“I still can’t believe that you were all in Paris and didn’t let me know,” said Penelope with a mock pout.
“In the beginning, it was because I didn’t want to disturb your studies. By the end, I could only be thankful that you weren’t at all involved. And that because it was a fancy dress ball, we were all masked that night.” Mrs. Watson sighed. “Perhaps it is still possible for those of us present tonight—and Miss Olivia—to spend the remainder of our lives having no further entanglements with Moriarty. But that is not an option for Mr. Marbleton. I hope he’s well. I hope Moriarty treats his own son with some compassion.”
“If he’s a person capable of compassion,” said Holmes.
A chill skidded down Lord Ingram’s spine.
“Have you had news from Miss Olivia?” Penelope asked Holmes, after a small pause. “I understand that Mr. Marbleton gave her false reasons for his departure. Is she all right?”
Holmes paused between sips of soup—a barely noticeable interval, which nevertheless told Lord Ingram that the matter had been very much on her mind. “I haven’t heard from my sister since she left. But Mrs. Watson did accompany her on her rail journey home, after Mr. Marbleton made his farewell.”
“Well, I expected her to break down at some point during the journey but she never did.” Mrs. Watson furrowed her brow—and hurriedly smoothed her forehead with a finger. “She was . . . oddly composed. She kept saying that she had prepared for this day. That she was grateful for all the laughter and understanding Mr. Marbleton had bestowed upon her. And that knowing their time together was finite had made her treasure every moment.”
“That does not sound like Miss Olivia to me,” said Lord Ingram.
As sensitive as she was, rejections, even those most kindly meant, would always be devastating.
“I suspect she is deliberately treating this as nothing more than a love affair that ended abruptly,” said Holmes.
When it was something much more sinister and perilous.
“I can’t say I blame her,” said Penelope, “if this Moriarty is half as frightful as you say.”
They fell silent, as though no one at the table wished to speak more on the oppressive subject of Moriarty. After an interlude of quiet soup consumption, Holmes turned to him and asked, “How did your visit with Scotland Yard go, my lord?”
“Profitably. We will have no problem viewing the bodies, the collected evidence, or the scene of the crime itself, provided we have an escort from Scotland Yard. We have also been granted permission for a short visit with Inspector Treadles tomorrow morning.”
Holmes nodded.
Mrs. Watson, taking in the uncharacteristic tightness of her expression, said, “You do not expect to learn anything useful at Scotland Yard?”
“I very much do. Only not from Inspector Treadles himself.”
Mrs. Watson rolled the stem of her wineglass between her fingers, back and forth, back and forth. “I’ve been wondering the same. If he cannot exonerate himself, he, an esteemed member of Scotland Yard . . .”
“Then we will do it for him,” said Holmes simply. “Anything else from Scotland Yard, my lord?”
“They have given us leave to speak to those who might shed light on the case, but we will need to arrange those tête-à-têtes ourselves.”
Holmes glanced toward Penelope. “Can I entrust that task to you, Miss Redmayne?”
“Certainly—” said Penelope.
“Surely—” exclaimed Mrs. Watson at the same time.
“I have a greater task for you, Mrs. Watson: You will be looking into Cousins Manufacturing,” said Holmes. “Cousins is what links together Mr. Longstead, Mr. Sullivan, and Inspector Treadles. We have to know what is going on at Cousins, if we are to find out why two of the three men are dead and the other was locked in a room with them.”
Mrs. Watson’s hand stilled. “I’m honored by your request, Miss Charlotte, but are you sure I have enough wherewithal to take on such a large and possibly specialized portion of the investigation?”
“I have always been impressed by your financial acumen, ma’am. I am not mistaken in guessing that you know something of double-entry bookkeeping, am I?”
Mrs. Watson blinked—Lord Ingram had seen this expression a number of times on individuals who’d been told something about themselves by Holmes that they’d never shared with her. But Mrs. Watson, having been Holmes’s partner for a while, needed only a fraction of a second to recover. “I did do bookkeeping for a small theatrical company. But in scale it cannot compare to Cousins.”
“Perhaps not in scale, but in principle they should be comparable.”
“And what am I to look for, exactly, at Cousins?” asked Mrs. Watson, her gaze anxious.
Holmes served herself a slice of venison. “The press enjoys the narrative involving Inspector Treadles in the narrative, because husbandly jealousy leading to murder is both titillating and easy to understand. But if we remove Inspector Treadles from consideration, then we are left with no apparent suspect and no apparent motive.”
Lord Ingram hadn’t thought of that, at least not in such unambiguous terms. As he glanced around at the other ladies, he saw that it was the same for them.
“I am not sure what we can do to produce a suspect,” Holmes went on. “So first we must see if we can find a motive—a different reason for someone, anyone at all, to want to kill Mr. Longstead and Mr. Sullivan. And that is what I have entrusted to you, Mrs. Watson, that motive—or at least, clues to that motive.”
* * *
At the conclusion of the meal, they returned to the afternoon parlor, where they played a few hands of whist. Both Mrs. Watson and Penelope then pleaded fatigue and retired.
Lord Ingram wondered if he should come around less often, so as not to always cause his hostesses to rush off to hide in their rooms.
Holmes rose from the card table, took a seat on the settee, and shook out her skirts. He suspected that those skirts, laden with tiny jet beads, didn’t need such elaborate arranging, but that she enjoyed hearing the tiny plinking sounds the beads made, when they struck one another with the movement of the brocaded satin.
When the other ladies had left, they had told them to keep playing, but it was obvious that the games had ended for the night. He began to gather up the cards and was about to ask after her sister Bernadine Holmes, who now lived with her, when she looked up and said, “Inspector Brighton was at Mrs. Treadles’s house when I called.”
He was immediately alert. “Oh?”
She recounted the interrogation she had overheard.