“A client you need to prepare for?”
“Oh, yes. At least an hour of preparation.”
He rolled his eyes. “You are up to no good, Charlotte Holmes.”
“You should try it sometimes. Or more precisely, you should return to it sometimes—you used to be excellent at being up to no good, your lordship.”
He did not rise to her goading, but asked, “Why did you ask me to wait for you on a street corner last night? And why did you look back several times after I got in the hackney? Are you again suspecting that you might be followed?”
“I was being followed. I changed vehicles three times before I could be sure I’d shaken my tail loose.”
“You think it’s the Marbletons?”
“I’d much rather it be someone you hired. Why would the Marbletons follow me?”
“Why did Mrs. Marbleton counterfeit a case for you to begin with? It isn’t safe, this Sherlock Holmes business.”
“Well, this next client is definitely safe,” she promised him. “Sherlock Holmes would give up the business altogether if this one proves anything but safe.”
A subdued Roger Shrewsbury walked into Sherlock Holmes’s parlor.
In advance of his visit, a hole had been drilled in the wall between the parlor and the bedroom—then concealed in such a way as to allow Charlotte to see into the parlor without herself being seen. But all that had been completed the day before, with help from a friend of Mrs. Watson’s who invented magic tricks. The one hour’s preparation Charlotte mentioned to Lord Ingram involved no further work on the flat, only further work on Mrs. Watson, begging her to not to be too hard on Roger Shrewsbury.
Mrs. Watson took on the role of Holmes’s sister. She briskly explained to the client the infelicities of the great detective’s health and the necessity for her to act as a go-between. Then, without asking Shrewsbury whether he needed to be reassured Holmes still had all his faculties, she said, “I can see that you have rarely been a man of your own mind, sir—you are surrounded by those accustomed to imposing their will on you, and you have been content to let them make your decisions. This then is quite a leap for you.”
“Yes,” came Shrewsbury’s hesitant words. “Yes, I suppose.”
“You mentioned nothing of what you wish to see Sherlock about, but he has hazarded that it has something to do with the circumstances surrounding your mother’s death.” Mrs. Watson smiled. “It couldn’t have been an easy decision to trust a stranger. My brother commends you for it.”
Her smile was so warm and encouraging, Charlotte would never have guessed that she had been adamantly against speaking any kind words to their caller. No, Sherlock Holmes ought to give him hell, expose him for the spineless cad he is.
The man probably believed, for at least forty-eight hours, that his conduct had been directly responsible for his mother’s death, Charlotte had explained. He’s useless, not heartless—not to mention we don’t want him to run out in mortification.
“I’m beyond gratified by Mr. Holmes’s understanding,” said Shrewsbury, sounding almost teary.
Charlotte sighed. The poor man, so unaccustomed to receiving a bit of compassion.
“He’s right—I’ve indeed come about my mother,” Shrewsbury continued. “When Mr. Holmes’s letter came about, linking her death with Lady Amelia’s and Mr. Sackville’s, everyone in the family was furious. But I—I couldn’t help wonder whether there wasn’t some truth to it, some nefarious conspiracy at work, if you will. My mother had the constitution of a camel. She could hike fifteen miles in the country, summer or winter. She never suffered from any aches or pains. And her physician, twenty years her junior, always said that her heart would keep on ticking long after his had given out.”
“So you agree with Sherlock’s assessment that hers hadn’t been a natural death.”
“I haven’t told anyone this, but the night before we found her dead, she went out. Now you must understand that it had been an awful evening. Nobody said anything at dinner. My wife was terribly upset because my mother scolded her for failing at her duties to keep me on the straight and narrow. I hadn’t received any lecture myself, but I was on pins and needles: It would be only a matter of time before mine crashed over me like an avalanche.
“As soon as dinner ended my wife retired for the evening. I hovered around my mother for a while, until she told me to go away—she’d deal with me the next day. It was oppressive at home, so I went out for a walk. And as I was coming back, I saw the most amazing sight, my mother getting inside a hansom cab.
“A hansom cab! She had never used a public conveyance in her life. She used to say that they smelled of unhygienic drunks and that she shuddered to think about the encrusted grime and filth. I couldn’t imagine what would have prompted her to get into a hansom cab when she was in town, with her own carriage parked in the mews behind the house, a quick summons away.”