The Hollow of Fear: Book three in the Lady Sherlock Mystery Series Page 12

  “The boy came yesterday to fetch the ice needed for last night’s dinner,” said Fowler. “But Lord Ingram’s guests arrived in Stern Hollow the day before. What about that dinner? Did no one come to the icehouse in preparation for that occasion?”

  “According to the cook, when the exodus from Mrs. Newell’s house came, in one of the luggage carts they brought the slab of ice that was already in their ice safe, so that it wouldn’t go to waste. That slab was broken up, the resultant crushed ice put into freezing pots to facilitate the churning of various fruit ices for dinner. Therefore, there had been no need to visit the ice well the first day the guests were here.”

  Mr. Holmes made no mention of Lord Ingram’s guilt or innocence, but it did not escape Treadles’s attention that he had mounted a forceful argument for the latter: If Lord Ingram had killed his wife and kept her in the ice well, confident that no one would go there, then why hadn’t he removed the body the moment he’d realized that large amounts of ice would be required for the guests abruptly thrust upon him? He would have had twenty-four hours to accomplish the deed.

  Fowler said to Treadles, “Shall we take a closer look?”

  The company climbed down into the ice well.

  Lady Ingram was not frozen solid. Her clothes and the thick layer of wood shavings that covered the ice had kept her body at the ambient temperature, which, according to a thermometer on the wall, hovered a degree or two above freezing.

  “No marks on her throat,” noted Fowler.

  After death, blood obeyed the law of gravity and pooled in the lowest part of the body. A supine corpse such as Lady Ingram’s developed bruise-like discolorations on the back. But blood in the front of the body could be trapped by an injury to the flesh, depending on the nature of that injury.

  “Was she lying in this exact position when she was found?” asked Mr. Holmes.

  “Sergeant Ellerby reports that he turned her over briefly and then returned her as best as he could to the way he found her. And before that she had not been moved.”

  “Would it be logical to assume whoever had put her here carried her until they reached the lip of the ice well and then dropped her straight down?”

  Chief Inspector Fowler, still crouched over the body, played with the small brush of a beard on his chin. “That would probably not be wrong.”

  “It will be difficult to judge when she died, I take it, given this inadvertent method of preservation,” said Mr. Holmes.

  “And you would be correct again, my good sir. Unless we are able to match the contents of her stomach to a known last meal.”

  Lady Ingram lay flat on her back but her head had rolled to one side, her nose close to the edge of the ice shaft. Fowler turned her face. “Hmm,” he said, “didn’t she have a beauty mark in her photographs?”

  “Yes, sir,” answered Treadles.

  “I see only an excision here.”

  Treadles brought a lantern close and saw that the beauty mark had been scooped out, leaving a small dent where it had once been. The wound had healed but still looked recent.

  “A pity,” said Mr. Holmes. “It was one of her distinguishing features.”

  “Ah, look at this.”

  Fowler had rolled up Lady Ingram’s sleeves and a small puncture wound was visible above her wrist. The otherwise ice-pale skin around it was discolored—the discoloration extending upward in a faint line, disappearing after approximately two inches.

  Likewise on her other arm.

  “Intravenous injections,” said Treadles.

  “The pathologist might be able to tell us exactly what the substance is. Or the chemical analyst,” said Fowler.

  “Do either of you smell the odor of alcohol?” asked Mr. Holmes.

  The policemen exchanged a glance. Now that Mr. Holmes mentioned it, Treadles could indeed detect the faintest whiff in the air.

  “If memory serves, Lady Ingram was a teetotaler—it was debated whether she even touched the champagne served at her own wedding. A shining paragon in so many ways, our dearly departed,” said Mr. Holmes, and smoothed the ends of his mustache with what seemed to Treadles an unnecessary amount of enjoyment.

  Such an odd chap.

  Lord Ingram seemed drawn to people who were at least somewhat misaligned with the world.

  “But alcohol, in sufficient quantities, is most certainly a poison,” Mr. Holmes went on. “Assuming that she’d been injected with absolute alcohol, would that prove to be an irritant to the blood vessels?”

