Murder on Cold Street (Lady Sherlock #5) - Sherry Thomas Page 0,58
Babbage a good twenty years ago he took up an interest in ciphers. He sometimes visited the Reading Room at the British Museum. He and Miss Longstead went to lectures and exhibits. From time to time they went to the theater. He took himself to various shops around town, to see what new and interesting items they might have. Occasionally he met with old friends.”
She spoke slower and slower, as if with every recollection his loss became more difficult to bear.
For her benefit, Charlotte moved to the window that faced number 33 and lifted the curtains, ostensibly to check on the line of sight between the dining rooms of the two houses—when she’d already looked out each window of number 33 and gauged how it gave onto number 31. “And this irregular pattern continued up until his death?”
“Well,” said Mrs. Coltrane after a minute, “this was the slightly peculiar thing. His habits became rather regular in the weeks preceding his death. We’d become accustomed to a leisurely pace in the morning. We were surprised when suddenly he was up at half past six every day.”
Charlotte dropped the curtains and turned around, a flutter of excitement in her stomach. “Was there any reason you could think of for this change?”
Mrs. Coltrane, who had moved to rearrange bric-a-brac on the mantel, frowned. “Not really. It just happened one day and went on happening. He would have his breakfast, get ready, and then walk to the Reading Room. Whenever he went to the Reading Room he’d be back only at teatime. After the first two days, we thought surely he wouldn’t make a habit of it. But he did for a good three and a half weeks.”
“Until his untimely death.”
“Until that.”
The flutter in Charlotte’s stomach only grew stronger. “Did he have an appointment book?”
“Scotland Yard has it now. They said they’d give it back when they’ve made a proper study.”
Drat it. She would much rather see it this minute. “Do please let me know when you have it back.”
They continued the tour. After the ground floor, they went up to the first floor, which had also been used for the party. And then came the true objective of the tour: Mr. Longstead’s rooms, which, according to Mrs. Coltrane, had been left as they were, when he descended the stairs to host his niece’s coming-out soiree.
The master of the house had a floor to himself—as did Miss Longstead, who occupied the floor above his. His bedroom was tidy enough, but his study . . .
Charlotte was not particularly neat in terms of her possessions. The canopy rails of her bed usually had a petticoat or a chemise thrown over them. An empty plate or two typically graced her desk, as a woman at work required sustenance. And her nightstand always bore a jumble of items, because when she was already in bed at night, comfortably ensconced, she didn’t want to have to scramble off again for a dictionary, a pair of scissors, or the nice bonbons Miss Redmayne had brought back from Paris.
Mr. Longstead’s study, however, made Charlotte feel that she herself must be as meticulous as those servants who assured uniform distance between plates and water goblets with a measuring tape.
On his shelves, the space between the tops of the books and the bottom of the next shelf were stuffed with more books. When there was still room left, it was crammed with notebooks and dossiers. And the overcrowding was not limited to one or two areas; entire walls of shelves were packed, jammed, and wedged this way.
But at least those items had been packed, jammed, and wedged to conform to the general shape of the shelves. The desk, however, had been eaten.
At least that was one explanation for the mountainous entity that stood at the center of the study, with teeth made of lawyerly letters and thick volumes on ornithology and chemical analysis for feet.
“Mr. Longstead had his own way of organizing his papers,” Mrs. Coltrane hastened to explain. “He knew what he had and where everything was to be found.”
Minds worked very differently—Charlotte knew that better than most. But even so she found it a little difficult to credit Mrs. Coltrane’s assertions. She cleared her throat. “Do you know where anything is in here, Mrs. Coltrane?”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” said Mrs. Coltrane apologetically. “No one else was to touch anything on or within three feet of his desk. Even if something had fallen off, we were to leave it alone.”