He took the card, surveyed it and nodded curtly. ‘You are not the first detective to trouble me on this matter and I suppose you will not be the last. Well, let us have our discussion and be done. Come to my office, we will be private there.’

He conducted Frances to the back of the shop where there was a small room furnished with a desk and two chairs, a small side table, a narrow wooden chest with deep drawers and shelves closely packed with ledgers.

The desk was a marvel of neatness and precision, almost as if laid out for inspection as a model of what a desktop ought to be for the man of tidy mind. One leather-bound book, a notepad and a pen tray were on its surface. On the table were a crystal water carafe and glass and all the necessities of a man who smoked cigars. The room smelt of cigar smoke, warm and light with a little spice, with a contrasting tang of fresh polish.

On the facing wall was a portrait, perhaps ten years old, of the proprietor and his brother Edwin standing behind a seated man of greater age, presumably their father. The portrait bore the legend ‘Antrobus Tobacconists’.

Lionel Antrobus was not, thought Frances, as he took his place behind the desk, his shoulders stiffly squared, a man who could ever be at his ease. It was hard to imagine him at his leisure or smiling.

He put Frances’ card on the desktop and placed it square to the edge as if it would offend him to lie in any other way. ‘So you subscribe to this wild allegation that the remains found in the canal are those of my brother?’ he began, abruptly.

‘I do not pre-judge,’ said Frances. ‘It is not impossible, of course, but all I want to discover is the truth.’

He looked unconvinced. ‘When Harriett started this foolishness I demanded to see the body, and there was little enough to see but all of it unpleasant. I would have thought that after three years there would be nothing but bones, but I was told that flesh immersed in water can sometimes change into another thing altogether. It did not look like my brother, but then it hardly looked like a man. Of course I wish to end the uncertainty over Edwin’s fate, but I could not in all honesty say that the remains were his.’ He frowned. ‘Is Harriett still claiming that Edwin was about to change his will?’

‘She is, yes. And you knew nothing of this?’

‘No, and moreover I find it hard to believe. Why would Edwin place all his estate in the hands of a madwoman? You know that she is so obsessed with noise that she hardly ever leaves the house?’

‘I have spoken to her,’ Frances went on, trying not to be ruffled by his attitude, ‘and she struck me as intelligent and more than capable of dealing with her own affairs.’

He gave a brief snort of contempt. ‘You have spoken to her once and no doubt she presented herself well on that occasion, but I have known her for many years and beg to disagree. She has made my brother’s life intolerable with her strange imaginings.’

‘And yet,’ Frances reminded him, ‘there was one doctor who advised your brother that his wife was not losing her mind but suffered from a disease of the ears.’

‘And half a dozen others who thought she should be locked away,’ he retorted.

‘But Dr Goodwin is a highly regarded expert in these matters, a specialist in his field.’

‘Goodwin?’ he exclaimed with an expression of great distaste. ‘Miss Doughty, if you take my advice, you will keep away from Dr Goodwin. He has a reputation and, in my opinion, is not to be trusted.’

‘A reputation?’

‘I have no intention of elaborating further,’ he snapped.

‘Of course I cannot expect you to repeat what may be no more than the slander of a jealous rival, but if I am to pursue my enquiries I must speak to everyone who knew your brother and that must include Dr Goodwin. Do you have any proof of what you say?’

‘No,’ he admitted, reluctantly, ‘but it is well known amongst the medical fraternity and gentlemen’s clubs in Bayswater.’

All-male establishments, Frances reflected, no doubt populated by the very men who were always complaining about the female love of gossip. Whatever Dr Goodwin’s peccadillos, however, she could not see that they impinged on his medical expertise.

‘Very well, I will judge the gentleman for myself. And now, would you be so kind as to show me your brother’s will, as requested in my letter.’

He turned to the cabinet, unlocked a drawer and produced the document. ‘There, and much may it profit you,’ he said, pushing the will across the desk. ‘But I am sure you appreciate that if anyone had wanted to make away with Edwin for his fortune they would not have planned to wait seven years for it.’

Frances unfolded the papers.

‘If you wish to accuse me of murdering my brother, please do, it has been said before.’

She returned his stare. ‘I never make accusations unless I can prove them.’

He tapped his fingers impatiently on the desk as she studied the will. ‘This is a strange profession for a woman, Miss Doughty. So much prying into the private business of others, does it give you pleasure?’

‘It puts food on my table and pays my rent.’ She almost added that it also made her independent of men, a circumstance that seemed doubly attractive to her after only five minutes in the company of Lionel Antrobus.

The will was much as she had expected. There were bequests of twenty pounds each to the servants and a sum of three hundred pounds to a Mrs Davison who resided in Maidstone. To his brother, Lionel, Edwin Antrobus had left three thousand pounds and his half share of the shop and to his partner in the cigarette business, Mr Luckhurst, two thousand pounds. Harriett was to receive only a few personal items. A fund of which she was unable to touch the capital would pay her a small annuity. All the rest of the estate was to be divided equally between the couple’s sons, Edwin jnr and Arthur, provision being made to meet the cost of their education if required. A clause included the instruction that if the testator died before his eldest son was of age, the estate was to be administered by Lionel Antrobus and all decisions concerning the two boys were to be taken by him until Edwin jnr’s twenty-first birthday.

‘Do you think this is a fair will?’ she asked.

‘I do, yes.’

‘And you have examined your brother’s financial papers and this is a true description of his estate? There were no debts to reduce the value?’

‘None to speak of. The usual tradesmen’s bills, which have been settled.’

‘He had no rivals or enemies who might have wished him harm?’

‘No.’

‘I have been told of a Dr Dromgoole whom he found annoying.’

‘Oh, that fellow!’ he exclaimed contemptuously. ‘He made something of a nuisance of himself but then it was shown that he was a fool and a charlatan and his reputation was quite exploded.’

‘Did they quarrel?’

‘They may have done. In fact – yes, Edwin once told me that Dromgoole had accosted him in the street and been most abusive. The man was almost incoherent. He was probably more of a danger to himself than anyone else.’

‘Is he still practising medicine?’

‘I don’t know. It would not surprise me if he is. I have yet to meet an entirely sane doctor.’

Frances wondered if Dr Dromgoole, having suffered a reversal in his medical career, was currently employed at the Bayswater Female Sanatorium in Kildare Terrace, which had once been his home, and felt sorry for any woman who had recourse to such a place and such an attendant. More importantly, if Dromgoole’s prospects had been damaged as a result of his encounter with Edwin Antrobus, it was a possible motive for murder.

She completed her notes and returned the will, which disappeared swiftly into the drawer from whence it had come. ‘What do you think happened to your brother? I take it you have heard nothing from him since he last departed for Bristol in 1877?’