A Study in Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes, #1)(24)

“In London,” she said. Before I could protest her flip answer, she held up a hand. “In London, where they’ll stay. They won’t interfere.”

“But why not?” I asked her. “Have you told them not to?”

“No.” Holmes slumped against the back of our booth, rubbing the crook of her left arm. “Do you remember when I told you I’d been taught at home until I came to Sherringford? Did you ever find it strange that I came here in the first place?”

“I didn’t, actually,” I told her. “I assumed your family had tossed your room for drugs, found out about your habit, and sent you to America to do penance. When Lena told me tonight that your parents had cut you off, it more or less confirmed it.”

Holmes blinked at me. Then she started laughing, a rare and surprisingly unwelcome sound. The waiter brought our food, and I’m sure we made quite the sight: Holmes giggling into her hands, me glaring at her across the table.

“Tell me the funny part isn’t my solving a mystery on my own,” I said, stabbing at a sausage.

She managed to compose herself. “No,” she said. “I’m laughing because I was a fool to think you wouldn’t. You’re entirely right, of course.”

“And they cut you off because they thought you’d use the money to buy drugs?”

“No,” she said again. “They cut me off because I wasn’t fit to be their daughter.” She dipped a finger into her water, tinkling the ice cubes. “In their eyes, my vices got in the way of my studies.”

I looked at her, so thin and angular and sad, so surprised at herself every time that she laughed, and I wondered what it would have actually been like to grow up in the Holmes household. Long velvet curtains, I thought, and libraries filled with rare books. A hushed fight always happening the next room over. Charlotte and her brother made to wander around the house in blindfolds, listening at doors for practice, scolded for any emotional attachments except to each other. It sounded like a movie, but it must’ve been hell to live it.

“Eat,” I said, pushing her plate at her. To appease me, she took a single bite of bacon. “Did you even want to be a detective?”

“That was never the question. I’ve been solving crimes ever since I was a child. I do it well. I take pride in how well I do it, do you understand?” I nodded quickly. There was a fire in her eyes. “But I was the second child. Milo has always done everything they’ve ever wanted him to. I can’t say it hasn’t paid off—he’s one of the most powerful men in the world, and he’s twenty-four years old. But I . . .” She smiled a secret, pleased sort of smile. “I’m not interested in doing anything I don’t want to do.”

“And so they sent you to America to cool your heels.”

Holmes shrugged. “The Mail had a field day with all that. Will you look it up?”

“No,” I said, and it was true. I’d always been afraid to shatter my fantasies of her by researching the real thing. “Unless—do you want me to?”

“There’s no point. Milo had every word of the scandal scrubbed from the web. And I don’t want you to know all about it. Not yet.” Her smile faded. “Anyway, it was awful. They printed my middle name.”

She was trying to change the subject, so I let her. “Regina? Mildred? Hulga?”

“None of the above. And to answer your original question, I’ve got to solve this mess myself. I’m sure that if I rang my family up and said, Look, I’m about to be chucked in jail, will you help, they would. Because they don’t believe I can do it without them, anymore.”

“I believe you can,” I said. “Though that might just be a necessary delusion. Otherwise, I’m forced to believe that this Sunday, Detective Shepard will say that after a thorough investigation, it’s clear that we are the guiltiest guilty murderers in the world.”

“That’s not what he’s going to say.” She took another bite. “How did you know I wanted bacon? Did you deduce that as well?”

“I guessed,” I said, and watched the smile come back to her face. “Try the pancakes. They’re good. My father used to bring me here when I was in grade school.”

“I know,” she said. “You ordered without looking at your menu.”

We sat in companionable silence for a long time. I’d long since finished my own food, so I watched Holmes cut her pancakes into tiny slivers, dropping each one in a bath of maple syrup before putting it in her mouth. It was nice to linger somewhere. I hadn’t been comfortable anywhere at Sherringford outside of Holmes’s lab. Still, we were closing in on three in the morning by the time she’d finished eating.

“What’s our next move?” I asked. “If we’ve ruled out the new male students, that’s at least a start.”

“Exotic animal licenses,” she said. “Private owners first, then the zoos. You can begin digging in the morning to see who around here keeps deadly snakes. Surely one has to have been stolen. There’s no doubt the police have already looked, but then, I’m able to see things they can’t. And everyone’s falling over themselves to prepare for homecoming tomorrow, so we should be relatively free to move around.”

It was good to have a concrete plan. I felt myself relax a little bit further.