Free Last Nocturne by Marjorie Eccles

or making shadow pictures on the walls, causing her stubborn, angry little face to break into reluctant smiles. From another corner of her mind sprang a memory of him with Bruno as they made their way up the narrow lane, laughing like crazy people the evening after the sale of that first – and only – painting he ever sold in Vienna. Theo, who rarely if ever drank, but was perhaps a little tipsy on that occasion, and Bruno who was certainly more than that, their arms around each other’s shoulders, comically lurching because Bruno stood half a head taller than Theo.
    And then, that other Theo, the one she’d seen only occasionally since she’d come to London.
    Julian watched the mixture of emotions crossing her face, a natural shock and disbelief at the death of a friend, bewilderment – and perhaps, yes perhaps, fear, a shrinking into herself. ‘Suicide?’ she said in a low voice. ‘Theo? But surely nothing could be less likely!’
    ‘You knew him far better than I. But Isobel, I happened to see him only a couple of weeks ago – at the Pontifex, in fact. I was looking at a watercolour they’d found for me and he’d brought in some of his paintings for the coming exhibition.’ He added gently, ‘And it was pretty obvious then that he was drinking seriously.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Either that, or something else.’ She stared incredulously. ‘You know what goes on in artistic circles as well as I do. You’ve seen what stimulants do to those who believe them an aid to creativity, even though they know it can in the end lead to nothing but ruin.’
    ‘But not Theo.’ Never. Theo’s easy-going approach to life had always belied an underlying austerity. He rarely drank, never smoked, even ate sparingly. In his way, he’d been something of a Puritan. A product, he told her wryly, of a Nonconformist upbringing he couldn’t shake off. She guessed some part of him would have liked nothing better than to encompass the Bohemian way of life almost expected of an artist…but then, Theo had never been able to come up to his own expectations. The events at Silbergasse 7 had shaken him to the core, upset his innate belief in the goodness of human nature. But drink – stimulants?
    Julian was looking at her pityingly. ‘Don’t take it too much to heart.’ He hesitated. ‘It’s been a long time since you visited me. Come again, soon – better still, there’s to be a Promenade Concert at the Albert Hall. Can’t I…can’t you be persuaded to come with me?’
    For a moment she struggled. What he’d just told her had shocked her so much, reminding her of things she found difficulty in accepting. Then, though she thought she might later regret it, she took a deep breath and told him she’d go with him. His delight shamed her.
    ‘Dear Julian – always so kind.’
    He bent his head and lifted her hand to his lips, an unexpected gesture for Julian. Too late, she realised how much her words – affectionate but nothing more – might have cut him to the quick. But when he looked up, he was smiling. Then he called her a hansom.
    It wasn’t until she was on her way home that she wondered why she hadn’t told him of the letters she’d been receiving. But perhaps part of her half-hoped there would be no necessity for it. She wished she could believe that.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    ‘Seems to have been an artist of some sort, sir. Name of Theodore Benton. Aged about twenty-five, the landlady thinks.’
    It was Detective Sergeant Cogan’s second appearance at Adelaide Crescent. His first had been the previous day, within half an hour of the body being found, his tasks then to oversee the necessary, sombre routines following any sudden death: taking note of the circumstances, interviewing witnesses, noting the estimated time of death, identifying the man the victim had been. Seeing the body decently taken away to the morgue for an autopsy, a routine affair in these parts where life was hard and chancy, though a mere formality in