A Study In Scarlet Women (17 page)

Lord Ingram spied him. “Inspector, what an unexpected pleasure.”

They shook hands. Treadles, praying his face wasn't as red as he imagined it must be, introduced Sergeant MacDonald to his lordship, who then turned to his wife. “Lady Ingram, allow me to present two of the Criminal Investigation Department's finest, Inspector Treadles and Sergeant MacDonald.”

“A pleasure, I'm sure,” said Lady Ingram with a fixed smile. “I will leave you gentlemen to discuss important affairs. Good day, Inspector. Good day, Sergeant.”

Treadles and MacDonald bowed. Lord Ingram inclined his head. When Lady Ingram had disappeared into the house, Lord Ingram asked, “Are you on duty, gentlemen?”

“We are, but we have completed our interview—for now.”

“Excellent. If you have a moment, I'd like my children to meet you. They are in the park.”

The children, an elfin girl of about five and a sturdy-looking boy maybe a year younger, were busy building what looked to be a miniature tent with small twigs, under the supervision of a nanny. At the sight of their father they rushed toward him and excitedly told him about their castle.

Lord Ingram did the honors. The two policemen and the two Ashburton children shook hands, warmly on both sides, for the children were friendly, curious, and full of pep.

Lord Ingram promised his children that he would return and help them with the castle, and then he walked the police officers out of the park.

“Any headways in your investigation, Inspector?”

Treadles shook his head. “I'm afraid not. A few tantalizing
glimmers here and there, but nothing that translates into solid evidence that would persuade any jury in the land.”

Lord Ingram looked disappointed, but not surprised. “This was never going to be an easy case. I can't thank you enough, Inspector, for taking it on.”

“For Sherlock Holmes, it's the least I could do,” said Treadles, feeling warm and bolstered by Lord Ingram's words.

“If there's anything I can do to help, please don't hesitate to let me know.”

“There is, in fact.” If Treadles had not run into Lord Ingram, he would have sent round a note very soon. “I'd be most obliged if a discreet inquiry could be made to the cause behind Lord Sheridan and Mr. Sackville's estrangement. The families of the deceased ladies have categorically refused to be of any help. So Mr. Sackville is our only opening.”

Lord Ingram thought for a moment. “There is someone I can approach for this purpose.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Treadles had every faith Lord Ingram would see to the matter promptly. “Have you any news from Holmes, by the way?”

Treadles had asked to see the letter to the coroner while he'd been in Devon. While the letter itself was undated, the postmark was two days after Holmes's misfortune. Most likely, someone close to him had discovered the letter afterward and dispatched it to its intended recipient. But Treadles still held out hope that Holmes might have recovered.

“No, I've had no news at all from Holmes,” said Lord Ingram. Then, for the first time in their acquaintance, he asked of Treadles, “And you, Inspector? Have you heard from Holmes?”

Treadles shook his head. After he'd taken on the investigation,
he had indeed sent a note to Holmes—to the General Post Office, as Lord Ingram once mentioned he had. The letter might as well have been dropped into the Thames, for all the response he'd received. “But I plan to carry on and do as much as possible.”

In the little time that remained.

“I am most grateful.” Lord Ingram shook Treadles's hand. “And Holmes would be, too, if Holmes but knew.”

C
harlotte did know of Inspector Treadles's involvement—she'd received his letter—but sometimes gratitude wasn't enough to get a woman out of bed.

She had not packed an umbrella when she left home. Of course not. A parasol was an accessory for a lady. An umbrella, not so. When she'd had a bit of money in reserve, there had been no precipitation. And now that one cloudburst followed another, she could no longer afford any rain gear.

Or so she told herself, for an excuse not to go out to be met with further disappointments.

All the better options had been taken from her. Had she prowled the city with energy and determination, she'd still have returned footsore and empty-handed. The schools were closed to her. The professions were closed to her. Just about anything that had a possibility of a satisfying career was closed to her.

She could go into domestic service, but her age factored against her: Women who spent their working life in service often started when they were eleven or twelve. Someone as old as she should have already worked her way up to the position of a lady's maid or an underhousekeeper. She didn't mind scrubbing pots and pans alongside tweenies,
but that didn't mean the person who did the hiring, the housekeeper or the cook, would want her about.

Which meant she must lie and pretend to have experience and references. She had read Mrs. Beeton's
Book of Household Management
from end to end. She knew that turpentine could remove stains from clothing and that spirit of wine was good for cleaning pokers.

But domestic service had its own drawbacks. In smaller households she might be harassed by her employer or other servants. In larger households, run with military precision, she was safer from unwanted attention—she might never see her employer except once a year at the servants' ball. But she faced a greater risk that someone might recognize her, leading to her expulsion—or to being blackmailed.

