Murder on Cold Street (Lady Sherlock #5) - Sherry Thomas Page 0,102

you realized that number 33 wouldn’t be let for a while and that if you could get your hands on those keys, you’d have access to a place where you and Miss Hendricks could meet in relative safety.”

Mr. Woodhollow shifted on his seat. “Please, Miss Holmes, I know what I’ve done wasn’t right, but please don’t think of me as a criminal. I’ve been in service since I was twelve, starting as a hallboy, and I’ve never taken so much as a spoon from any employer.”

Charlotte looked at him. “But you made duplicates of keys that didn’t belong to you.”

He lowered his gaze. “When I left home, I meant to also leave behind everything about that home. But I guess I still know how to take impressions of keys and where to get duplicates made without questions asked.”

“Did you ever let anyone else have the keys?”

“Absolutely not. Never.”

“And you have the keys still?”

“I can surrender them now if you’d like,” he said glumly. “I don’t imagine Miss Hendricks will wish to go back to number 33 again.”

Charlotte sighed. “Mr. Woodhollow, I assume you have not spoken to Miss Hendricks since that night. You left number 33 believing that she had not betrayed your trust. She, on the other hand—”

“But I’m saving up money so that someday I may have enough to ask her to marry me!”

“Does she know that?”

He twisted his fingers. “I’m afraid she’ll say no. She comes from a respectable stock. No one from my family, men or women, have ever been respectable enough to be entrusted with the education of other people’s children.”

“Surely, Mr. Woodhollow, you understand why Miss Hendricks might also have doubts?”

“She shouldn’t,” he said stubbornly.

“But she does. Very few people think better of themselves than the world thinks of them. You feel undeserving because you are not a man of means. She feels undeserving because she is no longer a young woman. Tell her what you feel. Tell her that it is not merely her learning or the novelty of your affair that interests you. Do not assume anything that is self-evident to you must be equally self-evident to her.”

Perhaps her words at last made sense to him. Or perhaps he heard and understood her desire for there to be no more misunderstandings between him and his beloved. He raised his face and said solemnly, “I will tell her, Miss Holmes. Thank you.”

She scribbled a note and gave it to him to pass on to Miss Hendricks. “Good luck, Mr. Woodhollow.”

The butler left, still thanking her.

Charlotte sighed again. She was actually rather sincere in wishing the man luck. She must be getting soft with age—or from Lord Ingram’s influence.

At the thought of him, she smiled to herself.

Sixteen

Lord Ingram had sent his cables. Mr. Bloom was on his train back to London. And Mrs. Watson at last permitted herself to whisper, “At most two thirds. And likely only a half!”

She and Lord Ingram were in a hired town coach, driving away from Reading’s crowded railway station. Trains whistled. Street musicians pulled tirelessly at accordions. Hawkers, huddled around fires in metal bins, cried mince pies and roasted chestnuts.

Against this racket, their coachman, perched on the driver’s box in front, his head covered by a thick woolen cap, couldn’t possibly overhear any words exchanged inside the vehicle.

Yet Mrs. Watson dared not speak at her normal volume.

Lord Ingram moved to sit beside her, one arm around her shoulders.

His proximity allowed her anxious thoughts to at last pour out. “If we are accurate in our figures and Mr. Bloom correct in his assessment—and I have a sinking feeling he might very well be—then where did the rest of the money go? That is a lot of money. And this is only one factory!”

Under the younger Mr. Cousins’s tenure, the firm had acquired and modernized multiple factories.

“Is this why Mr. Sullivan did his best to obstruct Mrs. Treadles from learning about the inner workings of the company? He was diverting funds from the company to line his own pockets, wasn’t he? Did Miss Holmes not say that his drawing room was filled top to bottom with show pieces?”

“An excess of furniture does not a man indict,” said Lord Ingram slowly. “But I do agree with you otherwise. With the younger Mr. Cousins having been an ineffective chief, and with Mr. Sullivan and his cabal having arrogated most of the decision-making power to themselves, I’d be surprised if the hostility he directed at Mrs. Treadles wasn’t part of a concerted effort