The Hollow of Fear

by Sherry Thomas

  “It is a major case.” He straightened the knot of his necktie and did not look at her. “Lady Ingram.”

  She gasped. “What?”

  “Apparently everyone believed her to be overseas, but she was found dead this afternoon on the grounds of Stern Hollow.”

  He hadn’t known anything about Lady Ingram’s whereabouts—he hadn’t written Lord Ingram since before the end of summer; nor Lord Ingram him. And without that correspondence, he had few means of obtaining Lord Ingram’s news—they moved in very different circles and shared no mutual friends.

  Except Sherlock Holmes, once upon a time.

  “Doesn’t Chief Inspector Fowler know that you are acquainted with Lord Ingram?”

  Treadles stuffed a folded handkerchief into his pocket, only to realize he already had one. “He does. I expect that’s why he has chosen me, because I’ll be able to help him assess Lord Ingram.”

  Which could constitute the entirety of his duties on this case. Chief Inspector Fowler had strong ideas on how subordinates ought to behave. Treadles might be an inspector in his own right, but with Fowler in charge, he suspected his own role would amount to no more than that of a stenographer.

  Not to mention, he would need to be careful in both speech and action so that he didn’t come across as an advocate for Lord Ingram.

  “Surely they don’t suspect him of complicity in her death.”

  “I don’t know enough yet,” he lied.

  In cases like this, it’s almost certain that the husband is responsible, Chief Inspector Fowler had once told him on a different but similar case. And he would not have sought Treadles if he didn’t already believe that he had a plum of a target in Lord Ingram.

  Alice clutched at the lapels of her dressing gown. “Lord Ingram is our friend.”

  “And I am a policeman.” He lifted his always-ready travel bag. “If he is not guilty, he has nothing to fear.”

  “But Chief Inspector Fowler is the Bloodhound of the Yard. They are not sending him out if they think the butler did it.”

  The handkerchief in his other hand he shoved into his pocket, only to realize it was the same extra handkerchief from earlier.

  She took it from him—and wrapped her fingers around his hand. “Robert, are you all right?”

  No. I’m afraid for Lord Ingram and I don’t know what to do.

  He gave Alice a perfunctory kiss and left before he could betray the depth of his fear.

  * * *

  Lord Ingram shot out of his chair. He paced in the room, a caged animal barred in every direction. Dimly he was aware that Holmes watched him, her otherwise blankly limpid eyes not without a measure of compassion.

  He braced his hands on the mantel. A fire roared in the grate and he couldn’t feel the heat at all. The chill of the icehouse had crept inside his spine, its arctic dominion spilling vertebra by vertebra.

  She came to stand next to him. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” he said, barely able to hear his own voice. “But what am I to do?”

  The forces arrayed against him were legion. The cold had spread to his lungs. A little more and his courage would fail altogether.

  She spoke and he tried to listen. But her words rode over him like an advancing glacier, annihilating and endlessly cold.

  When she finished speaking, she slipped away. He was bereft—and afraid in a different way. With Holmes there was always the possibility that she would leave him alone to pick up the pieces.

  But she came back—and wrapped an arm about his middle. This was unlike her. She had kissed him twice, more than ten years apart, and propositioned him from time to time; yet he maintained a distinct impression that she found touching to be an odd and sometimes discomfiting experience.

  Charlotte doesn’t like to be hugged, Miss Olivia Holmes had once said, rather sadly, in his hearing.

  But Holmes did not disengage. In fact, she placed both arms around him, and rested her cheek against his back.

  It had been a very, very long time since a woman had embraced him. As his astonishment receded, her warmth seeped into his rigid frame.

  He felt less chilled.

  Less isolated.

  Every day he moved among people, dozens, sometimes hundreds of people: family, friends, neighbors, classmates, archaeological colleagues, fellow agents of the Crown, and this was not accounting for his staff and ranks upon ranks of acquaintances. But he had been alone for a long time and had reinforced that loneliness even as he had despaired of ever being anything but alone.

