Page 84 of A Conspiracy in Belgravia
“Yes, that persuasion. He had half a mind to join the theater—thought they wouldn’t be so repelled by his kind there.”
“He’s not altogether wrong. There are more of his kind in the theater than in the general population, I’d say. He’d have found it less lonely—and less dangerous. But that isn’t to say he would have been treated well by everyone, or that stagehands wouldn’t call him ugly names or make crude gestures when he walked by in his costume.”
“No utopias anywhere, eh?”
“I’m afraid not. This is all we’ve got.” Mrs. Watson let a beat pass. “And you, Mrs. Burns, I don’t mean to be forward, but you’re a beautiful woman. Has there ever been trouble for you in service?”
Mrs. Burns shrugged. “Frankly, I don’t think it matters whether a woman is all that good-looking when it comes to these things. A man doesn’t suddenly decide, in front of a beautiful woman, that it’s his due to have his hand up her skirt. If he’s that kind, maybe he’s more likely to do it when the woman is pretty. But even if she weren’t, he’d have done it anyway to please himself.”
A good answer, but not the one Mrs. Watson was looking for. “No trouble on that front with your master, I hope?”
“No, he’s all right, Dr. Swanson. Talks more than I need him to, but he’s all right.”
“What if he falls in love with you someday and comes with a marriage proposal?”
Mrs. Burns chortled. “Oh, there’s a thought. If he does that, I’ll tell him I prefer looking after him for money to looking after him for free.”
“Surely there must be other advantages to being a prosperous physician’s wife. You can lord over that annoying daughter of his, for one thing.”
“Tempting, but not tempting enough—I’d rather not see her face at all. Besides, I’ve got someone.” Mrs. Burns leaned in. “Her name is Gabrielle—she works for a rich widow with three daughters who want to be countesses. And one of these days we are going to retire to the south of France together.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Watson. “So the poor doctor has never had a chance.”
Mrs. Burns chortled again. “Now if he were a duke, maybe I’d have considered. I know duchesses go around and take lovers. But a doctor is going to expect me to be all prim and proper. Mind you, I am. There’s never been anyone for me except Gabrielle, but old Dr. Swanson would have an apoplectic attack if I told him I’d rather sleep with her than him.”
“Or he might ask to join you. You never know.”
Mrs. Burns gaped at Mrs. Watson before breaking into giggles. They laughed together for a minute, then started on a basket of potatoes.
“Hmm, the plot thickens—or does it thin?” asked Penelope. Her aunt was taking a nap and Miss Holmes had given a concise account of what Aunt Jo had learned at the soup kitchen—never a dull moment in the Sherlock Holmes business. “If Mrs. Burns isn’t the least bit interested in Dr. Swanson, then was Mrs. Morris deluding herself after all?”
“She hasn’t complained about her health since she first came to me,” said Miss Holmes. “On each of the subsequent occasions we met, she appeared to be in robust shape and glad for it.”
“So what do you plan to do?”
“I’ll call on Mrs. Morris again and ask a few more questions.”
Penelope shook her head, relieved it wasn’t her problem. They spoke a bit about the de Blois ladies, who had already sent two postcards from their travels. Then Penelope decided she’d put in enough small talk.
“Do you really carry suspicions concerning Lord Ingram, Miss Holmes?”
Miss Holmes’s face was Madonna-like in its serenity. “Not particularly.”
“But yesterday you told Aunt Jo that you thought it was possible that the man asking around after Mr. Finch could be him.”
“It could still be someone he sent.”
“Surely you don’t think he did away with Mr. Finch?”
“I don’t. But how can I be certain that he hadn’t tried to learn everything he could?”
Penelope tried to imagine Lord Ingram skulking about, secretly gathering information on Lady Ingram’s former swain. She couldn’t—but like Miss Holmes, neither could she completely dismiss that possibility. He might not love Lady Ingram anymore, but she was still his wife and the mother of his children. Who, except the person in those shoes, could be certain of what he had or hadn’t done?
“My father considers himself a clever man,” Miss Holmes went on, “and he believes my mother to be of mediocre intelligence. So he signaled his affairs to her in some subtle way. But as far as I can tell, she always knew well before he bothered to send those signals.
“A household can hide many secrets. But Lord Ingram is observant. Perhaps Lady Ingram has been able to conceal everything from him before this summer. But given her frenzy of activity in the wake of Mr. Finch’s disappearance, it’s not outlandish to suppose he has some idea that all is not well.”
“But that man we are talking about—the one you think Lord Ingram could have sent—he visited Mr. Finch’s village a month ago. And Mr. Finch’s disappearance was more recent than that.”
