Page 100 of The Hollow of Fear
“You and I were, in fact, both in the same room with him a few days prior, but at the time I hadn’t realized his true identity yet.”
A few days prior he had met her at the office of her father’s solicitor. Four other men had been present, their goal to forcibly abduct her and return her to the high uncomfortable bosom of her family. “You mean the groom your father brought? The one who had been helping you and Miss Olivia pass letters to each other?”
“Mr. Finch, in the flesh. I asked him about what he took and he declined to tell me.”
“You are sure he remains free to this day?”
“I have reason to believe so. Although on the night we met, he was almost taken. If it weren’t for Mr. Marbleton’s timely appearance, I’m not sure what would have happened.”
“You don’t mean to tell me you were accosted by Moriarty’s people? My God, Holmes—”
“I’m fine. Nothing happened to me. Mr. Finch is still on the loose—that’s the most important thing.”
“What about since? Have Moriarty’s agents plagued you since?”
“I don’t believe so. But”—she pointed at her hair and her men’s clothes—“I began to learn, with some urgency, how I may pass myself off as a man. Mr. Marbleton came to us dressed as a woman—most convincingly so. And we all went on our way that night in some form of cross-dress.”
“I was wondering how—and why—you had come by this proficiency, since you aren’t—” He stopped. “I must have missed something. Why would anyone framemefor a murder to get their hands onMr. Finch?”
She didn’t say anything.
After a moment, he said, “You mean to tell me that they thinkyouknow, and that by placing me in jeopardy,youwill somehow deliver Mr. Finch into their keeping?”
Again she said nothing.
“Are they correct?”
“No,” she said, “I don’t know where Mr. Finch is.”
“You know what I mean. Are they correct in pressuring you via me?”
This time her silence lasted even longer. “Our unseen opponents are counting on that to be the case. So we must do two things. First, we must further bolster their belief that they are correct in that assessment. For that we should become lovers as soon as possible—and please believe me I am not proposing this solely, or even mainly, to take advantage of you.”
He snorted, but the somberness of her voice prevented any other attempts at levity.
“Two, we might have to sacrifice you at some point. In fact, we must. Not your life, no, but your freedom—at least temporarily. I don’t believe our opponents would show their hand unless and until you are in police custody for the murder of your wife and possibly that of the poor village idiot.”
He felt a haunting need for a cigarette, to clear his head and steady his nerves. She, whose head never needed clearing and whose nerves never needed steadying—or so he would have still believed, if only she’d polished off the damned charlotte russe—observed him, as if she could hear the pounding of his heart and the rushing of his blood.
“I have been worried for a while that something like this would happen,” she went on. “I didn’t anticipate Lady Ingram’s death, nor that the pressure would come from your direction. Only that somehow this pressure would come, because I was careless enough to reveal Mr. Finch’s location, however momentarily. That if those seeking him did not find him on their own, I would become the last lead they had on his whereabouts.
“What I feared most was that they would get hold of my sisters, especially Bernadine, who cannot defend or even look after herself. To that end I poached her from my parents, by creating the illusion of a secluded private asylum, with help of Mrs. Watson’s friends in the theatrical profession, including one who had married into respectability and loaned us the use of her country house as setting.”
Even given the magnitude of the day’s news, this astonished him. “Youhave Miss Bernadine now?”
“At the cottage. And I must not be away from her for too long—she has deteriorated considerably since I left home.”
“Does Miss Olivia know?”
“Not yet. If I told her the truth about Bernadine I would have also needed to warn her that she herself might be at risk for abduction. Livia is anxious as it is; I didn’t want to overwhelm her.”
The water in the kettle boiled. He made tea and poured for them, his hands not yet shaking. Not yet. “But in the end, they didn’t choose to hold your sisters over you.”
“Or Mrs. Watson, for that matter. Which tells me that our opponents do not value friendship or sisterly bonds. But at least they seem to have experienced romantic love—or perhaps even sexual obsession.”
He recalled what she’d told him, that Moriarty was still on the hunt, all these years later, for the wife who’d had the temerity to leave him. “And Moriarty is the sort who becomes obsessed over a woman?”
“Mr. Finch told me Moriarty has been thrice married. When a man volunteers himself for the altar that many times, either he has absolutely no idea what to do with himself—or he does value romantic companionship to some extent.”
