The Hollow of Fear

by Sherry Thomas

  “And this . . . pangram”—Fowler turned to Mr. Holmes—“is that the correct word?”

  “Quite so, Chief Inspector.”

  “My lord, why did you choose this pangram to write repeatedly?”

  “I didn’t. Miss Holmes came up with a number of pangrams. Don Quixote jokes flippantly at windmill, vexing Bach and Mozart. Volcano erupts liquidly, spewing marzipan, pâte à choux, and breakfast jam. So on and so forth. I used them all at some point.”

  “Nevertheless, this is the one Lady Ingram kept. Do you think she resented that you wrote another woman’s name two dozen times on a single page?”

  “Lady Ingram would have had to feel a sense of possessiveness toward me in order to harbor any twinges of jealousy. No, I don’t believe she had ever viewed Miss Holmes as a romantic rival.”

  “And yet according to Mr. Holmes here, Miss Holmes was not a friend to both yourself and Lady Ingram, only to you.”

  “A woman can dislike another for reasons having nothing to do with a man. I daresay Lady Ingram’s antipathy toward Miss Holmes stemmed not from her friendship with me but her ability to resist the pressure to accept a proposal of marriage.”

  Fowler’s eyes narrowed. “I am not sure I understand.”

  “Miss Holmes’s background isn’t all that different from Lady Ingram’s, a penurious respectability. But whereas Lady Ingram buckled under and married after her first Season, Miss Holmes long held firm on her disinclination to marry and turned down any number of proposals.

  “Lady Ingram prized strength above all else. From the beginning, she sensed in Miss Holmes a strength greater than her own, both of mind and of character. That was what she was jealous of. That was what prevented any possibility of friendship: Simply by existing, Miss Holmes made her feel inferior—and angry at herself.”

  “Miss Holmes’s name is beginning to ring a bell,” mused Fowler. “I remember someone by this name connected with the Sackville case. Are we speaking of the same Miss Charlotte Holmes, who disgraced herself last summer and is now no longer received in polite company?”

  “That would be the very same Miss Charlotte Holmes,” said Lord Ingram.

  Nothing at all had changed about his tone, yet Treadles felt as if his answer had been a rebuke.

  They had never spoken of Miss Holmes, not openly, in any case. But Lord Ingram’s steadfast support of and admiration for this fallen woman—Treadles did not understand it. And it made him realize that he did not understand Lord Ingram either. Not at all.

  Fowler gave Lord Ingram a speculative glance. “To return to the subject of your ability to write in many different hands, sir, why do you suppose Lady Ingram would have carried that piece of paper with her?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea. But it behooves me to tell you now that I have written letters in Lady Ingram’s hand to her friends and our children.”

  Oh, this would not look good at all to a jury. Or in the court of public opinion.

  “You had no choice, of course,” said Miss Holmes gently. “Her disappearance would have been that much more incomprehensible if she hadn’t written from her Swiss sanatorium.”

  “Do you have any of those letters that had been written to your children?” Fowler, for all his experience and sangfroid, sounded excited at this question.

  Treadles’s heart sank further. Anything that excited Chief Inspector Fowler was bound to be bad news for Lord Ingram.

  “The children took the letters when they left with my brother—they wished to hear them read every night. But I have one that I had been working on, before all this happened.”

  Lord Ingram went to his desk, opened a locked drawer, pulled out a portfolio, and handed it to Fowler. When opened, the left side of the portfolio held a menu and the right side, a half-finished letter, which read,

  My Dearest Lucinda and Carlisle,

  Thank you most kindly for your loving thoughts, as penned by Papa. I am slightly better, but alas, still not well enough that the doctors are willing to release me.

  It is turning cold here, much colder than at home. But I find the cold tolerable, since the air is dry and the weather clear. From my balcony I can see a lake halfway down the mountain, surrounded by soldier-straight fir trees, with a tiny island at its center and what looks to be an even tinier chapel on this island.

