Echoes of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon(92)

“It’s as dull as church,” she was saying. “There’s nothing to do.”

“You said he had you clearing the attics,” said Miss Grant. He was Donald Gilver, elder son of her own mistress, Benachally’s third owner in ten years, lately set up there to grow barley and kill pheasants and generally stay out of trouble until it was time to marry.

“The attics are clear!” said Lorna. “All except some filthy dirty trunks from ages back that I’m not touching.”

“Send them on to the Wilsons,” said Miss Grant. She was beginning to drowse, what with the fire, the tea, and the two warm scones she had eaten.

“They’re from long before the Wilsons!” said Lorna. “Ancient old things. E. E. C. are the initials on them.”

Miss Grant snapped awake. “They must be the Coulters’,” she said. “Trunks? Clothes, you mean? Any jewel cases? Strongboxes? Anything of that kind?”

“Why would you care?” said Lorna, in her pert way. Ordinarily Miss Grant would have drawn herself up at such cheek but right at that moment she barely heard the girl. She was plotting.



Friday found her first in the library, looking up COULTER in the Post Office Directory, and then in Pitlochry on a trim enough street of nice enough houses—unless you had been used to a castle, anyway—lifting a glistening brass knocker and rehearsing her spiel.

The maid who answered was neat and smart in a blue serge day-dress with shoes mystifyingly better-heeled and polished than Mrs. Coulter’s own. The explanation was not long in coming.

“Bonnethill,” said the maid. “Behind the wee barber.”

“Ah,” said Miss Grant. “I see.”

For while Pitlochry is too small a town to have an unsavory district, at a push Bonnethill would do. Certainly coats would grow thin there and soles wear through. Miss Grant rang the bell at a faded blue door up a narrow stairway and it opened to reveal Mrs. Coulter, the Hon. Miss Elizabeth Larbert as was, standing there.

“Can I help you?” the woman said, with no spark of recognition in her tired eyes, either from the bus or from the Benachally years. She was wiping reddened hands on the front of her apron.

“I’m hoping I can help you, Mrs. Coulter.”

“I’m not interested.” She began to close the door.

“I’m not selling things,” said Miss Grant quickly. “I’m from Gilverton. I think I’ve found something that belongs to you. Or to your husband anyway.”

“Something?” said Mrs. Coulter.

“At Benachally,” said Miss Grant.

“Not someone?” said Mrs. Coulter. She slumped a little against the jamb, saying: “No of course not. That would be far too good to be true.”

“Possessions of your husband’s, in the attics,” Miss Grant went on, puzzling away all the while at the other woman’s curious words. “Trunks they are. I wondered if I might have them delivered to you. There could be something in them of some . . . interest to the family.”

Mrs. Coulter saw through the nicety and gave a single huff of unhappy laughter.

“They are nothing to do with the family,” she said. She gave a look over her shoulder and lowered her voice. “Just burn them or do what you will.”

“And if what I decide to do is sort through them and sell what I can? Can I bring you the money?”

Mrs. Coulter gazed at her for the time it took to breathe in and out twice without hurrying. Then she blinked.

“From Gilverton?” she said. “Are you one of the servants?” There was a little tremor in her voice as the ghost of her old self looked at her current self and wondered whether to laugh or cry.

“What happened?” said Miss Grant. “What on earth happened to you?”

Mrs. Coulter’s shoulders dropped so completely that the straps of her apron might have slipped off them.

“You can’t come in,” she said. “My—” Again she lowered her voice. “My husband is resting and my children will be back from school soon. But there’s a tea-counter at the back of the bakers.”

“Let me buy you a cup,” said Miss Grant. “And you tell me all about it.”

It was excellent tea: blistering hot, the color of teak when the milk went in, and fragrant too. Proper leaves, Miss Grant concluded, not those sweepings in little sacks that were enjoying such a vogue. Mrs. Coulter got a bit of color in her thin cheeks as she sipped. By the time she was halfway down the first cup she was ready to begin.

“My husband,” she said, “was married once before. Briefly. I didn’t tell my parents. It was hard enough . . .” Miss Grant nodded. It certainly would have been, trying to sell an architect of all things to Sir Stephen and Lady Larbert. Better than a doctor, at least, since he would not hand Lady Larbert into a carriage with hands that had just left off examining a rash, but an architect was not a gentleman and their daughter was a lady.

“He was young,” Mrs. Coulter went on. “And he had his head turned. It was in New York. She was very glamorous by all accounts.” Mrs. Coulter’s voice dropped a little. “She was a soubrette.”

Miss Grant leaned forward to hear better. “A socialite?”

“Good Lord! Hardly,” said Mrs. Coulter. She laughed again as she had before—but this time, perhaps there was a little amusement in it. “She was quite outside society. Quite outside. What I mean is, she was theatrical.” Miss Grant would hardly tremble at that and, emboldened by such a calm reception, Mrs. Coulter went on. “Burlesque, actually.” Miss Grant did have to work just a little to keep her eyebrows straight then, but she managed, and so Mrs. Coulter, after swallowing a strengthening mouthful of tea, finished with: “A hoochie-coochie girl by the name of Za-Za-Zita.”