A Study in Scarlet Women (Lady Sherlock #1)(85)

“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.”





Twenty





Hodges, when he’d been brought into the interrogation room Mrs. Cornish recently vacated, betrayed no hint of anxiety. He nodded pleasantly at Treadles. “Evening, Inspector. Constable Perkins says you have some questions for me?”

Treadles regarded him for some time without speaking, a tactic meant to intimidate. From time to time suspects broke down under the weight of his gaze. Often they fidgeted in discomfort, eyes darting everywhere. But occasionally a suspect would stare right back at him with defiance. Or, even more rarely, with a great display of equanimity.

Hodges fell into this last category. He met Treadles’s gaze with a calm fearlessness that early Christian martyrs would have prayed for. But tranquility before an interrogator did not necessarily imply innocence: It could just as well indicate an arrogance bordering on pathology—or a complete lack of conscience.

Treadles tapped his knuckles against the cable from Scotland Yard. “Mr. Hodges, you said you didn’t know where your late employer went in London or what he did. But now we have a reliable eyewitness who placed you at exactly the same place as Mr. Sackville, asking for his purpose. How do you explain that?”

“Fairly simple,” said Hodges, as if he’d long expected the question and had the answer ready. “I was a boxer before I entered service, and lived in London for twenty years. Sometimes when Mr. Sackville went off to London, I did, too, to see old friends in the area.

“One day I saw him in Lambeth and I was curious—wouldn’t anyone be, under the circumstances? So I knocked on a few doors and asked if anyone knew what went on in the house Mr. Sackville entered. Nobody was sure but they all thought it a little dodgy. Gambling, most likely. Probably loose women, too. I was frankly disappointed. It was too . . . common. I thought Mr. Sackville would have had some more gentlemanly vices.”

Treadles didn’t believe him. “If they were truly such pedestrian sins, why did you keep them a secret?”

“Mr. Sackville can’t defend his good name anymore, so it’s up to the rest of us. Men have sinned much worse. But when they die of natural causes, nobody cares what they’ve done in their spare time. Mr. Sackville ought to be given the same privacy—he’d have wanted it.”

Treadles raised a brow. “You didn’t have as high a regard for his good name when you insinuated to Mrs. Cornish that he might be taking advantage of Becky Birtle.”

“I said no such thing.” For the first time, a note of vexation crept into Hodges’s voice. “I warned Mrs. Cornish that the girl was taking liberties with Mr. Sackville’s expensive liquor—and made up the nonsense about Mr. Sackville offering it to her. Told Mrs. Cornish she ought to have a stern word with Becky. Even an amiable gentleman wouldn’t hesitate to give the sack when his whisky is endangered.”

A former boxer. A man accustomed to dodging and counterpunching. And conditioned by years in the ring to keep a cool head under pressure. “What else have you been keeping from us, Mr. Hodges?”

“Nothing, Inspector,” said Hodges evenly. “Nothing.”

“Very well, Mr. Hodges. I will need a written statement of your whereabouts during the twenty-four hours leading to Mr. Sackville’s death.”

Hodges inclined his head. “And you’ll have it, Inspector.”




Hodges was not the only liar. Lady Sheridan’s story, too, turned out to be less than entirely truthful. The YWCA had indeed dedicated a new center, and Lady Sheridan had indeed been there—rather unexpectedly, as she had cabled her regrets only two days prior, citing ill health.

But she had not left Bath the next morning, as she’d informed Inspector Treadles. Instead, she had departed immediately after the evening reception, even though she had paid for a night’s lodging at the hotel.