Charlotte understood enough of human emotions to know that the girl wished for reassurance, from someone she trusted to get to the bottom of the matter. But if they’d learned anything from the debacle with Lady Ingram, it was that truth was sometimes no one’s friend.
That getting to the bottom of the matter could shatter bonds and upend lives.
“Brace yourself,” she said. “It will not be good. This is an ugly case that can lead only to an uglier end.”
In the mirror Miss Redmayne’s reflection was aghast.
Charlotte sighed inwardly. The problem was not that she didn’t always understand the full spectrum of human emotions. It was that even when she did, she still gave those close to her the opposite of what they wished for.
Lord Ingram woke up to fog-obscured windows. His watch marked a quarter past nine o’clock, almost three hours later than when he usually started his day.
Was he already becoming less starchy by first becoming lazy?
He got up, dressed, and went up to Holmes’s rooms. She wasn’t there, of course, though he wished she were.
Pleasurable pain. Painful pleasure. He couldn’t get enough of either. It would never be simple or easy between them. So he let himself luxuriate in all the gladness and all the complications.
While he still could.
All the pain and pleasure in his heart, however, did not prevent him from noticing that another person had been in the room. Not the servants—they had strict orders to leave those rooms alone unless otherwise instructed by either himself or Holmes.
Who, then? Bancroft? Or someone else?
He descended for breakfast and ate, staring at the writhing fog.
Footsteps raced across the marble floor of the entrance hall. Bancroft burst into the breakfast room, still in his overcoat, his walking stick hooked over his forearm.
Lord Ingram leaned back in his seat. He couldn’t remember the last time he saw Bancroft in such agitation. “What’s the matter?”
“When was the last time you bedded her?”
Lord Ingram stared at his brother, his mind stuttering at the baldness of the question.
Bancroft didn’t seem to notice. “Your wife. When did the two of you last sleep together?”
Oh, with Lady Ingram. “Before I inherited.”
More than three years ago, his interminable celibacy broken only yesterday evening.
“I just came from the autopsy,” said Bancroft, tapping his walking stick on the floor for emphasis. “She was with child.”
16
There were no signs of tampering on the cisterns at Mrs. Newell’s house. A Mr. Jones, who had been hired to oversee the repair and rebuilding of the cisterns, showed Inspector Treadles and Charlotte Holmes, in her full Sherrinford Holmes guise, photographs that had been taken of the cisterns, right after the accidents had happened, as well as those of the pipes leading in and out.
“They weren’t built well to begin with. Mrs. Newell got rid of her former estate manager several months ago, after it was discovered he’d been skimming from the top for almost as long as he’d been working for her, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d got the cheapest everything and pocketed the difference. And he hadn’t bothered with proper inspection and maintenance in the years since.
“The new estate manager seems to be a decent fellow. But his predecessor left things in such a state he hasn’t got around to the cisterns—had to replace the boiler first. Me, I’m not surprised the cisterns flooded the house, only that they didn’t do it sooner.”
The dismantled parts of the cisterns indeed appeared shoddy, brown with rust and neglect, bulging and sagging alarmingly, and almost paper thin in spots. But there were no incisions, and no marks that had been left by a saw, a hatchet, or any other tools of sabotage.
The tampering of the cisterns, coinciding with the transportation of an additional and now unaccounted-for crate to Stern Hollow, would have made for a strong, if circumstantial, case that someone was trying to frame Lord Ingram.
But now that the cisterns had turned out to be an overdue accident, this elegant house of cards came tumbling down.
Treadles swore inwardly. Miss Holmes couldn’t be pleased that her hypothesis had been proven wrong, but she gave no outward signs of disappointment, only rubbed her beard gravely as she thanked Mr. Jones.
Afterward, they found themselves alone in Mrs. Newell’s foyer, both waiting for their next appointment, Miss Holmes having applied to see her sister, and Treadles, Mrs. Newell’s cook.
“How is Lord Ingram holding up, if I may inquire?” he heard himself ask.
