‘Wants to marry the lady, and it’s not just the money he’s after,’ remarked Sarah, ‘which is a new one round here. In Bayswater it’s money first and love second, if it ever gets a look in which it doesn’t often.’

Sarah’s robustly cynical view of the world had not been modified by the fact that she was walking out with Professor Pounder, who taught the art of manly self-defence at his Bayswater academy. The Professor was a handsome fellow who cut a fine figure, and it was a matter of some mystification amongst young ladies who prided themselves on their beauty that he should prefer the company of someone so decidedly plain. The Professor, however, was impervious to external show and reserved his admiration for a woman with a stalwart nature and fists that could crack walnuts.

‘Yes, but there is more to Mr Wylie than a simpering affection,’ observed Frances. ‘Perhaps I will learn more when I see Mrs Antrobus. I shall write to Mr Ryan in Bristol. His report is very thorough but it is three years old. Mr Wylie has been kind enough to enclose a portrait of Mr Antrobus, and I can see that he was unremarkable in appearance. He might easily have taken the train to Paddington without anyone at the station noticing him particularly, and there is no feature here that might have helped Dr Collin match him against the remains found in the canal.’

‘Will you be speaking to Dr Collin?’ asked Sarah. An uncomfortable inference hung in the air.

‘I will write to him for an appointment, but he will be as unhelpful as it is possible for him to be.’ Dr Collin, while Frances’ own family doctor who had known the Doughtys for many years, had never quite forgiven her for revealing that he had once made an error of judgement, something to which no medical man would ever admit unless forced. Dr Collin appeared to believe that the letters MD after his name conferred upon him a pre-eminent place in the estimation of the public, a glow of veneration in which he liked to bask as if it was the summer sun. His manner towards Frances was pure winter.

‘One point which was made very forcefully in court,’ remarked Frances, ‘was that if the remains are not those of Mr Antrobus whose else could they be? No other man of that age has been reported missing in Paddington and, importantly, all the material found with the bones was the remains of good quality gentleman’s apparel. There were no coarse fibres as might be expected had a poor man worn a second-hand coat over a rough shirt. He was not a bargeman or porter in his working clothes, killed in a quarrel, but a man of means whose absence would surely have been widely commented on. Even if he was not resident here but a visitor, no other person has come forward to say that a relative has not returned from a visit to Paddington and also laid claim to the remains.’

‘I hope you’re not going to go off solving murders again,’ warned Sarah. ‘Remember what happened last time.’

Frances did not have to be reminded of the distressing attack on her person that had occurred during an earlier investigation, and she shuddered. She had not mentioned it to Sarah, but she still sometimes had dreams in which she smelt her assailant’s foul breath and felt the pressure of his body crushing against her, only to wake up in alarm and confusion. The miscreant was currently reflecting upon his sins in prison, while the evildoer whose instrument he was, in common with several others whose paths had crossed hers, had recently been found guilty of murder at the Old Bailey and condemned to death. It was a consequence of her profession that occasionally troubled her conscience, but she reminded herself that the law was both firm and just, and she must be the same.

CHAPTER THREE

When Frances commenced a new enquiry and sought meetings at which to gather information, she usually started by assembling the names and addresses she required and wrote letters to secure appointments. It seemed only polite. Sometimes when the ground had been prepared for her by recent events her card or a letter of introduction, together with good manners and a respectable appearance, served just as well. It was at later interviews that she deliberately tried to take people by surprise and prevent them from manufacturing stories to deceive her by arriving without prior warning. There were also times when, stung into a temper by repeated lies, she burst in upon her quarry in a wholly undignified manner, a proceeding which left her feeling a little ashamed of herself but rarely failed to get results. As Frances wrote her first letters in the Antrobus case she wondered whose door she would have to belabour this time.

Within hours of Mr Wylie’s visit Frances received a neat little note in Mrs Antrobus’ flowing yet legible hand which confirmed that she would be delighted to see Frances the following morning.

June was the herald of summer in Bayswater, and the lifting of winter gloom and passing of a cool spring had given a new lightness to Frances’ heart. The fine, warm and above all settled weather had brought out the best in fashion. On every promenade young ladies paraded their newest ensembles in shades of sunny yellow and bright sky blue, with ribbons and bows in their bonnets, ruffles at cuffs and hem, and dainty parasols in their hands.

For over a year Frances had been in mourning both for her brother and father, and while that particular state would, in a sense, never change, she felt that it was time to put off her most sombre attire and adopt a deep pearl grey trimmed with a touch of white. A portrait of her brother with a twist of his hair enclosed in a locket hung about her neck from a black ribbon. The instruction not to wear silk when visiting Mrs Antrobus was an easy one for her to comply with as she had never owned or even worn a silk dress. As she checked her appearance before going out, she realised that she looked like a governess and would probably always do so. A governess, however, did not wave for a cab with such confidence or step lightly aboard with such aplomb as a lady detective.

The dust thrown up by carriage wheels that had once been a choking nuisance to both lungs and pretty fabrics in dry weather was somewhat less of a trial than in previous years. The long needed completion of the wood paving along the length of Westbourne Grove meant that traffic now rumbled over level hardwood sets rather than rattling and shaking over rutted macadam and pebbles, and it was possible for shoppers and strollers to spend more time in front of the windows of Mr William Whiteley’s growing emporium, marvelling at the latest trimmings from Paris.

On that bright, light day Frances saw the rotund figure of the proprietor himself standing at the door of his drapery shop, smiling and ushering customers in. He was a jolly fellow, so it was said, until anyone crossed him or owed him money, and then the story was different. Not so long ago he had fought an increasingly acrimonious battle with the Paddington Vestry after buying up some properties on Queens Road to convert them to warehouses and erecting towering hoardings that contravened every building law in the parish. Only the most stringent action by the vestry had succeeded in getting the work halted, but before long Whiteley flouted the court orders and started construction work again until he was made to stop. He had finally succeeded by a process of wearing down the patience and funds of his opponents until the vestrymen capitulated and let him do whatever he wanted.

Harriett Antrobus and her sister lived in an elegant three-storey house on Craven Hill, just far enough away from Paddington Station and the canal basin to avoid all the inconveniences of daily traffic, yet near enough for the man of business to meet his train without risk of delay. Frances rang the doorbell, which, she surmised, must only make itself heard deep within the house, where there was no prospect of it annoying Mrs Antrobus. As she waited she thought about the common noises of daily life that she took for granted. What if they suddenly became intolerable? How could one live? Frances had already consulted her small library of medical books, the legacy of her father who had been a pharmacist, and they made no mention of the malady from which Mrs Antrobus suffered, in fact they said very little about diseases of the ear in general. Perhaps, she reflected, this was an area of knowledge which doctors deemed unfashionable and therefore beneath their notice.