A Question of Holmes (Charlotte Holmes #4)(60)

“I’ll get my jacket,” he said.

I looked up sharply. His hair was mussed, his feet were bare. “You’re not going,” I told him. He belonged back in bed. He belonged in a dorm room, in a typical summer, somewhere far, far away from me.

“I’m not.”

“No,” I said. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Holmes,” he said patiently. “If it’s too dangerous for me, it’s too dangerous for you. Are we really going to play this game?”

I dragged my hands over my face. “The stakes just changed,” I growled. “I might need to make some . . . decisions.”

“Stupid ones?” he asked, creeping forward. “Tell me you’re not going to go and make stupid decisions without me.”

I laughed, despite myself, and I kept laughing despite the nervous hammer of my heart. “Watson. Go back to bed.”

“No,” he said, and caught me around my waist. “I heard you might be in some need of a partner.”





Twenty-One


WE CREPT BACK TO ST. GENESIUS IN THE DARK. IT WAS late, far past curfew, and Watson had to hoist me over more than one fence before we made our way back to the quad. By the time we’d made it to his stairwell, I’d finished filling him in on everything I’d learned.

“Do you think that Theo was lying?” he whispered as we lingered outside the door. “About Matilda calling him?”

“My usual methods haven’t been working,” I said. It was something I hadn’t wanted to admit even to myself. “I’m able to tell if someone’s lying quickly, but . . .”

“But everyone here’s an actor,” Watson said, putting it together.

“Everyone. Even those that pretend they aren’t. Rupert can pretend all he’d like, but one doesn’t swoop in and steal the role of Hamlet if you’re talentless.” I reached for the doorknob. “Or if you’re working for a Moriarty.”

Watson stopped my hand. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he said.

I stared at him. “Watson. For all we know, Rupert is waiting at the top of those stairs with a cleaver.”

“Right. Well,” he said, looking again at the door. “After you.”

THE TEXTS HAD DONE WHAT I’D INTENDED—THEY WERE all waiting in their kitchen when we walked in. Gathered around the table in their pajamas, like a scene from a sitcom. There was a bowl of popcorn in the middle that none of them were eating.

“It’s three thirty in the morning,” Anwen said, brushing off her hands. “I woke everyone up, like you told me to, but I hope you have a good reason for this.”

Wordlessly, I unzipped my backpack. With gentle hands, Watson removed the tissue paper I’d tucked around the lithe, lovely potted plant, and handed it to me.

I placed it on the table.

An orchid. A yellow European orphys, to be specific. (Who knew you could buy them at the fancy grocery store?)

“Watson found this outside your door,” I said, and waited for their reactions.

Anwen wrapped her robe around herself with shaking hands. Theo shook his head, tightly, and reached out to touch one of its petals—then jerked his hand away. And Rupert? He looked as though he were about to cry.

I sat, and in the guise of tying my shoelace, I took a quick but comprehensive look at their feet.

Only one of them was wearing shoes.

Watson said, “Last summer, the orchids were only delivered after something had happened. An accident. What happened tonight?”

Theo shoved a lock of hair out of his eyes. He looked, suddenly, very tired. “Fuck all,” he said. “Watched a film. Ordered in a pizza. Pepperoni. We had way too much.” Beside him, Rupert nodded quickly, like a puppet. Anwen was staring at a point over my shoulder.

Watson was hovering behind me, his hands on my chair. “Oh, amazing,” he said. “We went out to this posh restaurant for dinner with her aunt, and the food was all, like, mouse portions. Can I have some?” He walked over to the fridge and opened it, peering inside. “Oh. Is it somewhere else?”

“I mean, we ate too much,” Rupert said. “I tossed out the box, it was huge.”

“You didn’t just wait for housekeeping tomorrow? That’s nice of you,” Watson said, and pulled out the chair next to me, sitting down at an angle.

“So you don’t know why the orchid was out there?” I asked. “Watson and I took it straight down to the police station. They photographed it. Took samples. We talked to DI Sadiq for a long time, and they let us bring it back here.”

Wholly untrue, quite implausible. But to Rupert and Anwen and Theo, I was Charlotte Holmes, renowned detective.

The rules didn’t apply to me.

Rupert swallowed. “There wasn’t an orchid left after Dr. Larkin’s death,” he said. “Not that we know of. Maybe it’s from that?”

“But why would it be here?” Anwen asked with a slight quaver. “That doesn’t make any sense. They’d send it to . . . her.”

“She’s dead,” Theo said, turning on her. There it was, that revulsion. “What, are they going to plant one on her gravestone?”

“She has family.” Anwen crossed her arms. “Friends. They could send one to them.”