Murder on Cold Street (Lady Sherlock #5) - Sherry Thomas Page 0,9
him. Today I found those letters and looked at the postmarks. They weren’t from any post office in Kent, where he was supposed to be. One was sent from Manchester, the other from a little place in Cornwall.”
Her voice quaked a little.
Lord Ingram’s brows rose.
Holmes’s expression remained unchanged, a placidness that must have felt oppressive to Mrs. Treadles. “Is Mr. Longstead’s country residence in either of those places?”
“No, it’s in Berkshire.”
Then what was Inspector Treadles doing traipsing all over Britain?
“Is Inspector Treadles in the habit of misleading you about where he travels for work?”
“After I found those two discrepancies, I went back and checked the envelopes of all the letters he’d ever written me when he was away for work, including during our courtship. Thankfully, in all those other instances, the postmarks on the envelope accorded with the locations he’d given in the letters themselves.”
She expelled a long breath. “A relief, of course. Which only made it more troubling that he did lie in this instance.”
“You mentioned two things that made you wonder about the inspector, Mrs. Treadles. What is the other one?”
In a gesture that was beginning to seem reflexive, Mrs. Treadles raised her teacup to her lips again—only to set it aside with a small grimace: The cup was already empty. “Before I went to Scotland Yard, I thought I should at least gather a change of clothing for him. But when I went inside his dressing room, I—I saw that his service revolver was missing.”
Lord Ingram sucked in a breath.
Holmes continued to be unruffled. “Does he normally carry his service revolver?”
“He does not. He said that sometimes night patrols encounter dangers but as a member of the Criminal Investigation Department, he did not really have cause to fear for his safety.”
Mrs. Treadles’s expression, that of someone about to dive off the headland into the pounding surf below, made Lord Ingram brace himself for what he might hear next.
“I’m afraid earlier I didn’t give a complete account of what I learned when I went to Scotland Yard. When the constable I spoke to told me that Inspector Treadles would not be in that day, I pretended to be distressed and said I knew I should have come to town sooner, and now I’d missed my opportunity. The constable consoled me by saying that I wouldn’t have seen Inspector Treadles earlier either, as he’d been out on leave for the previous fortnight.
“The constable didn’t appear to be telling anything except the truth as he knew it. But if my husband had been on leave, then it was truly news to me. He was away a good deal recently. But when he wasn’t traveling for ‘work’, I said goodbye to him in the morning when I normally did and saw him again in the evening when I normally would.
“Which makes me wonder—what if I’m not the only one he lied to? What if he was also lying to Scotland Yard? Could that be why they were so swift to arrest him, because he’d been caught so plainly in a lie?”
The hurt and bewilderment on her face at having been so excluded from her husband’s life . . . Lord Ingram’s chest constricted.
Holmes, not so easily distracted by sentiments, merely asked, “Is there anything else you can tell us?”
“Sergeant MacDonald said he would come by to pay his respects to Mr. Sherlock Holmes later today and ask that you would please receive him. Other than that . . .” Mrs. Treadles shook her head.
“In that case, would you mind, Mrs. Treadles, if I asked you a question?”
“No, of course not.”
Yet she tensed. As did Lord Ingram.
Holmes picked up a piece of holiday cake and took a leisurely bite. “Mrs. Treadles, what is it you would like Sherlock Holmes to do for you? Are you more interested in the truth or in Inspector Treadles’s freedom?”
Three
Lord Ingram stared at Holmes. The dichotomy in her question, as if the truth and Inspector Treadles’s freedom were mutually exclusive . . .
Mrs. Treadles’s jaw worked, then she squared her shoulders. “Both, Miss Holmes. The truth of the matter will lead to the arrest of the true culprit and my husband’s release from police custody.”
She said it with a fervency that seemed to be more than conviction. She needed for her husband to be thoroughly exculpated by the thoroughly above-reproach Sherlock Holmes.
“Everything that you have just enumerated—Inspector Treadles’s lies to you on his whereabouts, his missing service revolver, and his omission of the fact that he had