The Hollow of Fear: Book three in the Lady Sherlock Mystery Series Read online

  “Did you have a particularly plentiful tea at home?” he asked after a while.

  He was not getting off the subject; she hadn’t thought he would, either. “My sister’s note came just as we sat down to tea. So…no.”

  He peered at her, his brow furrowed. When he spoke again, his voice was low and tight. “Don’t tell me you last ate more than eight hours ago. You are scaring me.”

  She exhaled. “You should be terrified. I am.”

  She had gone into the village to hire a trap at the railway station to ferry her to Stern Hollow. And had stood outside the station for a quarter of an hour, not because there were no carriages to be had but because she needed to pull herself together.

  He gripped the back of the chair behind which he stood. Two seconds later he let go. “Come. I told Mr. Walsh I would take you to your rooms. There’s supper waiting, too.”

  She rose, rubbing a sore spot on her back, only to remember that her padding went all the way around. “You aren’t as good at feeding me as Lord Bancroft, but in a pinch, you’ll do.”

  He gave her a severe look but did not dispute her claim.

  Rooms had been assigned to her on the nursery level, as she’d requested—but they were nicer than she’d anticipated. Usually extra chambers this high up were seldom used and extremely plain, even in the grandest households. But hers was an apartment, sitting room, bedroom, dressing room, and its own attached bath and water closet.

  “I used to stay here, when I came to visit my godfather. It suits Sherrinford Holmes’s purpose, I take it?”

  “It does.”

  “There’s a safe in the wall. I’ll give you the combination before I leave. And I’ve told Mrs. Sanborn that you hate disturbances in the morning. No maids are to come in to sweep the grate or relight the fire while you’re still sleeping.”

  “Thank you.”

  She half expected him to leave, but he only stared at her, leaning against the door. As the silence was about to become too taut, the corners of his lips quivered.

  “I will have you know that Sherrinford Holmes cuts a dashing figure,” she protested. “Or at least he believes he does. And you will not go around injuring that poor man’s feelings.”

  He cleared his throat. “I apologize.”

  Immediately his lips quivered again. Then he burst out laughing—and kept laughing.

  He had the most attractive laughter.

  “Poor Sherry will never forgive you!”

  But still he couldn’t stop, until she sighed and ripped off both her mustache and her beard.

  He straightened and cleared his throat. “I do apologize.”

  “You had better not do that when we are in front of other people.”

  “I won’t.” He looked down for a moment. “Thank you.”

  “You knew I would come.”

  “I meant, thank you for your ridiculous yet sublime disguise. When I understood that I would most likely be accused of Lady Ingram’s murder, I thought I would never smile again, let alone laugh like a loon.”

  She hadn’t seen him laugh much even otherwise—these had not been the best years of his life.

  He pushed away from the door. “The skin on your face is a bit red.”

  She patted tentatively at her cheeks. “Mrs. Watson warned that the glue might be irritating. I’ll have to work fast, so that I don’t do irreparable damage to my otherwise beautiful visage.”

  “How fast can you work? Can you clear my name before I head to the gallows?”

  “I’m sure Lord Bancroft will arrange for an escape, should your trial go ill.”

  All traces of mirth disappeared from his face. “But you think there will be a trial?”

  “If you were someone looking at this case from the outside, what conclusions would you draw?”

  He crossed the sitting room to where supper had been laid and pulled out a chair for her. “I already know what everyone else will think. But what about the great Sherlock Holmes? What unique light can he shed on the situation?”

  “You saw the body. Was it really Lady Ingram?”

  “I didn’t go over every inch of her with a magnifying glass, but I’m afraid so.”

  Charlotte sighed, sat down, and removed the domed lid from her supper tray. Underneath was a small raised pie and a slice of charlotte russe, with beautifully striated vanilla-and-chocolate layers of Bavarian cream.

  She picked up her knife and fork and cut into the raised pie. “Neither Sherlock Holmes nor his brother, Sherrinford Holmes, who is just as brilliant but not inclined to go around solving strangers’ problems, can fathom why Lady Ingram lies dead in the icehouse.”

