“There was a discrepancy but I don’t know if it means anything. Miss Longstead has a friend named Miss Yates. She mentioned that during the party she’d conversed with Miss Longstead’s cousin Mr. Proctor. But when I called on Mr. Proctor, he was certain she hadn’t—said he spent most of the night trying to work up the courage to speak to another young lady.”
They were now under the portico in front of the house and he was closing the umbrella, his motion graceful and efficient. She had to resist the urge to reach out, close her hand over his upper arm, and feel the movement of his sinews as he continued with his mundane task.
She adjusted her hat ribbon instead. “Thank you for meeting me for this.”
He looked back at her and smiled. “Do I need to tell you, Holmes, that the pleasure is entirely mine?”
He was different. More relaxed. She’d seen him at rest but never truly relaxed—always before he’d carried this tension, a man trying his best to fit into a norm he didn’t entirely believe in. But now that he’d made his choice . . .
Now that she was the one holding out from an abundance of caution . . .
She looked away and rang the doorbell.
The address of Mrs. Cousins’s house told Charlotte that it was unlikely to have been Mrs. Cousins’s marital home, during her union with a scion of industry. Now, having seen the inside of the house, Charlotte was sure that it wasn’t.
A great deal of thought had gone into making the interior look more spacious: mirrors, chairs with openwork backs, fretwork doors on cabinets and sideboards. But there was no disguising the fact that the house was small.
Still, the drawing room, with its delicate furnishing, its pale green and soft gold wallpaper, was elegant. Mrs. Cousins was more elegant still. Widow’s weeds could overwhelm some women, washing them out entirely. On Mrs. Cousins, however, Charlotte was reminded of an old Dutch portrait, an arresting, starkly lit face staring out from a shadowy background.
“How can I help you?” she asked simply.
Charlotte felt a bit of uncharacteristic embarrassment.
She knew that Inspector Treadles used to think of Barnaby and Eleanor Cousins as snobs—certainly they would not have chosen him, a man from a working-class background, for an in-law. So she’d used that thin excuse to request that Lord Ingram accompany her for this interview, in case his high birth could be used to disarm Mrs. Cousins into being more cooperative.
Mrs. Cousins, alas, was not at all recalcitrant. Which made it obvious, to Charlotte at least, that she simply wanted her friend nearby.
She didn’t look at him, except with a glance toward a mirror on the opposite wall. Inside the mirror his reflection smiled a little, as if to himself. Amused. But also, pleased.
Charlotte cleared her throat. “Thank you, Mrs. Cousins. I must have been under a mistaken impression that you and Inspector Treadles did not get along.”
“We don’t and I don’t expect we shall. My sister-in-law, however, is an exceptionally good person. I didn’t always appreciate her sterling character—more fool me. But she has proved herself a true friend—the sister I’ve never had—and I will do everything in my power to help her.”
Charlotte had deduced as much from Mrs. Treadles’s reliance on Mrs. Cousins the other night—that a true rapport had developed between the two women. Alas Charlotte had related what she’d observed to Lord Ingram, so he knew as much as she did. And yet he had nodded with great gravitas when she had said she might need him.
This time, she couldn’t even look at his reflection in the mirror.
She took a sip of tea and bit into a random biscuit from the selection on offer. “In that case I’ll begin. Were you acquainted with both victims?”
“Yes, although I won’t be able to tell you much about Mr. Longstead. He and my late father-in-law were great friends. Soul mates, almost. But I’m afraid he found my late husband a disappointment, and my husband did not take kindly to that. So we didn’t see him often—or much at all. He did, however, call on me to offer his condolences, which greatly surprised me. In fact—”
Loud cries erupted in the street outside, along with startled neighing and the metallic screeching of brakes. Mrs. Cousins leaped up, her hands clutched over her heart. Lord Ingram rose, too, crossed to the window, and looked out. “It’s all right,” he reported. “A child ran out into the street but the carriage stopped in time.”
Mrs. Cousins approached the window gingerly, to reassure herself that indeed nothing tragic had happened. “Thank goodness!”
She returned to her seat, her breaths still uneven. “I’m sorry. When I was a child, my family was in a bad carriage accident that severely injured my brother. I’m afraid to this day similar noises still have me in a lather.”
“It’s highly understandable,” said Lord Ingram. “Shall we ring for a fresh pot of tea for you?”
“Yes, please. Thank you,” said Mrs. Cousins, smiling weakly.
Fresh tea was brought. After a cup, Mrs. Cousins rallied, apologized again, and said, “We were on the subject of Mr. Longstead, weren’t we? Mrs. Treadles spoke of him often. She was inordinately grateful that he was kind to her—the only person at Cousins who could be said to be kind. I’m very sorry that he is no more.”
Charlotte waited to see if she had more to say about Mr. Longstead, but Mrs. Cousins only looked down at her hands, one clutched onto her skirts, the other opening and closing with nervous energy.
Charlotte moved on to the subject she had come for. “I was at Mrs. Treadles’s house the other night, when she had her interview with Inspector Brighton. From your exchange, I gathered that you knew something of her dilemma concerning Mr. Sullivan. When did she tell you?”
Mrs. Cousins seemed more surprised by Charlotte’s knowledge of Mr. Sullivan than her presence at Mrs. Treadles’s. “What is it that you know, Miss Holmes?” she asked warily.
Before she called on Mrs. Cousins, Charlotte had gone back home briefly and had encountered Mrs. Watson returning from Cousins with boxes upon boxes of accounts. And Mrs. Watson had told Charlotte of Mrs. Treadles’s confession. “Everything,” she said. “I know that she was being threatened by Mr. Sullivan and I know what she encountered at number 33 the night of the party.”
“All right, then. If she’s told you, then I suppose I can talk about Mr. Sullivan.” Still Mrs. Cousins cast an uncertain glance in Lord Ingram’s direction. “Alice—Mrs. Treadles told me about Mr. Sullivan a week or so before the murders. She didn’t want to burden me with the knowledge, but eventually it became too heavy to carry all by herself. And of course, there was the fact that I’d warned her about Mr. Sullivan and she hadn’t paid sufficient attention to my warning.”