Free Phantom of Blood Alley by Paul Stewart

names that I keep coming back to. Although, due to Laurence’s secretive nature, I know precious little about them …’
    ‘And they are?’ I urged, pencil poised above my notebook.
    ‘First is Sir Crispin Blears,’ said Clarissa. ‘The noted society portrait painter. I know Laurence approached him for funds, but then, for reasons I can only guess at, accused him of attempting to destroy his life.’
    She shook her head.
    ‘Laurence was so highly strung, Barnaby, and his work only seemed to intensify his feelings of resentment … Then, of course, there was a chemist he seemed to blame for his unfortunate accident. Laurence actually claimed that this fellow had caused it on purpose, and was trying to kill him for some reason. A.G. Hoskins Industrial Chemists – I found a docket in Laurence’s fustian weave overcoat once …’
    Clarissa’s eyes brimmed with tears.
    ‘And the third name,’ I pressed, aware that the warder was looking in our direction.
    ‘Yes, yes, the third name,’ said Clarissa,gathering herself together with considerable difficulty. ‘That unfortunately is Miles Morgenstern, my brother’s former assistant. Laurence was ill, Barnaby,’ she pleaded, her voice raised. ‘And his accursed work was causing it …’
    The warder was rapidly approaching our table as Clarissa continued, her voice now booming.
    ‘And the fourth is his tutor, Dean Henry Dodson!’ Clarissa exclaimed tearfully. ‘He started poor Laurence on this road to ruin! Go and see him, Barnaby,’ she begged me as the warder took her by the arm and forcibly dragged her away, ‘and demand that
he
explain himself!’

T he mansions of Monrovia Walk and Batavia Park, with their ivy-clad loggias, glass-roofed ateliers and ornate studios, were as distinctive and decorative as the grand society painters and sculptors who lived and worked in them. Classical villas and Mesopotamian follies nestled beside Byzantine palaces and miniature Bavarian castles, as each artist attempted to outdo his neighbours with his superior taste and artistic vision.
    A brass plaque bolted to the wall of number 16 Batavia Park, a mosaic-encrusted mansion built in the Moorish style, confirmed that I’dreached the grand residence of the first name on the list I’d made of Clarissa Oliphant’s prime suspects.
    Sir Crispin St John Blears, FRSA
    I pulled the bell rope. No sooner had the bell begun to jangle than the carved sandalwood door opened, and I was confronted by a richly clad figure.
    ‘Well, you’re certainly not Lady Lavinia,’ proclaimed a bored, foppish voice with a hint of disdain.
    Sir Crispin Blears was a tall, aristocratic-looking man with a long face and an aquiline nose beneath a black mane of studiously ruffled hair, which had a single, distinctive white streak at its centre. Dressed in the long, flowing robes of an eastern potentate, anywhere else, Sir Crispin would have cut an absurdly comic figure. Yet here, in the doorway of this eccentric mansion, he seemed perfectly in keeping.
    ‘Excuse the intrusion, sir,’ I said. ‘Myname’s Grimes, Barnaby Grimes, and I’ve been commissioned, in a private capacity, to look into the affairs of the late Laurence Oliphant …’
    ‘A swag-hound, eh?’ snorted Sir Crispin.
    It was a term used to describe private investigators who looked into unsolved crimes in the hope of reward money, or ‘swag’. They were a disreputable bunch, little more than petty swindlers and blackmailers themselves, often implicated in the very crimes they claimed to be investigating.
    ‘No, I assure you,’ I protested, ‘I’m a tick-tock lad by profession, and I’m looking into this as a favour to a client of mine.’
    ‘The
late
Laurence Oliphant, you say?’ said Sir Crispin, his eyes narrowing. ‘A gifted fellow if, ultimately, a misguided one. Fortunately for you, Mr Grimes, my client is delayed,’ he said, pulling a gold fob-watch from beneath his silken robes. ‘You’ve got five minutes. Follow