Titus Groan the Countess. Here, Steerpike takes the opportunity to spy on the Groan family. Despite having led him there, the fiercely loyal Flay is angered by Steerpike's eavesdropping and locks him in a small room. Steerpike, however, escapes out of a window, risking his life above a sheer drop. He manages to climb up onto the roofs and towers of Gormenghast, and from there begins his rise to power. After spending twenty-four hours clambering over the enormous castle searching for a means to enter, Steerpike manages to climb in through a window into the secret attic of Lady Fuchsia Groan. Fuchsia,
Maeve Gilmore Alone", the third novel in his series of Titus books, following "Titus Groan" (1946), and "Gormenghast" (1950), only with difficulty. When published in 1959 "Titus Alone" was less polished than he might have wished, but he was beyond correcting it. He had always planned a longer series, taking his hero up to his forties at least. On his death from Parkinson's disease in November 1968, Peake left a few pages of notes for a fourth book, of which fewer than a thousand words are legible. During the 1970s, Gilmore worked on the fourth Titus book herself, inspired partly by the