A Conspiracy in Belgravia (Lady Sherlock #2)

“Oh, but that I do. It is listed on his application, which I have in my office. If you will wait a minute, Mrs. Cumberland.”

Mrs. Woods rushed off. Charlotte relaxed her face from the expression of barely-held-back disapproval that was Henrietta’s trademark. Henrietta used this technique a great deal, demanding a series of items she knew she couldn’t have, each time responding with greater dissatisfaction, until the beleaguered other party leaped with relief at a chance to prove her own knowledge, ability, or authority.

Mrs. Woods returned, holding two pieces of paper. “This is the list of references he provided. I have written down his employer’s address for you, Mrs. Cumberland.”

Charlotte accepted the offering. “Let me see his references.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

Charlotte scanned the three items on the list. Besides the London firm, there was a landlady in Oxfordshire and a solicitor in the same town. “Thank you. I will see myself out,” she said, handing back the references.

“Would you like to leave your address, ma’am, for him to call on you, in case he returns before you find him?”

“No,” Charlotte said with Henrietta’s utter certainty, “I will not be leaving my address. Mr. Finch may be blood, but I cannot receive him at home. Good evening, Mrs. Woods.”



“Only eight days since Lady Ingram came to us with her problem—and you are already a bona fide imposter, Miss Holmes,” said Miss Redmayne, in smiling approval.

“Much must be sacrificed in the pursuit of truth,” Charlotte replied modestly.

She expected Miss Redmayne to find her ploy entertaining—by and large Miss Redmayne still thought her involvement in the Sherlock Holmes business an amusing lark. Mrs. Watson, on the other hand, had always felt deeply uneasy about Lady Ingram and Mr. Finch—more so with each passing day. Her response to Charlotte’s account of her time at Mrs. Woods’s was a fretful silence, broken with a soft gasp.

“I almost forgot,” said Mrs. Watson. “A letter from the chemical analysts came on the late post.”

“Nothing from my sister?” asked Charlotte, without too much hope. Mrs. Watson would have already mentioned it, had there been a letter from Livia.

Mrs. Watson shook her head, her gaze sympathetic. “No, only the chemical analysts. They conducted every test in their repertoire and Mrs. Morris’s biscuits came back negative on all accounts.”

Charlotte wasn’t surprised—she didn’t think Mrs. Burns, the housekeeper, would have pulled such an obvious move on an already mistrustful Mrs. Morris. But she also didn’t think Mrs. Morris had made everything up. The latter had seemed a little sheepish in describing her robust constitution, but Charlotte suspected that she was secretly proud of that glowing health and took it as a sign that she had been favored in life.

“Do you know what I think, Miss Holmes?” said Mrs. Watson. “Mind you, I haven’t had proper medical training, unlike our future Dr. Redmayne here.”

From where she sat, Miss Redmayne sketched a bow.

“But I was married to a first-class doctor and that was a bit of an education in and of itself,” continued Mrs. Watson. “To me the symptoms Mrs. Morris described sound like a case of severe allergy. Nothing less, nothing more.”

“You could be right, ma’am,” said Charlotte. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Not all the biscuits Mrs. Morris had brought as evidence were sent for chemical analysis. Charlotte returned to her room, took out the one she had kept in a tin, broke off a small piece, and popped it into her mouth. A dessert biscuit, made with a substantial amount of butter in addition to the usual flour, sugar, and eggs. Charlotte was accustomed to dessert biscuits seasoned with ground ginger and cinnamon and liberally studded with currants, candied peels, and shredded coconut. Mrs. Burns’s dessert biscuit was much plainer, no spices, no confected fruits, only a hint of lemon zest.

Charlotte ate another morsel of the biscuit, stale but still edible. She wasn’t a true gourmet—not yet, in any case. But she possessed a nuanced enough palate, which confirmed that her initial judgment was correct: There was nothing in this biscuit except flour, butter, sugar, eggs—yolks only, to be accurate—and a pinch of grated lemon zest.

She finished the entire biscuit, scanning the rest of the post that had come for Sherlock Holmes. Nothing was the matter with her. She sat down before her vanity to brush her hair one hundred strokes. No incipient symptoms. She read the chapter on antimony in Poisons: Their Effect and Detection—A Manual for the Use of Analytical Chemists and Experts. And felt no different from how she normally did at this hour of the night.

So, no noxious substances in the biscuits. She supposed Mrs. Morris could be allergic to one of the ingredients in the biscuits, but they were such common ingredients that Mrs. Morris would have ingested four out of five when she’d eaten a tuile during her visit to 18 Upper Baker Street.

Could she possibly be allergic to lemons?

Charlotte dashed off a note.

Dear Mrs. Morris,

I submit the chemical analyst’s report. In brief, they could not find any trace of contaminants in the biscuits.

This does not, however, conclusively disprove your hypothesis.

If it is amenable to you, I would like my sister to inspect the domestic offices of your father’s house, preferably when the servants are away on their half day.

Yours,

Holmes



The letter on the desk remained blank. Livia’s favorite pen, which wrote with a velvety smoothness, stood in the inkwell. Livia herself sat before the desk, feet on the chair, arms around her knees, rocking back and forth, wishing she were dead.

She really ought to have written Charlotte as soon as she got home from the park on Sunday. But she couldn’t. Thinking about any part of that day and all she wanted to do was to whimper in a corner.

Dear God, what a disaster.

And she was so stupid. So stupid. When would she learn? When would she at last get it into her thick, moronic head that nothing good would ever happen to her?

What a disaster.

What an unmitigated catastrophe.





Twelve





TUESDAY

A startled doorkeeper admitted Inspector Treadles and Sergeant MacDonald, led them upstairs to a common room, then rushed off to knock on a door deeper in the dwelling. After several minutes, a man of about thirty-five, well-dressed and well-coiffed, came into the common room.

“Mr. Ainsley?” asked Treadles.

“The name’s Temple. I do for Mr. Ainsley.”

The valet, then. Treadles introduced himself and MacDonald. “Is Mr. Ainsley at home?”

“He is. But he’s never up at this hour, unless he’s just come back from a night on the town. Won’t you have a cup of tea?”