Page 108 of Murder on Cold Street
“He would have recognized the dates, or at least one of the dates,” said Charlotte. “Miss Longstead said that her uncle was more affected by Mr. Barnaby Cousins’s passing than he’d let on. The younger Mr. Cousins was the only son of his beloved friend, gone in the blink of an eye. And this third cable, the one about having a plan for the sister, was sent on the day he died.”
“What was the cancer remedy for?” asked Miss Redmayne. “What did the younger Mr. Cousins die of?”
Her questions were usually launched with vigor and relish. This time her shoulders were hunched and she did not look at anyone, as if she already dreaded the answer.
“The papers said malaria.” Charlotte was almost as reluctant to unearth anything else. She took a deep breath. “Mr. Longstead, by the way, inquired after cancer remedies at Sealy and Worcester, a pharmaceutical chemists’ shop. He also spoke to Dr. Motley, the Cousins family’s physician, around that time.”
She now believed that when Mr. Longstead had written “physician” in his appointment book, he had not meant Dr. Ralston, his own physician, but Dr. Motley. What he’d recorded as meetings at Cousins had been his condolence call on Mrs. Cousins and his tête-à-têtes with Inspector Treadles, who was also inextricably related to both the Cousins clan and the Cousins enterprise. All those sessions at the “Reading Room of the British Library” would have been the time he’d spent deciphering the codes—or otherwise working on his own to find out the truth. And his visits to the chemist’s had not involved pharmaceutical chemists, butanalyticalchemists.
Mrs. Watson pinched the bridge of her nose. “It just occurred to me. We know how almost everything fits together. But much of theevidence we have relates to Moriarty. I don’t dare turn it over to the police, which would inform Moriarty of how much we know. I also don’t trust that the police, with the exception of Inspector Treadles, wouldn’t consider us fabulists. After all, who would corroborate the existence of Moriarty? The Marbletons and Lady Ingram were the only ones who would utter that name in public and even if they come forward, we cannot count on their testimony to carry any weight.”
This time Miss Redmayne did look at Charlotte, her expression filled with foreboding, but also an anxious hope. Mrs. Watson’s expression was more restrained, as if afraid to let herself hope. Lord Ingram, on the other hand, nodded, as much in promise as in encouragement.
Tell me what you plan to do, and I will help bring it to fruition.
“Is there still coffee left?” said Charlotte, resigning herself to a sleepless night. “And is anyone in the mood for a gamble?”
After a late-night call on Mrs. Treadles for her permission, Sherlock Holmes’s representatives each visited a major London newspaper, with just enough time left before composition must be finalized, for their story to appear in the morning editions.
They told as much of that story as they dared: Mr. Sullivan’s outrageous theft from Cousins Manufacturing; Mr. Longstead’s audacious campaign to bring the truth to light; Inspector Treadles’s tenacious investigation, after Mr. Longstead asked for his assistance.
Mr. Sullivan realized his peril before Mr. Longstead and Inspector Treadles could finish their work. He stole the inspector’s service revolver, intending to fire it into a crowded party and then leave it behind as evidence in 33 Cold Street, to damage the standing of both Inspector Treadles at Scotland Yard and Mrs. Treadles at Cousins Manufacturing.
At this point in the telling, representatives of Sherlock Holmes took dramatic license. They painted a stirring picture of a confrontation no living person witnessed, of a revolver-waving, foaming-at-the-mouth Mr. Sullivan, and a calm, heroic Mr. Longstead. Mr.Sullivan shot Mr. Longstead in the chest. Mr. Longstead, with a desperate rally in the final moments of his laudable life, put a bullet through Mr. Sullivan’s forehead.
And Inspector Treadles, arriving late for his secret rendezvous with Mr. Longstead—because of Mr. Sullivan’s goons, of course—stumbled upon the scene, an unfortunate bystander in this deadly quarrel between uncle and nephew, between the forces of good and evil.
With Charlotte still in her Sherrinford Holmes camouflage—she, Mrs. Watson, and Miss Redmayne had all performed their roles disguised as men—she and Lord Ingram made an unconscionably early call upon Lord Ingram’s friend, an analytical chemist to whom Lord Ingram had entrusted the sample Charlotte had given him the evening before.
The bleary-eyed chemist handed Lord Ingram an envelope, along with a raspy “I’m sorry.”
Lord Ingram’s fingers tightened on the envelope. Charlotte briefly closed her eyes. Those two words told them everything they needed to know.
He saw her back to Mrs. Watson’s, then left to catch an early train leaving from Euston station. Charlotte stripped off one disguise for another—the severe, monochromatic jacket-and-skirt sets were no less theatrical costumes than the large-bellied suits she donned to play Sherrinford Holmes—and called on Mrs. Treadles again.
She’d warned Mrs. Treadles that she might return in the morning. But the hour was so ungodly that Mrs. Treadles, though risen, had yet to dress.
“Please be ready to leave your house as soon as possible,” said Charlotte, stifling a yawn behind her hand. The coffee must have at last worn off.
The next thing she knew, Mrs. Treadles, now ready, was shaking her awake. Charlotte, her eyes still mostly closed, shuffled out after her.
“You still haven’t told me where we are headed,” Mrs. Treadles pointed out as they approached the carriage.
“Mrs. Cousins’s,” mumbled Charlotte.
She dragged herself up inside the coach and fell onto a seat. Barely thirty seconds later—or so it seemed—Mrs. Treadles was again telling her to wake up. They had arrived at Mrs. Cousins’s house.
As they were shown into the small drawing room, Charlotte saw herself in a mirror. She looked a fright, puffy and hollow-eyed. Good gracious, was her skin sagging a little? She was getting far too old for this staying-awake-all-night business. Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, would only take minor cases of very little danger and imposition, until her countenance had fully recovered its usual radiance and elasticity.
Mrs. Cousins arrived shortly in a black wrapper worn over a voluminous nightgown, a maid with a tea tray following in her wake. “Alice, Miss Holmes, is everything all right?”
“I apologize for calling on you at this unreasonable hour,” said Charlotte, feeling more awake now, not only from her two quick naps, but also from the unhappy nature of her task.
She had given plenty of bad news in the course of her work as Sherlock Holmes. She was better suited than most for the undertaking, her natural detachment shielding her from the worst impact of shattering her clients’ illusions and breaking their hearts. All the same, she wished that she were elsewhere, still asleep.
“I do have news for the two of you and I’m afraid it’s not joyful news.”
All color drained from Mrs. Treadles’s face. “You don’t mean to say that the inspector—that my husband—”
