THE INCORRIGIBLES WERE AMAZED. HAD their panorama achieved such verisimilitude that one of its inhabitants had sprung to life, complete with the knowledge of how to play the fiddle? Yet none of them could remember drawing Emperor Nero, the famously tyrannical Roman emperor who was said to have set fire to the city and fiddled while it burned. “That is no painted emperor, but I fear it may be Edward Ashton,” Penelope said urgently to Simon. Lord Fredrick overheard her, for his hearing grew wolfishly keen during the full moon (alas, his vision remained blurry as ever). At the mention of his father’s name, his ears twitched, for of course he believed the man to be dead. “Woof!” he exclaimed in disbelief. “Yap! Ahwoo!” By now, these were the only sounds he could utter. Whatever else he longed to say about his long-lost father miraculously turning up in Brighton during the off-season, wearing a toga and playing the violin, would have to wait until later. Dr. Martell took Lady Constance firmly by the arm.