  Her touch, however, unleashed a monstrous need, so immense and chaotic he couldn’t be sure what he hungered for, or even whether he wished to take—or to give. He held still, terrified of this need, and just as terrified that she had already taken its measure, she who saw too much and gleaned everything.

  But as her warmth poured into him, as she remained where she was, not leaving him to cope on his own, his hand lifted to rest against the back of hers, his fingertips brushing against the cuff of her sleeve.

  It dawned on him that she was no longer wearing her jacket, waistcoat, and paddings. A man’s shirt was far more modest than the bodice of a ball gown—and he had seen her in plenty of those. But underneath the shirt she wore no corset, and through the layers of his own clothes he discerned the shape of her, pressed into his back.

  Twenty-four hours ago he would have considered this impossible, that he and Holmes would be in each other’s arms—and that he wouldn’t immediately pull away. He had not written her since summer because even though Lady Ingram was never coming back, he remained a married man with nothing of value—at least in his own view—to offer her.

  But everything had changed in a single day. He was no longer a married man. And at any moment he could lose his freedom—and possibly his life.

  He did not move again. Not because he might startle her—she had ever been imperturbable in these matters. But because he was startled. He had thought he knew everything there was to know about his desire. Had considered it, so long fettered and trammeled, as tame, or at least manageable.

  When it had always been feral. Primal.

  Her lips touched his nape, just above the rim of his collar. He spun around, cupped her face, and kissed her on the mouth, a kiss that he might never be able to stop.

  She was the one who eased them apart—and combed her fingers through his hair. “You are welcome to stay.”

  He rested his forehead against hers. He wanted to. Badly. But not with his wife’s body still in the icehouse. “Tomorrow.”

  “Then get some sleep. You must be exhausted.”

  He’d taken a nap in the afternoon—and had slept like the dead until he was awakened to meet a frantic Miss Olivia Holmes. Still, he found himself swaying on his feet.

  “Good night,” he murmured, kissing her on the cheek. “Scotland Yard arrives in the morning.”

  Her lips curved, a barely there smile. “Let them come,” she said. “And let them do their worst.”

  Nine

  Ironic that Treadles entered Lord Ingram’s home for the first time not as a friend but a policeman.

  It was also the first time that he investigated the death of someone he had met.

  A few months ago, in the course of a different investigation, he had walked past Lord Ingram’s town house in London. At the same time, Lord Ingram had emerged from the house and Lady Ingram from her carriage. The greeting between the two had been so aloof that Treadles, who had never seen Lady Ingram before, had almost mistaken them for strangers who happened to cross paths. There had been none of the smoldering tension that one sometimes encountered between former lovers, only a void, a complete absence of affection.

  On that day he’d understood why Lady Ingram never attended her husband’s lectures or accompanied him on his digs. On that day he’d also un
derstood that he’d never be invited into Lord Ingram’s home, as long as Lady Ingram, who took no pleasure at all in meeting him, drew up guest lists and seating charts. Not that he’d expected or even wished for such an invitation, his station in life being so far inferior. Nor would he accuse her of any particular snobbishness; her dislike of him had been impersonal, indifferent, a mere reflection of the vast distance between her husband and herself.

  It was the first and last time he saw Lady Ingram alive. He had left the encounter deeply saddened, but without the slightest premonition that tragedy would strike within months. Or that suspicions would fall squarely upon Lord Ingram.

  “Lovely,” murmured Chief Inspector Fowler, when the manservant who greeted them had gone to inform the master of the house of their arrival. “As immaculate as the grounds.”

  The entrance hall was white-and-gold marble. Fluted columns soared forty feet to a blue cupola. An avenue of statues led toward a grand double-return staircase.