“I have never seen him not hold up,” said Miss Holmes. “I expect he will continue to do so.”
“But is he all right?”
Miss Holmes thought about it. “Sometimes he has hope. Other times he might be preparing himself for an unhappier future.”
Again, that inhuman detachment, as if the hangman’s noose were but a bit of a bother.
You are irrational at times—more so than you want to admit.
He recoiled. But was the voice right? What would he have thought had Miss Holmes displayed greater fear or distress?
You would have considered her far too emotional to handle an investigation with your friend’s life at stake.
“I very much hope that unhappier future will not come to pass,” he said quietly.
Miss Holmes turned to him and inclined her head. “No matter what happens, Lord Ingram and I are both grateful to you, Inspector, for allowing us to search for the truth unhindered.”
Sometimes he still couldn’t be sure whether he’d kept his silence more out of loyalty or cowardice. But her words were clear and sincere and he was . . . touched to know that his inner struggle had not been completely in vain. That he had rendered a service to his friend.
Footsteps. Miss Olivia Holmes rushed down the grand staircase, her expression full of both anxiety and an anxious love. At the sight of Treadles, however, she stiffened.
“Good morning, Miss Holmes,” he said as she approached.
She glanced at him, then pointedly looked away, her eyes for only her sister. “You wished to see me? Is everything all right?”
Treadles’s face scalded. He had not realized that he had offended to such an extent that she would choose to discard basic civilities.
Charlotte Holmes looked at her sister with gentle reproach, but before she could say anything, Chief Inspector Fowler strode into the foyer. After a perfunctory greeting to Miss Olivia Holmes, he said, “Gentlemen, a word please.”
“I’ll be a second,” said Charlotte Holmes to her sister.
Her sister nodded. “I’ll wait in the white drawing room.”
“I didn’t know you were acquainted with Miss Holmes, sir,” said Fowler, when Miss Holmes had disappeared behind a set of doors.
Charlotte Holmes patted the ends of her mustache, which had been waxed to a high sheen. “I am only here as an emissary of Lord Ingram’s. He knows Miss Holmes is fearful for him and wishes to let her know that he remains in tolerable shape.”
“Most chivalrous of him.” Fowler lowered his voice. “Now, this is strictly police business, Mr. Holmes, but since Lord Bancroft Ashburton was present at the autopsy, presumably you would soon have known what he has learned, namely that, at the time of her death, Lady Ingram was with child.”
Treadles sucked in a breath.
Miss Holmes, in her imperturbable way, said only, “And the cause of death?”
This extreme sangfroid garnered her a wary look from Fowler. “The pathologist deemed likely your idea of death by excess alcohol, injected intravenously. He will be performing more tests to ascertain what substances might have been in her bloodstream.”
Charlotte Holmes nodded. “Most prudent of him.”
“I hope this will not come across as unseemly curiosity, Mr. Holmes. In your knowledge, is there any chance that the child Lady Ingram carried could have been Lord Ingram’s?”
“Anyth
ing is possible but that is highly unlikely. Their estrangement was complete, and my understanding is that it marked the end of all affections, both of the heart and of the body.”
“Thank you, Mr. Holmes. I mustn’t keep you any longer from your meeting.”
Charlotte Holmes inclined her head. “Good day, gentlemen.”
When she was out of earshot, Fowler said to Treadles, “Do you realize what this means, Inspector?”
After Treadles’s initial dismay, a sense of relief had washed over him. If the child truly was not Lord Ingram’s, then Lady Ingram’s pregnancy gave great credence to his assertion that she had defected with her lover. But Fowler seemed almost gleeful—never a good sign—so he erred on the side of caution. “Yes, sir?”
“It means that now we have a motive that is much stronger than Lord Ingram’s desire to marry Miss Charlotte Holmes. What would your reaction be, Inspector, if your missing wife turned up carrying another man’s child?”
Treadles blinked, unable to even contemplate the idea.
Fowler nodded with satisfaction. “My point exactly.”
Livia leaped up when Charlotte came into the white drawing room. “Have you learned anything?”
