With a whoosh, the intruder uncovered the great beauty, lifted the fallboard, and ran a hand over the keys. Daylight struck the dangling prisms on dusty chandeliers, lighting the room with dancing color I was not used to seeing here. Then he lifted the lid and propped it, inspecting the wooden frame and soundboard within. To anyone with eyes, the instrument was well-kept and even polished. I looked away as if I’d carved my own name into the wood and would soon be found out. Harford looked it over with a keen eye, but all he said was, “This will do perfectly.”

Then he looked up at all of us. “I need a volunteer, if you would. Someone to play so I may interact directly with the patients and make my notes.”

Suddenly tense, my gaze roamed the lines of patients, daring any of them to point me out. It was Dr. Turner who looked right at me with those unsettlingly honest eyes, watching from a shadowed corner. I could almost hear the echo of music with him looking at me that way, see Anna on the chair beside me as I spun a most glorious rendition of Chopin.

Even from this distance, Bach’s cello solo was not muted. Separated by an entire room, by Dr. Thornhill and a host of patients, I felt Mitchell Turner’s presence more strongly than the sun beaming down upon my back from the windows.

“Might I entice someone to volunteer? You, perhaps?” Harford looked at me directly and there was no denying who he meant. Everyone nearby looked my way. “Do you play?”

Now in the spotlight, I felt myself step forward as if I were following a script. “I do.” Or perhaps stepping directly into a trap. The oddness of all this unsettled me.

“Someone else, perhaps.” Nurse Branson swept forward, her nervous countenance looking to me and then to Thornhill—highly aware of my so-called delusions of grandeur that Hurstwell was not about to indulge. “That one is a patient.”

“Is it your habit to restrict your patients so? I should think the home secretary would wish to rethink the funding given to such an institution.”

His chin jutted with the intensity of his irritation, but Dr. Thornhill said nothing.

Ridiculous. Harford had no more access to the home secretary than I did Queen Victoria, most likely, but Dr. Thornhill didn’t seem to realize that. What had the man claimed to be, an inspector from the lunacy commission?

The older man again rocked onto his heels. “Perhaps my time would be better spent auditing the records to ensure—”

“Actually, yes.” Thornhill’s look narrowed on me as if he’d decided something. “Let her try it. Let her show us what she can do with a pianoforte.” His look was angry. Challenging.

Harford smiled. “Good, good. Now, won’t you take a seat, my dear?”