A Conspiracy in Belgravia (Lady Sherlock #2)

Miss Holmes shook her head. “I was on my own for a short while—I have not forgotten what that was like. The life I lead now is a luxury. You make that life possible, ma’am. I’m sorry that I made you worry, but I’m not sorry that I have someone who worries for me.”

It dawned on Mrs. Watson that Miss Holmes wasn’t speaking only of this moment. She was also addressing the fact that, unbeknownst to her then, Mrs. Watson had first approached her and offered her aid at Lord Ingram’s behest.

And she wanted Mrs. Watson to know that it did not affect her commitment to their partnership—and their friendship.

“Oh, you’re back, Miss Holmes!” Penelope flounced into the room. “How do you do?”

They all sat down. Almost immediately, Miss Holmes turned the conversation to what Penelope had done this day with the de Blois ladies. Penelope gladly related their little adventures while Miss Holmes listened attentively. Mrs. Watson, who had already heard an account of Penelope’s day earlier, pondered that a stranger could so swiftly become such an integral part of her existence that it was difficult to remember how she had lived before their meeting.

Polly, one of the housemaids, came with the tea tray. Usually Mr. Mears attended at tea, but he was in Gloucestershire for a niece’s wedding and a grandnephew’s christening, and not expected back until late on Tuesday.

“Does this mean we’ll need to wait until Wednesday to verify that Mr. Finch has returned from his holiday?” asked Penelope, pouring for everyone.

“Another two days shouldn’t make too much difference,” said Miss Holmes.

Mrs. Watson wished she could be as detached. Each day since Lady Ingram’s call had felt like an age of the world and she had been wondering with increasing urgency how they could have more news sooner. She did have another man in her employ. Alas, Lawson, her groom and coachman, was no actor. She supposed she could ask Rosie and Polly whether they knew anyone in service in that area, but the likelihood of any useful answers coming from that direction seemed infinitesimal.

“I have an idea,” announced Penelope.

Miss Holmes lifted the sandwich plate toward her. “Let’s hear it.”

“Thank you,” said Penelope, taking three of the finger sandwiches. “At medical school, Mademoiselle de Blois organizes visits to districts in Paris where people can’t afford to see doctors or buy medicine. But we also go to the wealthy arrondissements, to speak with women in service. In the bigger mansions we would first call on the housekeeper to make the arrangements. But at a smaller household, if we arrive when they are not too busy, we might speak to everyone right away over a cup of coffee.”

“You propose we carry out a similar visit to Mrs. Woods’s staff?” asked Miss Holmes.

“I daresay that would give us more solid intelligence on Mr. Finch than another call by Mr. Mears, pretending to be a solicitor. And I wouldn’t even need to lie. I will be exactly who I am, a medical student trying to do a little good on holiday. And I can visit more than one house on the same street, so that Mrs. Woods won’t feel that her place has been singled out.”

Mrs. Watson gazed at this dear, dear child, her lively confidence, her mischievous audacity—and worried. Lady Ingram’s heartbreak and the moral quagmire of the situation with regard to Lord Ingram aside, to Penelope this was still all fun and games. But Mrs. Watson had seen how quickly a case could turn from merely intriguing to actively dangerous.

She hadn’t wanted Penelope to be at all involved in the consulting detective business. But now that the girl was, she didn’t want to clip Penelope’s wings, just as she didn’t want to curtail Miss Holmes’s freedom of movement, no matter how much the latter’s longer absences unsettled her.

“It’s a good idea,” she said. “But you shouldn’t go by yourself. I’ll come with you.”



They spent the rest of tea planning the specifics of their semi-ruse. In the end, it was decided that Miss Holmes would go with them, too, but under disguise. “You might still have to call on Mr. Finch in person at some point,” Mrs. Watson pointed out. “Better not for the servants to see you come in from both the service door and the front door—it might give rise to suspicions.”

The arrival of the post saw a tidy stack of missives for Penelope from her other friends and classmates. Delighted, Penelope excused herself to wallow in her reams of correspondence. Miss Holmes, on the other hand, seemed disappointed.

“Were you expecting a letter?”

“I haven’t heard from my sister in a while,” said Miss Holmes. “I did see her on Tuesday. And I did ask her to gather some intelligence on Lady Ingram for me. But it’s unlike Livia to wait until she’d accomplished that in order to write me.”

She fell silent, then murmured, rather cryptically, “I do say too much sometimes, especially on matters that are better off not brought up.”

While Mrs. Watson pondered whether she should ask Miss Holmes to explain herself, the latter sighed. “Anyway, there is something I need to tell you, ma’am, something to do with Sophia Lonsdale.”

Mrs. Watson sucked in a breath. “I thought we agreed we wouldn’t mention her again by that name.”

Like Miss Holmes, Sophia Lonsdale had been exiled from Society for her indiscretions, albeit a generation before. She had returned to England from abroad and consulted Sherlock Holmes. And that had led to a cascade of events that no one could have foreseen.

The world believed Sophia Lonsdale to have died many years ago, and she had come to Charlotte under an alias. At the end of l’affaire Sackville, Mrs. Watson and Miss Holmes had decided that she must have had an important and desperate reason to stage her own death—and that they would not compromise her safety by tossing her real name about willy-nilly.

“I wonder that she hadn’t given herself away,” mused Miss Holmes. “Pattern of action can be as recognizable as speech or handwriting. Here’s a woman who tries to accomplish goals without betraying her involvement. What if her husband saw the newspaper reports, remembered that one of the central parties had been a close friend of hers, and suspected that she might have had a part to play?”

“The husband who thinks she is dead?”

“What if he already had some inkling that her death was a ruse?”

Mrs. Watson tensed. “Have you heard from her, Miss Holmes? Is she in trouble?”

“I haven’t heard from her at all, but Lord Ingram has reason to believe that someone—or more than one person—has been watching your house since earlier in the week.”

Having Sherlock Holmes offer his services to the public had been Mrs. Watson’s idea. An exceedingly splendid idea, she had believed. But all splendid ideas came with their inevitable drawbacks. The undertaking, engrossing and rewarding in the main, had also been at times more than a little troubling.