  Again, a skillful argument put forth for Lord Ingram’s innocence: He would not have killed his wife with injections of absolute alcohol, knowing that she did not imbibe on any regular basis.

  Fowler frowned. “A rather diabolical way to kill, is it not?”

  “But a relatively clean one, from a certain point of view. No need to visit a crooked chemist, as would be the case with arsenic poisoning. And the body could be passed off as having resulted from a natural death, if one wished to move it without arousing too much suspicion.”

  This was a body that came from elsewhere, implied Mr. Holmes, transported in a coffin.

  Fowler, frowning more deeply, performed a systematic search of the pockets—very few, given that ladies didn’t care for that sort of thing—and found nothing more than a handkerchief. He then slipped off her boots.

  “Aha, what have we here?”

  Something made a crinkling sound inside her woolen stocking. The removal of the stocking revealed a folded-up piece of paper that had been placed inside, against the sole of a blue-tinged foot.

  Unfolded, the paper was full of writing. Upon closer inspection, however, it turned out that a single line of text was repeated nearly two dozen times, each iteration in a different hand.

  Vixen Charlotte Holmes’s zephyr-tousled hair quivers when jolted in fog bank.

  Upon seeing that name, Treadles’s gut tightened.

  “What in the world is this?” exclaimed Fowler.

  “A pangram,” said Mr. Holmes. “A sentence that contains all twenty-six letters of the alphabet.”

  “And who is Charlotte Holmes?”

  “Are you related to her?” Treadles asked at almost the same time.

  “She is a friend of Lord Ingram’s, a young woman with a peculiar bent of mind. I would not be surprised if she came up with the pangram herself,” answered Mr. Holmes, unruffled. “And we are not related.”

  Fowler cast Treadles a look, before turning back to Mr. Holmes. “You say she is a friend of Lord Ingram’s. Not Lady Ingram’s?”

  “Not in my understanding.”

  “Then why would Lady Ingram have in her possession something like this?”

  Mr. Holmes hesitated. “That is a question better answered by Lord Ingram.”

  “Then let us speak to Lord Ingram,” said Fowler, straightening. “The constables can arrange to have the body transported to the coroner.”

  “Gentlemen, would you mind if I looked around a little more?” said Mr. Holmes.

  Fowler considered Mr. Holmes with a wariness that echoed Treadles’s own. Mr. Holmes was no doubt acting on behalf of Lord Ingram, the prime suspect in the case. But Lord Ingram was also the brother of a duke, and a man of wealth and influence in his own right. It would not help Scotland Yard to antagonize him—at least, not yet.

  “Go ahead,” said Fowler, after a meaningful pause.

  “Thank you. Much obliged,” replied Mr. Holmes.

  Mr. Holmes examined Lady Ingram’s feet, her stockings, and her boots. Then he inspected the surface of the ice, pushing aside piles of wood shavings as he did so. Both the policemen watched him closely, but he worked with a singular concentration, seemingly oblivious to the scrutiny he himself was under.

  “What are you looking for, Mr. Holmes?” Treadles asked, despite his intention not to do so.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea, Inspector. Anything out of the ordinary, I suppose.”

  “Do you see anything?” Fowler asked.

&nb
sp; “A few strands of hair.”

  “Where?”

  Mr. Holmes pointed at a spot some six feet removed from where Lady Ingram lay. The two policemen hurried forward to check. And there they were. Fowler took off his gloves, felt the strands, then approached Lady Ingram and touched the latter on the head. “Similar color and texture.”

  “Hers?” asked Treadles.

  “We can only assume so,” said Fowler, his eyes narrowed.

  Once Mr. Holmes had finished with the ice well, he climbed out and proceeded to study the rest of the space. On their way out, he examined each antechamber, paying especially close attention to the doors and their locks. But when Fowler asked whether he’d seen anything else, he only shook his head.

  Outside, Lord Ingram stood fifteen feet away from the entrance, a cigarette between his fingers.

  “How did she die?” he asked.

  The question was addressed to his friend.

