It was all he wanted, to be a middling minion looking after ledgers and documents. To have a case of calling cards with his name embossed. To put a little money aside every day for his retirement.
He never thought he would become de Lacey. But three de Laceys later—all dead for different reasons—the former Timmy Ruston found himself at the head of De Lacey Industries, answerable directly to Mr. Baxter.
He didn’t fancy himself a great beast of a man—no one would compare him to a bear or a lion. He was, however, a good, dependable dog, capable of a surprisingly ferocious bite. But in front of Mr. Baxter he only wanted to hide his tail between his legs, sink to the ground, and whimper.
Mr. Baxter was just a man, he would tell himself, a nobody named Moriarty once upon a time.
And then he would perspire, wondering whether Mr. Baxter could hear his thoughts.
That was with Mr. Baxter on the other side of the English Channel. When news came of the man’s impending visit, he became a jumble of nerves, anticipating the worst. Which . . . did not immediately come to pass. Mr. Baxter was distant and preoccupied, but did not seem interested in finding faults with de Lacey’s work.
De Lacey let out a breath. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad. Perhaps he would be able to retire after all.
But after the meeting during which he informed Charlotte Holmes that she needed to discover what happened to Craddock, he returned to De Lacey Industries to find Mr. Baxter in a rage. Someone else might not even have recognized that he was angry. He listened to de Lacey’s report with perfect civility and spoke softly when he replied. Yet all the while his wrath had felt like a barbed wire around de Lacey’s neck.
When the order came down that the Garden of Hermopolis was now to be watched round the clock, he volunteered to keep an eye on the operations. It was a relief to be two hundred miles from Mr. Baxter, but his freedom cost dearly. On the coast the wind never ceased, the damp penetrated all layers of garments, and it was February, albeit the last day of the month. Even when he’d been a petty criminal he’d never had to spend twenty-four hours a day in the elements.
At least Charlotte Holmes did not waste time. The day of her return culminated in a raging row between her and Miss Baxter. Such details of Miss Baxter’s life emerged in the quarrel, relayed to de Lacey by a note wrapped around a rock and dropped from the walls. When he’d accidentally overheard the argument between Miss Baxter and her father the year before, he’d felt a grudging respect for her stubborn love, mistakenly believing it to be pure as the driven snow. But the reality—truly, he’d never be able to show his face in public again if he had a daughter like that.
The next morning, something unexpected happened. Mrs. Watson’s manservant came rushing to the Garden. Barely a quarter hour later, “Mr. Hudson” left with him. Charlotte Holmes and Mrs. Watson stood atop the walls and watched them drive away, as if they were knights headed for the Crusades. By luncheon de Lacey learned from Mr. Baxter’s spy in the Garden that a telegram had come for Lord Ingram. Both of his children ran high fevers.
Nothing else happened during the remaining daylight hours, except a gradual exodus of the Garden’s residents, including its physician. De Lacey checked all the departing parties. But they were only fleeing the uncertainty of the Garden’s besiegement. No one attempted to smuggle out either Miss Baxter or Charlotte Holmes.
Another night arrived, full of rain and squalls. De Lacey feared he was becoming rheumatic, but he feared Mr. Baxter’s mood far more. He dared not sleep, but timed his patrols, watched the front gate, and shivered under his mackintosh.
What was Charlotte Holmes waiting for? Mr. Baxter took extra precautions with the woman but de Lacey suspected that his overlord gave her too much credit. Every hour of delay further confirmed his suspicions. Wasn’t it much more likely that Lord Ingram, a well-born, well-educated, and obviously intelligent man, was the true brains behind Sherlock Holmes, rather than a chit smothered in lace and ruffles?
Now, because he was no longer there, she was mired in inaction.
And de Lacey could not proceed to the next step until Miss Baxter had acted against Charlotte Holmes.
The next day, too, dragged on. The only event of note was that the Garden’s charabanc, with some of its benches taken off, drove out and returned later with two great big metal drums. The spy reported that Miss Baxter took receipt of them.
It rained most of the time. The sky at last cleared around sunset, but a piercing wind picked up. De Lacey, huddled near an Etna stove, cursed under his breath and prayed that Mr. Baxter would not grow too impatient.
Night came cold and swift. He ate from a tin of beans and thought longingly of dinners past in rooms with blazing grates, free-flowing wine, and gleaming silverware.
Hours crawled by. At midnight he shook awake two sleeping men and sent them to replace the patrol team that circled the compound. The two new patrols, one marching clockwise, the other counterclockwise, met by the gate three times before the gate opened a crack. The moon was new but the clear night was ablaze with stars. Their frosty glow had chilled de Lacey to the bone earlier, but now he was thankful; the starlight limned the cloaked figure of a woman.
Charlotte Holmes, at last on the move.
He woke up two more men, set one to watch the gate and brought the other with him. They followed Charlotte Holmes. From time to time she opened the shutter on a pocket lantern to see in the dark. Several times she glanced southeast toward the Garden, but never in their direction, southwest of her.
After another few minutes she opened the shutter on her lantern again and swept the light eastward. She walked faster, then broke into a run toward a rise that jutted out to sea. At the top of the rise she stopped, her lantern shining on a row of three tombstones.
De Lacey had seen his share of deaths and his own hands weren’t all that clean. Still, the dark silhouettes of the tombstones, abruptly lit against the night, halted him in his tracks.
It must have made Charlotte Holmes’s knees weak: She sank to the ground. De Lacey nudged his man, reminding him to walk more quietly. They approached the rise and hid behind an outcrop. Only then did de Lacey realize that the woman was eating. She drank from a canteen and said, “I hate being up in the middle of the night but biscuits do taste marvelous at odd hours.”
He tensed. Had she discovered them? But she seemed to have been talking to herself. She ate another piece of something, drank again from the canteen, dusted off her hands, and rose.
An umbrella and a large cloth bag had been set against the center tombstone. From the cloth bag she pulled out a shovel and sank it once into each of the three graves.
“Yes, this one is definitely much looser,” she said at the rightmost grave, and began digging in earnest.
Early in his career de Lacey had dug graves to dispose of bodies. It was hard work. But digging up the same soil for the third time must be much easier. Yes, the third time. He remembered from the dossier that several members of the Garden had died of pneumonia and been buried on the headlands. Judging by what Charlotte Holmes had just said, she suspected that one of the graves had been dug up recently. For the purpose of placing another body inside the coffin?
The coffin was not buried deep. She finished digging with only one rest, and then applied the claw of a hammer to nails from the lid of the coffin.
De Lacey’s man tapped him on his shoulder and pointed. He squinted. Two figures emerged from the night.