“I am suggesting that Fitzraven spied for you, Mr. Harwood,” Crowther continued. “You knew his reputation to be bad, but he was obviously of some use to you, even before his miraculous delivery of Miss Marin and Manzerotti. I think you made use for your own purposes of his love of finding out the details of the lives of those influential or renowned beings with whom he came into contact.”
There was a long pause. Very few men had the courage to remain so calm under Crowther’s eye. Mr. Harwood would be a remarkable opponent at the card table.
“You are very blunt, sir.”
Through the closed door to the library the small sounds of the household filtered; a living thing. One of the servants moving through the passageway. A door upstairs opening and closing. Lady Susan was practicing at the harpsichord before retiring; its soft voice curled down the main stair and whispered sweetly under the door.
“Mr. Harwood,” Harriet said, “if Fitzraven was bringing you information about the personalities in your establishment, we would like to know. How you manage the opera is your concern, but if he found something in his wanderings after your employees and patrons and that knowledge led to his death. .”
Mr. Harwood pursed his lips and looked into the fire. Then nodded.
“The arrangement was unofficial and unacknowledged,” he said. Harriet felt her breathing steady. “I may look to the world like a little king in His Majesty’s, but in truth I merely preside over a number of rather independent baronies. The costumers, the singers, the musicians, the magicians of stage machinery, the house poets. . all have their areas of responsibility and expertise, and all compete. Fitzraven would come and see me from time to time, with one tidbit of information or another. It has helped me avoid some minor problems in the past, and take advantage of some small opportunities at others.”
“I see. For example?” Crowther’s voice was dry.
“Aside from making use of the petty jealousies within the theater, it becomes a great deal easier to renegotiate the arrangements for a singer’s benefit if you know he has lost a large sum at cards the previous evening.” Harwood met Crowther’s gaze evenly. He neither defied judgment, nor invited it.
“And you paid for this service?”
“It was usual that having delivered his information, Fitzraven would ask me for some small loan. Those loans were never repaid.”
“And have you made many small loans to him this season since he returned from the continent?”
“No, Mr. Crowther. I was rather surprised, I admit, to find this the case, but since he came back from the continent I have not made one.”
Jocasta had fed the boys with meal and milk, then Finn and Clayton had headed out into the dark looking warmer and brighter for the feeding. Clayton had a place he was sharing in one of the ruined houses in Whitechapel, and Finn always slept in a couple of barns he knew off the Islington Road. He’d never slept in a proper bed. “Don’t think I’d like it, Mrs. Bligh,” he’d said. “I like to have some space about me, and a clear run at the fields. Being inside makes me jittery.” They told her they’d call by the next day and see if she had work for them, then made their way out into the inky blackness of the alleys. She saw the want in Sam’s face though, the little scrap, and gave him a nod. He went out with the others, but ten minutes later was slipping back in through the door like the shadow of a cat, and curled himself up in a corner away from the fire. It was as if he didn’t want to be blamed for stealing the heat of it.
Jocasta didn’t sleep so soon, and Boyo kept her company on the couch. She pulled at his ears and watched the fire burn out, then stood to fetch Sam’s blanket and drop it over him. Strange how already she thought of it as his own. All she could see though was the rock with that blond wisp jammed to it. It would have been quick anyway.
She must have dozed, because something woke her, and she could tell by the taste of the night air creeping in that it was coming up to dawn again. Boyo had been woken too and was looking at the door. He was rearing up against the coverings of the couch, his ears flat and teeth bared, and a low growl starting in the back of his throat. Jocasta frowned, then stood slowly and crossed the room. The latch lifted odd, strangely reluctant under her thumb. She pulled it open, letting more shadows tumble into the room to pile on the heaps of grays already curled around her bed and spilling out from the cold grate of the fireplace. There were a pair of rats, quite dead with their little white teeth showing, slung on a bit of string and hooked around the latch on the outside of her door. Someone had gone to the trouble of tying a noose around each furry throat and pulling it tight. The hallway was empty, and the only noise in the house was the quiet of its people sleeping.
Jocasta threw the bodies into the stink heap in the yard and looked about her. Nothing but the shake of the pear tree, old man Hopps coughing in his sleep in the front room opposite, a light footstep out on St. Martin’s Lane. The little corpses were still warm.
PART V
1
TUESDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 1781
Rachel knew she had upset her elder sister, and however right she believed herself to be, it was in her nature to feel guilty as a result. At breakfast the following morning she fetched her sister coffee and toast and handed her her letters with careful naturalness. She did not dare smile yet, but neither did she frown. Harriet accepted this as an apology, and by thanking her sister gently, but without meeting her eye, made her own.
Lady Susan and Mrs. Service grinned at each other when they thought they were unobserved, and Stephen Westerman and the Earl of Sussex were aware enough of the pleasantly warming atmosphere to start chasing each other around the table until the threat to my lord’s china made Mrs. Service speak rather sharply to them.
The first letter Harriet opened made her give a little cry of delight. Graves had just walked into the room and was peering under the covers in hopes of warm eggs. He almost dropped the lid from his hand.
“Some good news, Mrs. Westerman?” he asked, juggling the silverware.
“Very,” said Harriet, and looked about the table. All those older than ten looked back. “This note is from the good Dr. Trevelyan. It is not about James, dear heart,” she said to her sister, seeing a frown of concern on Rachel’s face. “It is about Miss Marin’s old singing teacher, Theophilius Leacroft.”
“Has he been found, Mrs. Westerman?” Mrs. Service asked. At the same moment she put out her hand in front of Lord Sussex, palm raised. The young peer looked a little glum and handed her the cat’s cradle he had been playing with under the table since his races had been stopped. It disappeared into Mrs. Service’s reticule and he despaired of seeing it again before dinner. Oblivious, Harriet continued reading from her note.
“He has indeed. Dr. Trevelyan thought he had heard a colleague of his who runs a private madhouse down Kennington Lane mention a melancholic musician, and sent to him at once. The colleague confirms it. Mr. Leacroft is confined for his own safety, but is in no way dangerous and I have his address before me.”
Susan clapped her hands. “Oh, Mademoiselle will be very happy!” Then she looked confused. “But why is her singing teacher here? Did she not grow up in Paris?”
Graves coughed. “I’ll explain it to you later, Susan. I promise. But that is good news, indeed. Mrs. Westerman. As soon as you have written your note, Philip will take it straight to her rooms in Piccadilly.”
When Crowther arrived to accompany Mrs. Westerman to their assignation with Mr. Palmer, he walked in on such a scene of domestic harmony and goodwill that he felt as if someone had doused him with a pail full with the milk of human kindness. He did not enjoy the sight of Mrs. Westerman and her sister in dispute, but this improving scene of family business and pleasure was almost equally exhausting. He thought of the privacy and quiet of his workroom with a now familiar nostalgia, and steeled himself to be spoken to by several people at once.