“Where are Nurse Bryony’s things?” I asked, trying to sound like I knew the answer already and was just asking to confirm.
Milo Holmes ignored me. “I don’t scratch locks,” he said in a sonorous voice, smooth where his sister’s was rough. “That was my man Peterson. Wanted to have a go, and I thought there wasn’t any harm. We weren’t in a rush.”
He’d had all of ten minutes to clean out the living room. I hadn’t even seen him go in the door. No rush. Right.
“You’re very kind, sir,” one of the men said from the back, and resumed whistling. They were cracking open Bryony’s eggs now.
Holmes crossed her arms. “You do scratch. Every time. I do a very pretty one, as you well know. You should’ve waited for us.”
He drew on his cigarette. “You look better than I was expecting. My sources led me to believe that it was very bad, this time.”
I swallowed.
“Yes, well, it’s much less razor blades and three a.m. phone calls now, isn’t it, and much more saving my own neck from the noose.” It was easy for me to imagine them as children: Milo, inexorable as a tank, and Holmes, the dervish circling him. She was so restrained, most of the time, but when she wasn’t . . . well. Then, she said things like, “Tell me right now what you have done with my evidence or I will tell Mother about you spying on our fencing instructor in the shower.”
“You won’t. And you know very well what I’ve done with your evidence.”
Holmes cast one hateful look around the room. “New York? Honestly? And you’ve missed all the important parts. I was handling this. It was handled.”
“Handle August Moriarty’s ex-fiancée? Lottie, really.” (Lottie, I thought gleefully, despite myself. Lottie.) “You’re emotional. You really should have left this to the adults. Now that this idea of Mother’s has run its course, let’s bring you home. Boarding school? All wrong. We’ll put you in the London flat. I’m sure I could convince Professor Demarchelier to tutor you—”
“Milo, he hates me, and—”
“No, you aren’t thinking. What if they try to throw you in jail? Americans, with their prisons. My men would get you out before that, of course, but such a hassle. You always did like the skiing in Utah. I would want you to be able to come back. I’d want that, for you.”
It was becoming abundantly clear why Holmes didn’t want her family involved. Emotional? Leaving things to the adults? Sending her away? Skiing?
I was an idiot for calling him in. He could go straight to hell.
“I’d like to know what you’ve done with the evidence,” I said. It came out as a growl. “And how you knew to be here, at this flat.”
Milo arched an eyebrow. “Is this your bulldog?” he asked Holmes. There wasn’t any venom in it, but that didn’t make it better.
“This,” Holmes said, “is James Watson, my friend and colleague, and you will give him an answer.”
I stood up a bit straighter.
“My sister asked me a question yesterday,” Milo said. “Do you know the last time that happened? November 2009. Lottie doesn’t ask questions. She deduces and decides for herself. That alone would be enough to get me on a plane, particularly when that question has to do with a Moriarty. Thankfully, I was headed to New York already. And as for her things? This—this nurse?” He said nurse the way you’d say gelatinous slug. “This bank of flats has a very nice little alley behind it, and we sent away her possessions by armored car right as you walked in. My men at Greystone HQ in the city will sort through them, determine the appropriate angle, and return them to your Detective Ben Shepard.”
“By the city, he means New York,” Holmes said, not taking her eyes off her brother. “And by Greystone, he means the mercenary company currently razing the Middle East. Which he owns—Greystone, that is—and which apparently works as his personal honor guard, if the breakfast knights back there are any indication.”
“Glad to be of service,” Peterson called. The other one grunted.
“You know, none of this explains the Moriarty agent practicing your handwriting,” Milo said conversationally.
“No,” Holmes said. “But my ruining August’s life does. His fiancée’s decided to play avenging angel on his behalf.”
“Two separate people out to get you,” he mused. “You really are popular. I’m just not sure why you won’t come to the obvious conclusion—that the two of them are working together. That this Bryony Downs creature is in August Moriarty’s employ.”
Holmes set her chin.
“Fine, Lottie,” Milo sighed. “We’ll focus on the nurse, at least for now.”
“How is any of this efficient?” I asked him, changing the subject. “What is this woman going to do when she returns and finds out her things are gone?”
Milo coughed politely to hide his laugh. “We’ll have proof enough before her interview with Detective Shepard is over to have him charge her with murder.”
“And you know the facts of the case,” I said. “You know what you’re looking for, in her things.”