Page 21 of A Ruse of Shadows
“Very kind of you to call on my housemate—and good day to you, too, sir! What brought you here? What were you discussing?”
“Your housemate was assuring me of his innocence.”
“Well, I believe him!” cried the man whose voice seemed to belong to someone middle-aged. Late middle age, perhaps. “And please, you must believe me, miss, when I say that I, too, have done nothing to deserve this prolonged internment. It must be extrajudicial and highly illegal to hold me here, and if you would please contact the newspapers for me, I would be most grateful. The reporter who speaks truth on my behalf will surely be rewarded with readership beyond his dreams!”
His face was now pressed into the bars, an ordinary face, its enthusiasm belied by a lack of true goodwill. A guard appeared andpulled him away from the barred window, which was then closed and shuttered from the inside, firmly cutting off Charlotte’s line of sight.
Lord Bancroft narrowed his eyes, then said, as if the interruption hadn’t taken place, “No, Underwood didn’t box—at least I never saw cuts and bruises on him. He sponsored boxers, and his boxers were successful, from what I understand.”
Thatcouldlead to retaliations, if those boxers’ successes were due to underhanded methods, although a knife between Mr. Underwood’s ribs seemed a more likely outcome than his wholesale disappearance.
“I will speak to Mr. Underwood’s lady and find his boxers. What about his subordinates? Any of them at large?”
“Not all have been arrested, but I do not know their precise whereabouts, just as I didn’t know Underwood’s.”
Charlotte rubbed her thumb across the side of her wooden cup. It was smooth and just a little bit warm. “Any helpful advice on how I can best locate Mr. Underwood?”
For all that Lord Bancroft had gone through a great deal of trouble—and illegality and heartlessness—to secure her help, he had not given her much useful information.
As if he’d heard her thought, Lord Bancroft said, “It has occurred to me before that I did not know Underwood very well as a man, but at the time our lack of greater intimacy had struck me as both correct and seemly. He discharged his duties by being useful and efficient, and I rewarded him with income and opportunities far beyond what he could have achieved in domestic service.
“Now, that once highly appropriate distance has turned out to be a disadvantage. Even the bit about boxing I learned by chance. After that, I did ask him whether he boxed personally. When he assured me that he didn’t, I told him to beware the unsavory elements found ringside. I did not inquire after the identity of the boxers he sponsored, where they trained and fought, or how much money exchanged hands.”
He chuckled without mirth. “Let that be a lesson to me, a man who has spent his life in the acquisition of particulars: Knowledge I disdain to acquire today might prove to be the vital intelligence I lack tomorrow.”
?Charlotte glanced at the guards. One studied the sky; the other had his eyes on them but in truth might be lookingthroughthem, busy with his own thoughts. Both remained safely out of earshot.
She returned her attention to Lord Bancroft. “If I may speak frankly, my lord, I find it difficult to believe that you are so generously disposed toward a subordinate, even Mr. Underwood. I thought at the very least you would demand my help freeing you from Ravensmere.”
Lord Bancroft snorted. “So now Sherlock Holmes also engages in jailbreaking? Look at this place, all the windows are barred. The single entry into and out of my rooms is guarded by two sets of reinforced doors. As a further precaution, there is a security cabin in my parlor, bolted to the floor. Before any guards or charwomen come inside, or even unlock the swinging tray to deliver my meal, I must lock myself into this security cabin.
“The front door of the manor is barred from both inside and outside. The back door has been bricked over. Stairs are barred at each landing. There are two guards on each floor and four in the garden, one by the front door, three patrolling the expanse.
“Moreover, all my meals are cut into bite-sized pieces, and I am only given a single wooden spoon, which must be surrendered at the end of every repast. As you can see, I haven’t shaved in months—or had my hair cut. I do not even have proper suspenders these days. What approximations I’m allowed are of such flimsy construction that if I attempted to asphyxiate anyone with it—or even to tie him up—the whole thing would disintegrate into segments too short to be of any use.”
In disgust, he picked up his discarded biscuit and bit into it again. In even greater disgust, he hurled the rest beyond the wrought ironfence into the larger garden. “Now, given all that, could Sherlock Holmes have succeeded in getting me out?”
?Lord Bancroft’s voice remained low, but his action constituted an outburst. One guard took a step forward, the other reached inside his jacket, presumably for a firearm.
Charlotte drank her tepid tea. After a moment, Lord Bancroft picked up his teacup and joined her, sipping in silence. When it became apparent that nothing else was going to happen, the guards relaxed somewhat but kept their eyes on Lord Bancroft.
Charlotte reviewed what he had said about the security measures in and around Ravensmere. They accorded with what Lord Ingram had told her about the place. She did not believe in the impossibility of getting out of a place that had doors and windows. All the same, Lord Bancroft was correct that it would not be easy.
“All right, so it is only the disappearance of Mr. Underwood for which you have engaged me. And now that I understand my task, I have some conditions about the house in Paris.”
Lord Bancroft raised a brow.
“Your people are not to enter Miss Bernadine’s room under any circumstances. Miss Redmayne is allowed access to the house at least once a day, twice if she so wishes, and no part of the house will be forbidden to her. You may limit the amount of time she spends in the house, but on any given visit, she cannot be ejected before half an hour has passed.”
Lord Bancroft flicked nonexistent biscuit crumbs from his fingertips. “Very well. You may send a cable to the house, starting with the words ‘Corvus dicit.’ They will know it’s from me.”
“And you had best inform the gatehouse that Sherrinford and Charlotte Holmes should be on the guest list for the foreseeable future.”
Her adversary rose. “Anything else? I will be escorted back inside in a minute or so.”
Under normal circumstances, this would be when Mrs. Watson,while accompanying a client out of 18 Upper Baker Street, discreetly broached the topic of remuneration. But Mrs. Watson was waiting outside many walls, and it was highly unlikely that Lord Bancroft intended to compensate Charlotte for her work.
“The man who interrupted us,” she asked, “do you believe in his assertion of innocence?”
