A Study in Scarlet Women (Lady Sherlock #1)(94)

A knock came at the door. “Miss Holmes,” said the manservant, “something came in the post. You said to bring everything to you right away.”

“Yes, thank you, Barkley.” She scanned the envelope. “Mrs. Marbleton—my name and address have been typed on the same typewriter she used to produce her first cipher for me to solve. Let’s see what she wants to tell me.”

Dear Miss Holmes,

Two months ago, I returned to Britain for the first time in many years, to see an old friend on her deathbed. Before she passed away, she gave me a diary from another old friend who departed many years ago. My dying friend had never read Clara Sackville’s diary, as Clara had asked her not to open it until her parents had both passed on. No other person of my acquaintance holds to her word as firmly as my friend did—I know because she had long kept my secrets.

But I have never been as resistant to curiosity. After my friend’s funeral, I read Clara’s diary. As I did so, I wept, screamed, threw an inkwell across the room in anger, and shook at the cruelty and injustice in this world.

And despised myself for having never guessed anything remotely near the incestuous truth.

Clara loved and trusted her uncle. He exploited that trust and love and twisted her innate desire to please. I cannot bear to think of how lonely and frightened she must have been. When he used her to satisfy some warped part of himself, he forever isolated her from everyone and everything else she held dear.

The more she descended into her private hell, the more she tried to love him. Love was her defense against the judgment that was to come. Love was the only excuse.

But as soon as she entered puberty, he had no more use for her. It annihilated her: the betrayal of trust, the belief that she had done the abominable in the eyes of God, the knowledge that she would have carried on doing the same if he hadn’t abandoned her. Not to mention the fact that he was family, and that everyone, especially her parents, still expected her to be terribly fond of this uncle.

That she did not destroy the diary tells me that she wished for the truth to be known someday. So I proceeded accordingly. The choice was left to Mr. Sackville. He could choose to face exposure, or he could choose to not face it.

As for the women whose deaths you’ve connected to his, yes, indeed there was a connection. Lady Amelia and Lady Shrewsbury came upon Clara and Mr. Sackville. Clara recorded that she was terrified they would inform her parents, but her uncle assured her that it would not come to pass. Lady Amelia’s husband owed Mr. Sackville a ruinous amount of money. Lady Shrewsbury was not in financial distress, but she was a social-climbing toady who didn’t have enough character to gainsay Lady Amelia.

The incident took place when Clara was a few months short of eleven. These women failed her utterly. They did nothing to protect her from Mr. Sackville’s predation, then or ever.

I offered them the same choice as I did Mr. Sackville.

They all chose chloral. Cowards, one and all.

Lady Sheridan died in the night. Expect the matter to be made public soon.

Yours truly,

An admirer

P.S. Best of luck with life as Sherlock Holmes.

P.P.S. I have taken temporary custody of the children from the house Mr. Sackville frequented in London. I hope they—or some of them at least—will grow up and be well.

P.P.P.S. Lady Sheridan and I ran into each other quite by chance. I have the habit of investigating establishments that purport to help women. She had long been a patroness to the YWCA. We met each other outside the association’s institute in Bethnal Green, not a place I expected to encounter Society ladies.

Recognition shocked us both. But almost immediately we began to speak. I had always regretted the injury I must have caused her. Unbeknownst to me, she had devoted herself to the welfare of vulnerable young women because of the harsh fate I had met with—which she felt was far more punishment than I deserved.

At some point in the conversation we began reminiscing about Clara. She told me that she had never believed in the explanation the physician had offered, but only pretended to do so for her husband’s sake. Clara had been far from well. Lady Sheridan had tried everything in her power to uplift the girl’s spirit and blamed herself for failing.

I debated with myself, but in the end decided to tell her the truth—and assured her that I would not let the guilty parties go free.

But Lady Sheridan had decided to take matters into her own hands anyway. And it was only the full execution of Sophia Lonsdale’s plan that had prevented her from committing murder at the end of her life.

“So all three of them took the chloral themselves,” Treadles heard himself murmur.

“Sophia Lonsdale must have been in the hansom cab Lady Shrewsbury got into the night before her death,” said Miss Holmes. “I wonder that she didn’t also confront Lady Amelia in person.”

“But there is no evidence of her having been in the vicinity of Curry House.”

“I believe when the young Marbletons reported on how difficult it is for a stranger to go unnoticed in the area, she opted for the postal service instead—it can’t be difficult to have her package resemble, from the outside, a wrapped magazine or some such, so that the servants would pay it no mind. The worst that could happen would be that someone finds a typed, unsigned letter detailing Mr. Sackville’s perversions. But of course Mr. Sackville would have destroyed everything.”