Murder on Cold Street (Lady Sherlock #5) - Sherry Thomas Page 0,107

almost struck a child outside—and I was so unsettled that I forgot what I was going to say.”

Charlotte considered herself equally responsible for the lapse. Even if her goal had been to learn about Mr. Sullivan, she should have left no stone unturned.

“He came at the beginning of December, a most unexpected visit,” continued Mrs. Cousins. “He and Miss Longstead had sent a substantial wreath and attended the funeral. They had also sent a note of condolence. Wouldn’t you agree, Miss Holmes, that Mr. Longstead had already done everything and more required by etiquette, given that he was never a personal friend to my husband?”

“Yes, I would agree,” answered Charlotte.

“So you can imagine my surprise when he called to condole with me, more than four months after Mr. Cousins died.”

Many things had changed for Mr. Longstead in the weeks before his death, and some of those changes had led him to call on Mrs. Cousins, with whom he’d rarely had any dealings. Charlotte let out a long, controlled breath. “Please give me all the details you can remember.”

“Well, he didn’t stay for much time, twenty minutes perhaps. We spent at least five of those minutes on the weather and another five on his niece. He lamented that she’d still not had a proper debut and took responsibility for the delay. I said I hoped it would happen soon but that alas, if it did, I would not be able to attend, given that I was still in first mourning.

“Eventually the topic turned to my husband. Mr. Longstead said he very much wished that in his younger years, instead of always locking himself in his workshop to tinker with prototypes, he’d had the wisdom to help my father-in-law guide my husband as he came of age. He wondered whether, if he’d done that, in later years we wouldn’t have been better friends and allies.”

She sighed. Framed against both the dark crape of her attire and the gold-and-green of the wallpaper beyond, she formed a near-perfect pre-Raphaelite tableau.

“I’ve been struggling to come to terms with the reality of the man I married. And for some reason, this wishful thinking on Mr. Longstead’s part, this vision of a reality that never was—it touched me. My husband had many faults, but did I have any fewer? Had I known he was going to die so young, would I have been a different wife and would we have had a better marriage?”

She fell silent; her face turned toward the window.

Outside the sun was setting. The hour Inspector Treadles would be formally charged drew ever nearer.

Charlotte pressed on. “Did Mr. Longstead by any chance mention Cousins Manufacturing or Mr. Sullivan?”

“No, but he did bring up Inspector and Mrs. Treadles during our chat about the weather. They’d dined together shortly before and would dine together again in a few days. I was still vexed at Inspector Treadles’s conduct, so I didn’t say much in response.”

And now the question Charlotte had come for. “Did he take anything from this household?”

Mrs. Cousins started. “How did you know?”

With a solid smack, Charlotte’s heart fell back into place—she hadn’t realized how much she needed her theory to be correct. “I saw a mourning brooch among his things.”

“That was it. Near the end of his visit, we were both a little teary. He asked if I had any memento for him to remember Mr. Cousins by, a piece of mourning jewelry, perhaps. So I gave him the brooch.”

Mrs. Cousins sighed and set a slender hand upon the column of her throat. “I’ve heard that some people can sense their own impending demise. I wonder . . . if Mr. Longstead wasn’t one. A reconciliation of sorts with my late husband, a belated debut party for his niece—he seemed to be tying up all the loose ends of his life. Could he have sensed that his eternal rest was near?”

* * *

The problem with growing closer to one’s once-and-future lover in the midst of an urgent murder investigation was that one did not have time to proceed to the logical next step.

Or rather, that was Charlotte’s problem. She doubted that Lord Ingram would have allowed “logical next steps” even otherwise: He had strict ideas about what being a married man entailed and even an impending divorce did not relax all of those standards.

Which was why, after some lovely and increasingly ardent kisses the night before, instead of tumbling into a nice feather mattress to enjoy being young and libidinous together, they had made