Page 77 of Miss Moriarty, I Presume?
“Nevertheless, I was suspicious enough to ask for a photograph. My equipment was primitive and the nighttime lighting less than optimal, but the negatives have been developed and I find these to provide clear enough images of Miss Baxter. What do you think?”
She handed over two negatives. De Lacey held them to the light and looked for close to thirty seconds. “We shall need to make prints from them to better ascertain whether that is truly Miss Baxter.”
Charlotte smiled. “Of course, of course. In the same spirit, I asked her to relay something that only the real Miss Baxter can tell me. She mentioned a dispute with her father the last time they saw each other, concerning a gentleman she’d been fond of many years ago but was unable to marry.”
De Lacey exhaled and reached for a biscuit. “I’ve heard of Sherlock Holmes’s deductive prowess. If you’ll pardon the observation, Miss Holmes, you and your brother could very well have arrived at this conclusion on your own.”
“True, given Miss Baxter’s less-than-harmonious relationship with her father, I could have guessed as much. But could I have guessed about a yearly rendezvous before the statue of Achilles at Hyde Park Corner?”
De Lacey’s expression changed. It changed so much Charlotte suspected he’d have sunk into a chair if he weren’t already in one. For the first time, it seemed as if he believed that Miss Baxter was really alive.
“I see—I see,” he said, rising abruptly, the biscuit still in his hand. “Thank you, Miss Holmes, you have indeed brought marvelous news. I’ll see myself out.”
He was halfway down the steps before he climbed back and said, “And you will hear from me again, of course.”
Ellen Bailey was a small,quiet woman in her mid-twenties. Mrs. Watson had worried initially that they’d arrived during hours when a housemaid had a great deal of work, but it turned out that in Mrs. Donovan’s household, Ellen Bailey was employed not a housemaid, but the lady’s maid, and had enough stature to receive Mrs. Watson and Lord Ingram in a domestic office of her own.
She explained that when Mrs. Donovan came to Snowham to look for a place, she’d stayed at Mr. Upton’s inn and approved of Ellen Bailey’s work. And when she had learned that Ellen Bailey had been trained in all the skills of a lady’s maid, asked Ellen Bailey to come work for her, as her old maid was leaving to be married.
The young woman looked up from the lace shawl she was repairing and glanced about her office, on the shelves of which were trays of still-curing soap, jars of hair pomade and bandolines, and a small forest of essences, toilette waters, and hair tonics in brown and green bottles, all hand-labeled and clearly homemade. “It’s so nice to have a place of my own.”
Mrs. Watson, who had great interest in smooth skin and shiny hair, spent a few minutes exchanging recipes with her, before guiding the conversation to the topic they had come for.
Ellen Bailey was forthcoming. “Ever since I got your note, I’ve been thinking about Mr. Openshaw. A lovely man—a real gentleman. I didn’t see him much when he stayed at Mr. Upton’s, once in the dining room, when I was cleaning tables at supper, and once in the hallway, just after I finished with his room.”
She threaded her needle through a section of lace that she had pinned to a repair board. “But I can tell you this: He never seemed to sleep, Mr. Openshaw. I don’t always sleep well myself. The servants’ quarters at the inn are in the half basement and I had a window that looked out to the street. From there I could see lights from the inn reflected in the windows across the street. I worked at the inn enough years to tell, by looking at those windows, which rooms at Mr. Upton’s still had their lights on. And when he stayed there, I got up at least a couple of times each night. Mr. Openshaw’s light was always on.”
“I don’t suppose you asked him what kept him awake?” asked Mrs. Watson.
Ellen Bailey shook her head. “Mr. Upton didn’t want us chatting up the guests.”
Lord Ingram, who had been silent until now, leaned forward in his chair. “When you saw him in the dining room, did Mr. Openshaw do anything besides eating? Did he have a notebook with him or jot anything down?”
“No, sir, I don’t believe so.” Ellen Bailey frowned a little and pushed at the lace with her fingers. “I believe he read the paper that night—a London paper, by the looks of it.”
It had been a notice in a London paper that had forced Mr. Marbleton’s departure from their midst. Mrs. Watson’s heart tightened. “Was he reading the small notices?”
“That I wasn’t close enough to see, mum.”
The needle in Ellen Bailey’s hand zigzagged with the speed of an eel across a section of torn lace. And when she pulled the matching thread taut, the tear disappeared.
She nodded with satisfaction and looked up at her visitors, awaiting further questions.
“Did you happen to notice anything unusual about Mr. Openshaw’s room?” asked Lord Ingram.
Ellen Bailey lifted the lace and held it toward the light. She set it down and pinned a different section to the board. “He kept his room wonderfully neat. Everything he had was in his luggage. If it weren’t for the luggage, you wouldn’t have guessed that anyone was staying there at all. He didn’t even leave behind a hair on the pillow.”
Mrs. Watson ached for the young man who had lived the most peripatetic of lives, all his belongings always packed in case he and his family must flee Moriarty’s minions.
And leave no evidence behind that they’d been there at all.
A trace of sadness crossed Lord Ingram’s countenance. “He didn’t have much luggage, I take it?”
Ellen Bailey started to shake her head, then stopped. She stuck her needle into the repair board and looked up at them. “I’d forgotten about this until now but oddly enough, I saw three pieces of luggage when I cleaned his room after his first night at Mr. Upton’s. But the next day, when he left, he walked to the railway station with a valise in one hand and a satchel in the other.”
She nodded. “That’s right. When he left, he had only two pieces.”
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