  “That is a Rubens. Those two are Rembrandts, if I’m not mistaken,” said Fowler, squinting through his wire-rimmed spectacles at paintings on distant walls. “And the three over there should all be Turners. We could be looking at a spectacular collection, Inspector.”

  Although Treadles had acquired a decent education in the history of art through his wife, he ventured no opinions of his own, beyond an “I’m sure you are right, Chief Inspector.”

  Fowler might appear friendly, even genial at times, but Treadles had learned not to trust that seeming affability. There was something predatory about him, a too-strong enjoyment in the nabbing of suspects. It was likely the man had no interest at all in justice, but only in the exercise of power.

  And now he had Lord Ingram in his sights.

  The manservant returned to lead them to his master. Beyond the entrance hall they crossed a picture gallery, three-stories high, glass-roofed, and dense with oils and sculptures. Fowler shook his head in admiration, whether at the abundance of artwork or the soaring architecture, Treadles couldn’t be sure. Perhaps both.

  Treadles had known that Lord Ingram was well-situated in life. But well-situated could mean a prestigious title and not much else. He’d had no idea of the depth and extent of his friend’s wealth.

  If he had, would that have prevented him from forming this friendship? Would he have been too conscious of his own ordinary origins?

  They were brought to a two-story library that must house a collection of at least ten thousand volumes. Books lined all four walls. And the ceiling had been painted with a trompe l’oeil mural that made it seem as if the shelves reached up all the way to a bright blue sky, where chiton-clad philosophers from Classical Antiquity looked down in benign amusement.

  On this cold morning, all three fireplaces in the library had been lit. By the largest fireplace stood Lord Ingram, somehow not at all dwarfed by the scale and magnificence of his home. He didn’t look very different from how Treadles remembered him, but there was a grimness to the set of his features, a resolve that implied not so much confidence as a willingness to endure.

  Treadles had debated, before boarding the late train, whether he ought to cable Lord Ingram. He’d decided against it—he would be arriving at Stern Hollow in an official capacity. And Lord Ingram would have already been told to expect Scotland Yard.

  As Lord Ingram’s gaze landed on him, however, he felt a rush of self-reproach, as if he had sneaked in and been discovered.

  Nothing to do now but be the policeman he was.

  Lord Ingram nodded with perfect correctness. “Good morning, Inspector Treadles. A pleasure to see you again.”

  “Likewise, my lord. May I present Chief Inspector Fowler?”

  Fowler half bowed.

  “Welcome to Stern Hollow, Chief Inspector,” said Lord Ingram. He gestured at a man who had been studying what looked to be a large map of the estate when the policemen arrived. “Gentlemen, this is my friend Mr. Sherrinford Holmes. Holmes, Chief Inspector Fowler and Inspector Treadles of Scotland Yard.”

  At the sound of “Holmes,” Treadles glanced sharply at the rotund, dark-haired young man, all monocle and exaggerated mustache.

  Mr. Holmes bowed with a flourish.

  Small talk was exchanged, on the policemen’s journey, the weather, and the general efficacy of local constables.

  “A county sergeant who knows enough to immediately send for Scotland Yard is, of course, always a praiseworthy one,” said Mr. Holmes, smiling.

  “Oh, I shall not disagree with that,” said Fowler, with an unforced heartiness.

  Treadles, on the other hand, wondered whether he heard something in Mr. Holmes’s tone—not snide, merely amused.

  Finally, Lord Ingram stated the purpose of the gathering. “I understand, gentlemen, that you would like to see the body.”

  Fowler did not immediately answer. Instead, he studied Lord Ingram, who met his gaze steadily. Treadles held his breath. Mr. Holmes, however, didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned—Mr. Holmes who had never seen Chief Inspector Fowler at work.

  After what seemed an interminable interval, Fowler finally said, “Yes, we would. Thank you.”

  “I will show you to the icehouse,” said Lord Ingram with the evenness of a man with a clear conscience.

