Page 16 of A Ruse of Shadows
“There was always something about him, wasn’t there,” Mrs. Watson went on, “that made you feel that he couldn’t be entirely trusted? Now I know it’s an emptiness of the soul. No wonder I nevercould bring myself to like him—and you know it’s in my nature to like everyone.”
“I always knew it would be only a matter of time before he made his vengeance felt,” said Miss Charlotte, wiping her fingers one by one with a napkin. She threw aside the napkin abruptly. “I didn’t think, however, that it would be at this moment.”
This moment when they needed all their energy and attention on Moriarty.
?Miss Olivia Holmes was unexpectedly enchanted by Aix-en-Provence.
For all that she had always wished to visit the South of France, she had largely aspired to the Côte d’Azur, sunny and mild even in the deepest winter, its towns and seaside villages fashionable retreats for those who could afford to get away from England in cold, damp January.
Charlotte, however, had not asked Livia to meet with her in Cannes, Antibes, Saint-Tropez—or even the little principality of Monaco—but in Aix-en-Provence.
We have visited Aix a time or two, and it charms Mrs. Watson greatly—perhaps it will have the same captivating effect on you.
Once Aix had been the seat of the Counts of Provence, a nexus of both power and culture. Now it was but a quiet provincial town. Why had Charlotte and Mrs. Watson journeyed more than once from Paris to visit the place, and then proposed it for their reunion?
A few months ago on the RMSProvence, Mrs. Watson had told Livia,We have news of Mr. Marbleton’s whereabouts. And we plan to take advantage of that.
Livia, when she’d recovered from her astonishment, had promptly offered her assistance, such as it was. But Mrs. Watson had smiled and said,You go on with your travels, my dear. Enjoy yourself. Enjoy your hard-won freedom. Write more tales of Sherlock Holmes, if you wish. We will ask for your help when the time comes.
The time was nigh, Livia was sure. Mrs. Watson had not disclosed Mr. Marbleton’s location, but dared Livia presume that he was being held right here?
Charlotte’s letter, inviting Livia to come to Aix, had reached Liviain Athens, as she and Mrs. Newell returned from Constantinople. Livia’s heart had not stopped hammering since, with both dread and wild hope. Aix-en-Provence had loomed large in her mind, a vaguely sinister locale full of locked doors and closed shutters, its public squares deserted, its very air heavy and oppressive.
When she arrived, however, she’d found the town lovely, full of edifices the colors of sunshine and warm butter. The sidewalk cafés, cool in the dappled green shade of tall elm trees, brimmed with patrons reading books and newspapers, and children looking about curiously as they drank their syrupy soda water. Fountains burbled everywhere, from splashy congregations of mythological creatures to some that were little more than a spigot on a wall spouting into a plain stone basin, yet somehow that little stream of water sparkled in the sun and made music as it fell.
She prayed that Mr. Marbleton, so talented at taking pleasure in small things, managed to enjoy the unspooling of daily life here: the vibrant produce on market days; the scent of thyme, aniseed, and good bread in the air; the soft thuds of coffee cups on marble-top café tables giving way to the clinking of wineglasses and silverware as day drifted into evening.
Was there—was there any chance at all that he had already spied her, walking about? Had he perhaps seen Charlotte and Mrs. Watson, too, on their earlier jaunts? Had he begun his own preparations, sensing that his escape was near—that maybe now, with her appearance, it was imminent?
He loved life; she never loved life so much as when she saw it through his eyes. But by that same token, as long as he remained a prisoner, her own freedom would be incomplete.
“Mademoiselle Holmes?” called out the clerk at the reception desk as she came through the hotel’s front door with enough patisserie for three Charlottes. “Mademoiselle, we have a letter for you.”
Charlotte!
Livia took the letter from the clerk, thanked him, and made sure that she walked normally out of the foyer and up the curving staircaseto her bright, high-ceilinged room on the next floor. There she carefully set down the packages in her hands and sliced open the envelope.
Dear Livia,
I hope this letter finds you well and that you have been pleasantly situated in Aix-en-Provence.
I’m afraid I write with unhappy news.
Don’t worry, no one is in danger—at least not at the moment.
I have not told you this earlier, but in the past several weeks, I have received two notes from Lord Bancroft, each expressing a desire for greater understanding and friendship. It was obvious Lord Bancroft harbored ulterior motives, but it was not obvious what exactly he wanted.
The second of these notes arrived just as Mrs. Watson, Miss Redmayne, and I began our recent journey to England to call on Lord Ingram, who fractured his limb in an accident at Stern Hollow.
Livia sucked in a breath. Lord Ingram was the last person to break a bone while proceeding under his own power.
Instead of starting immediately for Paris after the visit—Lord Ingram appeared in decent form and I could discern no signs of foul play—we headed to London, so that I might call on Lord Bancroft and uncover his purpose in writing to me.
I did just that yesterday, but was not granted an audience. Upon reaching the hotel, however, I learned that henchmen under orders from Lord Bancroft had overrun Mrs. Watson’s house in Paris and taken its residents hostage.
Livia cried out,“What?”
Our return journey began within hours. We reached Paris this morning and found the house indeed occupied by four armed individuals, three men and one woman.
