She did recall the occasion. They hadn’t seen each other for several months before that. He had shown her and Mrs. Watson the grounds and then he and Holmes had toured the kitchen garden, the part of his estate that most intrigued her.
“On that day, for the first time in a very long time, I felt something like happiness.”
All at once she had a startlingly clear recollection in her head. The two of them had been walking side by side, under a golden, unseasonably warm sun, past a row of lovely espaliered fruit trees that promised to yield legendary jams and puddings. She had been cajoling him to call on her at the cottage she and Mrs. Watson had hired nearby, during Mrs. Watson’s afternoon naps—in other words, investigating whether, with his wife out of the picture, he had become more receptive to the idea of sleeping with her.
You did not write for three months and you think I would be amenable to perform such services at your beck and call? he had answered in mock severity.
You did not write for three months, she had retorted. And you think I would be mollified with anything less than such services at my beck and call?
He had smiled at that. And she, who had not seen a true smile from him in years, had been transfixed by the luminosity in his eyes.
Was that when he first realized that he was no longer imprisoned by his marriage and could allow himself to be happy again?
“For too long I was fearful of getting too close to you,” said the man in front of her. “But I wish to cast aside that fear. I don’t want to look back and regret not being happier because I lacked courage.”
He leaned forward, and took her hands in his. His hands were rougher than those of most gentlemen, the hands of someone who never hesitated to pick up a shovel and dig for artifacts. Who had intensified his self-defense training because he lived in a precarious present, its veneer of normalcy liable to shatter at any moment.
Without realizing it, she rubbed her thumb across a row of calluses and felt a tremor beneath his skin.
Lifting one hand, he traced the shell of her ear with a fingertip. She bit the inside of her cheek as heat careened through her. His eyes met hers, his gaze gentle yet resolute.
“Ages ago, in one of your letters, you said that you did not understand why people resisted change, as everything in life must invariably change. Perhaps you understand that resistance better now—it isn’t change that we fear, but loss.
“Our friendship has never been a static entity. We have changed over the years and so has it. And it will continue to change in the coming days and years.”
He kissed her on her forehead, her lips, and then, her eyelids, which she didn’t realize she had closed. “But whatever happens, I will always be your friend.”
Eight
In the stark and starkly lit room, the dead looked stony, heavy.
The living, or one of them, at least, was scandalized.
The pathologist, a Dr. Caulfield, was whispering to Sergeant MacDonald, obviously about the prospect of letting a woman see two naked men without the latter’s prior consent. His breaths vapored, a fog of offended masculinity. Sergeant MacDonald, who appeared no worse for wear after his own encounter with Inspector Brighton, seemed to be trying to convince him that the men, being already deceased, could not possibly mind.
The woman in question was very different from the vixen in the red-and-black dinner gown the evening before. She looked to be in her late thirties, stern and no-nonsense, with a steel-gray unadorned overcoat that matched her demeanor exactly.
If he himself were a dead man, mused Lord Ingram, he could not imagine being studied by a more respectable woman.
But the pathologist disagreed. Would he have been more amenable had Holmes appeared as her usual self? Or should she have come as a wizened old lady?
Or would he have accommodated her only if she’d shown up as Sherrinford Holmes?
Holmes’s cheeks were turning red from the cold. He supposed he should be thankful that the viewing room, part of Scotland Yard’s mortuary, was unheated, and that the wintry air slowed the decomposition of the two men. Still, the interior, which reeked of formaldehyde and disinfectant, held a note of putrefaction, a stench that had burrowed into walls and floors, however bare, and could not be made to disappear unless the site itself was first demolished.
When Holmes stamped her feet against the floor, trying to keep warm, Lord Ingram decided that they’d waited long enough.
“Dr. Caulfield,” he said to the pathologist, “pray cease thinking of Miss Holmes as first and foremost a woman. She is here solely as her brother’s eyes, because Mr. Sherlock Holmes cannot be here himself.”
“Surely, my lord, you could also—”
“I cannot. Miss Holmes has been especially trained and my powers of observation pale in comparison. I am touched by your concern for everyone’s modesty, but I am sure these gentlemen here”—he indicated the bodies—“are more interested in receiving Sherlock Holmes’s insight than in quibbling over etiquette at this late stage.”
The pathologist hesitated.
“We also need to examine the scene of the crime and speak with family members—all before noon. Time flees, Dr. Caulfield. Let us have no more demurrals.”
Reluctantly, the man acquiesced, but not without casting a disgruntled look in Holmes’s direction. “As you wish, my lord.”
“Miss Holmes.”
“Thank you, my lord. Much obliged.”
She observed first Mr. Longstead, who in life might have appeared younger with animation; but with his almost completely white hair, in death he looked every one of his sixty-seven years. The wound was through his chest. There were no other wounds on his person.
Mr. Sullivan, on the other hand, had a bruise on his right forearm, a cut on the back of his head, and was shot through the forehead.
Holmes leaned down and peered at the bullet hole.
Lord Ingram took the opportunity to satisfy his own curiosity. “What do you make of the cause of death, Dr. Caulfield?”
During the carriage ride to Scotland Yard, they had discussed the possibility that she, as a woman with professional inquiries, might not be welcome at the mortuary.
At least you won’t need to ask questions. The pathologist probably won’t be able to tell you anything you won’t have deduced for yourself, he’d said.
She’d smiled slightly and answered, Then you should ask a few. We wouldn’t want him to feel completely superfluous.
Indeed Dr. Caulfield puffed up at having his expertise sought. He rubbed his hands together. “The shot that killed Mr. Longstead was a contact shot—that was easy to see from the fabric of his clothes. The shot that killed Mr. Sullivan, on the other hand, was not fired from such close range. At least, there was no powder residue on his forehead.”