Murder on Cold Street (Lady Sherlock #5) - Sherry Thomas Page 0,81

Perhaps you could help me. Do you have time to take a round in the garden?”

Miss Longstead set her hands over her heart. “Oh, I was hoping you’d say that. It has been awful, staring at the four walls of my room. I don’t know why being grief-stricken has to equate to being house-bound, but Mrs. Coltrane said it wouldn’t do for me to be abroad so soon after my uncle’s passing, even if it was only to walk in the park by myself.”

Charlotte thought the young woman might have a difficult time of it, especially with her laboratory, where she had spent significant hours of the day, destroyed on that same night. Charlotte herself, amazingly enough, had had enough tea and biscuits and needed some exercise before she felt virtuous enough for dessert at dinner.

The garden grew darker—the curtains of number 31 were again drawn, the lights in the unoccupied rooms dimming one by one.

“Miss Longstead, in your view, is there any chance that your uncle was killed because of his support for Mrs. Treadles?” asked Charlotte, as Miss Longstead guided her onto a garden path.

Miss Longstead reached inside her pocket, pulled out her glasses, and put them back on. “I can see Mr. Sullivan killed for such a reason, perhaps. But my uncle didn’t know how to play games.”

“He didn’t need to have been playing games. He could have been killed for the sincerity of his support with regard to Mrs. Treadles.”

They passed near a brilliantly lit house, its light reflecting in the lenses of Miss Longstead’s glasses. “I—I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t doubt the depth of his sympathy for Mrs. Treadles’s plight. Nor do I doubt the integrity of his character—he would never have supported her to her face and then stabbed her in the back. But—” She exhaled. “If I were Mrs. Treadles, I would have found his support—”

Miss Longstead’s pace slowed. Her gloved hands, held before her diaphragm, twisted together. “I don’t know how to say it without sounding as if I disapprove in some way of this wonderful man who raised me with all the diligence and attention I could have asked of a father. But you see, my uncle, he was a very successful man. He worked hard and was properly rewarded for his hard work. Life was fair for him and so he believed that it is fair for everyone—that if they would do as he did, they would achieve the same satisfying results.

“Persist, he told Mrs. Treadles. Have patience. Good things will come. His advice was not wrong. But he failed to consider that when he’d worked hard, he’d had old Mr. Cousins for his partner, old Mr. Cousins who had been a vigorously honorable man, keen on making sure my uncle received his rightful share of the profits. Mrs. Treadles, on the other hand, had to work with Mr. Sullivan and his cohorts.”

She said this last sentence in the same tone another person might have used to say, Mrs. Treadles, on the other hand, fell into a pit of vipers. Charlotte was already under the impression that she didn’t care for this cousin. But it seemed that Miss Longstead didn’t merely dislike Mr. Sullivan—she despised him.

“So, in your opinion, Mr. Longstead’s support of Mrs. Treadles, while genuine, was insufficient,” said Charlotte.

“Yes, but not by intention.” Miss Longstead rearranged her cape around her shoulders, as if it was causing her to be uncomfortable. “He didn’t understand his own position of power—the reverence with which he was regarded both inside and outside of Cousins. Mrs. Treadles didn’t want to dismiss all the men who opposed her, because she was worried about what that would do to the company, especially given that she is a woman. But if he’d stood by her and done the sacking with her, she would have been shielded from most of the consequences.

“That didn’t happen because he saw himself only as an old retiree who no longer had shares in the company, someone who ought not to agitate for major changes. He was genuinely kind to Mrs. Treadles, but he never gave her the kind of support that would get him killed.”

She tried to keep her voice uninflected, but Charlotte heard the frustration she must have felt. Charlotte recalled that the Longsteads had dined with the Treadleses twice in the past month. It would appear that after dinner, when the ladies customarily withdrew to the drawing room, leaving the gentlemen behind to enjoy a glass of port,