“When did you realize he hadn’t come home?”
“I don’t sleep very well without laudanum. With laudanum . . . I sleep a little too well. There wasn’t much for me to do that evening. He was gone. The children had been bathed and put to bed. I had a plate of supper in my room, read for a while, and took my laudanum—no point staying awake on a night like that and tormenting myself with thoughts of what he might or might not be up to. He would tell me soon enough, when he came home.
“But instead I woke up to my maid banging on the door of my bedchamber because the police were below, asking to speak with me.”
“Did you tell the police any of what you told me?”
Charlotte would have dearly loved to see Sergeant Howe’s expression. Then again, being an experienced officer of the law, he might have barely batted an eyelash.
“Only that my husband didn’t like Mrs. Treadles, which is all I know for certain, in any case. He didn’t care for her and said she shouldn’t have been at Cousins, trying to run things.”
A calculating look crossed Mrs. Sullivan’s face as she gave her answer—Mr. Sullivan might have considered his wife gauche, but she knew how to choose her audience.
And now they came to a question that Charlotte was beginning to be highly curious about. “Mrs. Sullivan, are you grieved by your husband’s passing?”
The new widow’s eyes shone. “I feel no sorrow that he’s gone. Maybe grief will come later, but for now I’m only shocked. I thought wicked men such as my husband always lived to ripe old ages, their malice somehow acting as their lucky charm in life. That he has been cut down in his prime? Perhaps God has been paying attention after all. Perhaps all wicked men should be afraid.”
Twelve
Charlotte’s next appointment—thankfully, her last of the day—was at 31 Cold Street to test Miss Longstead’s vision. But after she left Mrs. Sullivan’s house, she still had some time. So she called on Mrs. Treadles.
Mrs. Treadles was not home, but Mrs. Graycott, her housekeeper, pointed Charlotte to a nearby park. The park was a small green space, enclosed by a wrought iron fence. At this hour, in the intermittent rain, Mrs. Treadles was the only person inside, clad in a mackintosh, walking on a narrow path. Cockerill, her groom and coachman, stood beside a gate in the fence to keep an eye out for her safety.
“Miss Holmes!” she cried, startled, when she saw Charlotte. “Is everything all right?”
“Nothing is amiss,” said Charlotte, falling into step beside her. It felt good to move, for a change, after having spent so much of her day sitting either in carriages or in drawing rooms. “Congratulations on your decisive action today at Cousins.”
The light from nearby street lamps was just enough to illuminate Mrs. Treadles’s slightly tremulous smile. “I will not deny that it was a relief to at last wield some authority. I can’t thank you enough for sending Mrs. Watson my way. In fact, it was she who told me that I ought to have a vigorous walk after reaching home. She said my body would need the exercise to properly expel the tension of the day.”
“Mrs. Watson is an invaluable ally indeed,” said Charlotte wholeheartedly. “When I left her this afternoon, she had already begun a preliminary review of the Cousins accounts she’d brought back.”
Mrs. Treadles’s pace increased, as if propelled by a surge of inner turmoil. “Will she have enough time? Inspector Brighton told me that—that he planned to formally charge Inspector Treadles before Christmas.”
“We are working as fast as we can.” Charlotte briefly rested a hand on Mrs. Treadles’s arm. “Would you show me a few items from your house?”
Mrs. Treadles breathed heavily a few times. “Shall we head back there then?”
They left the park, Cockerill trailing a respectful distance behind.
“I also need to ask you a few more questions about the night of the party,” said Charlotte. “I understand that it is an unpleasant subject, but can you recount for me what exactly facilitated your escape from number 33 that night, after Mr. Sullivan accosted you?”
Mrs. Treadles coughed. She glanced back at Cockerill, who was out of earshot. Still she lowered her voice. “There was a loud noise, which startled Mr. Sullivan. That was how I got away.”
“What kind of noise? Can you be more specific?”
“Ah . . . if I must guess—please remember that I was completely distraught at the time—but if I must guess, I would say that it sounded more like a door slamming on an upper floor than anything else. The house very nearly shook with it.”
“You are certain of it?”
“As certain as I could be of anything under those circumstances.” Mrs. Treadles’s brow creased. “I have wondered more than once what—or who—could have made that noise. I do ask myself if it was my husband, as I’d gone into the house in the first place because of him. But I . . . I . . .”
“But you don’t want it to have been your husband, because that would give further credence to Inspector Brighton’s hypothesis that he killed Mr. Sullivan in a rage.”
Mrs. Treadles pulled her mackintosh tighter about her body, as if she felt cold. But her voice was firm. “In the end I don’t believe it was him. Had it been him, and had he known that it was me, he would have come and found me at Mr. Longstead’s house to make sure that I was all right.”
She was capable of great faith, this woman.
As was Lord Ingram.
Charlotte hadn’t realized this before, because she was not accustomed to thinking in such terms, but he had placed his faith in her, who did not always understand the full spectrum of human emotions.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. “Was that the last you saw of Mr. Sullivan?”
“Yes.”
The relief was evident in Mrs. Treadles’s voice, even though Mr. Sullivan would never be able to prey on her again.
“And Mr. Longstead—when did you last see him?”
“After I returned to his house I came across him speaking to Mrs. Coltrane, his housekeeper—they were near the cloakroom where I hid for some time.”
“Before or after you went into the cloakroom?”
“Before. I remember thinking that I didn’t want them to see me, and they didn’t. Or at least Mr. Longstead didn’t.”
Silence fell. The heels of their boots clicked on wet pavement. A gust blew, shaking bare branches all along the street. As they walked past a house with a blazing Christmas tree by the window, someone inside began to play “Silent Night” on a piano, the notes faint yet crystalline.