In the brighter light, Raven could see from Archie’s pallor that he had been dead for hours. A wave of sadness passed through him as he reflected that he never really got to know the man, and now he would not have the opportunity.

Raven picked up the bottle and replaced the glass stopper.

‘What was he doing with the chloroform?’ asked Jarvis.

‘He had been using it to help him sleep. I suspect that last night it had its effect quicker than he anticipated, before he could put the bottle back on the bedside table. It spilled and he was overwhelmed by it.’

He wanted to place this explanation firmly in Jarvis’s mind. Raven did not want him, or anyone else, to guess what he truly suspected. One of the hardest things about what Archie had asked of him was the possibility that someone – but particularly Sarah – might deduce that he had deliberately ended his own life. She didn’t want to see him suffer, and she was preparing herself for life without him, but no one is ever prepared when the loss becomes real and final. To think that Archie had denied them more time together might only add to the pain.

It occurred to him that she never got to say goodbye, but his greater concern was whether she would live long enough even to find out. He would have to break it to her that she had lost the unborn child too. The one consolation was that Archie had gone to his death without knowing that. But for the chloroform, it might have been Raven’s painful task to inform Archie that Sarah had died, rather than the other way around.

Exhaustion was starting to hit Raven now, and with it the sense that everything was falling apart. Sarah had lost her baby, lost her husband, and might yet lose her life. There was no new disease to make Raven’s name, and the only fruit of his investigation might be that Simpson would dismiss him from his employ for going against his instructions. But he knew that he had to keep his wits about him, for there was still work to be done.

‘We should attempt to conceal what happened,’ he said, indicating the bottle. ‘Change the sheets, air the mattress. It would be easier on Sarah … on Mrs Banks,’ he corrected himself. ‘Easier on everyone if they simply believed that Archie’s time had come. He was, after all, very ill.’

Jarvis nodded solemnly, but as he did so, Raven noticed Quinton lurking outside the door. Looking, listening, taking note, as always.

Raven walked out of the bedroom and thrust the chloroform bottle into Quinton’s hands. ‘Here. Put this back in your stock cupboard,’ he said bitterly. ‘But before you do, perhaps you’d like to measure precisely how much is left in it, to keep your precious records straight.’

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