Page 88 of A Conspiracy in Belgravia
And that, indeed, was the keyword to the Vigenère cipher.
When Miss Holmes arrived home an hour after luncheon, Mrs. Watson leaped to brief her on what she had learned. “Mrs. Burns worked in Lady Ingram’s household—well, her parents’ household to be exact, during the time they lived in Oxford.”
Miss Holmes paused only minutely in the removal of her hat. “I must head out soon after tea, ma’am. Will you mind telling me the rest while we practicecanne de combat?”
Mrs. Watson was taken aback. She and Penelope usually had to remind Miss Holmes, who preferred to remain seated, that she must take the time to hone her self-defense skills. This marked the first time Miss Holmes had taken the initiative.
“Of course.”
They changed and met in the gymnasium, where Mrs. Watson put Miss Holmes through the usual opening exercises.
“Come at me a little harder,” said Miss Holmes. “And please continue with what you learned from Mrs. Burns.”
Mrs. Watson swung her walking stick with greater force. Miss Holmes staggered.
“Oh, come. Don’t let an old lady overpower you. Now where was I? Ah yes. Mrs. Burns had been working for Lady Ingram’s mother’s cousin at the time. The cousin had plans of going abroad for six months with her sisters and they didn’t want to take more than one maid, so Mrs. Burns was loaned to Mrs. Greville as a favor, since the Grevilles didn’t take their own staff with them to Oxford—didn’t want it getting out that they were living in relative squalor nearby, rather than off on a grand tour in Europe.”
Miss Holmes parried strongly and ducked under Mrs. Watson’s next swing with a flash of agility that Mrs. Watson didn’t normally associate with the young woman. “Good! Move those feet!”
“I move my feet. It’s the rest of me that doesn’t follow soon enough.”
“So there Mrs. Burns was, in that odd household.” Mrs. Watson went back to her account. “The boys should have been in school but there was no money for it. Their father taught them as best as he could, but he’d forgotten most of his Latin and Greek. She said the boys were ignorant. The younger one didn’t care, but the elder one felt bad about it.”
“And their sister? You must have asked Mrs. Burns about her.”
“Mrs. Burns said that her main impression of Lady Ingram at that age was one of frustration.” Mrs. Watson hesitated a moment, almost exposing her weapon arm to Miss Holmes’s attack—the girl might be inexperienced, but she knew how to spot an opportunity. She barely sidestepped Miss Holmes’s stick. “A frustration that approached rage, at times.”
“Lady Ingram would have been about sixteen or seventeen at the time?”
“Seventeen, I think. It was the winter of that year.”
Miss Holmes darted to the side and pushed off against the wall to avoid being backed into a corner. “When I learned that my father’s first fiancée had jilted him for having sired a child out of wedlock, I thought that fathering an illegitimate son in and of itself had been the cause of that rejection—even though most men are not held particularly accountable for such mishaps. It was only later that I realized what must have happened—that he had impregnated a servant while he was courting Lady Amelia Drummond and she rejected him for his faithlessness.
“Given that he married my mother on the day he was originally supposed to marry Lady Amelia—Mr. Finch is at most a year older than Henrietta, my eldest sister. Which would have made him around twenty-three that winter.”
Two young people, both hemmed in by their circumstances. “Do you think Lady Ingram was frustrated because she couldn’t be with Mr. Finch?” asked Mrs. Watson. “And do you think Mr. Finch allowed himself to be recruited by Moriarty because of the frustration of not being able to marry Lady Ingram?”
“I don’t know when Mr. Finch decided to throw in his lot with Moriarty. Stephen Marbleton wasn’t privy to that information.”
Miss Holmes lurched to the left, but not fast enough. Mrs. Watson’s stick connected with her upper arm. Miss Holmes winced.
“You are tiring again, my dear. You need to develop stamina—which will only happen by devoting more time to exercise.” The more mischievous part of Mrs. Watson’s mind wondered whether she couldn’t stick out a foot and trip the young woman, but the more compassionate side decided that before she did so, she must add some paddings around the room. “Have you noticed, by the way, that in recent years, there has been an undercurrent of anger to Lady Ingram—which hadn’t been there when she first came onto the scene?”
“There’s always been an undercurrent of anger to Lady Ingram—just as there has always been one to my sister Livia. Except that Lady Ingram disguised hers far better.”
Miss Holmes threw up a hand to indicate that she needed a breather. She leaned against the wall, her shoulders drooping. “By the way, ma’am, would you happen to have a weighted parasol—or something similar to that?”
“Mr. Gillespie is out visiting a client—and not expected back today,” said his flustered secretary, a young man with a ruddy complexion.
Instead of pointing out that she had seen Mr. Gillespie’s walking stick, emblazoned on top with his initials, in the umbrella stand in the vestibule, Charlotte smiled. “I don’t need to see Mr. Gillespie. I’m sure, as his trusted right-hand man, Mr.—”
“Parsons.”
“Yes, Mr. Parsons. I’m sure you can help me with my simple inquiry.”
“I’m afraid I can’t either, miss. You see, I—I’ve been given permission to close the office early—as of this moment, in fact—to meet my—my mother’s train. She’s coming to town to visit and I don’t want her to be alone at Waterloo Station.”
His color had changed from pink to scarlet in under a minute. Fascinating how some people’s faces betrayed them when they lied, not that she couldn’t already tell from the half-finished letter in the typewriter—among other clues on his desk—that he was very much still in the middle of his working hours.
