Page 31 of Murder on Cold Street
In the end his careening emotions coalesced into a sharp anxiety, a wedge of fear veined with the hope that the Treadleses should have that most precious of all commodities, time. Time enough to heal the wounds; time enough to begin anew; time enough to regrow trust and build something stronger and more resilient together.
But none of it would be possible if Inspector Treadles couldn’t regain his freedom.
Lord Ingram forced himself to breathe deeply, to put away the cards, and to train his thoughts to settle back on the case at hand. Only to realize something that made his heart thump. With no small amount of reluctance he glanced at Holmes. “Mrs. Cousins arrived at an extremely fortuitous moment. I take it you think it had more to do with planning than with luck.”
She looked at him a moment longer than necessary, as if assuring herself that he was all right, before saying, “When I walked past the servants’ hall the first time, the coachman was not there. The second time he was, but he had a bit of rain on his clothes, just where a mackintosh might let some through. The basement of a house such as Mrs. Treadles’s typically extends all the way to the mews. Andeven if there aren’t steps inside the mews leading down into the basement, there should be a set of steps right outside.”
Smoking bishop had been served just before Mrs. Watson and Penelope left. He picked up his still-warm cup. “So... unless he was in fact out driving a coach, he would not have become as wet coming from the mews to the servants’ hall.”
“Exactly. His master was in a jail cell at Scotland Yard, his mistress at home. Why did he go anywhere at all?”
Except to bring Mrs. Cousins at his mistress’s command. Mrs. Cousins who, when she got there, would stop the interrogation.
The mulled wine had been steeped with roasted Seville oranges and cloves. He didn’t mind cloves, normally; tonight, he found their taste overpowering. But still he cradled the cup in his hands, needing another source of warmth. “Mrs. Cousins performed her task well.”
“And Mrs. Treadles’s relief was such that she had to hide her face either in her own hands or against Mrs. Cousins’s clothing, so as not to have it too plainly visible to Inspector Brighton.”
“Which means that Inspector Brighton, however devastating his points, still hadn’t reached the core of the matter.” The weight on his lungs grew heavier. With even greater reluctance, his gaze landed on her again. “Was that why you went there? To get to the core of the matter?”
Her settee was next to a robust pot of fern. She reached out a hand and caressed a leaflet. “I wanted to speak to her before Inspector Brighton did. Because if he had what I believed he had, then Mrs. Treadles... I don’t think she quite understands yet the inexorability of a murder investigation, how it grinds down all the edifices one puts up to protect the truth.”
He felt himself winding tighter. “What did you think Inspector Brighton had on her?”
She folded her hands in her lap and looked back at him, her eyes clear, her tone inexorable. “Did you notice how many things Mrs. Treadles found in the wake of Sergeant MacDonald’s visit? The letters from Inspector Treadles, recent and long ago, the absence ofthe service revolver from his dressing room, to name but the items that she actually mentioned to us.
“At the time it seemed as if she were intensely interested in Inspector Treadles’s whereabouts in the days leading up to the murders. But what if that was a wrong assumption? What if she wasn’t turning over her house forhim, but only found those things becauseshewas looking for something else altogether?”
“What?”
His question was barely audible.
“It’s possible that last night, before she came home from the party, she went into 33 Cold Street, where Mr. Longstead and Mr. Sullivan were later found dead. It’s also possible that she left behind evidence that she was there.”
Her voice, too, had turned softer, but there was no way to soften the impact of her words. Lord Ingram felt as if he’d been gripped by the throat. If Mrs. Treadles had been there, in an empty house with either of the dead men—or, God forbid, both—it would have made the jealous-husband motive much stronger.
Incalculably stronger.
From the earliest moment, he’d sensed that Mrs. Treadles was afraid she’d further incriminate her husband. Was this why?
“Wait!” With a sudden surge of hope, he pushed aside the smoking bishop, crossed the room, and sat down on the settee next to Holmes. “You said,ifInspector Brighton ‘had what you believed he had.’ Do you no longer believe he has it?”
She let out a long sigh, which fluttered the delicate chiffon edging of her high collar. “He was forceful in his interrogation. Yet it was the force of personality and intellect, allied with the power of his position. However he tried to intimidate her into giving up the truth, he had only logic and inference on his side. He didn’t produce actual evidence. Or at least he chose not to produce, or even mention, evidence in the nature of a personal item that would have attested, indubitably, to her presence at number 33 last night.”
Her hand again reached out, this time tracing the entire length of a frond. “And for that reason, frightened as she was, she held on to her version of events and did not yield the confession he sought.”
He slumped against the back of the settee, wrung out with relief.
Holmes studied him and almost smiled. “Since that was the case, I left Mrs. Treadles in her sister-in-law’s care. But Mrs. Cousins’s presence—and Mrs. Treadles’s apparent reliance on her—surprised me: I was under the impression that Inspector Treadles had been less than fond of both Barnaby Cousins and his wife. But the two women did not appear to repulse each other at all.”
He pushed off the settee and poured himself half a glass of cognac before coming back. “Now that you mention it, remember that I invited Inspector and Mrs. Treadles to the house party at Stern Hollow after Christmas?”
He’d invited her, too, to come in the guise of Sherrinford Holmes, but she had declined.
“Just before we left for our French adventure,” he went on. “I received a letter from Inspector Treadles, asking me if it would be all right for him to bring Mrs. Cousins and put her up nearby. She was still in mourning and not moving in society but they thought a change of scenery would be good for her.”
Holmes nodded, sliding the fern frond between her fingers.
“You are—interested in Mrs. Cousins,” he said on a hunch.
