A Study In Scarlet Women

by Sherry Thomas

  Treadles pulled out a chair but did not sit down. “And then he proved himself not quite as above reproach as you had thought.”

  Mrs. Cornish’s lips quivered. “You think . . . you think . . .”

  “You failed to inform Tommy Dunn of details of Mr. Sackville’s condition that would have let a physician know that he was in need of strychnine. You said Becky requested to take the photograph when instead you stowed it among her things so that no one else would find out that she is your daughter and that you had a strong motive to protect her. Not to mention that you were, according to everyone else, desperately searching for a missing whisky decanter.”

  “Are you implying there was arsenic in the whisky?” cried Mrs. Cornish, her gloved hands gripping the edge of the desk that separated them.

  “Becky suffered a gastric attack the same day Mr. Sackville was forced to spend the night in Exeter. The only thing they both had was whisky from the decanter.”

  “If there was arsenic in the whisky, I didn’t put it there. I might not have been completely truthful earlier, Inspector, but it was to save my position and my reputation, not my neck!”

  Her breaths echoed harshly in the small room. Treadles waited until she had regained a measure of her composure. “Did Mr. Hodges tell you that Mr. Sackville offered Becky some of his whisky?”

  “He did—and said I ought to keep a closer eye on the girl. So I snuck by when Becky cleaned abovestairs. Several times a day I did this and never once did I see Mr. Sackville with her. I kept it up until the day before Mr. Sackville died. What reason did I have to poison Mr. Sackville, when I’d no evidence that he took advantage of Becky, or even thought about it?”

  “Then why were you scrambling for the whisky decanter, going so far as to snoop in Tommy Dunn’s quarters for it?”

  “I didn’t want to believe that Becky took it.” She looked at him beseechingly. “I didn’t want to believe that my own flesh and blood was a thief.”

  “Why did you secret the photograph in her luggage then?”

  “Before Becky came, I was afraid I’d never want her to leave again. But she came and . . . she was a stranger. She thought a little too well of herself. She didn’t like to work too hard. And she didn’t care a whit for life in service except that she was in the household of a real gentleman.”

  Mrs. Cornish sighed. “I remember the housekeeper at my first place scolding the maids and I remember thinking how unsympathetic and needlessly strict she was. But I’ve become that woman. I can’t understand why Becky doesn’t take greater pride in her work and I can’t understand why dust on the mantel doesn’t feel like dust in the eyes to her. She was a disappointing housemaid to me and I must have been an ogre of a housekeeper to her.

  “But I wanted her to have the photograph. I didn’t offer it to her because I thought she’d find that offer strange. But I figured that if she had it, she’d keep it. And maybe someday, when she’s a good deal older herself, she’ll look back and understand that I wasn’t being unreasonable, but responsible.”

  A knock came on the door, startling her. She looked fearfully at Treadles.

  Treadles rose. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  On the other side of the door was Constable Perkins. “Sir, the results from the chemical analyst.”

  Treadles took the cable—and swore. The whisky he’d retrieved from Becky Birtle contained no trace of arsenic. Nor any trace of chloral.

  “I also have a message on the Wheatstone machine from Sergeant MacDonald,” said the young constable.

  Dear Inspector Treadles,

  Dozens showed up at Scotland Yard to testify to Mr. Sackville’s movements in London—the hazards of soliciting help in the paper. One man seems credible.

  According to him, Mr. Sackville regularly visited the house across the street from his in Lambeth, usually shortly before dinner. He remarked Mr. Sackville because he was a fine-looking gentleman and didn’t seem to belong to the district. The most interesting thing he said, however, was that the house burned down some six weeks ago—which fits nicely with the occasion of Mr. Sackville’s final trip to London, the one from which he returned early and distraught.

  To be thorough, I showed the man a picture of the staff at Curry House. To my surprise, he immediately identified Hodges the valet. I asked if Hodges ever accompanied Mr. Sackville, he said not that he’d ever seen, but he remembered Hodges because once Hodges knocked on his door and asked if he knew what went on in the house Mr. Sackville visited.

  I will interview others in the neighborhood to see if they have seen either Mr. Sackville or Hodges.

  MacDonald

  Clandestine entry into a suite of rooms at Claridge’s should be a straightforward affair: One bribed a porter or two and proceeded.

  Apparently not, especially if one’s debut in breaking and entering was to take place under Lord Ingram’s watchful eyes. There was a protocol, which consisted of handing the matter over to Lord Bancroft Ashburton, Lord Ingram’s second-eldest brother and Charlotte’s one-time suitor, a man of many responsibilities and almost as many means of achieving his ends—and waiting until Lord Bancroft issued a suitable time for the burglary to take place.

  “It takes the fun out of the thing to have approval from high places,” Charlotte complained to Lord Ingram, as they walked into Mrs. Marbleton’s large, empty suite. “This ought to feel more . . . illegal.”

  Instead they’d been given a perfectly safe window of three-quarters of an hour from the man who defended the empire against threats from without and within.

  Lord Ingram only shook his head.

  “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” Charlotte said, feeling a little apologetic. “You called in a favor, I take it?”

