A Study in Scarlet Women (Lady Sherlock #1)(74)
“And we’ll have to verify Lady Sheridan’s claims of her whereabouts, too,” he said to his wife, when he was at last back home.
They would be verifying a great deal more than that. His latest conjecture was that Lord and Lady Sheridan might each have been plotting against Mr. Sackville, without the other’s knowledge. And they each had an accomplice at Curry House—though the possibility existed that they counted on the same person.
This dual-conspiracy scenario would explain the usage of both arsenic and chloral: One of the Sheridans might have opted for a slow poisoning, the other, a rapid one. Neither of them needed to be in Stanwell Moot to carry out their schemes. And their accomplices could honestly state that no one at Curry House wanted Mr. Sackville harmed.
“Have you arranged to see Mr. Holmes again?” asked Alice. “Or to be in the next room, at least, while the great man remains shrouded in mystery?”
“No, I haven’t.” He leaned in and kissed her on her jawline. “Sometimes I’d rather spend more time in my wife’s company than that of any man’s, however great.”
What he didn’t say was that he was reluctant to consult Sherlock Holmes again so soon. He couldn’t quite explain this reticence—after all, he’d been desperate to speak with the man only days before.
A rare instance of proprietary sentiments regarding his own case, perhaps. He was a thorough and competent investigator and ought to be able to handle the rest of the work without constantly leaning on someone else.
Alice returned him a kiss on the cheek. “Ha! And here I was hoping that I might receive more madeleines, if you would but pay another visit to Upper Baker Street.”
“What maddening inconstancy, Mrs. Treadles! Is your heart so easily given to a box of baked goods?”
“I never knew it either, sir. But now I at last understand the power of seduction inherent in French pastry.” She handed him two fresh shirts and a pair of beautifully shined shoes—he would be on the overnight train to Yorkshire. “So what is this Miss Holmes like? I’m curious. You saw the notice in the paper, didn’t you? Holmes is taking private clients. I’ll be surprised if Upper Baker Street isn’t inundated. And Miss Holmes is the one who must handle this tide of visitors.”
How would one describe Miss Holmes? “Do you remember the time we speculated on Sherlock Holmes’s appearance?”
“We concluded that he is likely to be dark-haired, pale from spending his days reading by a lamp, with piercing, intelligent eyes, and a somewhat impatient demeanor, since he must find the rest of us trying.” Alice thought for a moment. “I believe we also thought that he’d be dressed well but simply, since he wouldn’t preoccupy himself with frivolous concerns.”
“And if we’d known he had a sister, we’d have expected her to resemble him to a high degree, wouldn’t we?” Treadles accepted several handkerchiefs and two pairs of socks from his wife and dropped them into his travel satchel. “A mind as great as Holmes’s must be both magnetic and charismatic. A lesser sibling, without necessarily being aware of it, would choose to imitate the greater sibling—to echo his physical qualities, since those are much easier to emulate than his cognitive prowess.”
“A very fair assumption.”
“Which leads me to conclude that either Miss Holmes possesses an ironclad concept of her own self—or that Sherlock Holmes, before his misfortune, had been a popinjay of the first order.”
Alice’s eyes brightened with excited interest. “Goodness. Do you mean to tell me Miss Holmes dresses extravagantly?”
“When we were engaged, you took me to your favorite shop for trimmings and garnishes.”
She laughed. “And when we left you said you feared for your manhood because the place was so overwhelmingly feminine.”
“If that place came to life, it would resemble Miss Holmes exactly. I counted sixteen rows of bows on her skirts.”
“How extraordinary. I’m not sure I’d be able to take a woman like that seriously.”
“I’m not sure I did at first. But by the end of that meeting . . .”
“Yes?”
Treadles recalled all the things she had told him about himself—and the single word in her notebook, Barrow-in-Furness. “By the end of our meeting I knew I would never think lightly of her again.”
As Charlotte’s hired hackney approached, Lord Ingram looked up. Livia was not the only one who’d become thinner—his eyes, too, had become more deep set. The light of a distant street lamp illuminated dramatic hollows underneath his cheeks.
The carriage stopped. He opened the door, climbed in, and settled himself on the backward-facing seat.
“Good evening, my lord,” said Charlotte when the hackney was on its way again, “and thank you for coming.”
“Tell me what happened—in detail.”
He listened to her narrative without any interruptions, one hand set lightly on top of his walking stick, the other beside him on the seat, his face largely invisible in the shadows.
A silence rose at the conclusion of her account. She sighed inwardly—she couldn’t remember the last time he wasn’t displeased with her for one reason or another.
In her mind’s eye she saw him down on one knee, chipping away at the dirt encrusted inside an old Roman urn, while she slowly flipped through the pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica—after he’d kissed her, she’d felt quite free to show up at his ruins and he’d felt quite free to ignore her. What a beautiful silence that had been. What a lovely era.