  You asked about the food that is served here. Well, that depends on which cook is on duty, the one from the German-speaking part of Switzerland, or the one from the French-speaking part.

  Fowler pointed at the menu. “And this is an example of her ladyship’s handwriting?”

  “Correct.”

  “You do an excellent imitation.”

  Lord Ingram made no reply.

  The next few questions concerned Lord Ingram’s whereabouts during the past forty-eight hours—and the past fortnight. “Given her state of inadvertent preservation, it might be impossible for us to determine her time of death with any accuracy,” said Fowler.

  Lord Ingram, blank-faced, pulled out an appointment book and answered accordingly.

  “I understand you are a busy man, sir, so I will not take much more of your time. But there is one question that I must ask: Do you know of anyone who wished to harm Lady Ingram?”

  Lord Ingram shook his head. “She did not instill widespread devotion, but neither did she inspire enmity. Her death benefits no one.”

  “I hate to ask this, but it must be done, so I beg your forgiveness in advance. Are you certain that her death benefits no one? Are you certain that you yourself do not stand to reap rewards?”

  Lord Ingram raised a brow. “By being suspected as responsible for her death?”

  “Nobody would have suspected anything if her body hadn’t been found. If she had died somewhere else—overseas, for example—would you not have then been rid of an unloving wife, and would that not have been an advantage?”

  “I have long coexisted with an unloving wife—were she to live to a hundred it would not have further injured me.”

  “But it would have prevented you from marrying someone who does love you. With Lady Ingram no more, in six months’ time you will be able to marry again. This Miss Charlotte Holmes, for example, and rescue her from her disgrace.”

  Miss Holmes appeared unmoved; Lord Ingram, equally so.

  “I will not take umbrage on my own behalf, Chief Inspector—it is your professional obligation to suspect everyone. But you are operating under an entirely mistaken assumption of who Miss Holmes is. She has no use for a husband and would not have accepted any proposal from me, should I be so thoughtless as to tender one.”

  Fowler waved his arm in an expansive gesture. “She wouldn’t wish to be the mistress of all this?”

  “If she wished to be the mistress of a fine estate, she could have achieved that easily. Half of the largest landowners in England had proposed to her.”

  “Really?” Fowler sounded almost impressed.

  Treadles was confounded. All those fine proposals—and she threw away her respectability over a married man?

  “Or perhaps it was one-quarter of the largest landowners.” Lord Ingram turned to the subject of the discussion. “Does that sound about right?”

  “Even one-quarter is a highly exaggerated figure,” said Miss Holmes. “It’s true that she received proposals from two gentlemen with considerable landholding, but one was deep in debt and the other elderly and in search of a fourth wife. On the other hand, there had been an industrialist, who, if he had been accepted, would have been able to purchase for her an establishment equal in scale and refinement to Stern Hollow, without feeling too great a disturbance in his pocketbook.”

  Lord Ingram gave his friend a baleful look. “I have never heard of this industrialist.”

  “They met during your honeymoon, from what I understand.”

  “Huh,” sa
id Lord Ingram.

  “Very foolish girl, that Miss Charlotte,” said Miss Holmes, with wry amusement.

  “Huh,” repeated Lord Ingram. He turned to the policemen. “And there you have it, gentlemen.”

  Fowler, however, was not so easily satisfied on the subject. “The last time you were an eligible man was a long time ago, my lord. That Miss Holmes wouldn’t have entertained an offer of marriage from you then doesn’t imply she wouldn’t have changed her mind during the intervening years.”

  “Whatever the state of her mind, I didn’t propose to her then and I will not propose to her now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not?” Lord Ingram chortled, a derisive sound. “First, I am deeply disenchanted with marriage in general. Astonishing, isn’t it? Second, I am not bold enough to wed Miss Holmes, even if she were to prostrate herself and make an impassioned argument for our union.”

  The woman in question whistled softly. “Now that’s a sight I’d pay good money to see—Charlotte Holmes on her knees, begging you to marry her.”

