Miss Moriarty, I Presume?, page 12
You already know this. You knew, from the moment you realized that he’d left under duress, that he must have felt wretched.
Still, the innkeeper’s words fell like an avalanche upon her chest.
Lord Ingram placed an arm around her shoulder. Livia allowed herself to lean into him. They asked more questions, but soon it became apparent that the innkeeper had told them all he could remember. Lord Ingram thanked him and wanted to know whether he could speak to the maid who cleaned Mr. Marbleton’s room.
“That would be Ellen Bailey. But she no longer works here. I’ll give you her new employer’s address.”
Ellen Bailey’s new employer lived in a house on the outskirts of the village, with large gardens both in front and in the back. After much knocking, they learned from the caretaker that the family and most of the staff, including Ellen Bailey, had returned to town. And no, he could not give out their London address without first consulting the mistress herself by post.
Lord Ingram wrote a note and gave it to the caretaker, along with a sizable tip to send the note to Ellen Bailey.
Livia observed the proceedings, but her mind remained fixated on Mr. Marbleton. The fear he must have felt in his final days of freedom, the isolation, the horror of being at last towed under by those malevolent forces he’d been fleeing his entire life.
Lord Ingram had to hold her by the arm for them to return to the carriage.
Instead of taking the backward-facing seat, as he always did, he sat down beside her and allowed her, once again, to lean on him. This time she even buried her face in his sleeve.
“It’s all right,” he said again and again. “It will be all right.”
It might not be. They could all meet a horrible end, and Fate would laugh at those who had the audacity to assume otherwise.
And yet, somehow, his patient, kind voice, the soothing iterations of his reassurance, and even the soft, starch-scented wool of his greatcoat comforted her.
It’s all right, she began to repeat silently after him. It will be all right.
Nine
Excerpts from reports by Theresa Felton, as dictated to [Redacted] (Part of the Garden of Hermopolis dossier)
August 1883
I think I’ve been here long enough—four months—to say these are some peculiar people. Not eccentric, just awfully quiet-like. No one says anything to me about themselves. Not about their days, not about their aches and pains, not about how so-and-so is wonderfully good-looking or downright annoying.
Now there are hoity-toity ladies and gentlemen who won’t speak to the likes of me, a mere charwoman. But even the servants in this commune here aren’t any friendlier. They never ask about pubs in the area, which ones have good ales or make a proper Sunday roast. Surely, out of sheer boredom some of them should make conversation, shouldn’t they? What’s there to do out on these headlands, and them servants not even the ones interested in this foreign religion here?
And I rarely see them with one another either. When I clean I look out of the windows a lot—keeping an eye on those around Miss Baxter is part of watching out for her, innit? I hardly ever see more than two people walk together. And even those who do walk together—well, I don’t want to say they don’t enjoy one another’s company, but they always look so serious and no one ever just bursts out laughing.
Still, all in all, they seem to be decent people. And not any odder, if you ask me, than any other collection of folks who don’t need to work for a living. No one gives me a hard time. No one, that is, except Miss Baxter.
Nothing I do is ever good enough for her. If I clean thoroughly, she says I take too long. If I work fast, then I’m sloppy. To tell you the truth, I’m beginning to dread going into her place.
May 1884
Miss Baxter is the same. I see her about once every other week. She still finds my work awfully lacking and I still dread working for her.
This probably isn’t my place to say but I really don’t see how anyone can take advantage of Miss Baxter. I haven’t met everyone at the Garden and maybe Miss Fairchild will be a fair old battle-ax if she ever recovers her voice. But I’ve worked for rich folks and wellborn folks and folks that are both and I can’t say I’ve ever met anyone who makes me feel half so useless.
Miss Baxter is the sort that if she doesn’t find faults with you, you’re on your knees thanking the Almighty. I don’t know who’s grand enough or stupid enough to try to get the better of her.
I still haven’t been allowed into the library or the sanctuary. Once I asked Mr. Kaplan’s valet whether he’d seen them from the inside and he very huffily told me that he hadn’t and had no plans to!
