A Study in Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes, #1)(54)

“I can’t remember,” I lied. “She doesn’t let anyone in there.”

“Very private,” he said. “Good. She has kind of a goth look to her, doesn’t she? Is it cultivated, do you think?”

“Holmes wears what she wants to wear. Like I do.” I frowned. “She’s not some agent of death. Or a cartoon. I always thought she looked very London, that’s all. I don’t understand how this would help me write this story.”

“Character development,” he repeated. “Tell me, when she investigates, does she behave much like her famous forebear?”

“Sherlock?” I asked. “I don’t know, I haven’t exactly met him in the flesh.”

Mr. Wheatley laughed, then abruptly stopped. “No. Really. Does she?”

It went on for a long time. I let him draw me out bit by bit, noting carefully to hear where he directed the conversation. I told him that I’d been struggling to write down the story of Dobson’s death and the police’s investigation into my life, but Mr. Wheatley didn’t want to talk about Dobson at all. I took it as a sign that he already knew all there was to know about “that poor boy” and his murder. And though everyone on campus knew now that Holmes and I had found Elizabeth unconscious in the quad, he didn’t even ask about her either. But Holmes? Mr. Wheatley wanted to know everything: about her childhood, about her older brother (whose name he readily knew), about the circumstances of her coming to Sherringford. Thankfully, my own knowledge of her was patchwork enough that I could plead ignorance. But it was all incredibly damning, watching him write down her whole dossier. Why could he possibly want that information except to use it against us?

That is, until he ripped the sheet he’d been writing on from his legal pad and handed it over to me. I stared at it for a minute, not understanding. “There. Sometimes it helps to say it all aloud before you start shaping your piece. But it all sounds very hard to deal with, Jamie, like I’d said before.” He leaned over to scribble something at the top of the paper. “If you’d prefer to talk to someone else, here’s the name of the school therapist. She’s very kind, and you shouldn’t be ashamed about making an appointment. Most people eventually do.”

I folded the sheet and put it in my pocket, feeling distinctly ashamed. He’d just been trying to help after all, if a little ham-handedly. Mr. Wheatley was a good man, and he was concerned about me, and still I had been imagining him to be out for my blood. Wondering if he had lowered that rattlesnake onto Dobson’s convulsing form.

Was this what it was always like, doing detective work? How could you ever let yourself get close to anyone? No wonder Holmes was so determined to keep herself apart.

When I left Wheatley’s office, I went straight to Sciences 442. It had only taken an hour alone for Holmes to trash her lab. The carpet was an explosion of open file folders, their pages spread out like snow. Something bright green was frothing over on a Bunsen burner, and the entire room smelled of cilantro. In the midst of all this chaos, Holmes was slumped on the floor in her uniform like a black-and-white bird, smoking a cigarette and reading The History of Dirt. It was so gigantic that she had to brace it against her knees. Above her, the vulture skeletons swung lazily on their strings. During one of our marathon research sessions, I’d decided to name them Julian and George, and today, Julian’s skull sported a small knife that looked as if it’d been stabbed there. I shuddered.

“Your book looks great,” I said, picking a path across the room. “What’s the sequel? Worms and You?”

“Don’t tease, I know nothing about American soils. And the idea of tracing a murder victim by the contents of their shoe soles is hardly far-fetched.” She turned a page, and I could see that she was incredibly tense. “You sound disappointed. You don’t suspect Wheatley, then.”

“I don’t,” I said. “Or Nurse Bryony. Or maybe I suspect both of them because we have a disappeared dealer, and I want someone concrete to suspect. I’m in some muddled state where I can’t tell what I think.”

“It’s because you care,” she said. “About nearly everyone. It’s remarkable, really, but in this instance, it clouds your judgment. It’s why I try to avoid sentiment.”

“That’s heartless,” I said, stung. All this time, had I been nothing more to her than someone to carry her bag?

“I said, I try to avoid it, do keep up.” She shut her book and fixed her lantern eyes on me. “Trust me, if Milo were involved in a murder plot, I’d find it very difficult to assist him. It’s not heartlessness if it saves lives.”

She was spoiling for a fight, but I made myself back down. I thought of the Cadbury Flake on my desk, the time she leaned over to straighten my glasses in the middle of a conversation. She was either much better or much worse at this whole caring business than she thought. “Wheatley’s getting information about the two of us somewhere, and he’s definitely watching you closely.”

“That surprises you?” she asked.

I bit back a remark about her being the center of the universe.

“Well, yes. No. I don’t know. He also seems genuinely afraid of snakes,” I said, wanting to defend him. “And genuinely concerned with what’s happening to me.”

“I’d suspect him less if he seemed indifferent,” Holmes pointed out. “Did he try to dig into your oh-so-compelling trauma?”