The Dead Songbird (The Northminster Mysteries) by Harriet Smart

piano.
    “Oh, Fildyke,” said Watkins starting to pick out a figure which soon turned into an elaborate fugue.
    “That is what I thought,” said Giles.
    “It is crossed out because I dismissed him,” said Watkins, continuing to play. “One of the first things I did when I got here. What he was doing in the choir I can’t imagine. He can’t sing. And of course I had no idea that he was a pet of the Dean’s. Not an auspicious start.”
    “Does this Fildyke have a shop in All Souls?” Giles was forced to speak rather loudly for Watkins was now going at his fugue fortissimo.
    “Yes, I think so,” said Watkins ending with a flourish. “I didn’t deprive him of his livelihood.”
    “Was that Bach?” said Giles.
    “Yes,” said Watkins, with some surprise. “Do you like Bach?”
    “Yes, I suppose I do,” said Giles, thinking of Laura playing to him on the old piano he had rented for her. How imperfect and yet how delightful it had sounded.
    “I want to do one of his Passions,” said Watkins. “Nan Morgan agrees with me – they should be performed more widely here – and it would be a great thing for Northminster and the Festival. Herr Mendelssohn has brought out some new editions. If there is a taste for Handel, I think we may develop a taste for Bach.”
    “Do you know Mrs Morgan well?” Giles said, a little astonished at such a casual reference to the lady.
    “She’s known me since I was a drooling babe,” said Mr Watkins. “She was one of my mother’s pupils – one of the best, my mother says. Not that she listened to all her good advice. She would be in a better situation now if she had not been seduced by the idea of doing opera. My mother told her it would not do.”
    “You think she is in a difficult situation?”
    “A woman artist must guard herself more carefully than a man. It is a fact. And the opera house stage is no place for a respectable woman. But when she fell for that wretch Morgan there was no stopping her. He convinced her to do it.”
    “Did her family consider it a bad match, then?”
    “Her parents were dead by then, and her brother did little to stop it. He was thinking only of the money – and she made vast sums in those early years. But my parents certainly advised her against it and the match with Morgan, but Nan was so in love with him, and in love with the opera. I went to see her début as Cherubino – a friend of mine was depping in the pit and I could not resist going. It was shocking – brilliant, but shocking, none the less.”
    “Then you are pleased that she only sings at sacred concerts now?”
    “Yes, but the damage is done. It is a great shame. For such an extraordinary talent to be tainted in that way.”
    “I had the honour of meeting Mrs Morgan yesterday,” Giles said, “and I see no damage done. She was every inch a lady.”
    “Of course, of course she is, but that is not what the world thinks. And until the world changes, then...”
    “But perhaps a woman such as Mrs Morgan is what is required to change that reputation. If women on the opera stage, indeed women on the stage in general, are seen to be as uncorrupted and incorruptible as any ordinary decent woman, then the reputation of the professional will change. She can be an exemplar.”
    “Perhaps. That was her argument, of course, Major Vernon. She will be pleased to find you espousing it. But I have no great faith in it happening. People will always think ill of women on the stage, no matter how they conduct themselves.”
    The sort of people who write malicious, anonymous letters, Giles thought, closing the ledger of names. As he picked it up, he revealed a name, hand-written on the unbound folio of music he had put it down on: K. E. Pritchard . Furthermore, Watkins appeared to see him see it, for he at once picked it up and dropped it on another pile, in a manner that was too casual to be anything but deliberate.
    “Is there anything else you remember from yesterday, from when you