I’ve also asked Miss Ellery a second time whether those places need to be thoroughly cleaned once in a while and she said again that the members would do that and I didn’t need to concern myself.
If it’s all right with Mr. de Lacey I don’t think I’ll ask anymore. Every place I’ve worked, I’ve left with glowing letters of character. I should hate to be thought of as being too nosy.
August 1886
I saw Miss Baxter only once this month—usually I’d see her twice—and when I saw her, she was feeling unwell.
Of course everyone is under the weather sometimes, but Miss Baxter has always been so imposing that I couldn’t imagine her ever suffering from ill health. But here she was, looking almost green in the face.
Mrs. Crosby was with her that day—it was the first time I’d seen someone else in her lodge. Later, when I saw Mrs. Crosby again, I asked about Miss Baxter. She assured me that Miss Baxter was better, that she’d simply eaten something that disagreed with her.
And I suppose that’s that.
September 1886
Again, I saw Miss Baxter only once this month. And again, she was taken to her bed. Miss Fairchild was with her this time. Since Miss Fairchild doesn’t speak, I asked Dr. Robinson—I mentioned him in spring, when he first joined the Garden—about Miss Baxter.
Dr. Robinson wasn’t any more concerned about Miss Baxter’s health than Mrs. Crosby was earlier. He said that she was recovering from a bout of mild pneumonia and required only time and good beef tea to be back on her feet.
But I’m bothered. Maybe I shouldn’t be, but I am.
October 1886
Last time I said that I was bothered. This time I’m really bothered. That’s three months in a row now I’ve seen Miss Baxter laid up. My heart trembled a bit when I saw her on the settee by the fire, buried under a pile of blankets.
Mrs. Crosby was with her again. Later, I asked her about Miss Baxter, telling her that these past three months I’d only seen Miss Baxter laid up. Mrs. Crosby said that I just stumbled on the few days Miss Baxter was feeling poorly. And that Miss Baxter wasn’t even ill this time, but merely suffering from an unusually uncomfortable monthly.
I don’t know that I believe her. But I also have no way of proving her wrong. I just don’t feel right about it. Goodness knows Miss Baxter has never been nice to me. But she’s grand—scary-grand, like a tiger stalking through the forest. If you saw a tiger lying on the ground, being badly off, even if you were scared of tigers, you’d still feel bad for it, wouldn’t you?
The following report was written in its entirety by Theresa Felton
It’s been ages since Mr. [Redacted] came and took down my report. I hope he’s all right. Please send him or someone else.
I won’t write much as writing is hard for me, but I’m more worried than ever about Miss Baxter. I last saw her at the beginning of October. At the end of that month, I last spoke with Mr. [Redacted]. Since then, all of November and December and most of January have gone by. That makes it at least three whole months I’ve only heard but not seen Miss Baxter.
I can explain what I mean but it would be too much trouble to write down. Please send someone. Mind you, I can’t prove that anything is wrong, but I feel downright uneasy.
* * *
“At least it’s good weather,” shouted Mrs. Watson. “Why, the sun feels almost warm!”
Charlotte, too, had her face tilted back to feel the hardly discernible prickles of heat on her skin.
London remained cold and wet, but here in the very southwest of Britain, winter seemed to have quietly departed. The sky was a clear blue dome, the breeze cool but not biting. The sea undulated gently, and the small boat they had hired cut through the waves with the flair of an experienced footman gliding across the floor of a ballroom.
The coast was high, but not forbiddingly so, the sheer cliffs largely bare, with patches of moss green here and there. They sailed past inlets and stony coves, mostly empty except for an occasional scavenger, hunched over among the rocks.
Mrs. Watson had the rudder in hand, Mr. Mears sat by the mast, and Charlotte, not much use on a sailboat, occupied the bow to stay out of the way. From time to time, the coastline lowered to near sea level, and a village would appear, a few dozen red-roofed houses nestled against the slopes. And then another expanse of unclaimed nature, white foam caps crashing into the base of the crags, while above, green moorland stretched into the distance.
