Murder on Cold Street (Lady Sherlock #5) - Sherry Thomas Page 0,2
wanted him to accompany her—and humbled that she would have called on him specifically for assistance.
“In that case, of course I’ll come up with you.”
“Thank you. Thank you, my lord.”
Perhaps because he had spent too much of his life helping those who either resented his aid or took it for granted, gratitude, the kind that misted Mrs. Treadles’s eyes, always took him aback.
As if flowers had blossomed before he had even planted seeds.
Holmes answered the door and led them up to the parlor of 18 Upper Baker Street.
He had been in the parlor a number of times and had come to think of it as Holmes’s office. But the room had been furnished with a homey ambiance, and to give the impression of a convalescent man on the premises.
The air held a whiff of tobacco smoke, mixed with the herbal, faintly alcoholic scent of tinctures. The magazines in the canterbury next to the fireplace were recent; the ironed newspapers on the occasional table had been delivered just that morning—seized from Mrs. Watson’s house, no doubt, on Holmes’s way out.
The only thing missing was the bouquet of flowers that usually sat on the seat of the bow window overlooking Upper Baker Street. In its place, a bundle of dried lavender stalks in a creamy white jar, which would have been the focal center of the room, were it not for Holmes and her Christmas-tree dress.
She poured tea and passed around gingerbread biscuits and slices of holiday cake, generously studded with morsels of glazed fruit and candied peel. And then, after another moment, she asked, “May I also offer you something stronger, Mrs. Treadles?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Holmes rose, went to the sideboard, and returned with a glass of whisky. Mrs. Treadles did not hesitate in downing a sizable draft, grimacing as she swallowed.
Holmes gave her a moment to recover. “Has Inspector Treadles mentioned to you, Mrs. Treadles, how my brother and I work together?”
“Yes, he has,” said Mrs. Treadles, sounding slightly hoarse. “I understand that Mr. Sherlock Holmes is beyond that door and that he can hear us in this room.”
“And see us, too, via a camera obscura. Which is why his door is shut to keep out light, so that our images, upside down and backward, will render more vividly for him.”
Mrs. Treadles gazed intently at the door, as if she could will the unseen sage to his greatest feat of mental acuity yet.
“We are ready to begin when you are, Mrs. Treadles,” said Holmes softly.
Mrs. Treadles took a deep breath. She had seemed eager to answer the question about how Sherlock Holmes worked, but now she hesitated. “I—I can’t be sure where to begin. As I look back at the events of recent weeks, I find myself wondering whether Robert—whether Inspector Treadles was where he said he was, doing what he told me he was doing.”
The tremor in her voice indicated more than trepidation for her husband. There was a fear that she might further incriminate him.
Lord Ingram had to remind himself that at Stern Hollow, not long ago, things had looked dire, too, with all circumstantial evidence pointing at him and him alone. Still, he was troubled.
“Let’s begin with known facts,” said Holmes calmly. “And then, Mrs. Treadles, everything else you care to share.”
It occurred to him that although he’d been in this space before, this was the first time he had ever sat in on a client meeting, if one didn’t count his first visit with Inspector Treadles, which took place before “Sherlock Holmes” had officially taken up the mantle of the world’s only consulting detective.
“Known facts,” echoed Mrs. Treadles. “In that case I suppose I should begin with the arrival of Sergeant MacDonald at my house this morning, asking to speak to me.”
There probably wasn’t anyone with whom Inspector Treadles worked more closely than Sergeant MacDonald, his colleague and apprentice who had accompanied him on many a case.
“When did Sergeant MacDonald show up at your residence?”
“A quarter before ten or thereabouts.”
Lord Ingram glanced at the grandfather clock softly ticking away in a corner of the parlor. Twenty past one.
“Are you usually home at that time, Mrs. Treadles?” asked Holmes softly. “I understand you took over the running of Cousins Manufacturing at the end of summer.”
A look of embarrassment crossed Mrs. Treadles’s face. “Typically I would have been at the office by then. But it was a late evening the night before, and I was not feeling entirely well this morning. So I had risen only shortly before.”