Page 22 of A Ruse of Shadows
A brief beam of sunlight struck Lord Bancroft’s startlingly pale face before shadows took over again, limning the spreading web of fine lines on his no-longer-supple skin. “I do not,” he answered with a sneer. “I believe only in my own assertion of innocence.”
Eight
Mr. Underwood’s mistress, Mrs. Claiborne, had an address in St. John’s Wood.
It was an excellent neighborhood in which to keep one’s mistress, especially if one wished to be discreet. The area was not too fashionable, yet not too remote. The rent was affordable. Freestanding houses on larger lots, called villas, rare in Mayfair and Belgravia, were more plentiful in these parts. With spacious gardens, and driveways that curved under large porticos, a man could visit his paramour regularly without ever being seen by nosy neighbors.
Mrs. Claiborne, however, lived in a row of town houses packed as tight as matches in a box.
Lord Bancroft had cautioned Miss Charlotte that Mrs. Claiborne, concerned for her safety, no longer answered the front door. Miss Charlotte and Mrs. Watson therefore approached from the back.
The alley behind a row of town houses, at the best of times, smelled of horses. In the heat of August, all the uncollected droppings in all the mews had aged to a fine stench. The onslaught of odors made Mrs. Watson’s head throb.
Miss Charlotte had given her an account of the meeting with Lord Bancroft, and Mrs. Watson didn’t believe a single word the man had said. She could only hope that this whole rigmarole wasn’t some horrible trap. No, she knew it to be a horrible trap; she simply didn’tknow yet what would trigger its razor-sharp steel maw to snap shut around them.
But for the sake of everyone in Paris, they had to keep Lord Bancroft happy. And if that meant finding Mr. Underwood—or his corpse—then so be it.
Mrs. Claiborne’s mews was empty, neither horse nor carriage stowed therein. The ladies sidestepped fresh knolls of equine excreta, entered Mrs. Claiborne’s tiny back garden on the other side of the alley, and rang the bell.
The curtain on the window next to the door fluttered. “Who is it?” called out a voice speaking with a soft but noticeable French accent.
“Miss Holmes and Mrs. Hudson,” answered Miss Charlotte. “We are here to see Mrs. Claiborne on behalf of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, at Lord Bancroft Ashburton’s request.”
The door opened immediately.
Most men chose mistresses on the basis of physical attractiveness. Even so, Mrs. Claiborne was exceptionally lovely—her eyes made Mrs. Watson think of a starlit sky, and her figure was superb. She wore a white blouse and a skirt in the same shade of sky blue as the ribbons that trimmed her lacy sleeves.
A very pretty ensemble that might have been a bit too pastel for a woman in her early thirties were it not for the crispness of the fabric and the simplicity of the cut.
“Thank goodness you’re here!” she cried. “When Lord Bancroft said that he’d have Mr. Sherlock Holmes help me, I thought he meant only to keep me from losing my mind. Do please come in!”
The visitors folded their parasols and entered the house. The ground floor felt dim and smelled a little stale. The upstairs parlor Mrs. Claiborne ushered them into, its drapes completely drawn, turned out to be gloomier and even more airless.
“My apologies—I wasn’t expecting callers.”
But instead of pulling back the curtains, Mrs. Claiborne turned on all the lamps in the room, revealing a profusion of red velvet andgolden fringes. The curtains, the upholstery, and even the piano cover used the same fabric and trimming—Mrs. Watson had visited less exaggerated theaters.
Their hostess plumped seat cushions, offered chairs to her visitors, put water to boil, and set out plates of cake. “Please allow me to thank you again, ladies, for coming to my aid.”
Relief and gratitude shone in her eyes—yet they couldn’t quite hide the panic simmering underneath. Mrs. Watson felt an involuntary twinge of sympathy. Sternly, she warned herself not to get carried away. She’d heard this story before—a lonely woman desperately seeking her lost beloved—and this time around she refused to be deceived.
Miss Charlotte, her purple-and-white-striped day dress clashing overwhelmingly with the décor, said, after they’d spent a few minutes on small talk, “I understand that you began to worry when letters and visits from Mr. Underwood ceased. Can you elaborate a little, beginning with how he became a…regular member of your household?”
Mrs. Claiborne perched at the edge of her chair. There had been a magazine lying there, which she’d picked up and set on her lap. Her thumb rubbed against the edge of the publication. “Well, um, I was under Lord Bancroft’s protection for three years. Then one day he told me that it was time to let me go, because he wished to court a young lady and his brother advised him not to keep a mistress at the same time, if he wished his suit to succeed.”
Mrs. Watson barely managed not to glance at Miss Charlotte. So Mrs. Claiborne had lost her livelihood because Lord Bancroft decided to pursue Miss Charlotte’s hand in marriage?
“He was generous,” Mrs. Claiborne carried on, “and made me a gift of the house I was living in—not this town house but a villa on Prince’s Grove Close. The villa, as it turned out, became a contributing factor in Mr. Underwood’s decision to approach me.
“He was very straightforward. Were it not for the fact that I already had my own place thanks to Lord Bancroft, he said, he wouldnot be able to maintain me in a similar style. But since I did have the house, would I be amenable if he footed the bill for my staff, carriage, and cattle, and a certain number of new garments each season?
“His frankness…had an unexpected effect on me. I confessed that over the years, in my boredom, I’d frittered away too much pin money—and must now save in earnest for the future.” Color crept into Mrs. Claiborne’s cheeks. She lowered her face to warm a teapot with freshly boiled water. “I meant to reduce my staff, get rid of my horse and carriage, and not invest in new frocks for at least three years. But if he would hand me in cash what he would have paid for those luxuries, I’d consider having him as my protector.”
Mrs. Watson was fascinated. She herself had been in the same profession but had never negotiated face-to-face with prospective protectors. Instead, she had brokered deals with their men of business to translatewhatever your heart desires, darlinginto exact, transferable amounts.
She was also intrigued by Mrs. Claiborne’s tendency to blush, surely a rarity among kept women. But perhaps this was precisely what her protectors liked, that someone who sold her favors for a living could still appear maidenly and easily flustered.
“Mr. Underwood was amenable to my idea,” Mrs. Claiborne went on. “Lord Bancroft gave his blessing. I made my domestic reductions, Mr. Underwood deposited money into my bank account, and…well, to answer your question, Miss Holmes, that was how he came to be a member of my household.”
