by: Sherry Thomas
Series: Lady Sherlock
Genre: Mystery
Release Date: October 6, 2020
Publisher: Berkley
Amazon | Paperback | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Kobo | Google Play | Goodreads
Charlotte Holmes, Lady Sherlock, is back solving new cases in the USA Today bestselling series set in Victorian England.
Inspector Treadles, Charlotte Holmes’s friend and collaborator, has been found locked in a room with two dead men, both of whom worked with his wife at the great manufacturing enterprise she has recently inherited.
Rumors fly. Had Inspector Treadles killed the men because they had opposed his wife’s initiatives at every turn? Had he killed in a fit of jealous rage, because he suspected Mrs. Treadles of harboring deeper feelings for one of the men? To make matters worse, he refuses to speak on his own behalf, despite the overwhelming evidence against him.
Charlotte finds herself in a case strewn with lies and secrets. But which lies are to cover up small sins, and which secrets would flay open a past better left forgotten? Not to mention, how can she concentrate on these murders, when Lord Ingram, her oldest friend and sometime lover, at last dangles before her the one thing she has always wanted?
Chapter 1
December 1886
A Norwegian fir occupied a corner of Mrs. John Watson’s afternoon parlor, its scent green and resinous, its branches festooned with ornamental hot-air balloons and handmade horns of plenty. At the very pinnacle of the tree loomed a slightly tilted, plaid-clad angel. The angel, his expression rapturous—eyes closed, lips apart, face raised heavenward—embraced a large, and surprised-looking goose.
This farcical display would have drawn any visitor’s eye, were it not for Miss Charlotte Holmes, who stood next to the fir, clad with even less subtlety.
Her redingote was red on the top and brown on the bottom, open to reveal a seven-tiered white lace skirt underneath, each tier bearing appliqués of green spruce and golden candles. Moreover, the brown part of the redingote had been made to resemble a pinecone, rendering the entire outfit a literal representation of a Christmas tree.
The first time Lord Ingram Ashburton had seen Holmes in this dress, someone next to him had dropped a teacup. He himself had been incredulous that he not only knew this woman but corresponded with her—and had been thoroughly relieved that she had not walked up to him, obliging him to acknowledge her.
The next time he saw the dress had come four years and a lifetime later. By then he had become more or less inured to her taste in clothes. Another woman might have been swallowed whole by such an outlandish concoction. She, with her needlessly sweet face and her near indestructible composure, somehow subdued the insurrection of velvet and lace, reducing it to merely another item in her gaudy wardrobe.
In the months since her public fall from grace, which had obliged her to run away from home and start life afresh on her own, he’d thought more than once of this particular dress, buried in her parents’ house in the country, lonely and pining to be worn.
To be abroad in all its absurd splendor.
And he’d also thought, more than once, of the surprise and gladness he’d feel, if he should ever see it again. Of the smile that the sight would bring to his face.
He was not smiling now.
Nor was the other woman in the room. Under different circumstances, Mrs. Treadles, wife of Inspector Robert Treadles, Lord Ingram’s friend and Holmes’s sometime collaborator, would probably have grinned in good-natured appreciation at such sartorial hullabaloo.
But pale and stricken, her hands still clutched around Holmes’s, she only said, “Please, Miss Holmes, I don’t know who else to turn to.”
Lord Ingram, travelling from his brother’s country estate to his own, had stopped in London to see Holmes, with whom he shared a long, complex, and increasingly line-blurring friendship. He had intended to tell her that he was ready to erase the lines altogether. And as he’d waited in the afternoon parlor of Mrs. Watson’s house to be received by Holmes, trying to rein in his anxiety and agitation at the enormity of what he was about to do, Mrs. Treadles had arrived, with the news that her husband had been arrested on suspicion of murder.
Lord Ingram was still trying to digest her words, trying to move beyond his initial and nearly overwhelming belief that it had to have been a mistake, pure and simple.
His friendship with Inspector Treadles had grown out of their mutual love of archeology. This past summer, however, he had disappointed Inspector Treadles with his continued friendship with Holmes, given that Holmes was no longer a respectable young lady. He himself had been no less disquieted by this new coolness from Inspector Treadles.
But late in autumn, he’d had the feeling that the inspector was trying to see things from a different, less absolute point of view—and that their friendship was on the mend.
In the weeks since, he’d spent most of his time abroad. But all throughout that escapade, he had looked forward to returning home, seeing his children again, and hosting Inspector and Mrs. Treadles at some point after Christmas.