  Lord Ingram sat down opposite. “Even as I stared at her, I couldn’t stop thinking that it was a ruse on her part to have me hanged for her murder so that she could then sweep back in and reclaim the children.”

  “Maybe that’s exactly what this is. Maybe that’s her secret twin sister in the icehouse. And the real Lady Ingram is waiting in the wings, cackling with anticipation.”

  “If she had a secret sister, whom none of us had ever heard of, I doubt that she is cruel enough to have the poor woman killed so that I could be framed for a crime I didn’t commit.” He raised his chin at her. “And don’t just push food around on your plate. Eat.”

  She lifted a forkful of the pie, which had a game filling with a quail egg at its center, to her mouth. “What if the secret sister died of natural causes, and Lady Ingram simply made use of a convenient corpse?”

  The game pie was delicious and she did not want another bite.

  “Come to think of it, I couldn’t tell how she died. She was fully clothed, and ladies Avery and Somersby wouldn’t let me into the ice well.” He shook his head. “No, we’re speaking nonsense. This had to be Moriarty’s doing.”

  “But from his perspective, it makes almost as little sense.”

  “Why so little? She was no longer useful to Moriarty. And she was hunted by Bancroft. Moriarty could very well decide to rid himself of such a liability. And then he could decide to make me pay, for disturbing his cozy little arrangement.”

  “First, I disagree that Lady Ingram became useless when she could no longer spy on Lord Bancroft. She was beautiful, intelligent, and ruthless. Such a woman would be an asset in many situations.

  “Second, while Lord Bancroft is a dangerous man to cross, his reach is finite. Correct me if I’m wrong, but his agents have other missions they must see to, do they not? I imagine that at any given moment, only so many of them can be spared to hunt down Lady Ingram, and perhaps none at all.”

  He did not correct her; she went on. “Third, personal enmity exists only between you and Lady Ingram. I am almost certain Moriarty feels no particular animosity toward you—or Lord Bancroft, for that matter—much in the way that a clever criminal is wary of the law but does not hate every constable he encounters.

  “To make you pay, as you say, would require him not only to kill a potentially valuable agent but then to concoct an elaborate scheme to transport her body to your estate just when guests, whom you had not planned on having, would be on hand to stumble onto said body. What does that gain him, professionally?”

  “Not much,” admitted Lord Ingram. “I have no interest in hunting down Lady Ingram, so that cannot be a reason for eliminating me. And if Moriarty thinks to injure Bancroft by sending me to the gallows, then he doesn’t know Bancroft at all.”

  He reached forward and broke off a piece of the game pie’s hot-water crust.

  “You didn’t have dinner?”

  He shook his head.

  “So I not only brought back your sense of humor, I also restored your appetite.”

  “Time restored my appetite. You happen to have food in front of you.”

  This made her smile slightly. His gaze lingered on her face a second longer than was entirely appropriate.

  She pushed the substantial pie toward him. “Have it. But don’t touch my charlotte russe.”

  “
I make no promises.”

  “Then I had better eat it all before you finish the pie.”

  They were silent for some time, he eating steadily, she less so. He must have noticed, for he asked, “Why are you terrified?”

  She had swept a dollop of Bavarian cream from the charlotte russe onto the plate and was playing with it. She stopped and looked him in the eye. “Where are your children, Ash?”

  “With Remington—you know that.”

  “After what happened with Lady Ingram, I could have sworn you would never let them out of your sight again. What changed your mind?”

  “Your sister once told me that you didn’t speak until you were four and a half. I’m sure you were under great pressure to say something, anything, from the moment you could walk. But you waited until you were ready and not a moment before.

  “Children are people. They have their own minds. I have never been the kind of parent to impose my own will at any cost. Lucinda and Carlisle wanted to go with Remington, and in the end they got their way.”

  Charlotte dabbed a napkin at her lips. Did she believe him?

