Sarah’s comment was that she could not see why the twenty lovesick maidens so doted on the namby-pamby poets when they might better have admired the muscular Dragoon Guards, and Cedric could only agree. Professor Pounder said nothing, but then he was a man of few words.

Frances was not very familiar with the world of the theatre but reflected that it was in some ways a miniature of life. Everyone on the stage was an actor pretending to be what he or she was not, and did not everyone do that all the time, including even herself? She tried her best to be honest but it was not always possible. She still awoke, perspiring, from those horrid nightmares, yet outwardly pretended that the brutal attack which she had only survived unscathed due to the intervention of Sarah’s firm fists, but which she seemed doomed to relive again and again, had not shaken her. She professed no more than curiosity about her absent mother, yet it was a constant and consuming mystery.

Frances also observed that the musical piece, though light, included double deceptions: not only was the actor Mr Rutland Barrington pretending to be idyllic poet Archibald Grosvenor but Grosvenor himself, at a moment’s notice, threw off what proved to be a pretence of which he had wearied and became what he wanted to be, a ‘commonplace young man’. In one very amusing scene the Dragoons donned aesthetic garments in an attempt to win the ladies but thankfully soon reverted to their uniforms. How much might be achieved with costume, Frances thought. How easy it was to put off one set of apparel and don another, and be seen differently by the world, which only took notice of exterior show.

CHAPTER SIX

Frances’ appointment with Dr Goodwin was at ten o’clock the next morning and this gave her the opportunity of rising early to visit the offices of the Bayswater Chronicle, which, apart from a tendency to sensationalise the commonplace and wallow in the sensational, was one of the more accurate periodicals. The detailed accounts of the arguments that so frequently broke out at meetings of the Paddington Vestry was one of the best guides to matters of public concern, as well as being very amusing. She was often assisted in her endeavours by the paper’s most active reporter, Mr Max Gillan, who understood the value of information as an item of commerce and appreciated that it passed in two directions.

On this occasion, Frances was not looking for anything in particular but simply wanted to examine all the newspapers for the few months before and after the disappearance of Mr Edwin Antrobus for any clues that might throw some light on the event. Since the finding of the remains in the canal the entire focus of the investigation had moved from Bristol to Bayswater, and who could tell what gem might be lying in plain sight, unclaimed because no one had looked for it?

Her arrival at the offices of the Chronicle always caused a stir of excitement, especially amongst the younger clerks, one of whom, Mr Gillan had once hinted, was ‘sweet’ on her. If he thought Frances would trouble herself to enquire as to which one then he was fated to be disappointed. In any case, she did not need to ask since a diminutive youth, who looked scarcely old enough to lace his own boots, jumped up as soon as she appeared, carried a small table and a comfortable chair into the storeroom where the volumes of bound papers were kept and volunteered to bring her anything else she needed. As Frances took her seat she explained that she needed a lamp, the 1877 Chronicle and solitude, in that order, and he hurried away to oblige. She did not flatter herself that she had aroused the young gentleman’s romantic feelings and suspected rather that he thought her peculiar and therefore interesting in a way that only a newsman would appreciate. The youth returned, pink-cheeked under the weight of the bound volume, and then scurried away to fetch the lamp. Before retiring to his desk he said shyly that his name was Ibbitson and if there was anything further she required she had only to ask.

Starting in June of 1877 Frances found the last rumblings of the debate between Dr Goodwin and Mr Dromgoole and was curious enough to go further back through the pages to its beginning. Dromgoole’s initial letter published in May was headed ‘Warning of the Dangers of Tobacco’:

For many years now the medical profession has subscribed to the view that smoking or chewing tobacco is harmful to the health of our nation, especially in the young. Consumption of tobacco, it is well known, affects the heart, the arteries, the teeth, the digestion and even the eyesight. But I have discovered that it can also affect the hearing and that it is not even necessary for the afflicted person to make use of tobacco but only to be in the constant company of a smoker. By inhaling another’s smoke, or even the aroma of tobacco that clings to the clothing of a smoker, substances deleterious to health will pass via the Eustachian tube to the middle ear. A gentleman, robust and mature, might not suffer any ill effects, but what of his wife and her more delicate constitution? How will she combat the vile poison nicotine? A case has recently come to my attention, and I am doing no more than my duty as a physician to announce it to the world, of an unfortunate lady married to a gentleman in the tobacco trade, whose organs of hearing are so affected by tobacco that she feels pain from even the smallest noise and cannot undertake many of the duties of a wife. This is, I believe, a new disease in the medical canon, unknown to the ancients and therefore wholly attributable to the effects of tobacco on the female. Women everywhere must ask their husbands to give up this noxious habit.

The letter was signed ‘Bayswater M.D.’.

Whatever the medical issues, Frances could see that this theory was unlikely to find favour with the Antrobus family.

A week later came the response from Dr C. Goodwin, M.D., consultant in otology at the Bayswater School for the Deaf and Dumb, and the Central London Throat Nose and Ear Hospital:

I must correct several errors in the letter signed Bayswater M.D., whose identity, wisely, in my opinion, he has chosen to keep secret. The affliction of the hearing he describes is not a new disease but has been well known to otologists, although not to the general medical practitioner, for many years. It is exhibited by both male and female patients, many of whom also suffer from tinnitus aureum, and is referred to in the literature as hyperacusis. The most usual causes, insofar as causes may be known, are loud noise and injury to the head. It has nothing whatsoever to do with tobacco.

And there a wise man should have quietly withdrawn from the fray, but Dromgoole was not that man. His response was a tart letter pointing out that Dr Goodwin, unlike himself, had not examined the patient in question and was therefore not competent to pronounce on the cause of her suffering.

Dr Goodwin replied, revealing that since the publication of his letter he had had the opportunity to examine the patient and had observed nothing to make him vary his original statement. He added that he had received many letters from other Bayswater physicians, all of whom had been eager to assure him that they were not the authors of the letter signed ‘Bayswater M.D.’ and suggesting who the actual author might be. All had put forward the same name. He had made enquiries and discovered that while claiming the distinction of the letters M.D. after his name, the individual had not been awarded them by any recognised body. He advised therefore that his correspondent cease to publish his medical opinions and also refrain from annoying the patient with unwanted visits or he would be obliged to make his information public.