When Mrs. Treadles had first appeared in Mrs. Watson’s afternoon parlor, he’d been both surprised and somewhat embarrassed to see her—a man about to make a confession of an extremely private nature could scarcely wish for the presence of a third party. But his self-consciousness had quickly turned into pleasure: They hadn’t met in a while and her company had always been warm and thoughtful.
He hadn’t in the least anticipated the reason for her unannounced visit.
Now dread invaded him, sinking down to make him heavy, while swarming up at the same time, cripplings his voice cord.
Holmes gave her caller’s hands a squeeze. “You must be Mrs. Treadles. How do you do? Inspector Treadles has been a great friend to and champion of my brother Sherlock. In his hour of difficulty, we will of course make his welfare our overriding concern.”
“Oh, thank you, Miss Holmes!” cried Mrs. Treadles. “Thank you!”
She looked down. Her eyes widened, as if she’d just realized that she’d been clutching at someone to whom she hadn’t been properly introduced. With a clearing of her throat, she let go of Holmes and took a step back.
Holmes, who couldn’t possibly be unaware of the faux pas, managed to give a highly creditable impression of not having noticed. “I was just about to attend to my brother. Lord Ingram, would you conduct Mrs. Treadles to 18 Upper Baker Street in five minutes’ time?”
Inspector Treadles knew very well that Sherlock Holmes was but a nom de guerre for Charlotte Holmes. But apparently, he had not yet informed his wife of this fact and Mrs. Treadles still believed that a bedridden savant dwelled at 18 Upper Baker Street and imparted his wisdom via Miss Holmes, his sister and oracle.
And apparently, Holmes had decided that this was not the moment to dispense with all fiction.
When she was gone, Mrs. Treadles turned to Lord Ingram. “Robert was absolutely amazed at what Sherlock Holmes and his friends were able to do for you at Stern Hollow, clearing your name so decisively. I can only hope that—that he will be able to do the same for Robert.”
A desperate hope glittered in her eyes, but it seemed more desperation than hope.
He went to her, took her hands, and made himself speak past the lump of fear blocking his airway. “Dear lady, you have come to the right place. Holmes will not let h—his friends down. You may depend on that.”
She smiled wanly. “Thank you, my lord. Thank you.”
“Now, is there anything I can do for Inspector Treadles? He saw to it, when I was in police custody, that I was treated as respectfully as possible. May I do the same for him now?”
She shook her head. “He has friends in the force—I’m certain they have seen to his comfort and dignity.”
She did not sound more than halfway sure. Of her husband’s current state of comfort and dignity, or of the stalwartness of his friends?
Lord Ingram chose not to question either. “Then is there anything I can do for you, Mrs. Treadles, as the inspector’s friend—and yours?”
“I—I can barely remain still now. Would you mind, my lord, if we took a walk outside while we wait?”
The day was cold and gray, the air so saturated with moisture it might as well be raining. Mrs. Treadles marched along the railing of Regent’s Park, her head down, her gloved hands holding on to her forearms. Her garments were black—mourning attire, but not widow’s weeds—he recalled belatedly that her brother had passed away in the summer, toward the end of the Season.
The pavement was crowded with hawkers, sandwich-board men, and children trailing in their governesses’ wake; he steered her by the elbow to keep her from colliding with a woman selling roasted chestnuts. At the nearest park gate, they turned around and made for 18 Upper Baker Street, where he rang the doorbell and said, “I will leave you here, Mrs. Treadles. I’m sure you would wish for some privacy for your discussion with Miss Holmes—and her brother.”
“Oh, no, please don’t go! If I hadn’t found Miss Holmes at home today I would have called on you next, my lord. And cabled Stern Hollow if you weren’t in town.”
She exhaled, a trembly breath. “I’d like to be prouder and not need anyone’s help. But it’s Robert’s life and our future at stake and I shall feel a lot better if I can have your counsel as well as Sherlock Holmes’s.”
In recent years he had begun to grapple with his own, sometimes overwhelming desire to serve. Unchecked, that urge to be someone’s knight in shining armor had led to an unhappy marriage—not to mention exploitation by a brother who understood his weakness. In fact, only days ago, Holmes had declared, her eyes boring into his, You are not a tool to be deployed at the whim of some reckless master, and you don’t have to prove your worth by leaping at every task other people are too afraid to do.
For that reason, he had offered his help here, but not jumped in to take charge. But he was glad that Mrs. Treadles wanted him to accompany her—and humbled that she would have called on him specifically for assistance.
“In that case, of course I’ll come up with you.”
“Thank you. Thank you, my lord.”
Perhaps because he had spent too much of his life helping those who either resented his aid or took it for granted, gratitude, the kind that misted Mrs. Treadles’s eyes, always took him aback.