  In the middle of her first major case, Lord Ingram and Mrs. Watson had “met” at 18 Upper Baker Street, Mrs. Watson’s property that had been staged as Sherlock Holmes’s residence. Mrs. Watson had attired herself as the landlady, Mrs. Hudson, in a padded dress, a gray wig, and wire-rimmed glasses. Lord Ingram had looked upon her with unease and mistrust. And pointedly asked Charlotte whether, if it were anyone else, she wouldn’t have considered it too good to be true that she had randomly encountered a demimondaine who not only took her in but enthusiastically supported her powers of deduction.

  When he himself, as Charlotte would later discover, had sent Mrs. Watson to assist her—Mrs. Watson, his trusted friend, whom he’d known for longer than he had known Charlotte Holmes.

  He had been so good an actor, so convincing in his display of rigid displeasure, that she, despite her powers of observation, had believed entirely in his disapproval of Mrs. Watson. Had not in the least suspected that he had conspired with the latter to provide assistance to her, in those desperate days after she’d run away from home, when she was perilously low on both funds and choices.

  Across the table he took a slow bite of the game pie, studying her as she studied him, his gaze steady, opaque.

  He had told her before that she was the best liar he knew, a prodigious, possibly generational, talent. She had not thought the same of him—perhaps because their interactions had been characterized by so much silence. But when she had confronted him, after finding out that he had been friends with Mrs. Watson all along, this had been his response: I have said a great many things to you that are convenient, rather than truthful.

  What was he telling her now, the truth, or something more convenient?

  “You’ve met with Sergeant Ellerby.”

  He narrowed his eyes at the change of subject. “Yes.”

  “You told him as much of the truth as you could, I take it, since lying at this point would lead only to further incrimination.”

  “Correct.”

  “You spoke calmly and conducted yourself with a dignity befitting your station, no doubt. But at the same time, you let him see your fingers tremble when you picked up that glass of spirits. From time to time, you stopped speaking to pull yourself together. And of course, you made yourself sound increasingly hoarse as the interview wore on, a man buffeted and battered by the unkindness of the universe.”

  His grip tightened on his fork and knife. “He was the first person I needed to convince of my innocence.”

  “Precisely. Why didn’t you expend any effort to convince me, just now?”

  “You can speak to anyone on the staff—Remington was here and he left with the children.”

  “I don’t propose to dispute what everyone saw. What I need is the reason for their departure.”

  “I told you—”

  “Be careful what you say to me. I have not in the least eliminated the possibility that you are the one who killed Lady Ingram, accidentally or intentionally, when she came to abduct Lucinda and Carlisle.”

  “Who is that?” murmured Alice, leaning into Treadles’s dressing room. “Are you headed somewhere?”

  Treadles buttoned his jacket. “Chief Inspector Fowler. He wants me to accompany him on a case.”

  Alice blinked. She had already been abed, probably asleep when the commotion of the late-night caller arose. “It must be a major case, then, if they’ve put him on it. And if he’s asked you for help.”

  “It is a major case.” He straightened the knot of his necktie and did not look at her. “Lady Ingram.”

  She gasped. “What?”

  “Apparently everyone believed her to be overseas, but she was found dead this afternoon on the grounds of Stern Hollow.”

  He hadn’t known anything about Lady Ingram’s whereabouts—he hadn’t written Lord Ingram since before the end of summer; nor Lord Ingram him. And without that correspondence, he had few means of obtaining Lord Ingram’s news—they moved in very different circles and shared no mutual friends.

  Except Sherlock Holmes, once upon a time.

  “Doesn’t Chief Inspector Fowler know that you are acquainted with Lord Ingram?”

  Treadles stuffed a folded handkerchief into his pocket, only to realize he already had one. “He does. I expect that’s why he has chosen me, because I’ll be able to help him assess Lord Ingram.”