  Mr. Holmes fetched a pipe from inside his coat. “You’ve a match, Ash?”

  With a somewhat disapproving look, Lord Ingram handed over a box of safety matches. Mr. Holmes lit his pipe with practiced ease and took a puff. “We’ll see what the pathologist has to say, but my guess would be poisoning, by an injection of absolute alcohol.”

  Lord Ingram winced, an expression of fear and revulsion. And pity. He took a long drag on his cigarette, and then another. “Did you observe anything else?”

  “Nothing the gentlemen from Scotland Yard haven’t remarked. Her shoes do not fit her feet—probably the reason we were able to remove them so easily. And her stockings are far too cheaply made to have been her own purchase. A few pieces of straw among the wood shavings. Coal dust on the floor of the antechambers, up to the second one but not in the ice well itself. Some bits of metal filing right near the threshold of the entrance, still new and shiny.”

  Treadles hadn’t seen the straw among the wood shavings, but judging by Fowler’s self-satisfied look, he’d taken note of everything Mr. Holmes mentioned, and probably more.

  “But enough of that for now. Let’s go back inside and warm up,” said Mr. Holmes. “I’m frozen down to my bollocks.”

  10

  A plentiful tea awaited the party back in the library.

  Treadles hadn’t expected much of an appetite, but the cold of the icehouse and the wind-buffeted walk led him to gulp down two cups of tea and three tartlets. Chief Inspector Fowler, who appeared to have no interest in sweet things, heaped praise on the finger sandwiches. “Flavorful and substantial—not like eating air and bubbles, as is so often the case.”

  Lord Ingram, who again took up a position next to the fireplace, did not touch anything except a cup of black tea. Mr. Holmes, who didn’t touch even that, sat sprawled in a nearby padded chair, legs splayed, head tilted back, eyes half closed.

  Treadles stared at him. How many friends named Holmes did Lord Ingram have? And how many did he trust to find out the truth behind his wife’s death?

  “As you might have expected, my lord,” said Fowler, “we will need to ask you some questions.”

  Lord Ingram appeared resigned. “Certainly.”

  Fowler glanced at Mr. Holmes. “Some of these questions could prove uncomfortable in nature.”

  “I have no secrets before Mr. Holmes,” said Lord Ingram.

  Was there an edge of reluctance to his tone, a wish that he had been able to keep a secret or two to himself? All the same, it was very much the master of the house who had spoken—and let it be known that Mr. Holmes wasn’t going anywhere.

  Mr. Holmes appeared not to have heard this tussle over his presence. Presently he poured himself a cup of tea and eyed the variety of refreshments on offer.

  There was something oddly familiar about the way he contemplated cake.

  “Mr. Holmes is a privileged friend indeed,” said Fowler, pulling out a typed transcript of the interview between Lord Ingram and Sergeant Ellerby.

  Treadles readied his notebook, even as his face heated from secondhand mortification. He had read the transcript, a story only the power of the Crown could make a man divulge, let alone repeat.

  A sound came like grains of sand thrown against the window—it was raining, high wind driving a storm into Stern Hollow. In the grate, fire hissed, but otherwise the library was silent. Fowler continued to scan the transcript, each flip of the page as loud as the cracking of a whip.

  Treadles braced himself. No one was better at winding up a suspect than Fowler. Make them wait. Make them guess. Make them wonder how much they’d already given away.

  “The apple cake looks rather appealing,” said Mr. Holmes to Lord Ingram, his words so incongruous Treadles almost laughed. “The apples come from Stern Hollow’s kitchen garden?”

  “Indeed, they do,” replied Lord Ingram with the sort of grave courtesy appropriate to a question of pastry.

  When a man wasn’t the prime suspect in the murder of his wife.

  Mr. Holmes bowed his head slightly. “I must try a slice then.”

  Chief Inspector Fowler did not glance up from the transcript but he looked irritated. Mr. Holmes’s little aside had broken the tension, cracked it like a spoon to an eggshell. And there was no guarantee he wouldn’t do it again, were Fowler to re-escalate the silence—and the pressure.

