Is it a case of a sloppy conditional, a rare past habitual, or...? "Sometimes he would have come back"

I was reading this article in The Guardian, and I came across an odd-sounding sentence:

Sometimes Toby would have come back, and there would be loud music in the drawing room;

My impression was, the author portrays a habitual occurrence in the past. Some kind of a repeat activity.

If that's a correct interpretation, shouldn't the sentence instead say:

"Sometimes Toby WOULD come back..."

I'm used to thinking of a "WOULD HAVE COME" construction as a hypothetical event that never actually took place.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Solution 1:

In present time, Toby could say, perhaps to someone on the telephone,

"I've just come back and there is loud music in the drawing room."

Present perfect for an event completed in the very recent past and present tense because the loud music is now.

The author wishes to indicate repeated instances in the past and to preserve the temporal sequence of arrival and the loud music. Though the two events are virtually simultaneous, the space between arrival and the perception allows the reader to slip inside the narrative rather than merely hear a narration of events:

Sometimes he would come home and there would be loud music in the drawing room.

Instead, the author maintains the sequence and adds would to each verb:

Sometimes he would have come home and there would be loud music in the drawing room.

The effect is less temporal than spatial: Toby has arrived in some part of the house and over there somewhere there's loud music.

Solution 2:

It is indeed an habitual occurrence in the past. But it seems to be intended as a pluperfect, not a simple past. Toby's coming back had already occurred by the time the loud music was playing.

Toby had come back, and there was loud music in the drawing room. (normal past perfect + simple past)

Sometimes Toby would have come back, and there would be loud music in the drawing room. (habitual past perfect + habitual simple past)

It is true that would have come can also be used not as an habitual past perfect, but as a conditional/counter-factual past perfect subjunctive. The same applies to would come, which could be habitual simple past or conditional simple past subjunctive:

She would come back if you called her. But you're not calling her. (simple past conditional subjunctive, indicating counter-factual present situation)

She would have come back if you had called her. But you didn't call her. (past perfect conditional subjunctive, indicating counter-factual past situation)

She would confess her sins every Sunday. (simple habitual past)

On those lovely summer Sundays, she would have confessed her sins, and we would be going through the rites of absolution together. (habitual past perfect)