  In spite of his brother’s assurance that no Marbleton would return during the allotted forty-five minutes, Lord Ingram approached a window and peered down to the street. “It’s the only currency Bancroft understands.”

  “You can’t possibly have that many favors left to call in.” Charlotte knew something of this trade between brothers.

  A faint regret tinged his answer. “Used my last.”

  From time to time he would leave England for a while, ostensibly for a dig. But Charlotte could always tell whether he’d been to an excavation—and when he’d been somewhere else entirely.

  Archeology, as it turned out, was an excellent excuse for all kinds of foreign jaunts. Once he returned on a crutch and attributed his injury to a large statue falling over. Another time he came back with a heavily bandaged hand and said that there had been feral dogs at the site.

  The scar on his hand hadn’t remotely resembled the marks of canine teeth or claws.

  Does your wife never have any suspicions? she’d asked him once.

  No.

  To have suspicions, one would have to pay attention. After their falling out, Lady Ingram had not bothered with any more false affections.

  There must be ways to find temporary escape without risking your life, Charlotte had told him.

  You have fewer choices, Charlotte, he’d answered. It doesn’t mean I have many.

  She let her gaze linger on him another second, then ventured farther inside the suite, carefully opening drawers, wardrobes, steamer trunks. When she’d taken a mental inventory of everything, she went back to a cupboard that housed a portable darkroom, several cameras, and a large stack of photographs.

  Mrs. Marbleton did not stay alone. Also registered to the suite were two young people, Stephen and Frances Marbleton, her children, ostensibly, with Frances Marbleton being none other than Miss Ellie Hartford from the Dog and Duck in Bywater, the woman who had wanted to claim Mrs. Watson as her mother.

  And judging by the photographs, the young Marbletons had been traveling.

  Many of the pictures featured only scenery but some had captured one of the young Marbletons in
the frame—they were probably traveling alone, taking each other’s pictures.

  In those images they seemed to have deliberately chosen not to include any landmarks. There was the sea and there was open landscape. But the coast could have been any stretch of British headland. And the rolling countryside was as likely to have been plucked from Sussex as Derbyshire.

  “If you can afford to live at Claridge’s Hotel,” called Lord Ingram from the next room, “would you still seek employment?”

  He had found a list of employment agencies. “I believe they specialize in helping women, don’t they?”

  Charlotte sucked in a breath. On the list was Miss Oswald’s employment agency, where Miss Oswald had all but accused Charlotte of being a journalist going about trying to write an exposé on similar agencies.

  Briefly, she recounted that conversation to Lord Ingram. “I wonder whether Frances Marbleton went around to all these fine establishments—and what she might have been doing there.”

  “Since they have a portable darkroom, they must have photonegatives. I can make prints of her images and find out.”

  “You do that, dear sir. I’m afraid I must go and prepare for my next client,” says Charlotte.

  “A client you need to prepare for?”

  “Oh, yes. At least an hour of preparation.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You are up to no good, Charlotte Holmes.”

  “You should try it sometimes. Or more precisely, you should return to it sometimes—you used to be excellent at being up to no good, your lordship.”

  He did not rise to her goading, but asked, “Why did you ask me to wait for you on a street corner last night? And why did you look back several times after I got in the hackney? Are you again suspecting that you might be followed?”

  “I was being followed. I changed vehicles three times before I could be sure I’d shaken my tail loose.”

  “You think it’s the Marbletons?”

  “I’d much rather it be someone you hired. Why would the Marbletons follow me?”

  “Why did Mrs. Marbleton counterfeit a case for you to begin with? It isn’t safe, this Sherlock Holmes business.”

  “Well, this next client is definitely safe,” she promised him. “Sherlock Holmes would give up the business altogether if this one proves anything but safe.”

  A subdued Roger Shrewsbury walked into Sherlock Holmes’s parlor.

  In advance of his visit, a hole had been drilled in the wall between the parlor and the bedroom—then concealed in such a way as to allow Charlotte to see into the parlor without herself being seen. But all that had been completed the day before, with help from a friend of Mrs. Watson’s who invented magic tricks. The one hour’s preparation Charlotte mentioned to Lord Ingram involved no further work on the flat, only further work on Mrs. Watson, begging her to not to be too hard on Roger Shrewsbury.

  Mrs. Watson took on the role of Holmes’s sister. She briskly explained to the client the infelicities of the great detective’s health and the necessity for her to act as a go-between. Then, without asking Shrewsbury whether he needed to be reassured Holmes still had all his faculties, she said, “I can see that you have rarely been a man of your own mind, sir—you are surrounded by those accustomed to imposing their will on you, and you have been content to let them make your decisions. This then is quite a leap for you.”

  “Yes,” came Shrewsbury’s hesitant words. “Yes, I suppose.”

  “You mentioned nothing of what you wish to see Sherlock about, but he has hazarded that it has something to do with the circumstances surrounding your mother’s death.” Mrs. Watson smiled. “It couldn’t have been an easy decision to trust a stranger. My brother commends you for it.”

  Her smile was so warm and encouraging, Charlotte would never have guessed that she had been adamantly against speaking any kind words to their caller. No, Sherlock Holmes ought to give him hell, expose him for the spineless cad he is.