“Not enough yet. Have you been well?”
“I . . . I don’t know, frankly.”
This morning Livia had received two notes. One came from Lord Ingram, informing her that he had written to his solicitor to begin the process of looking into Moreton Close, the institute now in charge of Bernadine. The other one was unsigned and without a return address but had been postmarked at the nearest village post office.
It read, I have been looking for the Sherlock Holmes story everywhere. Has it been published yet? If not, please hurry.
She was terrified for Lord Ingram, worried about Charlotte, frustrated with herself, and yet, with the arrival of this second note, so extravagantly buoyed that she could have walked over a carpet of rose petals and not bruised a single one.
He knew she was at Mrs. Newell’s. And he was nearby. Had he come to meet her? How would he make it happen?
She became aware that her sister was observing her. “What about you, Charlotte,” she said, her face warming. “Have you been busy?”
“Rather,” said Charlotte. “You?”
Livia scoffed. “What does a near-spinster have to do?”
At least Mrs. Newell enjoyed her company, something that couldn’t be said for Lady Holmes. She was grateful that Mrs. Newell had asked her to stay, knowing how much she disliked going home, but she also wished she didn’t need to rely on someone else’s goodwill for a respite from her own parents.
“What about your story?”
“Haven’t been able to write a word since I saw Lady Ingram in that icehouse.” She expelled a long breath. “But at least I heard from Lord Ingram. I asked him to help me look into Moreton Close and he’s written his solicitor, as he’d promised.”
Charlotte nodded. “I’m glad you referred the matter to him—that gives him something to do.”
“I was surprised that I didn’t need to tell him who Bernadine was—to the wider world she might as well not exist.”
“I mentioned her in a letter. He was taken aback to learn that there are not three but four Holmes girls.”
Livia sighed. “Poor Bernadine. I hope Moreton Close is exactly what it purports to be—a haven for women like her. But I can’t stop worrying. If she’s mistreated, she wouldn’t even be able to tell anyone.”
Bernadine had never spoken. And she certainly didn’t know how to read or write.
Charlotte made no reply. Livia was used to these conversational lulls with her sister. She was probably assessing the chances of Lord Ingram’s solicitors meeting with success at Moreton Close.
“Asylums, both public and private, are regularly inspected. That’s the law,” Charlotte eventually said. “Moreton Close is not operating in a vacuum. So let’s hope for the best.”
And that Lord Ingram’s solicitors worked fast.
Charlotte gave Livia’s hand a quick squeeze. “Look after yourself. I have some matters to investigate in London.”
As Charlotte made her way to the door, it occurred to Livia that she wanted to ask Charlotte about the nameless young man who had pretended to be Mr. Myron Finch, their illegitimate brother. Who was he? And what did Charlotte know about him?
But by the time she screwed up her courage, Charlotte had already left.
The policemen’s conversation with Mrs. Newell’s cook was brief. Yes, a slab of ice had been sent. And it had been sent because Mrs. Newell had specifically requested so.
Now they were waiting to speak to Mrs. Newell again. Chief Inspector Fowler having gone to use the commode, Treadles was alone in the foyer when Charlotte Holmes came out from the white drawing room.
On her way to the front door she passed him and nodded. “Good day, Inspector.”
“Mr. Holmes,” he said. “A moment, please. I have a question for you.”
“Yes, Inspector?”
He didn’t know why he had stopped her. And now that he had, he had no idea whether he could condense all the whirling thoughts in his head into a single question.
“I have, or so it would appear, offended Miss Olivia Holmes greatly.”
She waited for him to continue.
“I seem to have a knack for giving such offenses. Not to ladies like Miss Holmes usually, but to . . .” He paused, unsure how to phrase what he was about to say.
“But to women who are thoroughly lacking in respectability, with the very respectable Miss Holmes affronted on behalf of her disgraced sister.”
