Murder on Cold Street (Lady Sherlock #5) - Sherry Thomas Page 0,6

week. He made sure to be present when I met with the managers as a group, for which I was immensely grateful, as they became less dismissive of me out of respect for him.”

She laughed a little, mirthlessly.

Lord Ingram felt a surge of self-reproach. Great upheavals had taken place in his life around the time Mrs. Treadles inherited Cousins Manufacturing. Still, he could have spared her more thoughts, perhaps even a letter or two, asking after how she fared in her new capacity as the owner of a complex going concern.

He’d been pleased for her, as he’d thought that the running of a large enterprise, while demanding, would suit her well, given her energy and intelligence. And that after an initial period of adjustment, she would wrap her hands firmly around the reins of the company.

But the undertone of bleakness in that not-quite-laugh—of outright despair, even—made it clear that the initial period of adjustment had been far rockier than he’d supposed, that she still did not have control of Cousins, and that she had just lost her greatest ally.

Possibly her only ally.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.

Mrs. Treadles sighed shakily. “Just when you think things couldn’t possibly get worse, you immediately find that yes, indeed, they can. Far, far worse.”

Silence fell again, until Holmes spoke. “You are here, Mrs. Treadles, in the hope that Sherlock Holmes can help make things better. Or at least, prevent the situation from further deteriorating. But in order to help, we must know much more than we do now.”

It became Mrs. Treadles’s turn to be silent.

Holmes regarded her for some time. “Very well, Mrs. Treadles,” she said, clearly deciding on a different approach. “Can you give me a summary of the inspector’s movements in the seventy-two hours before the party?”

“Seventy-two hours . . .” echoed Mrs. Treadles slowly. “The party was yesterday, Monday. Seventy-two hours earlier would have been the Friday before. He left for an investigation in the Kentish countryside that afternoon. And he was gone until . . . until his arrest, I suppose.”

Not very helpful, as far as summaries of movements went.

“Did anyone go with him?”

Mrs. Treadles hesitated. “I can’t be sure. I’d assumed Sergeant MacDonald would accompany him. But when I spoke to the sergeant this morning, he assured me he’d been in town all the while.”

Holmes pitched a brow, a deliberately exaggerated expression for her. “You didn’t ask, Mrs. Treadles?”

Mrs. Treadles smiled apologetically. Uncomfortably. “I was rather distracted at work, I’m afraid.”

Lord Ingram had to refrain from raising his own brow.

Not long ago he had envied the Treadleses for their affectionate and harmonious union, while he himself endured an embittered domestic situation. When he last saw them together, in summer, in the middle of Holmes’s first major case, they were still devoted to each other, a couple who glanced at each other out of care and consideration, and leaned together without even being aware of the gesture.

The cooling of friendship between Lord Ingram and Inspector Treadles coincided more or less with the beginning of a chaotic period in Lord Ingram’s life. He didn’t see Inspector Treadles again until Scotland Yard dispatched the police officer to Stern Hollow in the wake of a murder.

Such circumstances did not lend themselves to intimate conversations between the investigator and the investigated. Near the end of the case, when they were able to speak as friends again, he’d inquired after Mrs. Treadles’s doings, and received the distinct impression that Inspector Treadles spoke with pride at his wife’s accomplishments.

But Mrs. Treadles told them just now that her husband had not approved of her foray into the world of business and manufacturing. Not for months on end.

Words Holmes had once spoken came back to him, words concerning Inspector and Mrs. Treadles. I only hope his wife fares better, if she ever breaks any rules he deems important.

He had the sinking feeling that Mrs. Treadles had not fared any better against her husband’s judgment. But they had reconciled, had they not? And if they had, would she not have asked, even if only in passing, whether he was taking Sergeant MacDonald with him?

Mrs. Treadles fidgeted. Lord Ingram began to wonder if there were any avenues of inquiry that wouldn’t make her squirm.

Perhaps Holmes had the same thought, for she indeed opened another avenue of inquiry. “Do you know, Mrs. Treadles, who would benefit the most by Mr. Longstead’s death?”

Mrs. Treadles exhaled, as if relieved to be asked this particular question. “He never married and had no children