Page 65 of A Ruse of Shadows
The sergeant looked thunderstruck. “Is that possible? I thought that she was fleeing her attacker.”
“That is, of course, also a possibility.”
The sergeant scratched his beard. “Then again, there were nosigns of forced entry on either the front or the back door. ’Course the assailant could have turned threatening after he was admitted to the house…No, then she would have been running out of the parlor, wouldn’t she, rather than toward the wall?”
He looked back at Inspector Treadles. “So she turned away to fetch some whisky. Does that mean the murderer was sitting right there in that chair? I can’t believe it. She let this person in, offered hospitality, and was killed for her trouble.”
“It happens more often than I would like to acknowledge,” said Treadles, “people murdered by those they trust.”
Sergeant Burr grimaced. “And she let him in at night, too. When I got here, the candles were all burned down to stubs because no one had snuffed them out.
“Yes, it must have been at night.” The sergeant nodded to himself. “Otherwise, three shots—the caretakers should have heard those. But that night, after the Stapleses made sure that indeed she wanted neither cooking nor attendance, they took themselves to visit their daughter in the next village.”
“Did anyone come through the area during that time?” asked Treadles.
“I inquired as soon as I left here yesterday, Inspector. Neither the ticket agent, the station master, nor the shopkeepers on the high street could recall seeing any new faces in the last few days.
“And there’s another odd thing. She had only one small valise and no other luggage, according to the estate agent. But we can’t even find that. I can only assume the murderer took it. Earlier, when I thought she was shot in the back because she was fleeing, I could have theorized that this was a robbery gone wrong. But if she was going to offer the murderer a glass of whisky, then I’m at a loss as to why he also robbed her.”
Treadles looked toward Charlotte Holmes. She had one arm across her chest—on her false paunch, in truth; her chin rested against the knuckles of her other hand.
“Let me take a look at the curtains and the windows,” Treadlessuggested. “And then we can let in some light and Mr. Adams can take photographs.”
“Mr. Adams” wasted no time setting up the camera. She pulled the shutter, then expertly swapped in a new plate and recorded another image.
“Very advanced policework, this is,” said the sergeant, full of admiration.
“And if in this country we ever take up photographing inmates, as they now do in France, I’d never run out of work,” said Mr. Adams cheerfully.
?They toured the rest of the house, spoke to the caretakers, who could tell them little, and then traveled to the constabulary to view the body.
Mr. Adams winced as soon as “he” saw the victim. “What a pity.”
Treadles had noticed that when playing characters, Miss Holmes was far more expressive. In person, not a single muscle on her face would have moved.
“Yes, a pity indeed,” he echoed.
But neither the victim’s unpeaceful expression nor the three bullet holes in her back told them anything about why she had been killed—that is, they did not greatly increase Treadles’s knowledge. What Miss Holmes gleaned, she kept to herself.
She took more pictures, then Sergeant Burr presented the scant items the victim left behind. Treadles opened a golden locket. Only one side of the locket held a picture, an image of a shy but happy-looking Mrs. Claiborne, captured some years ago.
Miss Holmes caught Treadles’s attention, pointed at the locket, and then pointed to herself.
Before he could ask why, Sergeant Burr handed him a monogrammed handkerchief. “We call her Mrs. Overhill because that’s the name she gave to the estate agent. But her initials sayMGC. And look here, Inspector.”
He brought them the dress that the victim had been wearing whenshe’d been shot. At the hem was sewn a small label that readClaiborne, 2 Prince’s Grove Close.
It was not uncommon for a household that sent out its washing to attach such labels to the clothes, so that the laundress would know which garments belonged to which client.
“Would this be an Exeter address? She told the estate agent she was from Exeter.”
Treadles might not know every street in London, but he knew that there was a Prince’s Grove Close in St. John’s Wood.
“We will find out,” he said. “Now, Sergeant, before you pack everything away, I should like to send the locket with Mr. Adams back to Scotland Yard. The photograph inside might help in finding out the victim’s true identity.”
“Certainly, Inspector. Anything to advance the investigation.”
Sergeant Burr placed the locket in an envelope, asked Treadles to sign a register for the loan of the item, and then gave the envelope to Miss Holmes.