He thought of Mrs. Farr, with the possibly dead missing sister. He thought of Mrs. Bamber, the publican he had encountered a few months ago. He preferred to believe that they were exceptions, and perhaps they were. The problem was, he could too easily think of others, scattered throughout his career, like sand in a bowl of grain.
“I am a police inspector. I will need to speak to many more women in the course of my work. A tendency to provoke is . . . not a personal asset.”
She waited again. When it became apparent he had confessed as much as he could bring himself to, she said, “Should I assume that you do not entirely understand how—or why—your words give rise to such unfavorable responses?”
He nodded stiffly, already regretting the conversation.
“I can’t speak for other women, but perhaps in the case of Miss Holmes, I can offer some explanation. Her sister Charlotte had always understood, from an early age, that she was ill-suited for marriage. She had an agreement with her father that if by her twenty-fifth birthday, she still hadn’t changed her mind, he would sponsor her to attend school and receive training, so that someday she might become headmistress of a girls’ school, a respectable position with respectable remuneration attached.
“When the day came, her father reneged on his promise. Charlotte Holmes was faced with the choice of either entering into a marriage she did not want or remaining forever under the roof—and thumb—of a faithless father.”
Treadles had no idea of the circumstances surrounding her disgrace. He couldn’t imagine any good reason for her to have done what she did, so he’d decided that she’d slept with a man as nothing other than an amoral lark.
“Neither was acceptable to her. So she strived to create a third alternative. She would get rid of her maidenhead and use that loss to blackmail her father into coughing up the funds for her education.”
Treadles’s shock and dismay must have shown in his face, for her expression became ironic. “Yes, a terrible idea, but she had no other resources to call on. Women of her class are molded to be ornaments. She was willing to work for her own support, but she had few skills worth mentioning. And she was not so naive as to think that she could toil her way up from the floor of a factory—factories don’t pay women enough to live on, the reason many must prostitute themselves besides, to supplement that meager income.”
Treadles co
uldn’t stop his brows from rising. He knew about the likelihood of female factory workers also being prostitutes—but had always assumed that it must be because factories attracted a less chaste class of women.
“In the end, Charlotte Holmes went ahead with her plan, which had seemed to her the least terrible of all choices. Things went awry. She found herself faced with a new set of undesirable choices: to be confined for the rest of her life—or to run away and take her chances in the wilds of London.
“Thanks to the kindness of friends, she did not starve. Today one might say she is faring rather tolerably. All the same, what she did was a desperate gamble at a desperate moment, when she felt as if she would never again have any say in her own life.
“Miss Olivia Holmes does not blame her sister for either her initial choice or what happened subsequently, because she herself feels that same desperation daily, the sinking sensation that what will happen to her is entirely out of her hands.
“When you brought up her sister’s sins before her, it was with an intention to shame. Perhaps you yourself were not aware of that—perhaps you thought of it as merely pointing out the facts—but it’s nevertheless true.
“For Miss Olivia Holmes, who knows the entire story, to hear it reduced to one single choice, shorn of all context, and casually judged as degenerate . . . I believe to her it felt unjust. And acted as a painful reminder of the narrow confines of her own life: She can either continue to live in accordance with her parents’ demands—and wither a little every day—or she can defy conventions and be called a shameless hussy for the rest of her life.”
Miss Holmes spoke calmly, without rancor. But Treadles’s ears burned—and his face, too. He wasn’t sure he understood everything she said, but he did understand now why he had asked her the question in the first place.
Not to find out why the women had reacted as they had, but in the hope that she, with her uncompromisingly logical mind, would tell him that they were but being unreasonable.
Hysterical, even.
“Thank you,” he said numbly.
“I’m sorry. I do tend to tell people exactly what they don’t wish to hear.” She sighed softly. “I might as well add, since we are on the topic, that perhaps some of the women’s reactions have to do with your face. You have an open, amiable mien, which might lead those speaking with you to expect understanding. And yet your judgment is such a pointed, implacable thing, as if you are the personification of the larger world they have known, the one that has thwarted them at every turn.”
The Hollow of Fear: Book three in the Lady Sherlock Mystery Series Page 21