Delightful day, delightful scenery, yet other than Mrs. Watson’s comment on the weather, the company had been almost entirely silent, their attention on the coastline not so much enjoyment as watchfulness.
The inclusion of Mr. Mears, Charlotte had half anticipated. The dossier concerned itself almost exclusively with what took place inside the Garden of Hermopolis; they needed someone in the village of Porthangan to gather more context. Just as importantly, given all the known and unknown dangers, they didn’t want their nearest ally hundreds of miles away.
Mr. Mears had already proved his usefulness by being a good sailor, a skill he and Mrs. Watson had acquired together, she as the late duke of Wycliffe’s mistress, he as His Grace’s then new valet, upon her recommendation. He read the wind, adjusted the sails, and scanned the coastline with an unhurried competence, as if he were at home in the domestic offices, polishing the silver while waiting for the water to boil for Mrs. Watson’s afternoon tea.
“I see it,” he cried.
At first sight, the Garden of Hermopolis reminded Charlotte of nothing so much as a private asylum she’d once visited, a seemingly idyllic country dwelling made subtly sinister by the presence of unusually high walls.
On the map, the south coast of Cornwall extended roughly east to west-southwest. But this particular stretch was oriented north to south; the high bluff on which the Garden sat overlooked the sea to the east. The bluff dropped nearly vertically to an inlet to the north, but on the seaward side it dipped like the side of a bowl toward a promontory, flattening out in a shallow depression that resembled the palm of a slightly cupped hand, then rising again on the other side to two thirds the height of the bluff, before plunging into the waves.
“I think there’s someone on the little promontory,” said Mrs. Watson. “Actually, I see two people.”
The wind was rising. Mrs. Watson not only raised her voice, but stood up and leaned forward, and still her words barely reached Charlotte.
Charlotte looked through her binoculars. “It’s a woman and a man.”
The woman was elderly—Miss Fairchild, perhaps? The man appeared young. He spoke intently to the older woman, who listened with a grave expression.
Charlotte and company had meant to pass by close to the cliffs beneath the Garden of Hermopolis, but if those were indeed residents of the compound, then that would verge too much on trespassing. Mrs. Watson was already steering the boat seaward. Charlotte handed the binoculars to Mr. Mears, who looked through them for a moment before offering them to Mrs. Watson.
“There’s someone on the wall also,” she reported. “I hope it’s because the day is glorious and not because they are on the lookout all the time.”
The day had become less glorious—clouds gathered on the horizon. Charlotte was no old seaman able to predict storms with a look at the sky, but she would not be surprised if the weather took a hard, tempestuous turn.
When the binoculars came back to Charlotte, she saw that the person on the wall was a woman, also holding a pair of binoculars. She waved, but the woman did not wave back.
Their coastal voyage ended three miles farther south, at the village of Porthangan. There Mrs. Watson and Charlotte disembarked with their valises.
They were met by Mrs. Felton, a large-boned, ruddy-faced woman who was the source of much of the intelligence in Moriarty’s dossier. According to the file on her in the dossier, she was a native of Porthangan, but had spent nearly twenty years in domestic service in Exeter, before returning to her natal village to take up cleaning at the Garden of Hermopolis.
“Oh, but I’m glad you’ve come, ladies. I’ve been feeling so uneasy that I didn’t want to go into the Garden no more. Mr. Baxter’s man said I must carry on as usual. But how do I do that when I’m worried sick about Miss Baxter?”
These words were whispered to Charlotte and Mrs. Watson as Mrs. Felton led them to a shiny, lacquered dogcart trimmed in green.
“Nice conveyance,” said Mrs. Watson, taking the hand Mrs. Felton held out to help her up to the driver’s box. “Is it the Garden’s?”
