‘What did you say to her?’
‘I was naturally confused. It was as if she was asking me to commit some violence on her husband. She reached out and tried to take my hand but I could not allow it, not after what she had said. I replied that she could not possibly mean what her words seemed to suggest. She gave that little smile of hers. I think you know the one. I told her that it would be best if we never met again, and that as long as she promised to forget the terrible things she had said then I would be prepared to forget them also.’
‘That would have been very shortly before Mr Barfield approached her.’
‘Yes, and when he confronted me he used the same words she had spoken, the same sentiments she had expressed. I knew that he had seen her, and I believed she had made him her creature, but of course I had no proof. I only saw her once more, after her husband was missing. I suppose I was curious to find out if she had had anything to do with it. She denied any knowledge of his fate and also claimed that I had not recalled our last conversation correctly. I thought it best not to seek her society again.’
Goodwin turned to Isaac and signed. The boy nodded, his large hands wrapped around his teacup making it look like something out of a doll’s house.
‘I have told him,’ explained Goodwin, ‘that there was a cruel lady who had done some bad things but because of the clever Miss Doughty she is now in a place where she can do no more harm.’
Father and son looked at each other with an expression of warmth that could only give pleasure to anyone seeing it. Frances knew that she could destroy that happiness, or at least cast a terrible shadow on the future lives of Dr Goodwin, Isaac and his mother, but she could not bring herself to do so.
‘When Mr Barfield attempted to blackmail Dr Goodwin he made a singular error,’ said Frances to Sarah later that day. ‘He thought that because the children could not hear they could not understand what he was saying. Today Dr Goodwin and his son made the same error. They thought that because I can hear that I cannot understand a conversation in signs, but our study of them in the last weeks has been most illuminating. Isaac was extremely anxious in case I had discovered his secret, and I was for a moment tempted to sign to him that I knew it. But I did not. If I made an allegation I doubt that I could prove it, in any case, and I do not wish to be seen as a threat to a youth who I now know to be both capable of and willing to break a man’s neck with his bare hands.’
Lionel Antrobus had been busy with all the duties attendant on him as executor of his brother’s will, so it was not until a week after the inquest that he came to finally settle his account with Frances for the work she had commissioned with Tom on his behalf.
He examined the invoice without a change in expression and handed her an envelope. She expected him to take his leave as soon as the business was done, but he did not.
‘A few days ago,’ he announced, ‘I had a conversation with Dr Goodwin.’
‘What, the Don Juan of Bayswater?’ said Frances teasingly.
He gave her a cold stare. ‘You taunt me, Miss Doughty.’
‘Yes, I do,’ she retorted, staring back at him unflinchingly. ‘But tell me, has Dr Goodwin finally succeeded in convincing you that Mrs Antrobus has an affliction of the ears?’
‘It is clear to me now that something occurred from the sound of the gunshot with which she killed Mr Henderson which has affected her hearing. I already knew that persons can become deaf from such insults, and Dr Goodwin assures me that the opposite may also be the case.’
Frances had been pondering something. ‘At our first conversation when I said I believed Mrs Antrobus to be genuine you disagreed very strongly, saying that you knew her better than I did. I now see that you were, in a sense, right, but it was for the wrong reasons. You knew, you somehow felt from the start of your acquaintance with her, that she was not to be trusted. It was this that made you believe that her hearing condition was a mental affliction.’
‘So the great detective can be wrong?’
‘I can be wrong about many things,’ she replied. There was a moment’s silence.
‘Dr Goodwin suggested that it would be for the best if Harriett did not come to trial. If she did she would evoke sympathy and would no doubt be imprisoned rather than hanged. Under those circumstances it would be very probable that she might try to take her own life. It is hard enough for the boys to have a mother in prison for such terrible crimes, but the additional taint of suicide would be insupportable. It would be better therefore if she was adjudged unfit to plead and placed in a secure situation.’
‘An asylum? But she is not insane.’
‘I really do not care whether my brother’s murderer is insane or merely wicked. But I think you would agree that it is better if she is allowed to live out her days in some quiet location. She is an evil woman, but I do not think it is justice that she should endure the torments of the abyss, at least, not while she is still living. The hereafter will judge her in due course. I have therefore taken the necessary steps, and Dr Goodwin supports the arrangement. Not the public asylum, but a place with respectable females to care for her. She would even be permitted to receive visitors and play her piano.’
Frances could see the sense of his argument and had to admit that it was probably for the best. ‘Who will pay for this?’
‘Mr brother’s estate. I act wholly for my nephews now. I have discussed the question with young Edwin, who is a sensible boy, and he agrees with my course of action. He wants to be able to visit his mother, and I do not intend to prevent him.’
He rose to leave, but there was something else on his mind, and he hesitated for a while, then addressed her again. ‘Miss Doughty, you strike me as a capable and intelligent young woman. I have never opposed the idea of women in the professions, or in honest trades; I believe there may be as many women so suited as there are men, but I cannot help thinking that you have chosen unwisely.
‘It is my intention to open another tobacconist’s shop on Westbourne Grove. If you are interested I can offer you a position there where you would be able to learn the business. In time, I have no doubt that you would be able to progress to manageress.’ He paused. ‘In fact, you might well be able to aspire further.’
Frances thanked him but her first impulse was to decline. He was not, after all, a bad man, merely one in whose company she did not feel easy.
‘I do not expect an answer at once. Will you consider it?’
Frances promised that she would, and over the course of the day the more she thought about it the more attractive the prospect appeared. The tobacco trade, she reflected, was not so very far different from the work she had undertaken in her father’s chemist’s shop. She could undoubtedly make a success of it, and the position of manageress was tempting. She found herself wondering what Lionel Antrobus would be like as an employer and whether that stiff formality ever unbent.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a tearfully grateful client, pressing rewards upon her for finding a missing child, who had been discovered by Tom, muddy, cheerful and unharmed, having sought an afternoon of excitement with a little band of street urchins. The joy of the happy mother was enough to decide Frances. There could be no comparable satisfaction to be gained in selling cigars. She decided to write a polite letter to Lionel Antrobus thanking him for his kind offer but saying that she could not accept.
As to the further aspirations he had hinted at she could not imagine what that could mean. It was only after she had discussed the conversation with Sarah and seen her assistant’s horrified reaction that Frances realised that she had just received a proposal of marriage.