Frances sat with her future aunt and broached a difficult subject. ‘I do hope that we may be very close in future, and to that end, I must implore you that there should be no secrets between us. Indeed, it is well known that sisters, or ladies who are affectionate friends and think of themselves as sisters, hide nothing from each other.’ She felt a little stab of guilt as she said that, since she had imagined for some time that she had successfully concealed from Sarah the fact that she had been having nightmares. Her confession to Sarah, the appearance in her dreams of a shadowy rescuer and long energetic walks had at last consigned those terrors to the past.
‘Why, whatever can you mean?’ wondered Harriett, more amused than disturbed by the question. ‘If there is something you wish to know, do by all means ask, and I promise to tell you everything.’
‘I beg you not to be offended, but I think there are matters best resolved as soon as possible so that we may put all doubts behind us.’
‘You have quite alarmed me, Frances,’ teased Harriett with a friendly smile. ‘But it is most intriguing too, and I am eager to discover what this is about.’
‘Are you willing to admit to me that you asked Mr Wylie to lie at the inquest on your behalf so that the bones found in Queens Road would be identified as those of your husband?’
‘Oh dear!’ said Harriett with a soft little laugh. ‘I am not at all offended, I do know that you must ask these difficult questions, and I agree that it is best to put an end to all doubts on this matter now. You will no doubt think me a very wicked woman, but I suppose, yes, I did suggest to him what he might say. After the terrible disappointment of losing the court case over the remains found in the canal, I thought this might be my last chance of setting my affairs straight. There – I have confessed my sin, and I am sorry for it. But I did it from desperation, in the hope of at last freeing myself from Lionel’s clutches. Can you forgive me?’
‘I am happy that you have made that clear to me,’ said Frances, evenly, ‘but it leaves me with another, rather harder question.’
Harriett smiled the untroubled smile of a woman with a clear conscience. ‘Ah, so I am not yet forgiven. Do go on.’
‘I have recently discovered that your cousin Robert Barfield attempted to escape from prison just over a year before your husband disappeared. He suffered a fall in which he was badly injured. A broken leg. I also know that he was released from prison the month before your husband disappeared. I think it is possible that he was the limping man last seen with your husband in Bristol and the same limping man who was later seen wearing your husband’s signet ring. It leads me to believe that the bones found together with your husband’s travelling bag were his.’
Harriett was silent for a time, her smile declining into a look of regret and sadness, then she rose and went to the piano, put aside the shawl that lay across the keys and started to play. She used only the low notes, her fingers moving very gently like the waves of a quiet sea. There was none of the emphasis that was often to be found in music, every note was the same degree of loudness as the others, monotonous and yet curiously soothing.
Frances went to stand by her.
‘At the time the bones were found all the evidence we had suggested that they might be the remains of your husband. Yet, before any doctor had examined them, you knew at once they could not be his; more than that, I believe you knew that they had to be those of your cousin. Your description, the leg injury and the tooth extraction, the details you asked Mr Wylie to give in evidence, evidence you very carefully distanced yourself from by making your statement sufficiently vague to avoid all blame; I really do not think that was coincidence. Yet you told me yourself that you had not seen your cousin since he was a child.’
Harriett stopped playing, replaced the shawl across the piano keys and carefully closed the lid. ‘I suppose that I could not persuade you that it was by chance?’
‘You could not.’
‘No, of course, you are far too clever for that. My poor, poor cousin, what a terrible fate.’
‘I believe that you have been concealing from everyone that you saw him after he came out of prison in September 1877 and that he came to this house after your husband disappeared.’
Harriett returned to her comfortable chair and poured water for them both. She sipped slowly, her eyes misting as she did so. ‘Yes, he had been watching the house. He knew he would not be allowed in, but he saw that I sometimes went to visit my father’s grave. One day I found him waiting for me by the cab. He was in a pitiful state. His clothes were those of the gutter, his injured leg pained him with every step and he was in agony from an abscess on his wisdom tooth. I allowed him to join me and we rode up to the cemetery together. Of course he was desperate for money, and I gave him a brooch and a bracelet of mine. But there was a sense in which his injury was almost a blessing. You see, I dared to hope that if he was no longer able to make his living by thieving he might resort at last to honest work. I told him that if he was to get some better clothes and go to the baths and the barber, and find respectable lodgings, and see a man about the toothache, he might be able to present himself well. I even offered to recommend him to Edwin and Mr Luckhurst as a reformed character and ask if he might be given some employment.
Unfortunately, while he was happy to take my jewels, he did not approve of my plan since it involved actual work. His mind was only able to engage itself with criminal designs. Now that I think about it, it was a foolish idealistic plan. Had Robert gone to work for Edwin he would have stayed only long enough to discover how he might steal from him and then run away with a bundle of tobacco or boxes of cigarettes.
But Robert had much larger ideas. He entertained the wholly erroneous belief that if something were to happen to Edwin then I would be a wealthy woman. I could see where that was tending: he thought that if I was wealthy then he could live in idleness off my fortune. I disabused him of that assumption very quickly. I told him that I would not come into great wealth on Edwin’s death, instead I would be forced to rely wholly on the generosity of my brother-in-law, who I was quite sure would not give him a penny piece.’
‘Did your cousin actually suggest that he might cause some harm to come to your husband?’
‘Not in so many words, it was more of a veiled allusion to judge me by my reply. But I knew what he meant. I said I would not listen to his foul schemes and had nothing more of value to give him and that was an end of it. I didn’t think I would see him again.’
‘But you did.’
She cradled the water cup in her hands and stared into it as if trying to divine her future. ‘Yes.’
‘When was this?’
‘It was soon after Edwin had failed to return from Bristol. Robert, having improved his appearance as I had suggested, and had his bad tooth taken out, came to see me and claimed that he had been to Bristol and killed Edwin. I didn’t know if he was telling the truth, one could never be sure of that with Robert, but he was carrying Edwin’s bag with his card case, so I knew at the very least that he had robbed him. I begged him to let me know where Edwin was but he just laughed and said that all would become clear in time. He wanted me to sign an agreement to make over half my fortune to him should I become a widow. I said I would do no such thing. He said that if I did not he would make my life such agony that I would not want to live it. He went away promising that he would come back very soon and that I must do as he demanded or it would be the worse for me.’
‘Do you know if he went up to your husband’s dressing room during that visit?’
‘He did, without my permission, look around the house, and he said what a fine place it was and how he would enjoy living here.’
‘I think that was when he took the opportunity to steal some of your husband’s trinkets, including the signet ring. Did he return?’