Was it any wonder she had spent most of the day staring at the ceiling? Why expend the energy—and wear out the soles of her boots—just so she could spend the next several years on her knees cleaning out grates while fearing either the son of the house or a sharp-eyed fellow servant who might have seen her from her pre-scandal days?

Much better to stay put. That way she'd at least be less hungry.

But when the rain stopped, she left for her daily pilgrimage to the General Post Office, in the hope that there would be a letter from Livia or Inspector Treadles—she hadn't heard from him again after he embarked on his investigation.

Temperatures had dropped. Unlike Livia, Charlotte enjoyed leaden skies and daylong drizzle. Even better if they coincided with raw winds that rattled roof tiles, while the last few brown leaves shivered on bare, swaying branches.

But winter was a pleasure only for those who could afford it. Who could sit before a blazing fire, a steaming mug of mulled cider in hand, and watch the storm pelt against windowpanes while nibbling on a slice of still-warm plum cake.

Winter would not be at all enjoyable for a woman who didn't even possess a winter coat anymore. Who had only enough money to last her two more weeks in the city, provided nothing untoward happened in the meanwhile.

At the end of those two weeks, if she hadn't experienced a sudden reversal of fortune, she would need to swallow her pride and go to a man.

Besides her father, there were two men she could call on. One she didn't want to visit because she wasn't sure whether he would help her. The other gave her pause because he would—and she would rather not need his help if she could at all avoid it.

No good choices. But then, what had she expected? Even before she ran away from home, she had reached a point where every choice was unhappy and every decision costly.

When summer ended, it would be an eternity before summer returned again.

As if to further emphasize how far she'd fallen from grace, it poured anew, forcing her to seek shelter beneath the awning of a printer's shop, so that the rain wouldn't ruin either her hat or the hem of her dress.

A long quarter hour to stand in place and stare into a future the unknowns of which were becoming all too grimly clear.

The rain lightened and became scarcely damper than mist. Charlotte set out again. She took a different route to the post office these days, since she was coming from a different direction, bypassing the spot held by the mother-and-daughter beggar-and-thief team. But whenever she was in the vicinity, she still looked about, not so much afraid of being stolen from again as fearing the mortification if she were to run into them.

The beggars were nowhere in sight. But the man who had waited out the rain across the street from her was twenty feet behind.

Was he following her?

She hadn't feared for the safety of her person in broad daylight. But now unsavory possibilities bombarded her. After a minute, she looked again. But he was no longer there.

Had it been a figment of her imagination? Had the man simply been on his way to his own destination?

She turned onto St. Martin's Le Grand and stopped under the side portico of the post office's façade. If the man were following her, he would catch up to her at some point and she'd see him.

She saw no one who resembled the man, but the beautifully overdressed woman from the other day walked past, staring down at a stack of mail in her hand. With every step, she shuffled the letter on top to the bottom, a sharp line creasing her lovely brow.

A herd of men came around the corner, obscuring Charlotte's view of the woman. She studied the men: None of them proved to be the one she suspected of following her.

When they had all passed, she saw a letter lying at the edge of the portico. When no one rushed back to claim it, she picked it up.

The letter, in a less-than-handsome script, was addressed to a Mrs. Jebediah. Mrs. Jebediah herself was already some distance away. Charlotte called after her; she didn't turn around, but headed inside a tea shop.

Sometimes Charlotte wondered what women did, before tea shops came along and provided venues where an unaccompanied female could dine respectably in public. She could only be thankful that this, at least, wasn't one of her problems.

The tea shop had a fair crowd, comprised mostly of those leaving work from the post office and other nearby establishments having a bite to eat before they set out for home. Against this backdrop of somberly attired men and women, Mrs. Jebediah was as easy to spot as a toucan among pigeons.

A waitress in a black dress and a long white apron hurried past, carrying a tea tray toward a table full of clerks. The aroma of eggs scrambled in plenty of good butter assaulted Charlotte.

She could not in good conscience complain about her current boarding home. It still clung to respectability—tooth and nail—and maintained a semblance of hygiene. For the price she paid, it was a miracle that any meals had been thrown into the bargain at all. She went to each supper full of gratitude, left still mostly hungry, and filled her tummy the rest of the time with two-day-old bread bought at steep discount from the bakery down the street.

So she wasn't starving—yet. But she also wasn't very far from crawling over broken glass to get to that plate of scrambled eggs and falling face-first into it.

She stared at the tea tray another moment before resuming her progress toward her quarry, who looked up in surprise as she approached.

“Mrs. Jebediah?”

“Y-yes?”

“I'm sorry to intrude, ma'am. But I believe you dropped this outside the post office.”

