Murder on Cold Street (Lady Sherlock #5) - Sherry Thomas Page 0,53
33?”
Miss Longstead cleared her throat. “I am twenty-four, Miss Holmes, not exactly in the first blush of youth. Mrs. Coltrane had told me that sometimes things happen at social gatherings. Obviously questionable conduct is much more likely in country manors where guests stay for days, and not truly expected at a town house dance. Still, before the ball started, we locked the bedrooms in the house—number 31—for precisely that reason.
“So when I saw the woman going into number 33, that was where my thought went—that it would be illicit, not criminal. There wasn’t anything worth stealing in the house—nothing, in any case, that could have easily been taken out. With the exception of the door between the dining room and the staircase hall, unlocked to allow me passage to the attic, all the other rooms in the house were locked, the attic double-locked.”
Thus explaining why the attic door had been shot at twice?
“In fact, my main thought, when I saw the woman going into number 33, was that I shouldn’t call any attention to it, lest it erupt into some sort of acute embarrassment, perhaps even a scandal. To that end I returned to the party immediately, in case anyone came outside looking for me and witnessed more than they needed to.
“I did, however, want to let somebody know about it. I looked for my uncle, but before I found him, I was swept again into several dances. Then I spoke for a bit with my friend Miss Yates, and only afterwards did I manage to locate him and tell him about the person who went into the house next door.”
“The person? Not the woman?”
“It felt a bit slanderous to state that it was a woman, even though I was sure it was.”
“How did Mr. Longstead react?”
“He was . . . he didn’t seem to be as concerned about it as I’d expected him to be. He told me not to worry about what I saw. That I should go back to being the belle of the ball and let him look after such a minor matter. And that was the last I thought of it until . . . everything else happened.”
She looked down at her hands, now tightly gripped together in her lap. Holmes picked up a plate of biscuits and extended it toward her. To Lord Ingram’s surprise—his own appetite diminished with emotional distress—Miss Longstead accepted a biscuit, ate it, and appeared more in charge of herself.
“Thank you, Miss Holmes,” she said.
“Nothing like a good coconut biscuit to help one carry on.” Holmes selected a biscuit herself and took a bite. “When you came back to the house, did you see either Mrs. Treadles or Mr. Sullivan?”
“Neither—I was swept up in the next dance.” Miss Longstead smiled a little. “It was rather fun to dance, provided one’s partner didn’t steer one into other couples. And in any case, I couldn’t see beyond my immediate vicinity.”
“How much time do you estimate passed between when you saw the woman enter number 33 and when guests started to leave because of the fog rolling in?”
Miss Longstead frowned slightly. “I apologize. I’m terrible at estimating the passage of time. When I’m bored, I’ll think an hour has passed when only twenty minutes have, and vice versa when I’m thoroughly absorbed.”
“Please don’t worry about that,” said Holmes, sounding very reassuring. “Tell me instead what Mr. Sullivan was doing, the last time you saw him—and the same for your uncle.”
“I think I saw Mr. Sullivan speaking to Mrs. Treadles at one point, before one particular dance. But at the end of the dance when I saw her again, she was in the company of another woman.
“The last time I saw my uncle was when I told him someone had entered number 33. He asked me if I was having a good time and I said that I was, far more than I expected to. At which he grinned and said, ‘See, I told you it would all go off splendidly.’ And—and that was the last I saw him alive.”
“You didn’t have need of him the rest of the party?”
“Before the party began he told Mrs. Coltrane and me he was going to stay up as late as he could but that he might not be able to last the entire length of the gathering. So when I didn’t see him at the end of the night, I simply assumed that he’d gone to bed.”
Holmes let some time pass, before asking very softly, “And