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THE MYSTERY

OF

FARLEIGH FOREST

PART ONE

The letter from the Duchess of Farleigh came as something of a relief, when it arrived.

It had been a cruel summer. Havelock and I had spent much of June and July working on a disturbing case that had affected us profoundly, called “The Dollmaker’s Daughter.” I have no desire to dwell upon the details of that case, which have been assigned to their own manuscript and locked away—only to remark upon the fact that we were both still recovering from it. The month was September, and we were both quiet and distant in our own ways. We had spent much of August discussing the case, and it felt as if there was nothing left to say. Havelock was immersing himself in his studies, and I was using every excuse to be out of the house: running errands and attending the events we routinely received invitations to and habitually ignored. What few interactions we had were brief and terse.

The morning the letter arrived was unusually cold, and I remember setting the fireplace in my study. My scalp was itching with stubble, so I poured a basin and sat myself in front of my dressing room table to shave. There was rain rolling down the window, distorting my view of London, and all was quiet. I could hear only the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall, and the scraping of the blade across my skin.

“Sebastian, you have the steadiest hands of anyone I’ve ever met,” said Havelock, taking me by surprise. He was stood in the doorway, wearing a loose shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his hair handsomely tousled.

One of the most remarkable things about Havelock Harper is his hair. In every other aspect of his appearance, he takes great pains; he grooms himself with an uncommon vigilance and selects his outfits with an extraordinary attention to detail. His hair, however, requires little maintenance. You will know it from the woodcuttings in The Times; the slightly eccentric, tousled wave of it. I can reveal that he applies no oils or tinctures to it, and the only external interference with it occurs once monthly, at his standing appointment with the barber on Goodge Street. He runs a comb through it once in the morning, and that’s all for it.

“I do love your hands,” he said, when I failed to respond.

“Would you like me to shave you?” I asked. Usually, I enjoyed shaving him, but today I wanted nothing less than to be tasked with the responsibility.

“If you don’t mind.”

I finished my scalp, listening to the ticking of the grandfather clock, and feeling his presence behind me. I closed the curtains, so that we would not be seen. Then, I settled into the corner of the chaise longue. Havelock arranged himself so that his head was in my lap—lit by the daylight coming in from the window in the hallway. I could smell him—he seemed to be wearing a new cologne.

Applying a measure of shaving salve to his chin and neck, I began to run my razor across his skin. I could feel the tension in my hand as I did so. It was fear, I think—fear that I might accidentally hurt him. I wondered how long it would be until we were comfortable with each other again.

I took my time—twice as long as I usually might, and with special care to avoid his moustache. It was a handsome moustache—no more than a thin line across his top lip, as had been the fashion over in the Continent about a decade ago—and it had become something of a trademark for him over the years.

When I was finished, he sat up and examined me.

“How many cases have we worked, now?” he asked.

“Oh, that’s a good question.” I washed my razor, glad for the easy topic of conversation. “Which was the first?”

“I think it might have been the one with the dulcimer.”

“Ah, yes,” I said. “I remember. The murderer used one of his strings.”

“The press went wild for it.”

“What year was that?”

“That must have been … seventy-four.”

“Fifteen years?”

“Or thereabouts.”

Havelock nodded. “Time feels as if it passes at pace, these days.” He looked me in the eye, as if searching for something there. “Sebastian…” he began.

But it was then that the doorbell rang.

There was a final moment of tension between us. I could tell that he had something he wanted to tell me—something important. And in truth, I wanted to speak to him in turn. I wanted to tell him how much I missed him. I wanted to tell him how difficult I was finding it to regain our usual candour in the wake of such a disturbing case. I wanted to ask him if he was feeling the same way.

Then, the bell rang for a second time, and the moment was broken.

I rose, pulled on my jacket, and went downstairs.