Halfway down the somewhat muddy central path, a woman in a grey jacket and a matching pair of bloomers came around a dormant garden bed.
“Miss Stoppard?” As she neared, Lord Ingram asked with some hesitation. He’d never seen her in good light.
“That’s right,” said Miss Stoppard.
And walked past them without another word, headed for their cottage. Lord Ingram and Mrs. Watson exchanged a look.
In front of their cottage, Miss Stoppard knocked. Lord Ingram and Mrs. Watson stopped a few paces away. The woman didn’t seem to want any hospitality, best let her get on with what she had come to do.
Holmes opened the door.
Without any preamble, Miss Stoppard handed over an envelope. “Good afternoon, Miss Holmes. I have something for you from Miss Baxter.”
Mrs. Watson’s hand tightened around Lord Ingram’s forearm.
“Thank you,” said Holmes.
Miss Stoppard nodded, pivoted, and left.
By the time Lord Ingram and Mrs. Watson entered the cottage, Holmes had already broken the seal on the envelope.
She pulled out a card, glanced at it, then glanced up at Lord Ingram and Mrs. Watson. “The card says ‘Miss Baxter will be pleased to receive Miss Holmes and company this evening at six.’”
16
Oxford Street ranked among London’s—and therefore perhaps the world’s—busiest thoroughfares. So it should come as no surprise that Hanley Street, an offshoot of Oxford Street, had plenty of commercial establishments and that 23 Hanley Street was a shopfront.
Yet Livia, standing across the street, was so dismayed she could barely understand the words on the display window.
fine patriotic souvenirs for her majesty’s golden jubilee.
Carriages rumbled past without cease in both directions. Customers ran with parcels to their carriages. Pedestrians darted between clarences and hansom cabs, then shouted and swore as they were splashed by churning carriage wheels.
With all the commotion, Livia still saw those words much too clearly.
She had made a terrible mistake. This couldn’t be the address toward which Mr. Marbleton had tried so hard to point her. Which one should it have been? She tried to recall the other addresses, but numbers and letters ran amok in her head.
Maybe he hadn’t touched the register at all. Maybe he’d meant to signal her some other way and she’d missed it entirely. Or maybe he hadn’t been able to do anything at all, but was as helpless as she herself and—
She took a deep breath. She must calm down. She must not despair. And she must not have so little faith in herself. For now, she was going to assume that she was correct, that this was the place.
She crossed the street, stopped directly before the display window, and squinted at the rows of neatly arranged merchandise inside. There were yellow-and-purple hats that would have made Charlotte’s magpie soul trill in joy, ribbons featuring the queen’s pudgy, unsmiling face, and teacups painted with the dates of her fifty years on the throne. There were also stacks of Jubilee playing cards and Jubilee fans, interspersed with cockades and what looked like rather fat Jubilee fountain pens.
The cockades!
She blinked and leaned down for a closer look. But there was no question, the glimpse of color and texture she’d seen on his coat—he had worn such a cockade as a stickpin.
All at once she could envision him, standing before the register in the Reading Room, looking at his guards and asking softly in German, What should I put down for my address?
The guards would respond along the lines of Anything, as long as it’s wrong.
And he would have shrugged, pulled a card out of his pocket, and jotted down 23 Hanley Street.
What’s that?
At the place where I bought my cockade, they gave me a card. Said I should bring the ladies of the family the next time.
But was it a coincidence or had he planned it?
She had spoken very little with Mr. Marbleton about his upbringing—a subject that made her uneasy. He and his family had never lived anywhere permanently because of Moriarty’s long arm and even longer shadow. But she knew that he possessed no particular patriotic fervor for either queen or country. She also knew, from Charlotte’s words and her own observations, that his family was adept at disguises and other sorts of subterranean communications.
He had planned it. He might not have expected any chances of success, but he had planned it.
But what could Livia possibly learn from a shop full of Jubilee goods?
* * *
After the initial burst of chatter over the invitation, Miss Charlotte recommended that everyone should get ready.
By getting ready, Mrs. Watson thought she meant to discuss strategy. Instead, the girl started packing. Lord Ingram took a look at her and did the same. Mrs. Watson hesitated a little longer before joining in. It couldn’t hurt, she supposed. After all, if they indeed saw Miss Baxter tonight, then the thing to do would be to catch the next train back to London and disclose their findings to Moriarty.
If they indeed saw Miss Baxter tonight, that is.
Lord Ingram, the first to be finished, went out to the walls again. He came back within minutes and reported that Mr. Peters had returned with the coach, but Mrs. Crosby had not come back with him.
Miss Charlotte nodded and went back to buckling her satchel.
“Miss Charlotte, you don’t seem surprised about it,” said Mrs. Watson, unnerved. “You weren’t even surprised about the invitation to Miss Baxter’s.”
“I don’t know enough to judge the significance of Mr. Peters’s and Mrs. Crosby’s comings and goings,” said Miss Charlotte. She rose to her feet, walked to the door, and donned her mantle. “As for the invitation to Miss Baxter’s, you are right about that—I wasn’t surprised. The events last night were always meant to force somebody’s hand.”
They walked to Miss Baxter’s lodge under a purple dusk, a few rays of light still glowing in the western sky. In front of the lodge, they met Miss Fairchild, Miss Ellery, and the Steeles, also brandishing invitations. Mrs. Watson, already astounded, was now staggered. Were she trying to pass off someone as Miss Baxter at this point, she would not have invited anyone who had actually known her.
As Lord Ingram hadn’t formally met the Garden’s residents, introductions were performed. Mr. Steele rang the doorbell. Miss Stoppard answered the door and greeted the callers with a nod.
In the vestibule, the company shed coats and stashed walking sticks and umbrellas. They proceeded to a small entry hall, where Miss Stoppard said to them, “I’ll let Miss Baxter know that you are here.”
She opened the parlor door a crack and disappeared inside; the residents of the Garden followed her with their eyes. The Steeles appeared nonplussed. Miss Ellery, restless and excited. Miss Fairchild, on the other hand, seemed a little troubled.
Miss Charlotte walked about the entry hall, looking at the décor. Mrs. Watson remembered the disturbing painting in the library that was attributed to Miss Baxter. Fortunately, in the entry at least, the pictures were seascapes and still lifes, with little to excite the imagination.
“Miss Baxter is ready to see you,” said Miss Stoppard.
And with that, she opened the parlor door all the way.
Mrs. Watson groaned inwardly. A large canvas hung opposite the door. A woman in white, her red hair streaming in the wind, pushed a long gleaming sword into the eye socket of a skull, pinning it to the ground. Blood seeped out from the skull. As if that weren’t disconcerting enough, a blood-speckled serpent climbed up one of the woman’s bare, shapely limbs, its forked tongue already past her knee.