Page 71 of A Ruse of Shadows
Where did that leave him then?
She knew now how the story ought to go—how their story ought to go.
But…later.
Now he needed his sleep—and so did she.
?Lord Ingram, of course, had not come back to the hotel merely to dine and to rest for a few hours. He gave Charlotte an address, the place to which he had followed the man who had picked up the second letter from the chemist’s shop.
Charlotte, disguised as an old woman, reached the house midmorning the next day—she would have liked for it to be earlier, but other than milk deliveries and emergencies, people did not show up in front of one another’s doors at the crack of dawn.
The street was overpopulated—as was so much of London. The houses, worn but not yet dilapidated, were packed cheek to jowl, lines of washing flapping in the breeze. It was the kind of neighborhood where most everyone went to work, including the older children. As Charlotte walked by, only a pair of five- or six-year-old boys peered at her from the dirt they were digging up in someone’s tiny front garden.
As expected, her knocks at the door produced no reply. She proceeded to the next house down the street and then the next, until a frail-looking old woman holding a toddler girl answered the door.
“Do pardon me, missus,” said Charlotte. “I’m mighty sorry tobother you, I am. But I’m looking for Mrs. Trimmer. She used to live in number 17 over there.”
Lord Ingram, who never settled for being merely competent, had found out, via London’s municipal records, the identity of the house’s owner: Robert Epping, hansom cab driver by profession. As this was not terribly helpful, he further discovered the house mentioned in the annals of the city as the site of a neighborly spat eight years ago, with the resident at the time named as Mrs. L. Trimmer, fifty-six years of age.
“Oh, but you’re awful late, missus,” said the old woman. “Mrs. Trimmer passed away two years ago.”
“Dear me. I had no idea, and me living only five miles away! The poor dear—I hope her passing was easy.”
“It was, thank goodness. She developed pneumonia and went speedy quick.”
Charlotte bemoaned the abrupt volatility of life for a minute, and then, “Do you think, missus, whoever is living there right now—would they let me in to take a look at the front room where Mrs. Trimmer and I used to sit and chat?”
“I don’t see why not, except they are such busy people and hardly ever home.”
Charlotte made a wary face. “I do hope they’re not pretending to be working but whiling away the day in taverns and gambling houses. I had a nephew like that, and it was terrible for my sister.”
“Oh no, no worries on that. At number 17 they are excellent young people. You won’t find harder workers or better neighbors than Mumble and Jessie, you won’t, missus.”
Twenty-four
Mumble and Jessie.
Charlotte was not particularly surprised. The two young boxers, with their midnight surveillance and their likely breaking and entering, had already made it clear that their interest in their late sponsor far exceeded what would be considered normal.
It made sense that they were investigating for Mrs. Farr, who had loved her sister fiercely and had been consumed with grief and anger.
Vengeance is mine; I will repay.
Charlotte, as Sherrinford Holmes, had disclosed to Mrs. Farr the reason Mimi Duffin had been murdered—she bore a resemblance to someone else—but not the identity of the party responsible for her death. Even Inspector Treadles had not known the truth. How, then, had Mrs. Farr learned who had killed her sister?
Had she found a circuitous route to the truth?
It was not impossible. She could have gleaned from the papers that at the time Sherlock Holmes had been assisting with the investigation at Stern Hollow, home of one Lord Ingram Ashburton. But reporters had been given an extremely redacted version of events, and Lord Bancroft’s name never once came up. With such scant information, could she have inferred the significance of this brother who had retired from public life shortly thereafter?
And even if Mrs. Farr, ill-informed on the inner complexities ofthe case, had been able to make that spectacular leap of logic, how would she have found out that Mr. Underwood had worked for Lord Bancroft? Lord Bancroft’s had been a shadowy role, and Mr. Underwood, officially at least, hadn’t even belonged to the same ministry.
Yet Mumble and Jessie, after quietly carrying on with their lives after Mr. Underwood’s disappearance, had suddenly become extremely interested in his whereabouts.
What had caused this volte-face? And had they killed Mr. Underwood, at Mrs. Farr’s behest, to avenge Mimi Duffin?
The thought jarred, given the praise the young people had heaped on Mr. Underwood. Charlotte rarely shied away from jarring possibilities, but this one raised a thorny question.
Lord Bancroft had demanded to know who killed Mr. Underwood and why. But if it was indeed Mumble, Jessie, and ultimately Mrs. Farr who were responsible for Mr. Underwood’s death, could Charlotte simply hand over their names—and their fate—to that man?
