Everyone stared at the words inside Edward’s cassette case: “Ask Evelyn’s pianist.”
The room fell silent. Harriet immediately searched every timeline they had assembled. Evelyn’s letters. The household register. The Gardeners’ records. The Blackthorn archive. Not once had a pianist been mentioned. Rose pointed out something obvious. That omission itself was suspicious. A woman of Evelyn’s social standing almost certainly received music lessons and entertained guests with music. If a pianist existed but disappeared completely from history, someone had deliberately erased them.
The team returned to Edward’s investigation board. Instead of looking for names, Harriet searched for references to music. She found several seemingly insignificant notes Edward had circled but never explained. “Mus
