Page 13 of A Ruse of Shadows
The face glanced down. “Yer name isn’t on the list.”
This was not the answer Charlotte had anticipated. The previous day, before she boarded the train for Manchester, she’d sent word informing Lord Bancroft that she had received his letters and would be calling this evening. “What about Charlotte Holmes?”
The permission she had been granted applied to both Sherrinford and Charlotte Holmes.
“Not on the list either, and you are no Charlotte Holmes.”
“Indeed not. Did his lordship perhaps make a mistake and think I would be visiting on the morrow?”
“Tomorrow’s list will be given to us tomorrow. Now, since you’ve no business here, sir, you’d best be on your way.”
?Lord Ingram, due to his service to the crown, could have compelled Lord Bancroft to receive him. Charlotte had no such powers—yet. She had no choice but to go back to the village railway station and take the next train to London.
It was past dinnertime, yet she was not hungry. True, she dined so regularly that she rarely experienced true hunger, merely a sweet anticipation for her next meal. Still, to stare at Mrs. Stow’s curried chicken pieandher rhubarb-mulberry tart and not be tempted?
Charlotte looked out of the window of her compartment. A gas lamp–dotted landscape slid backward as the train trundled toward Euston Station. On the way to Ravensmere, the man who had shared her compartment had barely refrained from offering dermatological advice as Charlotte had scratched and scratched at her beard. She was sure that her face still itched from the glue used to hold the beard in place, but now she barely felt it.
What was Lord Bancroft up to?
He was the one who had repeatedly written her, expressing adesire to renew their acquaintance. He knew that Sherrinford Holmes was none other than Charlotte Holmes. Why had he not received her tonight?
From Euston Station she took a hansom cab. The cab drove past a hole-in-the-wall that sold fried pies. The smell of pastry dunked in hot oil should have made her peckish even if she’d just eaten a full meal, but tonight she remained indifferent.
No, she grew slightly repulsed.
The last time she’d lost her appetite outright had to do with Lord Bancroft. Was her stomach trying to tell her something? That it sensed—and was bracing for—imminent danger?
She asked to be deposited some distance from her hotel. There had been no time to ready Mrs. Watson’s house, which had sat empty for nearly half a year, for habitation. Fortunately, with most of the Upper Ten Thousand having already decamped for the countryside, it had been easy to secure a suite of rooms with its own street entrance, so that they did not need to pass through the hotel’s sometimes still-crowded foyer.
That street entrance flew open before Charlotte was even close enough to take her keys out from her pocket. A wild-looking Mrs. Watson bridged the fifteen feet or so that separated them, grabbed Charlotte by the elbow, and dragged her inside.
Charlotte nearly tripped on the threshold.
Mrs. Watson shut the door hard, throwing her shoulder against it as if a battering ram had been deployed on the other side. She opened her mouth, but no words emerged.
It was Miss Redmayne, standing at the door that connected the vestibule to the parlor, her silhouette backlit, her face in shadows, who said, her voice shaking only a little, “Miss Charlotte, they have Miss Bernadine. Lord Bancroft’s men have your sister.”
Five
The interrogation
“If you’ll excuse me for a moment, gentlemen,” said Miss Charlotte Holmes.
She rose, disappeared into an adjacent room, and returned a minute later with a small stack of papers, from which she presented two items to Chief Inspector Talbot. “You asked for a full account of my recent dealings with Lord Bancroft. These are the initial missives I received from him.”
Thoughtfully, she went to the window and pulled back the curtains. Light flooded in. As she retook her seat, Treadles noticed the shadows under her eyes, and the bloodshot vessels across the sclera of those eyes. Even her skin lacked its usual firm youthfulness.
Had she not slept last night? What had she been doing?
Chief Inspector Talbot examined the sheets of paper before handing them to Treadles. “It would be difficult to prove their authenticity.”
“Indeed, it might be,” Miss Holmes concurred about the typed and unsigned notes.
“We were told by the gatehouse at Ravensmere that a certain Mr. Sherrinford Holmes was refused entry twelve days ago,” pointed out Talbot. “Lord Bancroft knew that you are, in fact, Sherlock Holmes,consulting detective. He also knew that Sherrinford Holmes, brother to this fictional character, is but another one of your alter egos.
“If he was truly intent on securing your help, why did he decline to see you, Miss Holmes? You were already on his doorstep.”
Treadles’s stomach pitched. Miss Holmes would have a ready story, certainly, but Chief Inspector Talbot would find all its weaknesses.
