A Conspiracy in Belgravia (Lady Sherlock #2)

“Quite so. I understand he and Mr. Finch attended the same school—and were in the same residence house.”

So she was right, in a way, about Mr. Jenkins having been an orphan. What must it have been like, for young men such as her brother and Mr. Jenkins, to feel themselves not so much children of those distant, well-born fathers but bags of refuse that had been carelessly left behind? And was it any wonder that a man like Moriarty had easily garnered their trust and loyalty, at least in the beginning?

“Why did Messrs. Finch and Jenkins abscond with those plans?” she asked.

“On that I do not have reliable intelligence, only speculation.”

“And what is your speculation?”

“There might be something in those plans that could be used for blackmail—Moriarty pays well but not so well that a man wouldn’t still dream of a fortune.”

“Surely, such dreams must be tempered with fear of crossing Moriarty.”

“Which is why I’m not entirely sure of my own conjecture. Another possibility is that they wanted to leave Moriarty’s service—and believed that having the plans in their possession might ensure their safety.”

“Why have you involved yourself in all this? Shouldn’t it be your goal to stay away from Moriarty as much as possible?”

“For fifteen years, we’ve rarely remained more than three months in the same place—and when we did, when we thought we were safe and hidden . . .” He took a breath. “We want something on Moriarty. Something that would make him anxious about us instead. Something that would force him to leave us alone, because it would destroy him first.”

“And how did you hope to achieve that by impersonating Mr. Finch?”

“We couldn’t find him. So we had to hope that he would find us.”

“By approaching his family?”

“We thought that if we were blatant in our attempts to contact your family, perhaps it would vex your father enough to send strong words via solicitors, which would make Mr. Finch realize that there was an imposter.”

“And then what?”

“We wrote your father three times and gave our address each time. Our hope was that Mr. Finch, after he had heard from Sir Henry, would find us. Then we would offer him a bargain: the dossier in exchange for his safety.”

“How can you guarantee his safety? You can’t even guarantee your own.”

“And yet we are still alive, still more or less in one piece, after years of being wanted by Moriarty. Who else is better positioned to help him keep body and soul together?”

That much might be true. Mr. Hayward-cum-Jenkins certainly hadn’t been able to live as long after quitting Moriarty’s service.

“Speaking of keeping body and soul together . . . what happened to Miss Marbleton?”

“We went back to my place tonight at Mrs. Woods’s. After your midnight visit, her first thought was that it was Mr. Finch. She sent me a cable the next day. As she was trying to slip back into the house, she saw you speaking with Mrs. Woods. Since it was only you, we didn’t think there would be that much danger in going back. In fact, our main concern was to avoid being seen by Mrs. Woods.

“We wouldn’t have anticipated the ambush at all. Fortunately, Dr. Vickery arrived home from an evening out and entered his room while we were waiting in the service stairs for the passage to clear. That was when we saw our door open and close from the inside.

“We still thought most likely it was either you or Mr. Finch. But at least our guard was up . . . Long story short, we were able to shake our pursuers loose, eventually.”

“You are sure about that?”

“It happens to be our specialty.”

She certainly hoped so, since they were already on Mrs. Watson’s property. “Why did you come here, then?”

“I saw the letter my mother wrote you, toward the end of the Sackville affair. She is an excellent judge of character. If she trusts you, then I can trust you, too.”

“You weren’t concerned that this place might be watched?”

“Tonight Moriarty’s minions are watching the railway terminuses, since they expect us to flee.”

“I take this to mean that you’ve been to a railway terminus and found it under surveillance.”

“Precisely. Besides, I wanted to ask you a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Why are you looking for Mr. Finch?”

“I sought him on behalf of a client, an old friend of Mr. Finch’s with whom he had a standing appointment.”

Mr. Marbleton raised a brow. “Who’s the client?”

“I’m not at liberty to disclose that information.”

“And the client doesn’t know you are related to him?”

“That I can’t be one hundred percent sure. Did Mrs. Marbleton know that Sherlock Holmes was related to Myron Finch when she came to see me?”

“She called on you for a completely different matter.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“No, we didn’t know. But afterward, when we learned of the connection, we were certain you weren’t harboring him, at least not here, as we’d checked the place top to bottom. And it would be demented to hide him at Mrs. Watson’s, when you have an empty house here.”

Charlotte nodded, checked on the tea that had been steeping inside the teapot, and poured him a cup. “You have one more question, don’t you?”

He looked at her a minute. “I suppose I do. Is your sister well?”

“How many times did you meet with her?”

He added sugar to his tea. “Thrice.”

“More than necessary.”

Did he color a little? “Perhaps. Is she well?”

“Life is not easy for Livia—it has never been. She is an intelligent, discerning woman who believes her intelligence and discernment to be of no value.”

“You must have felt the pressure to believe the same.”

“Not at all. It took me a great deal of effort to understand that such pressure exists—I am not sensitive to the opinions of others, individually or as a collective. But Livia is. She is excruciatingly aware of what she is expected to be and how different that is from who she is. Not for a moment does she not feel her shortcomings.”

Stephen Marbleton took a sip of his tea—he held the cup with both hands, as if he were feeling cold. “Why are you telling me this?”

“So that you understand she is fragile, if you do not already realize that. She will not perish from a little flirtation, but she will suffer.”

“Are you warning me away from her?”

“No, but it behooves me to point out the likely consequences, so that should you choose to proceed, you do so in full awareness of them.”

She rose. “You must be weary. I will see myself out.”





Eighteen





SATURDAY

Charlotte rose early, took a basket of foodstuff from the kitchen, and called on 18 Upper Baker Street. She wasn’t surprised to see her uninvited guests gone, but she was rather impressed at how neat and untouched the place looked.

A note had been tucked under Sherlock’s pillow.

Thank you for your hospitality. We hope to meet again under more auspicious circumstances.