The Dead Songbird (The Northminster Mysteries) by Harriet Smart Page B

designed to evoke the splendours of far more aristocratic mansions. Felix, who had now seen the glittering enfilades and painted ceilings of Holbroke, was none the less astonished by it. It was papered with exotic, brightly coloured paper, an oriental confection involving long-tailed birds and blackamoors in turbans. It also felt as hot as India with a huge fire in the grate, and the air was over-sweetened by burning aromatic pastilles. The room felt more like a feverish nightmare than a pleasant retreat.
    Mr Elias Geoffrey was sitting up in a bed that was hung with swags of puce-striped silk. He had a cashmere shawl about his shoulders and an embroidered, tasselled cap covering his bald head. Through the open door to the adjoining dressing room Felix could see a luxuriant, curly wig sitting on a stand. It would look absurd upon him, Felix could not helping thinking, looking back at the thin, whey-faced man in the bed. He scarcely matched his extraordinary surroundings.
    “Mr Carswell?” he said. “This is Providence at work! I was on the verge of sending for you. I am need of a fresh opinion – Woodcroft talks such nonsense to me. I fear he is trying to kill me.”
    “What is troubling you, sir?”
    “What is not troubling me? What?” said Mr Geoffrey. “Where shall I begin?”
    “Perhaps I should examine you?” said Felix.
    “That would be a great kindness, sir,” said Mr Geoffrey “Perhaps you would look at my right leg in particular. I have an excruciating inflammation on my leg. Woodcroft has given me plaisters to draw out the pain but they do irritate the skin. And then there is something seriously amiss with my bowels. I have not passed a thing for twenty hours, at least! Just ask Nickson.” He waved his hand to towards the valet who was in attendance. “Is that not so, Nickson?”
    Nickson nodded solemnly.
    Felix began his examination. As he expected, Geoffrey was a obliging patient, even over-obliging. Neither was there very much wrong with him, and Felix soon concluded that he was of a type well known to those in the profession: the patient who took excessive pleasure from a doctor’s attention and often faked symptoms to indulge further. It was usually reckoned to be a female trick, often practised by wealthy old widows who had nothing better to do than engage in medical flirtation.
    “So, Mr Carswell? What is the verdict? You need not spare me the details.”
    “I think you are perhaps low in your mind because of Mr Barnes. A depression in spirits can often have a physical effect on the body. He was an acquaintance of yours, I understand?”
    Geoffrey gave a heavy sigh.
    “Poor Barnes. Yes, it is a great loss. But the inflammation – do you not think –”
    “I agree that the plaisters were unwise. But the inflammation will soon go down of its own accord.”
    “But, but,” said Mr Geoffrey, thrusting his bony leg out towards Felix again, hitching up the long tail of his nightshirt. “That is not temporary, surely? That is persistent, do you not think?”
    Felix swallowed his impatience. There was no need to examine the offending limb again, but he pretended to. He was not here so much to diagnose but investigate.
    “How did you meet Mr Barnes?” said Felix, putting his hands around Geoffrey’s calf and pressing on down on it with his thumbs, with some pressure. He hoped this would feel reassuringly vigorous.
    “I like to gather talent about me,” said Mr Geoffrey. “It is my pleasure to collect the brightest and the best that Northminster can offer.” He paused a moment. “Are you musical, perhaps, sir?”
    “No, not very,” said Felix.
    “Literary, then? A talent for verse? You look like a man who ought to have a talent for verse.”
    “Hardly,” said Felix, glanced up and saw he was being gazed at by Geoffrey. “I am not sure I have any talents.”
    “Nonsense, sir, you are talented. I sense you are a great healer. I am already feeling a great deal better. Your hands... ah,