Page 47 of The Hollow of Fear
“I will not take umbrage on my own behalf, Chief Inspector—it is your professional obligation to suspect everyone. But you are operating under an entirely mistaken assumption of who Miss Holmes is. She has no use for a husband and would not have accepted any proposal from me, should I be so thoughtless as to tender one.”
Fowler waved his arm in an expansive gesture. “She wouldn’t wish to be the mistress of all this?”
“If she wished to be the mistress of a fine estate, she could have achieved that easily. Half of the largest landowners in England had proposed to her.”
“Really?” Fowler sounded almost impressed.
Treadles was confounded. All those fine proposals—and she threw away her respectability over a married man?
“Or perhaps it was one-quarter of the largest landowners.” Lord Ingram turned to the subject of the discussion. “Does that sound about right?”
“Even one-quarter is a highly exaggerated figure,” said Miss Holmes. “It’s true that she received proposals from two gentlemen with considerable landholding, but one was deep in debt and the other elderly and in search of a fourth wife. On the other hand, there had been an industrialist, who, if he had been accepted, would have been able to purchase for her an establishment equal in scale and refinement to Stern Hollow, without feeling too great a disturbance in his pocketbook.”
Lord Ingram gave his friend a baleful look. “I have never heard of this industrialist.”
“They met during your honeymoon, from what I understand.”
“Huh,” said Lord Ingram.
“Very foolish girl, that Miss Charlotte,” said Miss Holmes, with wry amusement.
“Huh,” repeated Lord Ingram. He turned to the policemen. “And there you have it, gentlemen.”
Fowler, however, was not so easily satisfied on the subject. “The last time you were an eligible man was a long time ago, my lord. That Miss Holmes wouldn’t have entertained an offer of marriage from you then doesn’t imply she wouldn’t have changed her mind during the intervening years.”
“Whatever the state of her mind, I didn’t propose to her then and I will not propose to her now.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?”Lord Ingram chortled, a derisive sound. “First, I am deeply disenchanted with marriage in general. Astonishing, isn’t it? Second, I am not bold enough to wed Miss Holmes, even if she were to prostrate herself and make an impassioned argument for our union.”
The woman in question whistled softly. “Now that’s a sight I’d pay good money to see—Charlotte Holmes on her knees, begging you to marry her.”
11
Before the policemenwere shown out, they made clear, albeit with great politeness, that the entirety of Stern Hollow was subject to search.
Lord Ingram indicated his willing cooperation and made a request of his own. “One of the three ladies who went into the icehouse, Miss Olivia Holmes, is of a much more sensitive temperament than Lady Avery and Lady Somersby. Coming upon Lady Ingram has been a great shock to her. If you gentlemen could speak to her first, so that she can put this behind her as soon as possible...”
Treadles’s eyes widened. “Would this be the same Miss Olivia Holmes who is Miss Charlotte Holmes’s sister?”
“Correct. She was Mrs. Newell’s guest—and consequently now my guest.”
“A small world, this is,” said Fowler, his tone gentler now that the interrogation had finished—for the moment. “It will be no trouble at all to see her first.”
“Thank you, gentlemen. Most kind of you.”
The head footman arrived to show Scotland Yard to the room where they would conduct the rest of their interviews. When they were gone, Lord Ingram glanced up at the gallery, then at Holmes.
Their eyes met. She rubbed her bearded chin. “By the way, Ash, you bowdlerized my pangram. I’m devastated.”
“I don’t know why you believed I would have ever committed the original in writing, in any of my scripts.” He took a deep breath. “Will you come down, Bancroft, or should we join you up there?”
Bancroft descended a spiral staircase and approached the fireplace. He was a slender, finely built man who usually appeared much younger than his actual age. But he had lost some weight, which emphasized the delicate lines that webbed the corners of his eyes. And his gait, otherwise smooth and graceful, gave an impression of jerkiness. Of agitation.
“How did you get here so fast?” Lord Ingram asked.
“I was at Eastleigh Park. You almost gave Wycliffe an apoplectic attack with your note. I talked him out of coming here himself, but that meant I had to act as his emissary.”
