A notice in bright gilt lettering announced that the shop supplied everything for the smoker of discernment. The window display was mounted on a ladder of shelves, lined with close ranks of decorative tins revealing a bewildering variety of tobacco as well as snuff, cigars, cigarettes, pipes and all the accoutrements that clearly must be essential to the smoker, some of which were very mysterious as to their purpose. A dedicated smoker, Frances thought, might easily spend more on the means to store and enjoy his tobacco than the tobacco itself. Reflecting that many of the medical sundries once sold by her late father’s chemist’s would have appeared equally mysterious to the uninitiated, she experienced, quite unexpectedly, a sharp pang of loss, the knowledge that a part of her life was gone, never to return. Her father had not been a smoker, saying that it was an occupation for fools with too much money, but he had made a good income from smoker’s remedies and would never dissuade anyone from pursuing the habit.
She pushed open the shop door and breathed in an atmosphere suffused with unfamiliar scents, all of them pleasurable. The interior was spotless, the counters and shelves of that deep warm hue of polished wood that mimicked the product, and everything was neatly and tastefully arranged. A youth in his twenties was presenting boxes of cigars for the appreciation of a gentleman while a pale young woman of similar age was weighing and packaging pipe tobacco for another customer. The man who stood behind the counter, casting a critical eye over his staff and the displays, was in his late forties, tall, immaculately dressed and groomed, and with a severe expression. That expression did not soften when he saw Frances. She had met with less friendly receptions and did not flinch but approached him and presented her card. ‘Mr Antrobus?’ she said. ‘I am Frances Doughty. We have an appointment.’
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.