Their son, Robert, had recently turned eighteen. He’d been a child of fearsome intelligence and overpowering obsessions; loving, articulate, and blessed with a phenomenal memory. But he was also a child who could be rendered mute and uncooperative by any attempt to impose discipline upon him. Rare was the teacher or physician who’d spare the time or the patience to understand the boy’s needs. Everyone to whom they turned would class him as subnormal, or as feebleminded at best.

Elisabeth had read journals and learned papers, but it was a chance remark by her own clinician that had led her to the work in London of Dr. John Langdon Down. In a series of lectures to the Medical Society the doctor had described many of Robert’s attributes, concluding that the condition was the product of something other than the congenital or the merely accidental. Here, at last, she’d thought, was someone who might understand.

Down had founded an institute for his patients, a family-run community on the outskirts of London, based on principles of education and compassion. Elisabeth had written to him there, only to learn that the doctor had passed on. His sons were continuing his work. Reginald Langdon Down had advised caution over her hopes for Robert. He might be helped, but it was wrong to hope for anything so conclusive as a cure.

After an hour spent with Robert, mainly discussing the dime magazines of which the boy had an encyclopedic knowledge, Dr. Reginald had recommended a private day college run by a colleague in South Hampstead. They’d managed to secure him a place. Robert had begun to flourish there and, for the first time in his life, to be happy outside the home.

It had been a struggle for the family. They had no income and were four in number, including Elisabeth’s unmarried sister, Frances. But then, with letters of introduction secured from the Down brothers, her husband had found employment with Sir James Crichton-Browne, the Lord Chancellor’s Visitor in Lunacy.

Crichton-Browne’s investigator was on the point of retiring, and the Visitor had need of a man with Sebastian’s talents. The work suited his skills, but the pay was not good. Elisabeth had taken her job at the hospital, and Frances, when not accompanying Robert across town, took in piecework for a local haberdasher.

Here was their street. Some would call it an alley. She looked up at the windows above the wardrobe maker’s and saw that the sitting-room lamps were lit. Their previous lodgings had been wired for electricity, but they hadn’t been able to afford to use it.

This was not the life that she’d dreamed of, but this was the life that she had. Her son seemed happy, and only in her worst moments did she find herself resenting him for it. Sebastian would be home in a day or two.

It was far from perfection. But what would she change? Here was one aspect of her existence that she never could have predicted: that so many of the things that she valued would have been born out of her disappointments. Which made it impossible for her to wish her disappointments away.

And now she was home.

She let herself into the tiny hallway between the piano shop and the wardrobe maker’s, and ascended the stairway to her waiting family.

IT WAS SEBASTIAN’S HABIT, WHEN AWAY FROM LONDON, TO SEND a postcard home at the first opportunity. His wife would be assured of his safe arrival, and if it was a picture card then Robert could add it to his collection.

His Arnmouth card that evening was a plain one from a sixpenny packet in his luggage, and when writing it he made no mention of the afternoon’s events. He addressed it in his room and then took it downstairs to give to the landlord for the morning collection.

He walked into a fug of beer and smoke. In the hour since his return from the assembly hall, the bar had been opened. The saloon and public rooms were now filled with local men, some the whistle-wetters from that afternoon, others still in their volunteer armbands. Despite the shadow that had been cast by the day, there was nothing subdued about their conversation. Tragedy always sharpened a community.

“Will you take a drink, Mister Becker?” the landlord asked him over the roar. The landlord’s name was Bill Turnbull, and he’d shed his constable’s jacket to work the pumps.

“I was hoping to get some supper,” Sebastian said. “Is there any possibility?”

“I’ll send Dolly out when she’s got a minute,” Bill Turnbull said, “if you don’t mind a wait.”

Supposing it would make no difference if he did mind, Sebastian agreed that he didn’t. He ordered a brandy and then, turning from the bar, spied Ralph Endell. The blacksmith was behind a table with three or four others, in a nook between the fireplace and the dining room. Endell made a gesture of invitation, and Sebastian went over.

They made space for him. Sebastian supposed that he’d be expected to stand the group a round at some point, and that point came rather quickly. He called Dolly over. She fetched the drinks on a tray and took his order for a sandwich and a bowl of the local fish stew.

They knew that he’d been to the spot where the bodies were found, and wanted to know more. He gave them an account of his arrival at the scene and his treatment at the hands of the army, with as little of the indelicate detail as he could include. In return he picked up the taproom gossip and speculation, which had no real substance to it at all. No local man could ever do such a thing, so it must have been gypsies, tinkers, or German spies.

“We’ll see what happens tomorrow,” one of the party said. “When the proper police get here.” He had small hands, wire spectacles, and a hank of hair that he’d arranged across his balding head in the hope of persuading the world that it grew there.

Ralph Endell had spoken the truth when he’d said that no man was ever a prophet in his own land. Penny Dreadfuls and story papers had recreated police detectives as exotic figures of adventure. A local boy like Stephen Reed could never expect to be taken seriously as one of their number.

After twenty minutes or so, and with no sign yet of his supper, Sebastian saw Stephen Reed enter. Reed called the landlord down to the end of the bar, and the two of them were in conversation for a while. Then Bill Turnbull reached under the bar and brought out the residents’ register.

Sebastian excused himself to the company and went over.

He found that Stephen Reed was arranging rooms for the senior detectives and other officers who’d be arriving in the morning to take over the case. The young detective sergeant didn’t seem despondent about it. If anything, he seemed relieved. A weight would be off his shoulders. He explained as much to Sebastian and declined to join him in a brandy.

He said, “I’m not here to drink. I’m here for what you know.”

“Upstairs,” Sebastian said, and led the way.

THE RESIDENTS’ corridor was as silent as it could be with a public bar directly beneath. As Sebastian stepped first into his room, he took a moment to look around before touching anything.

“What?” Stephen Reed said.

“I was downstairs for less than an hour,” he said.

He went over to his Gladstone and looked inside. The bag was exactly as he’d left it, but there was no mistaking that the contents had been disturbed. Sebastian knew his own packing. Or rather, he knew Elisabeth’s. She folded everything with precision and stowed it to a certain plan. No intruder could ever hope to recreate the effect.

He looked at Stephen Reed.