Murder on Cold Street (Lady Sherlock #5) - Sherry Thomas Page 0,110

him all night somewhere nearby, he made himself a few extra coins by coming here—discreetly, of course, not directly outside the front door—to take you to Cold Street.”

Mrs. Sullivan grabbed a round embroidery frame from a side table next to her chair; it still held the mourning handkerchief Charlotte remembered from the evening before. “And what would I possibly do there?”

“Spy on your husband, of course. Except you quickly realized that almost all the rooms in number 33, except the dining room and the entrance hall on the ground floor, were locked and you didn’t have much of a vantage point into number 31, given that the dancing in that adjacent house happened on the floor above.”

“That is—ridiculous!”

“You probably do think so, but still you weren’t able to stop yourself from doing just that. A rather distinct-looking carriage was seen arriving on Cold Street between eleven and twelve that night. Did it disgorge you? How long did you stay?”

Mrs. Sullivan gripped her embroidery frame as if it were a shield. “I refuse to answer such ludicrous questions.”

Charlotte folded her hands primly in her lap. “I do wonder where you went afterward, Mrs. Sullivan. Did you go home directly? Or did you go somewhere else in that carriage?”

“Your imagination is getting the best of you, Miss Holmes!”

“Is it? Yet my imagination hasn’t come up with answers for questions such as, how did you get into number 33? Did you make a habit of going where your husband didn’t want your company? Also, did he know this about you?”

Mrs. Sullivan shoved aside the embroidery frame. “Miss Holmes, I think—”

Charlotte rose. “Indeed, Mrs. Sullivan, it would behoove you to think carefully. For, shall we say, twenty-four hours? After that, my brother will have me call on Inspector Brighton with our deductions and ask for Mr. Sullivan’s other household to be looked into.”

Eighteen

As Charlotte expected, Mrs. Sullivan left soon, slipping out of the front door while glancing about, as if she were a maid neglecting her duties to meet with a follower, and not the only authority figure remaining in the household, able to come and go as she wished.

Miss Redmayne, now in the role of the coachman, followed. Unlike Charlotte, who’d learned to handle a vehicle in the country, Miss Redmayne had learned to drive in the city. On Aunt Jo’s phaeton, first in the parks, then mostly in quieter districts, she’d told Charlotte.

Her relative lack of experience on thoroughfares did not bother Charlotte. Her attention was on the direction they were headed: into a more fashionable district, with more abundant gardens, and large, freestanding houses.

Would they be passing through or were they approaching Mrs. Sullivan’s destination?

It was the destination.

And Mrs. Sullivan alit before a house both bigger and more opulent than her own.

Charlotte hesitated. This was not how one set up a mistress. Mistresses were usually kept in modest houses, described as bijou to give them an air of elegance. Was Mrs. Sullivan by some chance visiting a social superior?

Well past normal visiting hours and in a hired carriage?

Charlotte decided to try her luck. The maid who opened the door was at first disinclined to allow her to see the mistress of the house, but when Charlotte informed her that she was Mr. Sullivan’s other mistress, here to discuss arrangements, she was promptly, if with great curtness, shown into the drawing room.

This drawing room, while still plentifully gilded, might in some circles have been accepted as elegant enough—in certain nouveau riche circles, that was. As a further point in its favor, it was not stuffed to the gills, but had enough space that each piece of furniture could be individually appreciated for its design and placement. Charlotte walked past large pots of ferns that added splashes of soothing greenery, and mentally tallied the vases of fresh flowers that adorned every horizontal surface.

Mrs. Sullivan, seated on a white-and-gold settee, leaped up. “Miss Holmes, you—you—”

“Hullo again, Mrs. Sullivan. Will you perform the introductions?” murmured Charlotte, inclining her head toward the other woman in the room.

She appeared to be in her early thirties, pretty but not remarkably so, attired becomingly in a tea gown with an emerald-green open redingote, worn over a loose white underdress.

Charlotte aspired to own a tea gown, which had a racy reputation as what married ladies wore when their lovers came by for an afternoon tryst. Perhaps now that Lord Ingram was at last willing, it was time to make such an investment?

“May I present Mrs. Portwine, Miss Holmes?” mumbled Mrs.