  Support, both moral and practical, Lord Ingram had said about his friend’s purpose at Stern Hollow. Was Mr. Holmes here to sabotage Fowler’s effectiveness?

  “Lord Ingram,” began Fowler, “you allege that your wife ran away from home on the night of her birthday ball.”

  It would have been a stronger opening had it come at the end of a prolonged silence—and if Fowler had been able to pitch his voice slightly lower. Still, the statement arrived like a battering ram upon the gate of a castle.

  Lord Ingram left the mantel to pour himself a glass of whisky. “She did.”

  “There is talk of her childhood sweetheart. But I find it difficult to believe that a woman of Lady Ingram’s station would abandon everything for a love affair. It is my understanding that, in the upper echelon of Society, affairs are conducted under civilized rules. Why would she have run away when she could have indulged in a liaison, while retaining all the comfort and prestige to which she had become accustomed?”

  Lord Ingram considered his glass, as if wishing he could down its entire contents in one draught. In the end he took only a sip. “Civilized rules require a state of civility, which was not a characteristic of my marital union.”

  “You mentioned a curtailment of affections but did not give a reason.”

  “I would prefer not to discuss it.”

  “I understand your reluctance. And I deplore intruding on another man’s privacy,” said Fowler, evincing no such reluctance whatsoever. “But your wife, whom no one had seen in months, was found dead on your land. Reticence, which I otherwise admire as a manly virtue, will not work to your advantage here.”

  This time Lord Ingram did pour back half of the whisky. Treadles winced inwardly. In happier times, he had shared meals and animated conversations with the man, and Lord Ingram had never imbibed except in exceedingly modest quantities.

  He knew he should view his friend as the prime suspect, but he couldn’t help a surge of sympathy. And a scouring of misery, that he himself, viewed as enviably married, was also, on the inside, in anything but an enviable state.

  Glass in hand, Lord Ingram walked to a window and stared out. The wooded slopes behind the house had turned red and gold, a beautiful tableau. Treadles wondered whether he saw anything at all.

  “Immediately after the reading of my godfather’s will, I told Lady Ingram that I would receive five hundred pound per annum instead of the preponderance of his fortune, as was, in fact, the case.”

  The words emerged slowly, as if they were dragged across knife and fire.

  Fowler set his chin in the space between his thumb and forefinger. “Does this imply you already harbored doubts as to the validity of her affection?�
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  Lord Ingram’s hands clasped behind his back. “I knew when we met that her family was poor. I was more than happy to be their knight in shining armor. At the time it had seemed highly romantic, that our paths should cross when she came to London in search of a well-situated husband.

  “I was young and vain—and likely believed myself a prize even without the attraction of my future inheritance. That the woman I loved perhaps wouldn’t want to marry me . . . Such a thought never crossed my mind.

  “That Season she stayed with a cousin in London. I didn’t meet her family until after my proposal had been accepted. The lack of warmth she evinced toward her parents—and even her brothers—should have put me on alert. But I was blinded by love and freely discarded what I did not wish to see.

  “In time I came to understand that a similar distance existed between us. I thought we had everything we needed to be happy—health, security, beautiful children. But she grew only more distant, more unreachable.

  “That was when I learned that she had loved another, a man rejected by her parents because he was in no position to help her family. Everything began to make horrifying sense. She despised her parents because they refused to consider her personal happiness. She was remote toward me because she did not love me. Because she never would have married me, except for the fact that I was rumored to be my godfather’s heir apparent.”

  Treadles dared not put himself in Lord Ingram’s place. He didn’t even want to imagine disillusionment of this magnitude.

  “I didn’t want it to be true. But I also needed to know. My godfather died soon thereafter and I made up my mind. If she loved me, then she would be disappointed that I would remain only a moderately well-off man rather than become a very rich one, but it would not be a fatal disappointment. If she did not love me . . .”

  He’d been speaking faster and faster, as if hoping simple momentum would carry him through the worst part of the story. But now he came to a stop. His head bowed. His fingers gripped the edge of the windowsill.