“No, it’s me own,” said Mrs. Felton proudly. She handed a carriage blanket to Charlotte, who had taken the rear-facing seat, then got up on the driver’s box herself and sat down next to Mrs. Watson. “The horse is me own. And I’ve me own house, too.”
As women who cleaned for a living didn’t usually receive much compensation, it stood to reason that de Lacey paid generously.
The road climbed up and out of the inlet. Fields and pasture rolled away before them, their grassy scent mingled with that of the tang of saltwater. The sun dipped near the horizon, its pale yellow light elongating the carriage’s shadow toward the now-choppier sea.
The dogcart was the only vehicle on a lane that was merely two parallel lines of shorter grass, worn down by regular but sparse traffic. Mrs. Watson cleared her throat. “Now that we are at last away from potential eavesdroppers, Mrs. Felton, will you give us a full account of everything?”
* * *
Lord Ingram and Miss Olivia returned to London early in the afternoon. They visited two newspaper archives, and Snowham was barely mentioned in any indexes as a locale, let alone as anything else. Afterward, Miss Olivia expressed a desire to consult another archive and Lord Ingram took his leave of her: He had someone to see before he left London, his second-eldest brother, Lord Bancroft Ashburton.
Bancroft had once looked after the Crown’s more clandestine concerns. But he had betrayed both the Crown and Lord Ingram and was now under confinement, though in surroundings that most prisoners would consider luxurious: two rooms to himself in a house with mahogany wainscoting and cream-and-rose toile wallpaper, books and newspapers at his disposal, and a view of a garden outside his—albeit barred—windows.
Lord Ingram had not visited him since the previous autumn, when Bancroft was first stripped of his office and his freedom. A betrayer had this power: He had held the trust of the betrayed, while never extending the same. To see Bancroft again was to feel the same vulnerability, the same anger against both Bancroft and himself.
“What brings you here, Ash?” asked Bancroft, a trace of suspicion to his otherwise colorless tone. “And how goes the divorce?”
“It will be granted soon, thank you.”
“A good thing. One should keep one’s friends close and enemies closer—but not under the same roof, if at all possible.”
Bancroft, of course, knew all his soft spots. Lord Ingram made no answer.
After a while, Bancroft said, “And thank you for the wine and pastry at Christmas. Alas, they were finished far too soon.”
Lord Ingram smiled slightly. Good. He had sent the wine and pastry not out of the goodness of his heart but because they’d be finished far too soon—and remind Bancroft of everything he now had to do without.
He wasn’t sure whether himself of yesteryear would have done such a thing, but some of Holmes’s ruthlessness was rubbing off on him. And when he’d written to her about his malicious gift, she’d responded with full-fledged approval. Well done, Ash. That is the only way to treat a man who framed you for murder.
“I’ve brought you more. A bottle of Sauternes and a pear tart.”
Bancroft sniffed. “For a pear tart, I would have preferred Riesling, but Sauternes would do.”
The wine had been decanted into an old-fashioned wine bag, and the pear tart, in its pasteboard box, had already been cut into small pieces to eliminate the need for knife or fork.
With an eagerness that his former self would have scorned, Bancroft tucked into the pear tart, only to look up a few seconds later. “This isn’t made by the woman on your estate.”
“No, it’s from the Reform Club.”
Bancroft sniffed again. “Lesser, but still acceptable.”
He luxuriated in a few more morsels of the pear tart. “You still haven’t said why you’ve come. I assume you didn’t simply wish to see me dine well.”
“No, indeed. I’ve come to ask you about a certain someone.”
“Who?”
“We first spoke of him last summer. And you told me then, in no uncertain terms, never to be personally embroiled with him.”
Moriarty.
Bancroft frowned. “I believe I know of whom you speak. What happened? Did you go against my advice?”
“One could easily contend that I have been personally and inextricably enmeshed with that particular character ever since he subverted Lady Ingram against the Crown’s interests, but no, I have refrained from putting myself into his orbit. However, it often turns out that his reach is far greater than we anticipated. Perhaps you’ve read in the papers of my friend’s investigation last December?”
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