“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 coordinated 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 unsavory business than she was willing to tell us at first.” Drawing Isabella’s last letter from her pocket, Harriet handed it to him before seating herself 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 grace.”
“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 Miss 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 toward 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 fibers. 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 barreling 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?”