Dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes,
Sergeant MacDonald at Scotland Yard told me to write you. Do you still help with murders?
Sincerely,
Mrs. Winnie Farr
The handwriting was boxy and all in majuscule letters, done by a dull pencil that had been wielded with enough pressure to cause a cramp in the writing hand. The paper had not been made from any virgin material but of fibers that had been repulped. And the envelope took advantage of the blank side of a handbill for the latest miracle tonic, with the General Post Office as the return address.
“I’m sure you have deduced that this woman might not have seven shillings on hand for a consultation,” said Mrs. Watson. “I take it you think she wouldn’t have written to us if she didn’t think she had something of value to offer us in lieu of payment?”
The handwriting, despite its lack of ease and prettiness, had a proud, almost haughty quality.
“That is, of course, the hope,” said Miss Holmes.
“And if we should be mistaken in that hope?”
Miss Holmes planned to remove her sisters from the family home, with payments of one hundred quid a year to their parents. As the only consulting detective in the world, she didn’t lack for clients. But the reasonableness of her fees, and the fact that most of her clients presented problems that, however perplexing, also happened to be minor, meant that even with Mrs. Watson’s ability to raise those fees at the least sign that a client could afford more, they were still fifty pounds short of that goal.
Not to mention that Miss Holmes, almost as soon as her income had become regular, had insisted on remitting weekly sums for room and board to Mrs. Watson, in addition to the latter’s share in Sherlock Holmes’s proceeds.
Miss Bernadine Holmes required someone to keep an eye on her. Miss Livia, who required only food and a roof over her head, was ostensibly less expensive. But Mrs. Watson knew that Miss Holmes also wanted to give Miss Livia books and trips abroad. And for Miss Bernadine, not just a harried maid but a nurse with experience and compassion for her care. Altogether, the obligations she planned to take on were fearsome for a young woman who could rely on only her own abilities.
And however extraordinary those abilities, she didn’t have more hours in the day than anyone else. To give her time to Mrs. Farr could mean forgoing more solvent clients.
“It isn’t a certainty that we will hear more from Mrs. Farr, or that hers will be a situation for which we can render any aid,” said Miss Holmes.
“I should write back for more information, then?”
“If you would, please,” murmured Miss Holmes. “Now, about our plans to visit Stern Hollow, ma’am.”
Livia clutchedat the moonstone as if it were a talisman that could fend off all the evils of the world.
Or, at least, all the curiosity from the guests who would, just beyond Livia’s hearing, be making endless conjectures about Charlotte and Lord Ingram.
She knew what conclusion everyone would leap to, as soon as Lady Avery’s news spread—that Charlotte hadn’t disappeared, but had become Lord Ingram’s mistress.
This would be, of course, profoundly distressing: Charlotte had proved capable of keeping herself; and Lord Ingram would never have demanded such a tawdry exchange for his help. But it shouldn’t be any more distressing than what Livia had already put up with during the Season, with tongues always wagging just beyond—and sometimes just within—her hearing.
And yet she was almost nauseated by anxiety. The sense of foreboding that had descended when she first read the letter had only grown stronger. Which was ridiculous. The story wasn’t common knowledge yet. And even if it should become so, it would simply be an extra serving of unpleasantness in an already unpleasant world.
Lord Ingram’s estate was nearby, was it not? If she sent him a note, he would call on her, wouldn’t he, and assure her that whatever Lady Avery could unleash would only be a passing nuisance, soon dismissed and soon forgotten?
As if the universe heard her plea, Lord Ingram descended the front step of Mrs. Newell’s manor just as Livia’s carriage pulled up.
He wasn’t classically handsome but turned heads anyway, the kind of man who sent a jolt of electricity through a crowd by doing nothing more than stepping into the room. When he remained still, he made her think of a cobra about to uncoil. In motion he put her in mind of a large panther, stalking silently through the jungle.
He handed her down from the carriage. “Miss Holmes. I’m glad to see you.”
Usually she found him intimidating, but today his aura of assurance was exactly what she needed. Already she felt a little less panicked. “That sentiment is most certainly reciprocated, my lord. How do you do?”
“I am well. Mrs. Newell informed me that she is expecting you.”
“She has been most kind to extend an invitation. And Lady Ingram, I hope she is much improved?”
His wife’s decampment to a Swiss sanatorium would have been a much bigger topic of gossip had it not happened so close to the end of Season. When she hadn’t received the ladies who had called on her, as was customary after a ball, it was assumed that her bad back must be bothering her again. It took will and effort for her to appear graceful in movement, and an entire summer of such pretense exacted a severe toll.
It wasn’t until Society had dispersed to Cowes, Scotland, and hundreds of country houses all over the land that her friends received letters informing them that her health had deteriorated suddenly and it had been deemed prudent that she remove herself to the Alps where she could be properly looked after by a team of German and Swiss physicians.