  Or so it sounded to Treadles. Would Chief Inspector Fowler hear in that levelness of voice a clever murderer who had every confidence he would emerge unscathed?

  “I have asked Mr. Holmes to accompany us,” Lord Ingram went on. “This is a difficult time and I find myself in need of support, both moral and practical. I hope you will indulge me in this, gentlemen.”

  His words had the gloss of a request, but they were, in fact, an announcement. Mr. Holmes was coming with, and that was that.

  “Certainly, my lord,” answered Fowler, with apparent generosity.

  Mr. Holmes paired up with Fowler; Treadles had to walk alongside Lord Ingram. Behind them Mr. Holmes answered Fowler’s questions in a pleasantly baritone voice, though his enunciation wasn’t as clear as Treadles expected, almost as if he spoke with a piece of boiled sweet in his mouth.

  Indeed, his lordship and I have been friends since we were children.

  Yes, I knew her ladyship, too. What a sad and terrible fate for such a beautiful woman.

  Oh, I happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I’d put myself at his lordship’s disposal. Between you and me, Chief Inspector, I suspect he’s letting me help more to be kind than because he believes I’ll be of any actual use.

  There was something odd about Lord Ingram’s friend, which had little to do with his almost coxcomb-ish appearance. Something contradictory yet strangely riveting. Despite the gravity of the situation, Treadles found himself wanting to stare at Mr. Holmes until he figured out what it was about the man that snared his attention like an itch in an unscratchable place. Failing that, since Mr. Holmes was currently behind his back, he listened to the latter’s conversation with Fowler with far more attention than necessary.

  Mr. Holmes began to question Fowler on the latter’s customary practices at cases out of town. Treadles became aware that he hadn’t spoken at all to Lord Ingram, and the length of his silence must border on unseemly. “My condolences, my lord,” he said hastily, reddening.

  “Thank you, Inspector.”

  “And the children, are they all right?”

  “They are with my brother, and they have not been told yet.” Lord Ingram exhaled. “So as of the moment, they are all right. But they are living in a soap bubble, and a storm of needles is on its way.”

  “I’m very sorry for their loss.”

  Lord Ingram exhaled again.

  What had happened? How had everything gone so wrong? Not long ago Treadles had looked upon his friend with wholehearted and limitless admiration—that is, before he had learned the truth about Sherlock Holmes.


  He caught himself. So often these days his thoughts began and ended with before he had learned the truth about Sherlock Holmes. And it was only recently that he had become aware of each instance.

  Sherlock Holmes was not the First Coming. No one ought to reckon their days from her emergence on the scene. Not to mention, Lord Ingram’s alienation from his wife had begun years ago. Treadles should have perceived sooner that all was not well.

  But he had liked the idea that the great manors of the land housed harmonious families who embodied all the virtues that should naturally be present in lives so far removed from the strife of poverty and the narrowness of commerce.

  Sometimes he needed that to be true. He encountered so much greed, stupidity, and ugliness. All that was base and tainted in human nature begged for a counterpoise in nobility and loftiness of character.

  Before he had learned the truth about Sherlock Holmes, he had thought he had found such an ideal in Lord Ingram.

  He winced at the direction in which his thoughts had once again strayed.

  “Ah, that must be the icehouse,” said Fowler.

  Treadles was not intimately involved in the management of his household, but he knew that in warmer months, ice was delivered in blocks and kept in an ice safe. His late father-in-law, though a wealthy man, had not, as was often the case of those making a fortune in the Age of Steam, acquired a country house.

  He had, therefore, no firsthand knowledge of how an estate dealt with the large amounts of ice required for its operations. Even after Fowler had pointed out the proximity of the icehouse, it took Treadles a moment to realize that he meant the grassy mound they were approaching.

  He understood, from speaking to Sergeant Ellerby, that the previous day had been unseasonably warm. But overnight there had been a hard frost and the turf was encased in a crystalline membrane of ice that crunched audibly underfoot.