As if flowers had blossomed before he had even planted seeds.
Holmes answered the door and led them up to the parlor of 18 Upper Baker Street.
He had been in the parlor a number of times and had come to think of it as Holmes’s office. But the room had been furnished with a homey ambiance, and to give the impression of a convalescent man on the premises.
The air held a whiff of tobacco smoke, mixed with the herbal, faintly alcoholic scent of tinctures. The magazines in the canterbury next to the fireplace were recent; the ironed newspapers on the occasional table had been delivered just that morning—seized from Mrs. Watson’s house, no doubt, on Holmes’s way out.
The only thing missing was the bouquet of flowers that usually sat on the seat of the bow window overlooking Upper Baker Street. In its place, a bundle of dried lavender stalks in a creamy white jar, which would have been the focal center of the room, were it not for Holmes and her Christmas-tree dress.
She poured tea and passed around gingerbread biscuits and slices of holiday cake, generously studded with morsels of glazed fruit and candied peel. And then, after another moment, she asked, “May I also offer you something stronger, Mrs. Treadles?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Holmes rose, went to the sideboard, and returned with a glass of whisky. Mrs. Treadles did not hesitate in downing a sizable draft, grimacing as she swallowed.
Holmes gave her a moment to recover. “Has Inspector Treadles mentioned to you, Mrs. Treadles, how my brother and I work together?”
“Yes, he has,” said Mrs. Treadles, sounding slightly hoarse. “I understand that Mr. Sherlock Holmes is beyond that door and that he can hear us in this room.”
“And see us, too, via a camera obscura. Which is why his door is shut to keep out light, so that our images, upside down and backward, will render more vividly for him.”
Mrs. Treadles gazed intently at the door, as if she could will the unseen sage to his greatest feat of mental acuity yet.
“We are ready to begin when you are, Mrs. Treadles,” said Holmes softly.
Mrs. Treadles took a deep breath. She had seemed eager to answer the question about how Sherlock Holmes worked, but now she hesitated. “I—I can’t be sure where to begin. As I look back at the events of recent weeks, I find myself wondering whether Robert—whether Inspector Treadles was where he said he was, doing what he told me he was doing.”
The tremor in her voice indicated more than trepidation for her husband. There was a fear that she might further incriminate him.
Lord Ingram had to remind himself that at Stern Hollow, not long ago, things had looked dire, too, with all circumstantial evidence pointing at him and him alone. Still, he was troubled.
“Let’s begin with known facts,” said Holmes calmly. “And then, Mrs. Treadles, everything else you care to share.”
It occurred to him that although he’d been in this space before, this was the first time he had ever sat in on a client meeting, if one didn’t count his first visit with Inspector Treadles, which took place before “Sherlock Holmes” had officially taken up the mantle of the world’s only consulting detective.
“Known facts,” echoed Mrs. Treadles. “In that case I suppose I should begin with the arrival of Sergeant MacDonald at my house this morning, asking to speak to me.”
There probably wasn’t anyone with whom Inspector Treadles worked more closely than Sergeant MacDonald, his colleague and apprentice who had accompanied him on many a case.
“When did Sergeant MacDonald show up at your residence?”
“A quarter before ten or thereabouts.”
Lord Ingram glanced at the grandfather clock softly ticking away in a corner of the parlor. Twenty past one.
“Are you usually home at that time, Mrs. Treadles?” asked Holmes softly. “I understand you took over the running of Cousins Manufacturing at the end of summer.”
A look of embarrassment crossed Mrs. Treadles’s face. “Typically I would have been at the office by then. But it was a late evening the night before, and I was not feeling entirely well this morning. So I had risen only shortly before.”
Holmes signaled for her to continue.
Mrs. Treadles took a more measured sip of her whisky. “I was surprised and more than a little alarmed when I heard the sergeant announced. I knew of him, very well, since my husband enjoyed speaking of his work and Sergeant MacDonald figured prominently in that work. But we’d met only one time before, when the inspector and I ran into him when we were out and invited him to join us for a meal at a nearby establishment.”
She did not elucidate why there was so little socializing between Inspector Treadles and his trusted lieutenant outside of Scotland Yard, but Lord Ingram knew. Mrs. Treadles had not been born into the same social stratum as himself and Holmes, but her late father’s wealth, however new and sooty, meant that her station in life was far above that of the man she married—and therefore also far above that of the vast, vast majority of his colleagues.
He’d been to the Treadles residence, a wedding gift from her father. It was not large or showy, but sat at an excellent address and was beautifully furnished within—an acquisition that would have been beyond the means of any mere policeman, unless he were the commissioner himself.