Mrs. Jebediah rose. “Why, yes. Thank you, Miss . . .”

Charlotte hesitated—she'd been brought up to be wary of introductions performed without a reliable third party known to both sides. “Holmes.”

“Delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Holmes.” Mrs. Jebediah smiled and gestured at a chair. “Please, won't you sit down?”

Charlotte's eyes widened. “Thank you, but no. I couldn't possibly impose.”

“Oh, poppycock, Miss Holmes,” said Mrs. Jebediah with gentle exasperation. “You can see plain as day that I am an old lady hoping for a bit of companionship. Now if you have pressing matters or more
interesting friends awaiting your attention—or if you routinely run from women past their prime who still dress like peacocks—let me know and we will say our good-byes. But if you only fear to impose, then shove a few useless rules of etiquette to the side and sit down.”

The wildest thought echoed in Charlotte's head. She felt as if she'd met her mother. Her real mother.

But still she hesitated.

A waitress came by and placed on Mrs. Jebediah's table a plate of scrambled eggs exactly like the one that had seduced Charlotte a minute earlier. And a ham pie. And a ramekin of potted chicken. And finally, luxury of luxuries, red ripe strawberries accompanied by a jug of fresh, rich cream.

Charlotte's bottom found the chair quite on its own. “In that case, I shall boldly impose.”

“Excellent! Tea and a place setting for the young lady,” Mrs. Jebediah instructed the serving girl.

“Right away, mum.”

“As you can see, Miss Holmes, I've ordered too much. When I'm hungry, I want one of everything, somehow never remembering that I will be stuffed after two bites. But then food comes and I'm full of self-recrimination—how I hate letting anything go to waste. Would you mind sparing me those twinges of conscience?”

Charlotte once again surveyed the bounty before her. “I stand ready to undertake my duty to queen and country, ma'am. And your conscience, too.”

Mrs. Jebediah grinned. “I shall be in your debt, Miss Holmes.”

The waitress came back with plates and cutlery for Charlotte, and an empty cup. Mrs. Jebediah poured for her. “Milk? Sugar?”

“Yes, both.” Charlotte never thought she'd salivate over a cup of tea—and how. “I wish I had your problem of feeling full early and
often. For me, it's the opposite. I can't remember the last time I ate until I was completely satisfied.”

Mrs. Jebediah stilled. “Oh, my.”

Charlotte realized that her words might be misconstrued. “Please don't think that my circumstances stand between me and a full stomach.” At least not until lately. “It has been all for vanity, of course. I can sustain somewhere between one point five and one point six chins. But the moment I have more than that, my looks suffer catastrophically.”

Mrs. Jebediah laughed, startled. “But surely you exaggerate, my dear.”

“I assure you I do not. Via scientific trials, I have determined the precise weight, to the ounce, at which the shape of my face changes to my detriment.”

Mrs. Jebediah laughed again. “Goodness, Miss Holmes, but you are diverting to speak with. I am confident that at the moment you are at least a stone below that dreaded point on the scale. So shall we fall upon our feast?”

Her hostess, Charlotte was relieved to note, did not peck like a sparrow, but ate steadily if sedately—otherwise Charlotte would have felt conspicuous, gobbling up everything in sight.

The potted chicken, spread on richly buttered toast, had to be absolutely the most delicious thing she had ever eaten in her life. Until she reached the strawberries and cream, that was, which happened to be the most delicious thing to have ever existed in the history of the universe.

There were three strawberries left when Mrs. Jebediah asked, “Do tell me, Miss Holmes, what is it that you do with your rigorous and exacting mind? Surely you haven't devoted all your waking hours to experimenting with your chins and your intake of food.”

“Not all, but a good portion. At the moment, though, I'm trying to find a position as a typist.”

“But that would be a waste! Why not seek work that demands more of your abilities? I should hate to see you with your belly full but your mind criminally underused.”

“Most positions for women that use their minds rather than their labor require education and training, which eliminates me from consideration as I have none. And the rest, well, given what other positions are there, I'd consider myself lucky if I could become a typist.”

“You mustn't be so defeatist, Miss Holmes.”

“But I
am
being optimistic in hoping for a typist position. There are so few good positions and so many young women who must support themselves.”

“Ah, the woman question. But tell me, Miss Holmes, what do you think you are most well suited to do?”

Charlotte blinked in astonishment—no one had ever asked her that. “May I tell you a secret, ma'am?”

“Yes, I adore secrets.”

“I've always told my sister and my parents that I wished to be headmistress of a girls' school. But that's only because I'm greedy and a headmistress earns five hundred, possibly seven hundred, quid a year. The truth is I've no idea what on earth I could possibly do with my particular talent.”

Mrs. Jebediah leaned forward. “And what
is
your particular talent?”