A Conspiracy in Belgravia (Lady Sherlock #2)

Lady Ingram smiled. “If you’ll excuse me, Miss Holmes, I believe I’m needed at home.”

Long after they had parted company, Livia still saw Lady Ingram in her mind’s eye, her smile full of regret and desolation.



TUESDAY

Charlotte rubbed her eyes.

Livia was the night owl in the family, able to stay up for forty-eight hours at a stretch and need only a brief nap before she was good as new again. She also skipped meals without feeling the effects of an empty stomach. Charlotte, on the other hand, adhered to a rigorous schedule: She needed to be fed ’round the clock and enjoyed her sleep almost as much as she enjoyed her food.

Therefore, Charlotte was not accustomed to scraping along on four hours of sleep. But that was all she’d had the past two nights thanks to the onerous Vigenère cipher from Lord Bancroft’s dossier.

But better that than lying in bed thinking about Lord Ingram, Lady Ingram, and Mr. Finch. Not to mention Lord Bancroft’s proposal.

She rubbed her eyes again. She must look lively. Sherlock Holmes’s next client was already here. The parlor door opened and Mrs. Watson ushered in Mrs. Morris.

Mrs. Morris, according to her letter, was married to a naval captain currently at sea. In his absence she had decamped to London to look after her aging father.

The aging father had been a physician in his prime: The handbag Mrs. Morris carried was larger and sturdier than the usual ladies’ accessory and would have served capably as a doctor’s bag in its former life. In fact, it must have been a doctor’s bag very recently—it was new enough to have been acquired within the past year.

So the good doctor had retired not long ago—and since he wouldn’t have invested in a new bag knowing he was quitting the practice, the retirement must have been a somewhat abrupt decision.

As Mrs. Morris set down the rain-flecked bag, Charlotte noticed that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Nor did her ring finger show the telltale mark left by a ring that had recently been taken off for cleaning.

“Mrs. Morris to see you, miss,” said Mrs. Watson.

Charlotte shook hands with the woman, who was in her midthirties, pretty in an anemic fashion, her demeanor eager but brittle.

The usual pantomime ensued. Tea was offered. Mrs. Watson left to sit with “Sherlock Holmes.” This was usually the point at which Charlotte asked her clients whether they needed proof of Sherlock’s deductive powers. But to Mrs. Morris she wasn’t sure whether she ought to mention anything she had observed.

Regulations to the contrary, for as long as there had been a navy, the wives of naval officers—not all of them, but the more intrepid ones—had gone on tours of duty with their husbands. And if Mrs. Morris didn’t care for life as one of a handful of women sharing cramped quarters with an overwhelmingly male population, she could always travel to ports of call where her husband would be spending considerable amounts of time ashore.

But Charlotte wasn’t convinced that Captain Morris was in fact at sea.

Or that Mrs. Morris was staying with her father solely because she wished to look after the latter.

She had arrived on foot. But the debris clinging to the soles and edges of her boots made it clear that she hadn’t been slogging through the streets of London. Rather, she had taken a walk in Regent’s Park. A vigorous one, too, judging by the grimy streaks on the inside of her boots, which could only have been made by herself.

It was not pouring outside—that had happened during the small hours of the night, while Charlotte was still bent over the Vigenère cipher. But it was drizzling and had been for a while. Would a woman who thought this a good day for a brisk walk in the park shy away from traveling the world with her husband?

More importantly, she was wearing her second-best pair of Wellington boots.

If one didn’t count the pair Henrietta had left behind when she got married, Charlotte didn’t have galoshes—not even in the country, as she preferred to enjoy rainy days from inside a firmly shut window, with a cup of hot cocoa by her side.

Livia, however, lived in her Wellington boots. And she had a second-best pair, which were ancient and used when she was certain she’d face plenty of sludge on her walk. As opposed to her best pair, donned when she suspected she might encounter, but still had hopes of avoiding, muddy puddles.

Even Livia brought only her best pair to London.

Would a woman who was only visiting bring her second-best pair?

“You mentioned in your letter, Mrs. Morris, that you learned about my brother from Mrs. Gleason, who came to see him not too long ago.”

“That’s right. Mrs. Gleason and I belong to the same charity knitting circle and she had nothing but high praise for you. So yesterday, when I couldn’t possibly go another moment without speaking to someone about my fears, I thought of you. Thank you for seeing me so soon.”

They could scarcely make her wait, when she wrote that she was afraid for her health, and possibly even her life.

“Not at all. Given that you’ve spoken to Mrs. Gleason, I assume you are familiar with how I help my brother in his work.”

“Yes. Mrs. Gleason’s account gave me every confidence in Mr. Holmes.”

“Excellent, now how may we help you?”

“I believe I told you that when my husband is at sea, I stay in London with my father,” began Mrs. Morris. “London is a livelier place, of course, but I also promised my mother, before she passed away, that I would always look after my father. Her own father, you see, retired at sixty and promptly went into a decline.

“My father was a very successful physician. He and his old housekeeper, dear Mrs. Foster, retired at about the same time. The new housekeeper, Mrs. Burns, came highly recommended. And I can’t complain about her work. But—” Mrs. Morris twisted her handkerchief. “But with my father home so much, I’m afraid, well, I’m afraid it has led to designs on Mrs. Burns’s part.”

“Oh?”

That simple prompt seemed to provoke a fit of uncertainty. Mrs. Morris reddened, swallowed, and twisted her handkerchief some more. “I hope Mr. Holmes doesn’t think me ridiculous. After all, even as great a mind as his can’t prevent Mrs. Burns from wooing my father. But that isn’t all she is doing. I’ve reason to believe she’s trying to poison me.”

Charlotte had more or less expected such an account: To someone in Mrs. Morris’s position, danger was more likely to arise from inside her own household.

“What brought on this particular concern?” she asked.

“I know I don’t look it, but I’m in exceedingly robust health—everyone will tell you that. I never have the sniffles, never need smelling salts, never have any aches and pains at all. My father says that I can eat rocks and horseshoes without being the worse off. But this week I felt awful twice, both times after eating biscuits made by Mrs. Burns. And no one else in the house was the least bit unwell.”