As Frances rose to leave Dr Magrath said, ‘I do have something you might find of interest. I mentioned last time we met that Mr Antrobus had written to me asking about placing his wife in an asylum but I heard no more from him. I looked through my files and located the letter. Would you like to see it?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
He was absent for a minute or two and returned with the letter. ‘You may take it. Since he did not follow up the enquiry he was never strictly a client. But it might be as well not to show it to Mrs Antrobus, as it might distress her.’
Frances only glanced at the letter but saw that it was in the same handwriting as she had seen in Edwin Antrobus’ papers and notebooks. It was not until she arrived home and sat down to read it and realised its import that she knew that, distress or not, she was obliged to show to it Mrs Antrobus.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It was only a day since Frances had visited the Craven Hill house with news of Dr Goodwin’s arrest and Mr Dromgoole’s insinuations about the late Mrs Pearce. Now she had returned and found it hard to conceal her unhappiness at being once again the bearer of bad tidings. Charlotte was not at home, as she was engaged as a governess for the afternoon, and so Frances sat alone with Mrs Antrobus in her little padded and quilted parlour.
‘I am sorry to say,’ began Frances after the usual politenesses had been exchanged, ‘that I have today found something which will come as a surprise to you, and at the risk of causing you pain I am afraid I have no alternative but to share the information with you and ask for your observations.’
‘Very well, I am prepared for almost anything, I think,’ replied Mrs Antrobus, calmly.
‘It is a letter written by your husband to the Bayswater Asylum for the Aged and Feeble Insane.’
Mrs Antrobus gave a little intake of breath and nodded. ‘I can imagine what it is you are about to say. There was a time when Edwin spoke of having me admitted to an asylum. I begged him not to; the noise made by patients of such an establishment would have been torture to me, and I am sure that I would never have seen my boys again. I suppose he must have written to ask if they would admit me.’
‘He did, but the disturbing thing about this letter, when one considers its content, is the date it was written and the location.’
‘Oh?’
‘It was written on the 10th of October 1877 on the notepaper of the George Railway Hotel in Bristol where your husband was staying, only a few days before he disappeared and a few days after you say he told you that he had accepted that your affliction was of the ears and not the mind and that he was going to change his will to some more favourable arrangement.’
There was no doubt that Mrs Antrobus was aghast and appalled. ‘But – I don’t understand – he told me – he —’
Frances watched as a whole array of conflicting and painful emotions passed across her client’s features. At length Mrs Antrobus, too overcome to say more, took a fine kerchief from her sleeve and passed the thin fabric across her brow.
‘Do you still maintain that he told you he was going to change his will – that he had become convinced of your sanity – because this letter, which is the only piece of firm evidence I have, contradicts your statement.’
It was a moment or so before Mrs Antrobus’ heaving breath had stilled to the point where she was able to speak. ‘I would never have thought it of him – he seemed sincere – but it appears that I have been most terribly betrayed!’
Frances poured water into a wooden cup and handed it to the shocked lady, who took it gratefully and gulped it, dabbing her trembling lips. There were tears in her eyes and she looked stricken with sorrow. ‘Miss Doughty, I can assure you that before Edwin went to Bristol we had a very long and frank conversation in which he told me that he had come to agree with what Dr Goodwin had said and that he finally realised that I had not, after all, lost my mind. He said he also appreciated that the will he had made was not appropriate to my situation and promised me that as soon as he returned he would make another. That, I can tell you most faithfully, is what he said. But there is, of course, no witness to the conversation. And a matter of days later he wrote this terrible letter. All I can say is that either in the intervening time something occurred to make him change his mind or else’ – her eyelashes glimmered with fresh tears – ‘he never meant what he said, all the conversation was a lie intended to put a stop to my complaints and make me more amenable to any plans he might make for me.’ She shook her head. ‘Unwilling as I am to admit it, Lionel has been right all along, on that point at least. He has always maintained that Edwin had no intention of amending his will. I expect’ – she shuddered – ‘that Edwin would have been kindness itself and perhaps arranged some supposedly pleasurable outing, muffling me against the noise, so that I would not know where I was being taken and then, only too horribly late, I would have found out exactly what fate he had planned for me.’ She sobbed quietly.
When Charlotte arrived home Frances left her to soothe her sister’s sorrow.
Sometimes Frances was the recipient of plain envelopes that originated from a small office in the heart of London. Some enclosed letters directing her to carry out small but important duties, and once those duties were performed, other envelopes arrived containing banknotes. The plain letter she eagerly opened that day was, she hoped, a reply to her request for information, and she was not disappointed.
Robert Barfield, she learned, had not had many associates during his time in prison, where he had been committed for a three-year term in February 1876, and those few he had were still incarcerated at the time of Edwin Antrobus’ disappearance in October 1877. Barfield, however, was not. He had been released on licence in the previous month, and his current whereabouts were unknown.
Harriett Antrobus, Frances realised, was obviously unaware that her light-fingered cousin had been a free man at the time of her husband’s disappearance, and he must therefore be considered a strong suspect in any fate that had befallen him. The ragged man who some years before had tried to enter the house and been peremptorily sent on his way by Edwin Antrobus was in all probability none other than Barfield. Frances wondered if he had again attempted to gain entry after being released from prison. Mrs Antrobus, she reflected, had last seen her cousin when he was a beardless boy of twelve. He would now be thirty-eight. What changes had those years wrought? Would she even recognise him if she were to see him again? Had he deliberately altered his appearance and changed his name in order to insinuate himself into the Antrobus circle? Had the ‘commonplace young man’ transformed himself into an ‘idyllic poet’ or something else entirely?
Most of Robert Barfield’s thefts had been of the particular type that had earned him the soubriquet of Spring-heeled Bob, but there had been no recent robberies in Bayswater that looked like his work. He was also, however, a man of opportunity: the last crime for which he was known to have been imprisoned happened only because he had noticed an open door and walked in. Supposing, Frances thought, he was trying to conceal his identity, perhaps as part of a more subtle and lucrative scheme. He might, if he was sensible enough, consider it unwise to resume his old tricks and thus leave a recognisable calling card all over Bayswater.
It was vital that the police should be made aware of the situation and Frances at once wrote a note to Inspector Sharrock.