  Eleven

  Before the policemen were shown out, they made clear, albeit with great politeness, that the entirety of Stern Hollow was subject to search.

  Lord Ingram indicated his willing cooperation and made a request of his own. “One of the three ladies who went into the icehouse, Miss Olivia Holmes, is of a much more sensitive temperament than Lady Avery and Lady Somersby. Coming upon Lady Ingram has been a great shock to her. If you gentlemen could speak to her first, so that she can put this behind her as soon as possible . . .”

  Treadles’s eyes widened. “Would this be the same Miss Olivia Holmes who is Miss Charlotte Holmes’s sister?”

  “Correct. She was Mrs. Newell’s guest—and consequently now my guest.”

  “A small world, this is,” said Fowler, his tone gentler now that the interrogation had finished—for the moment. “It will be no trouble at all to see her first.”

  “Thank you, gentlemen. Most kind of you.”

  The head footman arrived to show Scotland Yard to the room where they would conduct the rest of their interviews. When they were gone, Lord Ingram glanced up at the gallery, then at Holmes.

  Their eyes met. She rubbed her bearded chin. “By the way, Ash, you bowdlerized my pangram. I’m devastated.”

  “I don’t know why you believed I would have ever committed the original in writing, in any of my scripts.” He took a deep breath. “Will you come down, Bancroft, or should we join you up there?”

  Bancroft descended a spiral staircase and approached the fireplace. He was a slender, finely built man who usually appeared much younger than his actual age. But he had lost some weight, which emphasized the delicate lines that webbed the corners of his eyes. And his gait, otherwise smooth and graceful, gave an impression of jerkiness. Of agitation.

  “How did you get here so fast?” Lord Ingram asked.

  “I was at Eastleigh Park. You almost gave Wycliffe an apoplectic attack with your note. I talked him out of coming here himself, but that meant I had to act as his emissary.”

  “Why were you at Eastleigh Park? Since when do you visit Wycliffe?”

  Bancroft was the most remote of the four Ashburton brothers. During the London Season he occasionally accepted invitations to dine at his brothers’ houses, but rarely issued any of his own. Lord Ingram seldom met him except to discuss the more clandestine concerns of the Crown.

  “I am obliged to account for myself to His Grace the same way you are—he doesn’t order me to do it as often as he orders you, but it happens. And I thought it would be better for me to call on him now, so as to be spared a family reunion at Christmas.”

  “Excellent thinking, that,” said Holmes.

  Bancroft gave her a chilly look and said to Lord Ingram, “You weren’t planning on making introductions?”

  “This fine gentleman here is Mr. Sherlock Holmes’s brother, Mr. Sherrinford Holmes.”

  Bancroft’s eyes widened. He studied Holmes from head to toe, more than a little astonished. “I see. I should have expected an envoy from Sherlock Holmes, given the nature of the case. How do you do, Miss Holmes?”

  “I’m very well, thank you, my lord. Should we ring for a fresh pot of tea?” asked Holmes. “You’ll approve of the cake.”

  The cake that she hadn’t touched. Granted, the modified orthodontia she wore to alter the shape of her face did not make eating easy, but the Holmes of old would have found a way.

  “No tea for me,” said Bancroft. “Tell me what you have found out, Ash. Is it really Lady Ingram’s body in the icehouse?”

  “I wish it were otherwise.”

  Bancroft ran his fingers through his hair. “Why? Why did it happen?”

  Lord Ingram couldn’t remember the last time his brother sounded so baffled—or so perturbed. “I wish I knew. If Moriarty is playing a game, I fail to understand the game’s objective.”

  “And the police? Do they know anything?”

  “Do you remember when you sent your man Underwood to fetch Miss Holmes from that tea shop in Hounslow?”

  “Yes, you were with her at the time.”

  “Our meeting has been reported to the greater world by ladies Avery and Somersby—and the police are entirely seduced by the obvious. If this keeps up for much longer, I will need to become a fugitive.”

  “What about your children?”

