Murder on Cold Street (Lady Sherlock #5) - Sherry Thomas Page 0,48
example, owned several houses near her own, including the property at 18 Upper Baker Street. If one already lived in a district, then one understood its characteristics and would be quicker to spot a good deal. And it was easier to keep an eye on one’s investment properties if they were close by.
She tapped a gloved finger against her chin. “What does Miss Longstead use number 33 for?”
“The attic was made into a painting studio by the previous tenants. I hear Miss Longstead used it to make extracts and whatnot.” Constable Lamb shook his head. “A shame it was turned upside down. The servants from number 31 cleaned it up after Inspector Brighton and the photographers had been there, but before that it was full of broken glass.”
And its door had been shot at, twice.
Lord Ingram’s fingertips tingled. Holmes tsked in suitable disapproval.
They entered the town house via the dining room, which was often found on the ground floor, toward the rear. The furnishings were covered in large protective cloths, the dining table and its chairs in one huddle, the sideboards in another. The floor, too, was spread with dust sheets.
“I understand that the policemen who first discovered the bodies entered from the front door. What about those who’ve come here since?”
“The front door, too, miss, as far as I know.”
Constable Lamb sauntered forward deeper into the house, no doubt expecting them to follow in his wake. Holmes, however, knelt down to examine the dust sheets.
The dining room had three windows, two facing the garden, one in the direction of number 31, and only the curtains on this last had been pulled back, admitting the watery light of a rainy morning and a view of a tightly shut number 31, a house in mourning.
Lord Ingram drew back all the remaining curtains.
Now there was enough light for him to see a tangle of footprints, none terribly muddy or pronounced, but enough to distinguish that most were left by men’s boots—the police, heading out the back door to take a look at the garden and then coming back in.
He held his breath, hoping not to see any prints of a lady’s—Mrs. Treadles’s—delicate evening slippers. He didn’t, but he did remark a few dark red drops marking a straight line toward the interior of the house.
Inspector Treadles, passing through?
Holmes crouched down at a spot not too far from the dining table huddle and took out her magnifying glass, which he had given to her a few years ago for her birthday. When he crouched down beside her, she handed him the magnifying glass.
His first glance at the dust sheet did not reveal anything out of the ordinary. Even looking through the magnifying glass yielded no unusual details. It was only by lowering his face nearly to the floor, while making sure he didn’t block any light, that he saw what she wanted him to see.
Several filaments of long, light brown hair, otherwise almost invisible against the dun-colored dust sheet.
Mrs. Treadles had light brown hair.
They exchanged a look as they rose. She took the magnifying glass back from him and went to a spot of what he presumed to be bloodstains. They followed the bloodstains out of the dining room, to the central staircase, where they were met by the sight of bloody boot prints coming down.
He remembered Inspector Treadles’s boots, which had looked as if they’d sloshed through blood.
“It’s a bit like this up to the attic—the blood drops, not so much the boot prints, that is,” called Constable Lamb from above. “Do you want to see the murder scene first?”
At the bedroom two floors up where the murders had taken place, she spent a moment on the door, which still bore signs of having been violently kicked in, before turning her attention to the chalk outlines on the dust sheets.
“Those outlines—do they mark where the victims lay?”
“That’s right, Miss Holmes. Mr. Longstead here and Mr. Sullivan here.”
Mr. Longstead’s outline was closer to the door. A large pool of dried blood stained the dust sheet underneath him. A smaller pool marked where Mr. Sullivan had been shot in the forehead, at the foot of the covered-up bed, his head under a window that looked toward number 31.
A trail of dark red boot prints led to two windows on the far side of the bed, facing the street outside. Inspector Treadles’s blood-soaked soles again came to mind.
“Were you by any chance on the scene yesterday, Constable?”