Page 34 of The Hollow of Fear
“I make no promises.”
“Then I had better eat it all before you finish the pie.”
They were silent for some time, he eating steadily, she less so. He must have noticed, for he asked, “Why areyouterrified?”
She had swept a dollop of Bavarian cream from the charlotte russe onto the plate and was playing with it. She stopped and looked him in the eye. “Where are your children, Ash?”
“With Remington—you know that.”
“After what happened with Lady Ingram, I could have sworn you would never let them out of your sight again. What changed your mind?”
“Your sister once told me that you didn’t speak until you were four and a half. I’m sure you were under great pressure to say something, anything, from the moment you could walk. But you waited until you were ready and not a moment before.
“Children are people. They have their own minds. I have never been the kind of parent to impose my own will at any cost. Lucinda and Carlisle wanted to go with Remington, and in the end they got their way.”
Charlotte dabbed a napkin at her lips. Did she believe him?
In the middle of her first major case, Lord Ingram and Mrs. Watson had “met” at 18 Upper Baker Street, Mrs. Watson’s property that had been staged as Sherlock Holmes’s residence. Mrs. Watson had attired herself as the landlady, Mrs. Hudson, in a padded dress, a gray wig, and wire-rimmed glasses. Lord Ingram had looked upon her with unease and mistrust. And pointedly asked Charlotte whether, if it were anyone else, she wouldn’t have considered it too good to be true that she had randomly encountered a demimondaine who not only took her in but enthusiastically supported her powers of deduction.
When he himself, as Charlotte would later discover, had sent Mrs. Watson to assist her—Mrs. Watson, his trusted friend, whom he’d known for longer than he had known Charlotte Holmes.
He had been so good an actor, so convincing in his display of rigid displeasure, that she, despite her powers of observation, had believed entirely in his disapproval of Mrs. Watson. Had not in the least suspected that he had conspired with the latter to provide assistance to her, in those desperate days after she’d run away from home, when she was perilously low on both funds and choices.
Across the table he took a slow bite of the game pie, studying her as she studied him, his gaze steady, opaque.
He had told her before that she was the best liar he knew, a prodigious, possibly generational, talent. She had not thought the same of him—perhaps because their interactions had been characterized by so much silence. But when she had confronted him, after finding out that he had been friends with Mrs. Watson all along, this had been his response:I have said a great many things to you that are convenient, rather than truthful.
What was he telling her now, the truth, or something more convenient?
“You’ve met with Sergeant Ellerby.”
He narrowed his eyes at the change of subject. “Yes.”
“You told him as much of the truth as you could, I take it, since lying at this point would lead only to further incrimination.”
“Correct.”
“You spoke calmly and conducted yourself with a dignity befitting your station, no doubt. But at the same time, you let him see your fingers tremble when you picked up that glass of spirits. From time to time, you stopped speaking to pull yourself together. And of course, you made yourself sound increasingly hoarse as the interview wore on, a man buffeted and battered by the unkindness of the universe.”
His grip tightened on his fork and knife. “He was the first person I needed to convince of my innocence.”
“Precisely. Why didn’t you expend any effort to convinceme, just now?”
“You can speak to anyone on the staff—Remington was here and he left with the children.”
“I don’t propose to dispute what everyonesaw. What I need is the reason for their departure.”
“I told you—”
“Be careful what you say to me. I have not in the least eliminated the possibility that you are the one who killed Lady Ingram, accidentally or intentionally, when she came to abduct Lucinda and Carlisle.”
“Who is that?”murmured Alice, leaning into Treadles’s dressing room. “Are you headed somewhere?”
Treadles buttoned his jacket. “Chief Inspector Fowler. He wants me to accompany him on a case.”
Alice blinked. She had already been abed, probably asleep when the commotion of the late-night caller arose. “It must be a major case, then, if they’ve put him on it. And if he’s asked you for help.”
“It is a major case.” He straightened the knot of his necktie and did not look at her. “Lady Ingram.”
