Page 95 of A Ruse of Shadows
Her voice broke. “They are such good, devoted children. Theydeserve everything in the world—except a mad old woman driving them to ruin.”
Mrs. Watson’s eyes stung with tears. She blinked them back and said, her voice croaking only a little, “Please, Mrs. Farr, I am at least a dozen years senior to you. If you’re old, then I must have been born before recorded history.”
The mood in the carriage lightened somewhat. The sun shone. The vehicle was now in open country, clacking over a stone bridge that spanned a clear little stream.
“I recently learned something that might be of interest to you, Mrs. Farr,” said Miss Charlotte.
And proceeded to tell her that Ephraim Meadows, her onetime tormentor, had spent the past twelve years incarcerated.
Mrs. Farr was silent for a whole minute, then she began to laugh, and laughed so hard she gave herself a side stitch.
“There is an even more interesting part to this,” added Miss Charlotte. “Did Chief Inspector Talbot ever learn that Mr. Ephraim Meadows had blackmailed you?”
Mrs. Farr rubbed her side. “Yes, I confessed it—I was desperate for him not to think of me as an irresponsible fool.”
“Someone sent in an anonymous tip that led to his arrest. Not long after, Chief Inspector Talbot began to handle an occasional investigation for that particular bureau of the government. I suspect that he had been the one to put Mr. Ephraim Meadows away in the first place.”
Mrs. Farr fell silent again. Then, an ineffable sadness came over the proud, dilapidated ruins of her face. “Perhaps that is the great tragedy of my life. Not that I’d encountered my share of terrible people, but that I hadn’t known to put my faith in the good ones.”
Thirty-four
By the ruined abbey
Bancroft toppled over.
Lord Ingram swore but before he could run toward his brother’s crumpled form, Mrs. Watson gripped him by the arm. “Wait. What if he’s only pretending to be dead?”
Charlotte would have said the same.
He shook free of Mrs. Watson’s grasp and ran, but someone darting out from the ruins of the abbey reached Lord Bancroft first.
Mrs. Farr.
She removed the revolvers from Bancroft’s hands and only then felt his neck. “He’s dead.”
Lord Ingram, kneeling down next to his brother, had his wrist in hand. After a while, he slowly set it down into the grass and covered his eyes with his hand.
Another figure tottered out of the ruins. Mrs. Claiborne, a pistol in hand. “I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice shaking. “But when he shot at everyone,I—I’m not even sure what happened—”
She looked around, shook her head, and looked again. “How are you all perfectly fine?”
“Blanks,” said Mrs. Watson, putting an arm around her. “Theweapons Lord Bancroft had were all taken from us, and we made sure to load them with only blank cartridges.”
Lord Ingram had been so meticulous he had weighed individual bullets for the different firearms, and had a gunsmith insert tiny metal slugs inside the stock of each gun so that they weighed the same as if real cartridges had been used, on the off chance that Bancroft, on picking up a weapon unfamiliar to him, could still detect the eight-to-ten-percent weight differential in the bullets.
And the distance they’d carefully kept from him? Blank cartridges were useless for hitting targets, but had he fired upon them point-blank, the explosion of the gunpowder could still be injurious, possibly fatal.
Lord Ingram shot to his feet. “Holmes, there is going to be trouble for you.”
Their plan was never to kill Bancroft, but to deliver him—anonymously, if possible—back to the authorities.
But perfect plans existed only on paper, never in real life. With Lord Bancroft dead, Charlotte, who had visited him frequently of late, would face inquiries.
Lord Ingram was already urging everyone to check that they’d left nothing behind. After he’d ushered them into the carriage, he checked the entire area one more time before climbing inside.
“Mrs. Watson, can you glue a beard on my face?” he asked. “I already told Lawson to drop me off at the nearest railway station.”
The safe, he mouthed to Charlotte.
