Inspector Treadles lost count of the number of times he’d paced the street before Lord Ingram’s town house. He was about to give up and leave when a hansom cab disgorged his lordship, who seemed not at all surprised to find Treadles loitering and immediately invited him for a stroll.
Treadles gave a quick account of what happened at 18 Upper Baker Street. He braced himself for mortifying questions as to why in the world he had chosen to break into the home of an acquaintance, but Lord Ingram only nodded. “If you’ll permit me a few minutes, Inspector, you might find that what took place tonight on Upper Baker Street has some bearing on Mr. Sackville’s case.”
At first his narrative of Sherlock Holmes’s mysterious client only baffled Treadles. But when Lord Ingram reached the part where Frances Marbleton was identified to have been in Westward Ho!, Treadles stopped in his tracks. “The photographer and his assistant—the two young people who had come through the village five days before. I’ll bet they were the ones who swapped out the strychnine in the doctors’ dispensaries.”
“That is Holmes’s and my thinking also. And Stephen Marbleton broke into 18 Upper Baker Street in an attempt to retrieve the photonegatives they found missing.”
“That part makes sense. But what does Mrs. Marbleton, who may or may not be Sophia Lonsdale risen from death, have to do with anyone in this case?”
“We are still trying to find out. Will you meet with us tomorrow afternoon at two?”
“Yes, of course.”
Lord Ingram took out one of his cards and scrawled something on the back. “This is the address. I hope to know more by then.”
When Treadles at last reached home, his wife was already in bed. “Welcome back, Inspector,” she murmured as he slipped under the covers next to her. “Busy night?”
He exhaled. “I’ll tell you in the morning.”
“Everything all right?” asked Alice, wrapping an arm around him.
“I think so.”
A thousand and one questions swarmed in his head. His kingdom for a few absolute certainties!
But he did arrive at one definite answer: Nobody in Sherlock Holmes’s “condition” ought to be moved about willy-nilly. If he wasn’t there in his bed at night, then he most likely hadn’t been there during the day.
Treadles knew something of the circumstances of Lady Shrewsbury’s death. He knew about Miss Olivia Holmes, who had, in a drunken rage, called for Lady Shrewsbury’s imminent demise. He knew that when Sherlock Holmes’s letter to the coroner took effect, Miss Olivia Holmes had been the chief beneficiary. He also knew that Miss Olivia Holmes had a younger sister, who happened to have fallen from grace the exact same day disaster struck Sherlock Holmes.
Why he hadn’t put two and two together earlier he didn’t know. Except that the mind did not go where the mind did not want to go.
“You are wound up tight,” murmured Alice.
He stared into the dark. “Do you think an extraordinary woman ought to be treated differently, my dear?”
“Where did that question come from?” Alice chuckled softly. “And treated differently from whom? Other women?”
“Yes.”
“And how will this extraordinary woman be treated? As well as a slightly better-than-average man?”
“Better than that, I hope.”
“The extraordinary will always be treated differently—they’re extraordinary, after all. What I wonder is whether a not-so-extraordinary woman will ever be treated the same as a not-so-extraordinary man.”
Something in the tone of his wife’s voice made him turn toward her. “You wonder just now—or you’ve long wondered this?”
It caused a strange sensation, almost like panic, to realize that he didn’t know this about her.
She was silent for some time. “When I was ten, I told Father that someday I would like to run Cousins Manufacturing. He said that would not happen. I loved my father, you know that, and he was a wonderful man. But he was old-fashioned in this matter—he wanted his son to carry on his life’s work, even though Barnaby isn’t remotely suitable for it.
“It helped in a way, I suppose, that Father was firm and clear from the beginning that the business would go to Barnaby. And he did give me the latitude of choosing my own husband, instead of ordering me to marry a lordship for aristocratic connections. But yes, I have long wondered why I must content myself with being a spectator to the family enterprise, when I would have much preferred being a participant.”
“I . . . thought you were happy with what we have.” Treadles’s throat was suddenly dry.
“Of course I’m happy with what we have. You are the man I want by my side all my life. But that is not to say I wouldn’t have been good at managing and growing the business—and enjoyed that, too.”
Why didn’t you tell me earlier? he wanted to ask. Four years we’ve known each other, three as man and wife.
His heart was somewhere past his spleen. He felt small and lonely, even though nothing had changed.
Nothing at all.
Except the idea that he—and their life together—was enough for his wife.
And so much for his hope that someday he would be able to give her everything she had ever wanted.
Twenty-one