  The man probably believed, for at least forty-eight hours, that his conduct had been directly responsible for his mother’s death, Charlotte had explained. He’s useless, not heartless—not to mention we don’t want him to run out in mortification.

  “I’m beyond gratified by Mr. Holmes’s understanding,” said Shrewsbury, sounding almost teary.

  Charlotte sighed. The poor man, so unaccustomed to receiving a bit of compassion.

  “He’s right—I’ve indeed come about my mother,” Shrewsbury continued. “When Mr. Holmes’s letter came about, linking her death with Lady Amelia’s and Mr. Sackville’s, everyone in the family was furious. But I—I couldn’t help wonder whether there wasn’t some truth to it, some nefarious conspiracy at work, if you will. My mother had the constitution of a camel. She could hike fifteen miles in the country, summer or winter. She never suffered from any aches or pains. And her physician, twenty years her junior, always said that her heart would keep on ticking long after his had given out.”

  “So you agree with Sherlock’s assessment that hers hadn’t been a natural death.”

  “I haven’t told anyone this, but the night before we found her dead, she went out. Now you must understand that it had been an awful evening. Nobody said anything at dinner. My wife was terribly upset because my mother scolded her for failing at her duties to keep me on the straight and narrow. I hadn’t received any lecture myself, but I was on pins and needles: It would be only a matter of time before mine crashed over me like an avalanche.

  “As soon as dinner ended my wife retired for the evening. I hovered around my mother for a while, until she told me to go away—she’d deal with me the next day. It was oppressive at home, so I went out for a walk. And as I was coming back, I saw the most amazing sight, my mother getting inside a hansom cab.

  “A hansom cab! She had never used a public conveyance in her life. She used to say that they smelled of unhygienic drunks and that she shuddered to think about the encrusted grime and filth. I couldn’t imagine what would have prompted her to get into a hansom cab when she was in town, with her own carriage parked in the mews behind the house, a quick summons away.”

  “Did you ever ask?”

  “No. Even if she hadn’t died I wouldn’t have dared. She was the one who asked the questions and pointed out where we fell short—not the other way around.” He was silent for a few seconds. “That was the last I saw her. I returned home and proceeded directly to the whisky bottle. I didn’t even hear Miss Livia Holmes and Mother having a row outside. The next thing I knew was my wife shaking me, trying to make me understand that Mother was no more.”

  He clasped his hands together, as if trying to hold on to his courage. “Since then I’ve been trying to find out where she’d gone that evening and whom she’d seen, if anyone. So far I’ve managed to eliminate a few of her closest friends—but I always knew it couldn’t possibly have been them in the first place. She’d call on them in sackcloth before she would in a hansom cab.”

  “Sherlock believes you would like for us to pass on this information to Scotland Yard—without revealing the source, of course. Is he correct?

  Shrewsbury grimaced. “Mother would be turning over in her grave if she knew what I was doing. But I don’t want to accept that she died of an aneurysm of the brain. I don’t want to accept that I was the one who sent her to her grave.”

  Mrs. Watson smiled again. “You have done very well to bring the matter to Sherlock’s attention.”

  “Will it—will it help solve what happened to my mother?”

  “Let me confer with Sherlock first.”

  Charlotte already had her questions written down in a notebook. See, she mouthed to Mrs. Watson, he’s not so bad. To which Mrs. Watson responded with a dramatic roll of her eyes before taking the notebook and returning to the parlor.

  “Sherlock has a few questions. First, Mr. Shrewsbury, where exactly did you see Lady Shrewsbury ge
t on the hansom cab?”

  “Near the corner of George Street and Bryanston Square.”

  “And which way did it go?”

  “Toward the east.”

  “Did you watch it for some time? Did it turn onto any other street?”

  “It kept going for a while and then it turned south. I think that was at Montague Street.”

  After he left—with a full slate of compliments for Mr. Holmes—Charlotte emerged from the bedroom, poured a cup of tea, and helped herself to a slice of the cake that he didn’t touch.

  Mrs. Watson stood by the window, looking at Charlotte one moment, out of the window the next, then again at Charlotte, peacefully enjoying her cake.

  “You’re awfully unsentimental, Miss Holmes, about the man who was your first.”

  “It was a purely strategic decision.” Charlotte took another bite. “I like him, but not enough to stand at the window and watch him leave.”

  Mrs. Watson sighed. “Young ladies these days. But I must admit, he isn’t as despicable as I thought he would be.”

  “He isn’t despicable at all,” Charlotte said. “His misfortune is that he was born fun-loving into a tribe that doesn’t understand fun. They require him to be serious and ambitious, to have a lofty reputation, an enviable family, and an illustrious career in politics, of all things. He’s never been allowed to decide anything for himself, and therefore has never developed either confidence or judgment. So it really was remarkable that he would go against the will of his entire clan to tell us what he knows.”

  “But does it help, what he has told us?”

  Charlotte looked longingly at the rest of the cake on the plate. Alas, she was already at one-point-four chins and must refrain from a second slice. “We now know that something extraordinary took place the night before Lady Shrewsbury died. We only need to find out what it was.”