A Conspiracy in Belgravia (Lady Sherlock #2)

“You don’t sound particularly pleased by that idea,” Penelope pointed out.

“To be thought of as the perfect woman for a man isn’t a compliment to a woman, it’s more about how a man sees himself—and what he needs.” Miss Holmes sighed. “Should we marry, either I will be exhausted trying to keep his illusion intact—or Lord Bancroft will be severely disappointed in his choice. Likely both.”

Mrs. Watson couldn’t help herself. “What does Lord Ingram think of you?”

“Lord Ingram?” The movement of Miss Holmes’s lips could indicate either a smile or a moment of ruefulness. “He has always understood that I am one of the most imperfect women alive. Thank goodness.”





Seventeen





FRIDAY

Livia stared at the pages, amazed.

She was writing Sherlock Holmes’s story. And she did so with the mad speed of a convict about to face the gallows.

Two decisions had helped loosen the words. One, she opted not to begin the story with the origins of the crime. After all, the point was Sherlock Holmes. Two, after trying—and failing—to make him the narrator, she chose instead to use the fictional masculine equivalent of Mrs. Watson to fulfill the role.

And that was perfect. Watson was the embodiment of everyone who had ever stared at Charlotte in wonder and unease—and everyone who had ever said I could have guessed that, too, after they made Charlotte explain her deduction in painstaking detail.

They’d been to the crime scene. They’d visited a constable who hadn’t realized that the drunken loiterer at the scene was the murderer himself, coming back to find a sentimental item he had accidentally dropped. (Livia hadn’t decided what it would be yet. A cameo brooch? A locket? No matter, she could settle on something later.) And now Sherlock Holmes had ordered a newspaper notice about said sentimental item, in order to lure the murderer to him.

But would the murderer come?

Livia yawned. She’d been up since half past four, writing. And now it was almost seven. She didn’t want breakfast, but she did want some tea.

She went down to the breakfast parlor, poured herself a cup, and sat down with the paper. Almost immediately she spotted the new Cdaq Khuha message at the back.





CDAQKHUHAGDHRMNSNTQXQNSGDQXTSXDVAQD


DEARLIVIAHEISNOTOURBROTHERBUTBEWARE


She covered her mouth with her hands. He wasn’t their brother? He wasn’t their brother!

This was the best news she’d had in a long time.

She ran back upstairs, fell onto her bed, and lay there panting, speechless with relief. Thank God. Everything was still wrong with the picture, but thank God her feelings were no longer incestuous.

It was only after a solid five minutes that she sat up and frowned. Of course she would beware, but if he wasn’t their brother, then who was he?



De Lacy, the alleged murderer of Mr. Richard Hayward, even if he hadn’t been waterlogged, would still have been sizable.

After a good soak in the Thames, it became harder to tell whether he had been strong and burly or merely fat and soft.

Probably somewhere in between. Not someone Inspector Treadles would want to meet in a dark alley; but if he had met such a man in such a place, he also wouldn’t have been unduly afraid.

“Interesting scarf,” commented Sergeant MacDonald.

The man was indifferently dressed, except for the summer scarf of white and scarlet stripes around his neck, the colors so vivid that the pattern was unmistakable even under a layer of mud.

Inspector Treadles felt the material between his fingers. Silk, no doubt about it, lightweight yet strong. “You read the preliminary report, MacDonald. This is the scarf the pathologist said he’d been strangled with?”

“That’s his theory, sir. Said the bruises around the neck point to strangling. But he’ll have to open the man up and check the lungs before he can be sure that drowning wasn’t the cause of death.”

Treadles made one more circle around the slab on which the dead man lay. “Let’s speak to some witnesses.”



Charlotte had declined Mrs. Watson’s offer to make her look splotchy and at least fifteen years older. “I’m going to be sitting four feet across from him, ma’am,” she’d told Mrs. Watson. “A face full of makeup might make him pay more attention to me, rather than less.”

But now that she was sitting four feet across from Mr. Gillespie, she wondered whether she wouldn’t have been better off with “a face full of makeup.” He didn’t stare at her, but he had blinked rapidly a few times when they were shown into his office. Even though he seemed to be giving Miss Redmayne’s recital due attention, he kept rearranging items on his desk, as if he were his own overzealous secretary.

“Are you listening to me, Mr. Gillespie?” Miss Redmayne asked outright once.

The solicitor gave a pained smile. “Of course, miss. Do please go on.”

But it would appear that Miss Redmayne’s instincts were correct and he hadn’t paid the least attention to her, because now that he was forced to, he sat with wide eyes, blinking often, frowning almost as often, even shaking his head a few times, not a motion to indicate negation, but the kind of quick rattle one gave oneself in extraordinary situations to make sure one wasn’t dreaming.

Not exactly the sympathetic response one might have anticipated on the part of an older man faced with a pretty young woman’s tearful distress.

At the end of Miss Redmayne’s account of many woes, he studied her closely. “This is a joke, right, Miss—ah—”

“Miss Gibbons,” Miss Redmayne supplied helpfully.

“Right, Miss Gibbons. Surely this is all a prank.”

“How could you say that?” cried Miss Redmayne, with a convincing display of consternation.

“Because you are not the first woman to come in and give me this exact story about him.”

“What? What?!”

Miss Redmayne’s voice rose shrilly. The next moment she slumped over into Charlotte’s lap.

“Oh, dear. Oh, dear!” cried Charlotte with plenty of fearfulness, though she stopped short of actually wringing her hands.

“Shall I—shall I send for a doctor?” said Mr. Gillespie, with the expression of a man who wasn’t sure whether he ought to laugh or drink heavily.

Charlotte was of half a mind to ask the man outright whether he knew who she was, but decided to carry on with the charade. “The poor dear will be so embarrassed. Let’s see if she comes to on her own.”

They both stared at Miss Redmayne, Charlotte tapping her on the cheeks a few times. When Miss Redmayne showed no sign of “reviving,” Charlotte decided that the former meant for her to take over the conversation.

“I tried to warn her, Mr. Gillespie, I did. I told her that it was foolhardy trying to find a man who doesn’t want to be found. But you can’t tell young people anything, can you?”

“No, you cannot. Not these days.”

His expression was more under control. Had he, like her, opted to keep up the farce?

“Was the lady who came to see you a tall, slim, beautiful brunette with dark eyes, about twenty-six, a beauty mark at the corner of her mouth?”