  Which could constitute the entirety of his duties on this case. Chief Inspector Fowler had strong ideas on how subordinates ought to behave. Treadles might be an inspector in his own right, but with Fowler in charge, he suspected his own role would amount to no more than that of a stenographer.

  Not to mention, he would need to be careful in both speech and action so that he didn’t come across as an advocate for Lord Ingram.

  “Surely they don’t suspect him of complicity in her death.”

  “I don’t know enough yet,” he lied.

  In cases like this, it’s almost certain that the husband is responsible, Chief Inspector Fowler had once told him on a different but similar case. And he would not have sought Treadles if he didn’t already believe that he had a plum of a target in Lord Ingram.

  Alice clutched at the lapels of her dressing gown. “Lord Ingram is our friend.”

  “And I am a policeman.” He lifted his always-ready travel bag. “If he is not guilty, he has nothing to fear.”

  “But Chief Inspector Fowler is the Bloodhound of the Yard. They are not sending him out if they think the butler did it.”

  The handkerchief in his other hand he shoved into his pocket, only to realize it was the same extra handkerchief from earlier.

  She took it from him—and wrapped her fingers around his hand. “Robert, are you all right?”

  No. I’m afraid for Lord Ingram and I don’t know what to do.

  He gave Alice a perfunctory kiss and left before he could betray the depth of his fear.

  Lord Ingram shot out of his chair. He paced in the room, a caged animal barred in every direction. Dimly he was aware that Holmes watched him, her otherwise blankly limpid eyes not without a measure of compassion.

  He braced his hands on the mantel. A fire roared in the grate and he couldn’t feel the heat at all. The chill of the icehouse had crept inside his spine, its arctic dominion spilling vertebra by vertebra.

  She came to stand next to him. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” he said, barely able to hear his own voice. “But what am I to do?”

  The forces arrayed against him were legion. The cold had spread to his lungs. A little more and his courage would fail altogether.

  She spoke and he tried to listen. But her words rode over him like an advancing glacier, annihilating and endlessly cold.

  When she finished speaking, she slipped away. He was bereft—and afraid in a different way. With Holmes there was always the possibility that she would leave him alone
to pick up the pieces.

  But she came back—and wrapped an arm about his middle. This was unlike her. She had kissed him twice, more than ten years apart, and propositioned him from time to time; yet he maintained a distinct impression that she found touching to be an odd and sometimes discomfiting experience.

  Charlotte doesn’t like to be hugged, Miss Olivia Holmes had once said, rather sadly, in his hearing.

  But Holmes did not disengage. In fact, she placed both arms around him, and rested her cheek against his back.

  It had been a very, very long time since a woman had embraced him. As his astonishment receded, her warmth seeped into his rigid frame.

  He felt less chilled.

  Less isolated.

  Every day he moved among people, dozens, sometimes hundreds of people: family, friends, neighbors, classmates, archaeological colleagues, fellow agents of the Crown, and this was not accounting for his staff and ranks upon ranks of acquaintances. But he had been alone for a long time—and had reinforced that loneliness even as he had despaired of ever being anything but alone.

  Her touch, however, unleashed a monstrous need, so immense and chaotic he couldn’t be sure what he hungered for, or even whether he wished to take—or to give. He held still, terrified of this need, and just as terrified that she had already taken its measure, she who saw too much and gleaned everything.

  But as her warmth poured into him, as she remained where she was, not leaving him to cope on his own, his hand lifted to rest against the back of hers, his fingertips brushing against the cuff of her sleeve.

  It dawned on him that she was no longer wearing her jacket, waistcoat, and paddings. A man’s shirt was far more modest than the bodice of a ball gown—and he had seen her in plenty of those. But underneath the shirt she wore no corset, and through the layers of his own clothes he discerned the shape of her, pressed into his back.

  Twenty-four hours ago he would have considered this impossible, that he and Holmes would be in each other’s arms—and that he wouldn’t immediately pull away. He had not written her since summer because even though Lady Ingram was never coming back, he remained a married man with nothing of value—at least in his own view—to offer her.