“Does Mr. Underwood carry the necessary implement to remove the lining of the jacket?”
Mr. Underwood did—a pair of small, sharp scissors that gleamed in the light. The cheap lining was removed to show nothing in particular. But Charlotte ran her hand over the rough black shoddy of the back and said, “Ah, I think I know what this is. It’s rice that had been doused in ink—then the individual grains were applied to the fabric.”
Cooked rice, when in contact with any kind of surface, stuck to it with an enormous tenacity as it dried. And dried grains of cooked rice were hard as pebbles and almost as indestructible.
“Is it possible to make a rubbing of the jacket?” asked Charlotte. “I believe we are dealing with braille.”
Mr. Underwood performed the task, his motions quick yet delicate. Charlotte examined the resultant sheet of paper and wrote down the message.
MY KILLER IS DE LACY ON BAXTERS ORDER
De Lacy and Baxter, the two names that had been associated with the coded telegram that had brought Charlotte to the vicinity of the house in the first place.
Lord Bancroft exhaled. “Miss Holmes, you have given me much work to do.”
Then he looked at her and said, “Thank you.”
Lord Ingram had always treated Charlotte as an equal. But theirs was a complicated bond, constricted by circumstances and abraded by a number of disagreements over the years.
Now Lord Bancroft, too, treated her as an equal. He and Charlotte shared no long-standing friendship, but they were also free of any burdens of the past.
It was... most certainly interesting.
She smiled at him. “I wish you luck in your endeavor, my lord. Now if you will kindly arrange for a carriage to take me to the train station—I promised Mrs. Watson I’d be home by tea.”
Nine
“There you are,” cried Mrs. Watson, bolting up from her chair, when Miss Holmes stepped into the afternoon parlor. “Where have you been?”
She hadn’t meant to ask that question—certainly not in that tone. Miss Holmes was a grown woman and she was neither Mrs. Watson’s child nor her employee.
But her abrupt departure this morning from the park, her terse note that said onlyHeaded out. Will be back for tea, and the fact that she, a woman who was never late for cake and sandwiches, was a whopping three quarters of an hour late to said tea—
“I was five minutes away from running to the nearest telephone, to let Lord Ingram know that you are missing.”
Miss Holmes could have been hit by a carriage or robbed of her cab money. But the possibility that had truly frightened Mrs. Watson was that she might have been taken by her own family, stuffed into a railcar, and shunted to the country, never to be heard from again.
Such abductions had happened when Mrs. Watson was young. They still happened. And what could anyone do, when it was the family who acted as judge, jury, and jailer?
Miss Holmes stood very still, her skirts wrinkled, her ringlets droopy from humidity. She looked at Mrs. Watson unblinkingly, and Mrs. Watson found that she couldn’t read the younger woman’s face at all.
Uncertainty gnawed at Mrs. Watson. Had she been too shrill? Had she given offense? Had she overstepped the bounds of friendship?
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” said Miss Holmes softly. “I didn’t mean to be so late.”
Relief washed over Mrs. Watson, relief and a measure of mortification that she hadn’t put a stronger leash on her anxiety. “No, I should apologize. Do please excuse me for acting like the old worrywart that I am.”
Miss Holmes shook her head. “I was on my own for a short while—I have not forgotten what that was like. The life I lead now is a luxury. You make that life possible, ma’am. I’m sorry that I made you worry, but I’m not sorry that I have someone who worries for me.”
It dawned on Mrs. Watson that Miss Holmes wasn’t speaking only of this moment. She was also addressing the fact that, unbeknownst to her then, Mrs. Watson had first approached her and offered her aid at Lord Ingram’s behest.
And she wanted Mrs. Watson to know that it did not affect her commitment to their partnership—and their friendship.
“Oh, you’re back, Miss Holmes!” Penelope flounced into the room. “How do you do?”
They all sat down. Almost immediately, Miss Holmes turned the conversation to what Penelope had done this day with the de Blois ladies. Penelope gladly related their little adventures while Miss Holmes listened attentively. Mrs. Watson, who had already heard an account of Penelope’s day earlier, pondered that a strangercould so swiftly become such an integral part of her existence that it was difficult to remember how she had lived before their meeting.
Polly, one of the housemaids, came with the tea tray. Usually Mr. Mears attended at tea, but he was in Gloucestershire for a niece’s wedding and a grandnephew’s christening, and not expected back until late on Tuesday.