And even then, to afford the house, he would probably have needed to economize in other areas of his life.
Little wonder then that Sergeant MacDonald had not been invited for Sunday dinners or other occasions.
“Sergeant MacDonald looked grave—and shaken—when he was shown in. My heart began to pound. I asked him if the inspector was all right. He assured me that he was well, and then said, ‘But unfortunately he has been arrested for murder.’”
She shivered. Lord Ingram rose, went to the grate, and added coal to the fire.
“I stared at Sergeant MacDonald. I was sure he was spouting gibberish. And yet, after some time, I heard myself ask, ‘For whose murder?’”
“‘That of one Mr. John Longstead,’” he said.
“I became truly disoriented. ‘Mr. Longstead—my father’s old friend Mr. Longstead?’ I cried.”
“‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ answered Sergeant MacDonald uncertainly. ‘But I understand he did work for Cousins Manufacturing.’”
Mrs. Treadles pinched the space between her brows, her eyes half closed. Lord Ingram felt his own temples throb at the implication of her words.
“That man did far more than work for Cousins,” Mrs. Treadles murmured, as if to herself. “My father supplied the funds and was deft at managing the business, but it was always Mr. Longstead’s engineering acumen that gave us a competitive advantage.
“For twenty-five years they were friends, colleagues, and partners. Mr. Longstead’s health led to his departure—his physician warned that he could no longer work at the sort of feverish pace he sustained. And he only returned to Cousins as a personal favor to me, after I took up the running of the enterprise.
A sharper focus came into Mrs. Treadles’s eyes as she looked from Holmes to Lord Ingram and back again. “But I saw him last night, alive and well in his own house, only hours before Sergeant MacDonald knocked on my door. And as far as I knew, Inspector Treadles wasn’t even in London—he was away for work.
“So there I was, staring at Sergeant MacDonald, my mind a jumble. Who would murder dear old Mr. Longstead? And why would my husband, who had sworn to uphold law and order, be remotely connected to Mr. Longstead’s death, let alone generate so much suspicion—and evidence—that he was already arrested?”
“‘But the Inspector barely knows Mr. Longstead!’ I heard myself exclaim.”
Silence.
Mrs. Treadles lowered her face, as if she preferred to address the next part of her account to the tea table. “You probably guessed, Miss Holmes, by the fact that Sergeant MacDonald showed up at my house, rather than my office, at that particular hour, that he didn’t know about my recently acquired responsibilities at Cousins.
“You see, Inspector Treadles was at first not particularly . . . enthusiastic that I’d ventured outside of the domestic sphere. After he returned from the investigation at Stern Hollow, he began to express an interest at last. So I invited Mr. Longstead and his niece to dinner at my house. They then reciprocated the invitation at their house. On both occasions, Inspector Treadles was cordial and respectful to Mr. Longstead, exactly as one ought to conduct oneself before a much-revered family friend.
“The second dinner was more than two weeks ago. Afterwards, he expressed an admiration for Mr. Longstead and thought it fortunate I had him as an ally. As far as I know, they never met again. And now to hear him named as a responsible party for Mr. Longstead’s death?
“I poured out my shock and incredulity to Sergeant MacDonald. He was sympathetic, as he himself was no less shocked and firmly believed that Scotland Yard must have made a mistake.”
“Did he see the inspector in person today?” asked Holmes, her tone reflecting none of Mrs. Treadles’s confusion and turmoil.
“No. He said he asked to but wasn’t allowed. And he was warned to keep what he’d been told strictly to himself, except for informing me. He did have a note from the inspector. I’ve brought it, but I’m afraid it isn’t much more informative.”
She took out a piece of paper from her reticule and handed it to Holmes. Holmes scanned it. Then, after a look at Mrs. Treadles for permission, passed it to Lord Ingram.
My dearest Alice,
I’m sorry that Sergeant MacDonald will be the bearer of bad news. I’m sorry that I will cause you much worry and uncertainty. And I’m sorry that it will most likely get worse before it gets better.
I will need to rely, as always, on your strength and resilience.
Difficult days lie ahead, but I remain,
Your most devoted husband,
Robert
P.S. I love you with all my soul, even if I do not always, or indeed often, deserve you.
Purchase Murder on Cold Street from:
Sherry immigrated from China at age 13 and English is her second language.
Places to find Sherry Thomas:
Follow
No comments:
Post a Comment
STOP!
Did you just copy and paste your previous comment? Please don't. Duplicate comments will be deleted.
Comments that include links to other sites, or names including links WILL BE CONSIDERED SPAM AND DELETED.