak. Lady Susan moved towards the harpsichord. Her fundamental nature as a musician best showed itself in that whenever she entered a room where there was an instrument, she could not rest until she had tried it. Crowther, meanwhile, pulled the portrait of Bywater from his pocket again and placed it in front of Leacroft’s eyes.
‘Do you know this gentleman, sir? We believe he came to see you twice some little time ago.’
Mr Leacroft neither responded, nor looked at the paper in front of him.
Harriet caught Crowther’s eye. He removed the paper and put it into his pocket again.
‘We are sorry to trouble you, sir, but it is a matter of the greatest importance,’ Harriet said.
Susan had lifted the lid, adjusted the stool, and was beginning to try the keys. Her hands found their way into a piece of music Harriet had heard her play many times before in Berkeley Square. She had never really listened to it, nor did she pay much mind now, as she was too preoccupied with keeping the irritation and frustration out of her voice.
‘Do you know the name Fitzraven, sir?’
A gentle animation spread over Mr Leacroft’s features, and Harriet began to hope for an answer, but rather than speak to her, he stood, and ignoring Harriet and Crowther entirely, crossed over to the harpsichord. Susan stopped suddenly, rather frightened by his approach, but he smiled at her with genuine warmth.
‘No, no. Play on.’ He took a seat beside her, and Susan began again, a little hesitantly at first, then with greater confidence. After listening a while with an air of great pleasure, he said, ‘You like Mr Mozart very much, don’t you, my dear?’
Harriet leaned towards Crowther and whispered, ‘Who is Mozart?’
Crowther shrugged. ‘There were a couple of children brought to London in the sixties. Their name was Mozart. I thought them a curiosity, like dancing bears. Performing monkeys.’
Susan nodded very hard at Mr Leacroft, enthusiasm lighting up her face.
‘My father saw him when he played as a little boy in London, sir. Then a friend of his brought this home with him from a trip to Paris. Father made me learn it at once. It was a great favourite of his.’
Mr Leacroft’s eyes widened and he suddenly laughed out loud. ‘Why! You are Susan Adams – Alexander’s daughter! I heard you play this before – when could it have been? In early seventy-nine, yes, yes . . . and thought you a prodigy, though you did not play it so well then as you do now.’ He put his arm round the girl and kissed the top of her head. Susan grinned up at him as he went on, ‘Alexander had only a manuscript copy, is that not right? Did not Herr Mozart write it out himself for their friend?’
Susan laughed. ‘He did. Though Herr Mozart was rather drunk when he did so and wrote something rather rude about the old organist of Versailles at the end. Father copied it out again before he would give it to me to learn. Even though I didn’t speak French then.’
Mr Leacroft rocked forward with laughter. ‘I remember! I borrowed the original and made my own copy. It was one of the last things I remember before coming here. I still have it, and sometimes when I am well I play it again. One can be lost and reborn in such music . . .’
He became suddenly serious again. Harriet made to move forward, but found Crowther’s hand on her arm.
Susan began to play again. ‘I think this is my favourite part,’ she said. Leacroft tilted his head to one side and listened.
‘From the Presto. Yes. You have taste as well as talent, Miss Adams. It has a dark sort of pressing forwards to it, does it not? The melancholy of A minor, it is like a hand across the sun of the major key. But how is your father, my dear? And you have a little brother, do you not?’
Susan’s hands became still on the keys. ‘Papa is dead, sir. But my brother is well.’
Leacroft covered her fingers briefly with his hand. ‘I am sorry to hear it, dear. He was a good man.’
Susan did not lift her eyes. ‘He was. Mrs Westerman and Mr Crowther here found who killed him and saved Jonathan and me.’
Leacroft looked up rather wonderingly at Harriet and Crowther; it was clear he had forgotten they were in the room.
Other books
Bare Naked: Naked Cowboys, Book 4 by Desiree Holt
Wild Hearts (Forever Wild) by Vernon, Magan
End of Enemies by Grant Blackwood
The Sirius Chronicles by Costanza, Christopher
Smoke River Bride by Lynna Banning
Revenge of the Black Virgin by Serena Janes
Those We Love Most by Lee Woodruff
Protecting Melody by Susan Stoker
Ripple of Secrets: Rose Gardner Mystery Novella #6.5 (Rose Gardner series Book 3) by Denise Grover Swank
Second Chances by Roan, D.L.