  This question earned Bancroft a sideways look from Holmes. Bancroft was hardly one to be concerned about other people’s offspring, even if the children in question were his niece and nephew.

  “Wycliffe will claim them, no doubt, and raise them to be stiff, pompous younger versions of himself.”

  Bancroft nodded slowly. “It hasn’t been a smooth year for you, has it?”

  Lord Ingram laughed softly. “Not altogether, no.”

  “I’ll see if I can view the body. Anyone interested in joining me?”

  Both Holmes and Lord Ingram shook their heads.

  “Very well, then. I’ll leave you to your work.” He hesitated a moment. “I’m sorry I can’t do more. It is imperative that we not breathe a word about Lady Ingram’s betrayal of the Crown.”

  When he had gone, Holmes said, “He does look a bit worn down. Perhaps my powers over the males of the species are more legion than I suspect.”

  Lord Ingram rolled his eyes. “Your powers are exactly as legion as you suspect—you’ve never been one for underestimating yourself.”

  She smiled slightly and touched him on the arm. “Frankly, I’m a little disappointed that Lord Bancroft came, instead of the duke—I was looking forward to one of His Grace’s deadly lectures. But now we must carry on.”

  * * *

  Treadles wished he had some time to think. Charlotte Holmes’s presence was hugely problematic. As a potential material witness, she needed to be interviewed. But Treadles couldn’t simply point Chief Inspector Fowler to Sherrinford Holmes and tell him to proceed.

  Or could he?

  It would be the right thing to do. The proper thing to do. But it would require him to admit that Sherlock Holmes, whose help had been instrumental in several of his biggest cases, was not only a woman, but a fallen one unwelcome in any respectable drawing room. The very thought was enough to make his head throb.

  Perhaps it was a good thing then that he had no time to think. They had scarcely settled themselves in the blue-and-white parlor, bedecked with pastoral paintings, when Miss Olivia Holmes was shown in.

  “Miss Holmes, thank you for taking the time to speak to us,” said Fowler in his most avuncular voice.

  Treadles hadn’t known what to expect, but it was not this stiff, unsure woman. She might be pretty enough if she smiled, but as she sat down, smiling appeared very much beyond her. She studied Fowler, her eyes devoid of trust. And they remained devoid of trust
as she provided one terse answer after another.

  After Fowler had inquired about every facet of the icehouse discovery, he said, “I am interested in your opinion, Miss Holmes. You were acquainted with Lady Ingram. Can you think of anyone who might have wished her harm?”

  “I had been introduced to Lady Ingram,” said Miss Holmes, drawing that distinction with a trace of impatience. “So I could have claimed an acquaintance, I suppose, but I knew her very little.”

  “I thought Society was small.”

  “It isn’t big. But it would be akin to asking a constable in the street what he might know of you, Chief Inspector.”

  “I see. But I understand that your sister Miss Charlotte Holmes is a good friend of Lord Ingram’s. Would that not have earned you a place in Lady Ingram’s circle?”

  “Not in the least. A man’s wife is the one who issues invitations to functions that they host together. And Lady Ingram had never invited my sister—or myself—to any of her events.”

  “Why do you suppose that was the case? Was she jealous of the friendship between Miss Charlotte and her husband?”

  “I didn’t know her well enough to speak to that. If she was jealous, then it was over nothing. My sister and Lord Ingram have always conducted themselves with the greatest propriety.”

  Treadles couldn’t help interjecting himself into the interview. “Yet I understand that Miss Charlotte has been banished from Society because of an act of impropriety with a married man.”

  Miss Holmes stared at him, her expression at first dumbstruck, then furious. She took a deep breath. “And that man was not Lord Ingram.”

  “Thank you, Miss Holmes,” said Fowler, his tone soothing, “for your time and cooperation.”

  Miss Holmes nodded curtly and rose. But instead of walking out, she stood in place. Fowler and Treadles, who had also come out of their chairs when she got up, stayed on their feet and exchanged a look.