Page 111 of Murder on Cold Street
She shook his hand. “I’m glad to see you restored to us, Inspector. Brilliant work, by the way.”
“High praise indeed, to have that come from a representative of Sherlock Holmes.”
“It is the opinion of Sherlock Holmes himself. There was never any need to doubt yourself.”
Inspector Treadles blinked rapidly, shook his head, and said, his voice breaking, “Thank you again. Thank you always.”
He and his wife left arm in arm, like a pair of newlyweds marching past a throng of well-wishers to their brand-new future. At their carriage, they turned around and waved. Mrs. Treadles reached up and touched her husband’s cheek. He had tears in his eyes as he caught her hand and pressed a kiss into her gloved palm.
Charlotte remembered Lord Ingram’s optimism about them.
Maybe it wasn’t always a romantic outlook that caused one to be optimistic. Maybe sometimes it was simply the correct assessment.
She turned to the great romantic in her life. “How was your present hunting this afternoon, Ash?”
“Fruitful, I would say.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I still don’t know what you intend to give me.”
He grinned. “I am beyond astonished.”
“But I do know you bought yourself a hot water bottle—no, at least two—just now, so that you can put my present to use.”
“And you are right.” He laughed. “As you always are.”
Epilogue
Dread invaded Robert Treadles. He was dreaming still—dreaming of waking up in his own bed, as he had done every night in his cell. But he was also awake enough to know that he was dreaming, and that the illusions of comfort, safety, and freedom would evaporate the moment he opened his eyes.
Even as his dream self hugged Alice tighter and buried his face in her hair, his thoughts returned to the evening of their second dinner with the Longsteads. After the ladies had departed for the drawing room, leaving only the men at the table, Mr. Longstead had brought out not only a bottle of port, but a notebook.
I found this notebook, and several others like it, in the studio at number 33,he’d stated gravely.I hope you won’t find it far-fetched what I’m about to say, but I—I believe the contents of the notebook has to do with Cousins.
And so it had begun.
At first Treadles had listened only out of politeness. He’d been incredulous when the older man speculated that Barnaby Cousins, Treadles’s late and very much unlamented brother-in-law, had been murdered. But then Mr. Longstead had produced evidence in the form of reports from not one but two analytical chemists, attesting to the presence of arsenic in Barnaby Cousins’s hair, which Mr. Longstead had obtained from his widow.
After that Treadles had no choice but to be involved: Whoever had done this to his brother-in-law could do the same to Alice.
Mr. Longstead continued to speak, and it became obvious to Treadles that Alice had told him very little of the opposition she’d experienced at work. But at least her suspicions about the financial health of Cousins, as related by Mr. Longstead, formed the starting point of his investigation.
An information-gathering trip, visiting other factories that had been built by the main contractor who had renovated the Cousins properties, had led him to De Lacey Industries, at the sight of which his alarm grew to the full blare of fog horns.
He could not be sure this de Lacey was the same as Moriarty’s chief lieutenant in Britain. But he made sure to notify Sherlock Holmes, however circuitously. And he met with Mr. Longstead to discuss the possible dangers they now faced.
They decided to inform the ladies in their lives after the first of January—let them enjoy Christmas and New Year free from Moriarty’s shadow. Mr. Longstead hastened to arrange a debut for his niece, even as he redoubled his efforts to decipher the other small notices and telegrams in the notebooks, to uncover as much evidence as possible.
Treadles undertook another trip, to reconnoiter two other sites that had been worked on by the same main contractor. He’d found yet another De Lacey Industries holding in Manchester, but in Cornwall—he still wasn’t sure what he had come across in Cornwall, other than that he’d barely escaped being captured.
He and Mr. Longstead had agreed that they ought to be more careful in meeting each another, but they had also agreed that a rendezvous at 33 Cold Street on the night of Treadles’s return to London should be both safe and secretive, even if Mr. Longstead had to slip out of his niece’s party. Treadles gave Alice a later date of return—he thought it might be a nice surprise for her to find him already home when she came back from the party.
But on the rail journey back he realized he was being followed. He changed trains rapidly and randomly. This delayed his return by several hours, but he thought he’d at last shaken his pursuer loose.
Only to be accosted a stone’s throw from number 33.
The nightmare that had followed...
He opened his eyes—no point trying to sleep more—only to see, instead of bare walls and iron bars, a creamy bed canopy and flax-colored bed curtains, three quarters drawn. The air smelled not of the pervasiveness of vomit and other human wastes, but faintly and pleasantly of lavender water and floor wax, of a clean and well-maintained home.
