Murder on Cold Street (Lady Sherlock #5) - Sherry Thomas Page 0,111

Sullivan. “Mrs. Portwine, this is Miss Holmes, who is looking into the murders on behalf of Sherlock Holmes, the private detective.”

Mrs. Portwine, obviously a woman of the world, did not appear too surprised or dismayed. She rose and offered Charlotte her hand to shake. “Miss Holmes, I can assure you that I had nothing to do with the murders. Killing off my protector harms my livelihood—and I guard my livelihood jealously.”

“I believe you, Mrs. Portwine,” said Charlotte. “I am here only because Mrs. Sullivan has refused to answer questions as to her whereabouts that night. I decided to pose those questions to you instead.”

“You said you would give me twenty-four hours to think!” said Mrs. Sullivan plaintively.

“And you may still choose to tell me more at the end of those twenty-four hours,” said Charlotte. “I did not, however, give any promises as to how I would or wouldn’t use those twenty-four hours.”

Mrs. Sullivan pouted. “I didn’t mean to bring her to your doorstep,” she said, even more plaintively, to the woman with whom she’d shared her husband.

“And yet here we all are,” said Mrs. Portwine, addressing Mrs. Sullivan, only a few years younger than she, as if the latter were a wayward niece. “We might as well sit down and have a cup of tea, like civilized people.”

The tea tray, which must have been already ordered for Mrs. Sullivan, materialized that moment, carried in by the still incredulous-looking maid.

Charlotte selected a small iced cake, reminiscent of the ones her thirteen-year-old self had been thinking about when she saw Lord Ingram for the first time. “This is a delightful house, Mrs. Portwine.”

Mrs. Sullivan wrinkled her nose, but made no comment about how her husband did not buy this house for her.

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Portwine. “It isn’t mine, of course, and I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to stay here, now that Mr. Sullivan is no more.”

“Were you saddened by his passing?”

The corners of Mrs. Portwine’s lips lifted in an ironic smile. “Ours was a business arrangement. I would say Mrs. Sullivan has been far more affected. She was . . . interested in her husband in a way I could never be.”

Mrs. Sullivan, so loquacious in her first meeting with Charlotte, said nothing.

“Oh?” said Charlotte. “Would you like to tell me more, Mrs. Sullivan?”

Mrs. Sullivan stared at her own lap. “You might as well ask Mrs. Portwine. This is her drawing room, after all.”

“Temporarily,” said Mrs. Portwine politely. “It was always only mine temporarily.”

Charlotte enjoyed Mrs. Portwine’s wry, cynical, but not unkind presence. “Please, go ahead, tell me more about Mrs. Sullivan’s interest in her husband.”

Mrs. Portwine gave Charlotte a long look, as if wondering what sort of ostensibly respectable woman could be so at ease in the drawing room of a loose female. “Mr. Sullivan bought this house not too long ago. A new mistress seemed an appropriate inauguration for a new house. It so happens that I am good friends with Mrs. Calloway, his previous mistress. Mrs. Calloway wished to part ways from Mr. Sullivan. I was between protectors. She appealed to me for help and I took over from her, so to speak.”

“Mrs. Calloway didn’t want to go anywhere; Mr. Sullivan was the one who tired of her,” claimed Mrs. Sullivan in all seriousness.

Mrs. Portwine smiled slightly, took a sip of her tea, and did not reply to Mrs. Sullivan, but instead said to Charlotte, “When I moved in, Mr. Sullivan told me that I may expect Mrs. Sullivan to call. He said to shut the door in her face, as Mrs. Calloway and his other mistresses had over the years.

“But I was curious about Mrs. Sullivan. She sounded . . . tenacious, to say the least, and I wanted to see what she was like in person. When I did meet her, I realized that for her, Mr. Sullivan was an obsession. Not an obsession that arose out of too much affection, I don’t think. More as if—as if she only felt alive when he paid attention to her.”

Mrs. Sullivan swallowed. She opened her mouth, but after a moment, shut it again.

Mrs. Portwine cast a glance in her direction, not a look of scorn, but more as a taxonomist might puzzle before a hitherto unknown subspecies. “Mr. Sullivan by no means returned the same strength of feelings, yet neither was he indifferent to this idée fixe of hers. In fact, a part of him depended on it. He was not a man who