Dear Treadles,
Enclosed please find a transcript of my interview with Becky Birtle. Constable Small, who came with me, takes excellent shorthand. You may be certain of the accuracy of the document.
The girl was a bit of an odd bird. Thinks very highly of herself. The parents are all right, solid, salt-of-the-earth sorts. They were befuddled by the whole affair and sought reassurance several times that their daughter wasn’t in any trouble.
Anyway, glad to render a service—delighted, in fact. Let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.
Waller
Treadles picked up the transcript. Becky Birtle’s version of events didn’t accord in every detail with those given by Mrs. Cornish and Mrs. Meek—a good thing, or it would lead him to think she had been tutored in her answers. But all three women’s accounts agreed enough that minor disparities could be attributed to the vagaries of human memory.
Her description of the twenty-four hours before also did not differ too much from everyone else’s: household duties, an afternoon spent with the vicar’s wife, who organized activities so that girls in service didn’t get into trouble on their half days and Sundays, and a return to Curry House in the evening for supper and bed. She complained about Mrs. Meek’s food, “so bland, but she’s a nice woman,” and about being locked in nightly with Jenny Price, “as if we was chickens in a coop, with weasels prowling outside.” And she’d have had more to say about Mrs. Cornish’s strictness, but Inspector Waller moved on from the subject.
An exchange toward the end of the interview caught Treadles’s eye.
Now most likely your Mr. Sackville died of an accidental overdose, but since we can’t be sure yet, I have to ask you this: Do you know of anyone who might wish him harm?—You mean someone killed him? I knew it. I knew it the moment I heard that letter at the inquest.
I implied nothing of the sort. He could have committed suicide, for all we know.—Not him, not Mr. Sackville. He told me he wanted to live to a hundred twenty.
He did? When?—Not long ago.
Under what circumstances did he tell you that?—I took a walk one Sunday afternoon, a couple of weeks after I started working at Curry House, and he did the same. We ran into each other right above the cove. I said I was sorry that it happened, but he said not to apologize. He said of course I’d want to have a stroll on a beautiful spring day. Said he looked forward to every spring. More so now that he was older and there wouldn’t be as many springs left for him. I told him he was going to live to a hundred. And he said he much preferred carrying on another twenty years past that.
I see. So you would swear on a Bible that he wouldn’t take his own life.—I would, Inspector. I’d swear on a stack of Bibles taller than me.
Then do you know anyone who might have a grudge against him?—I say them what be good and generous always have people who hates them.
Anyone specific?—His brother.
His brother?—Yes.
Have you met his brother?—No, his brother is some high and mighty lordship.
Then how do you know?—Mr. Sackville told me, of course. He said his brother would be happy if he were dead.
Ever since Treadles took on the investigation, he had been trying to arrange an interview with Lord Sheridan. And the next of kin to Lady Amelia Drummond and Lady Shrewsbury.
The ladies’ relations flatly refused to have anything to do with the police. Lord Shrewsbury—Lady Shrewsbury’s firstborn son and the current baron—went so far as to call Sherlock Holmes “a ghoulish, depraved rumormonger” and characterized Treadles’s professional interest as “shamelessly intruding on a family’s private grief.” But after some more back-and-forth with Lord Sheridan’s secretary, Treadles did manage to gain an appointment with the man’s employer.
The Sheridans’ address, unless Treadles was mistaken, placed their dwelling close to Lord Ingram’s, though not on the same street. Treadles had never seen Lord Ingram’s town house and found himself curious.
But first, business.
The Sheridan residence was third in a row of town houses, in white stone and stucco, with wrought-iron railings and a small portico above the entrance. A dour-looking footman opened the door and conducted them to a study.
The sight of an entire wall of books, as always, was delightful. As for the rest of the room—Treadles was no expert on the furnishing of houses, but even to his relatively untrained eye, the study appeared . . . threadbare. Literally so, in places. The two padded chairs set against the far wall should have been reupholstered years ago. The curtains, too, looked sorry. The carpet, which had once probably cost a fortune, was now in its most heavily trod areas barely thicker than a tea towel.