Murder on Cold Street (Lady Sherlock #5) - Sherry Thomas Page 0,127

Longstead,” murmured Miss Redmayne.

“The poor man,” said Mrs. Watson at nearly the same time, shaking her head.

“I don’t know when Mr. Longstead’s delight turned to something else,” said Charlotte. “But if you need further convincing that Inspector Treadles’s current predicament is intimately linked to the goings-on at Cousins, remember he told me that what Sherlock Holmes typically did should have been good enough to help him?”

Everyone around the table nodded, in varying degrees of anticipation and apprehension. The gravest expression belonged to Lord Ingram, who knew more than the two ladies.

“Sherlock Holmes typically read his correspondence.” Charlotte pulled out the two letters she had singled out and handed them around.

Mrs. Watson scanned the letters. “But these are—these are—what—” she stuttered, bewildered.

Charlotte smiled at her. “More than ever I am grateful for your policy, ma’am, never to toss away anything that comes addressed to Sherlock Holmes. I believe the letters are from Inspector Treadles, who chose the examples of these clients because they had been featured in a newspaper article. And if you look at where the letters were sent from . . .”

Mrs. Watson scrutinized the addresses on the letters and the postmarks on the envelopes. “I don’t see any disparities.”

“No disparities. But look at the locales themselves, please.”

Lord Ingram lifted one envelope. “Headingley. Is that not near Leeds?”

Charlotte nodded. “Likely a part of Leeds itself now, but it probably still has a receiving post office with its own postmark.”

Miss Redmayne took the other envelope. “This one is postmarked Sharrow. Where’s Sharrow?”

“Sharrow—that’s in Sheffield!” Mrs. Watson shot out of her chair. “Inspector Treadles was in Sheffield.”

In Mrs. Watson’s account of what she and Lord Ingram had learned in Reading, the name of this city had passed through the lips of a dying worker, mumbling deliriously in German.

Two more, then Sheffield, then home.

Miss Redmayne rubbed Mrs. Watson’s arm gently. Lord Ingram poured a glass of wine for her. While they capably saw to Mrs. Watson, Charlotte finished all the remaining brussels sprouts on her plate.

The butter sauce had made them far more palatable. But alas, how virtuous could she feel, when she ate almost as much butter as she did brussels sprouts?

Mrs. Watson sat down again and drank from the glass Lord Ingram had set before her. The wine brought back some color into her cheeks, but the fine lines around the corners of her eyes deepened with her frown. “I’m more than willing to believe that Mr. Longstead and Inspector Treadles joined forces to scrutinize irregularities at Cousins—Mr. Longstead could have done far worse for a partner in such an endeavor. Not to mention that Inspector Treadles, having recently reconciled with his wife, probably yearned to render her a service, to make up for months of neglect. But why didn’t they say anything to her?”

Lord Ingram poured a glass of wine for himself. “A trick of the masculine mind, I’m afraid. They probably thought it chivalrous not to involve her in something that could prove dangerous.”

But that she had been so much in the dark had made life an order of a magnitude more difficult for her, when everything had gone wrong on the night of the party.

“I, too, am willing to accept the premise that Mr. Longstead and Inspector Treadles worked together and that Mr. Longstead opened the back door to number 33 that night,” declared Miss Redmayne. “But if he was waiting for Inspector Treadles, how did he end up dead, together with Mr. Sullivan? And what was Mr. Sullivan doing there in the first place?”

Charlotte was eyeing the bûche de Noël again. Lord Ingram pushed it directly in front of her. She smiled at the cake, though she really wished to bat her eyelashes at him.

He said to Miss Redmayne, “While Miss Charlotte is busy with her one true love, I can venture a guess to your question.”

Miss Redmayne laughed. Mrs. Watson chortled. Charlotte cut herself a slice of the cake. Ah, how scrumptious.

Lord Ingram studied her a moment, his gaze full of amusement and affection. But as he turned back to address the other ladies, all lightheartedness left his expression.

“When we began this investigation, we thought Mrs. Treadles in desperate straits. But the greater part of her current predicament arose from her husband’s arrest. Knowing what we do now, if we go back to the beginning of that night, before anyone ended up dead, we can see that it was Mr. Sullivan in water so hot it was practically boiling, Mr. Sullivan who knowingly and recklessly