CHAPTER TWO

At an early hour the next morning, Frances unexpectedly received a hand-delivered reply from Mr Sweetman, saying that he would call that evening at seven o’clock. The time of both delivery and meeting suggested to Frances that Mr Sweetman had some occupation that commanded his day, and she wondered what it might be. She spent much of the intervening time composing reports on her investigations, and dealing with correspondence, a significant portion of which she noted unhappily was directed to those clients who had failed to settle their accounts in over a month. One lady, a customer of the carriage class, who were the worst payers of all, had actually favoured Frances with a request to perform a second task before she had paid for the first. Doughty’s chemist shop had never supplied goods on credit, but this client, with a wide circle of acquaintances, all of whom she heartily detested, seemed to think that Frances was a gossip-collection agency, and was therefore too valuable to lose. It was one instance when Sarah’s undoubted skills in the task of extracting payment were best not employed.

Her correspondence done, Frances read the obituary and letters of tribute to Mr Whibley in recent copies of theChronicle, then opened the folder of letters on the subject of his demise, laid the papers on the table in front of her, and studied them carefully.

Mr Sweetman arrived promptly at the appointed hour, a little ruffled by the gales that still swept the streets, and spattered with fresh sleet. He was something over fifty years of age, with the sallow yet barely lined face of a man who had not been burned by the sun for many a year. Other than that he bore no resemblance to the dangerous felon Frances had been expecting. Altogether he looked well set-up and respectable, and was, under his greatcoat, clad in a suit of clothes which, while obviously made for another man some years previously, was clean and well brushed. He sat at the little table across which Frances met all her clients, and removed his hat, carefully wiping away spots of moisture from the crown with a pocket handkerchief. His hair was trim and quite grey.

Frances introduced Sarah, who sat knitting a woollen shawl with a pair of long steel needles that gleamed in the firelight, and it was to Mr Sweetman’s credit that he did not find the sight especially alarming, something that suggested to Frances that he did not have a guilty conscience.

‘It is very kind of you to see me,’ he said, gratefully, his expression speaking more of unhappiness than anxiety.

‘Have you consulted any other detectives?’ asked Frances, suspecting from his tone that she was not the first.

‘I – yes – I have spoken to two but I took the decision not to employ their services,’ said Sweetman, with an air of distaste. ‘They did not seem trustworthy. You, on the other hand, have been recommended to me as both honest and efficient. I have been told many stories of your successes which I can scarcely credit in one so young.’

‘They are all true,’ declared Frances, not without some apprehension as she knew that the stories of her exploits published in theChronicle were highly exaggerated, and did not know which ones he had read, ‘and you will find me trustworthy, but I expect my clients to be the same, although I am too often disappointed. You must tell me the truth, and you must not conceal anything of imp