Miss Moriarty, I Presume?, page 21
Livia, being herself, had chosen an empty table and a seat far away from the center of the room. Each reading table had a high partition running down its center, to give those on one side privacy from those on the opposite side. Normally, Livia was grateful for such man-made hedges to hide behind. But the partitions on her own very long table and the adjacent one, while shielding her from the attention of Moriarty’s men, also blocked her view of Mr. Marbleton.
She could crane her head all she wanted but see only a narrow alley. And if she stood up, which she dared not do, she still wouldn’t be able to peer over the partition, not without stepping on the crossbar of a chair, at the very least.
She loosened a button at her collar—she was breathing fast and perspiring. Not knowing what to do next, she flipped her notebook to an empty page, scribbled down the date and her location, and stared at the words until they swam.
How much time had passed? How long would he be allowed to stay? And could he relay anything to her when she couldn’t see him?
Tears of frustration stung the backs of her eyes. She hoped—she prayed hard—that he had given this some thought before he arrived. That even though the chance of him running into her was small, he’d prepared for this lucky encounter.
Another ten minutes elapsed, the passage of time as swift as a flood and as slow as a retreating glacier. She was still shaking, still waiting, still not sure what she could do, when Mr. Marbleton appeared at one end of her alley, toward the center of the Reading Room.
Some reading tables had a bookshelf appended—hers was one such. He stood before the bookshelf. Or rather, he and his two minders stood shoulder to shoulder, and she almost couldn’t see him at all.
“It’s time to go,” one of them said to him.
In German.
“So soon?” he replied in the same language. “I haven’t been here since summer. How about a little more time?”
No, please, not so soon. She hadn’t even had a good look at him.
“We are sorry. It’s time to leave,” repeated the other escort.
The escort suddenly turned in her direction. She averted her gaze to her still-open notebook, not daring to look up even with her peripheral vision.
The floor of the Reading Room had been covered with a special material to reduce the sound of footsteps. Livia barely heard their departure.
She dropped her head into her hands. She wanted to whimper. She wanted to scream. Had he tried to tell her something? And had she already failed him?
Fifteen
Only after a quarter of an hour had passed did Livia get up, tiptoe to the very rim of the Reading Room, and slowly walk its circumference, pretending to be interested in the books that encircled the room while casting furtive glances into the alleys created by the high partitions. And when she had completed the circle, she walked the smaller round between the catalogue tables and the reading tables, surreptitiously checking the alleys again from their inner ends.
“Miss, are you searching for something?”
She nearly jumped.
An attendant stationed at a catalogue table, a man with what seemed to be a perennially suspicious expression on his face, had asked the question. Faced with disapproval, Livia usually found it difficult to retain her composure. But today her nerves were too frayed for her to care.
“My friend was going to join me here today. She is about this tall”—she gestured with her hand held up to her ear—“and has dark hair and green eyes. Have you seen her, by any chance?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t.”
She turned her back to him and went to the bookshelf at the end of her reading table, where Mr. Marbleton had stopped briefly. It held volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Could he have done anything here? Left her something, the way he’d left a ticket stub at 18 Upper Baker Street?
She crouched low. But the bottom shelf rested directly on the floor, with no space underneath.
Had he picked up a volume while he’d stood here, and slipped a note inside?
She took the encyclopedias one by one to her desk. At first she flipped each page religiously. When that proved too slow, she examined a volume sideways at eye level and searched for any tiny gap in the pages. And then, when her patience wore too thin for even that, with her back to the catalogue tables and with many apologies to the encyclopedias themselves, she held the volumes by their spines and shook.
A card fell out of the third volume she shook. Her heart thudded violently. But it was only a card the publisher had put in.
As she returned once again to the bookshelf, the attendant who had earlier asked whether she was looking for something looked at her oddly. Her disappointment cut so much, she barely heard his sniff of disfavor. With a wooden resolve, she checked until she ran out of volumes.
Back at her desk, she pressed her palms against her eyes.
She didn’t want to move, but she also couldn’t stay where she was. Even if the Reading Room were open twenty-four hours a day, she still needed to go back to her hotel. Soon.
With hands that didn’t seem to be her own, she put her pencil and notebook back into her reticule and checked that she still had Mrs. Watson’s reader’s ticket. Officially tickets were not transferable but she hadn’t brought her own, as she hadn’t expected to be in London in the first place.
On the front of the ticket was written Mrs. Watson’s name and the period of time for which the ticket had been granted. Tickets were rarely issued for more than six months at a time. Mrs. Watson’s had been renewed in September and would be usable until the beginning of next month.
Renewal . . .
Livia sat up straighter. Mr. Marbleton had said himself, didn’t he, that he hadn’t been to the Reading Room since summer? That being the case, had he needed to renew his ticket?
She was afraid to try. What looked like an avenue of hope would most likely turn out to be another blind alley, another wall for her to smash into.
But she also couldn’t not try. She swallowed, gathered the rest of her things, marched to the catalogue tables, and approached one of the attendants—not the one who had spoken to her, but a kindlier-looking man who hadn’t been there earlier. “Good day, sir. I do believe I need to renew my ticket.”
“Very well, miss,” he replied. “Here is the register for you to sign.”
The register was a thick bound book, open to a page marked with the date. Underneath, the space was divided into ten rubrics, each identical except for the printed number to the left. Above the number, either a large R was written, indicating a renewal, or two numbers were written, separated by a slash, to show that the reader was new to the Reading Room.
Inside each rubric were printed the words I have read the directions respecting the Reading Room and I declare that I am not under twenty-one years of age. And under that, a space reserved for the reader’s signature and address.
A quick scan showed no names that she recognized—nor any handwriting that she could be sure belonged to Mr. Marbleton. She would not be surprised if he wrote in several scripts. It was a useful skill to have, especially for a man in his circumstances. But at the moment it worked against her.
“Your ticket, please, miss,” said the attendant.
She was beginning to perspire again. “A moment, please. Let me find it. Oh, there’s a gentleman waiting there. Perhaps you can help him first?”
Since it was so easy to renew tickets, the Reading Room rarely renewed them before they expired. If she were to present her ticket right away, she would be gently but firmly turned away.
The attendant went to assist the other reader. Livia opened her reticule and stuck a hand inside, giving the appearance that she was conducting a search. With her other hand she flipped the register back a page.
This spread of two pages also contained registrations and renewals from today. Again, she encountered no names that she recognized. What if he used an alias with which she was unfamiliar? How would she know that it was his?
The Reading Room was not a bustling place, precisely, but hundreds of readers did come through daily. How many renewals and new ticket issuances would there be on a given day?
Eight signatures there had been on the next page, and on these two pages, twenty. Twenty-eight altogether. He had come less than two hours ago. Even if these twenty-eight did not represent the whole day’s count, they had to exceed the number that had taken place since his arrival.
So if he had written anything in here, it must be either on these two facing pages or the next.
She read over the lines, her heartbeat thudding in the back of her head. So many names. So many bewilderingly different styles of handwriting. But still she didn’t see anything she associated with him. Nor was the word Snowham visible anywhere.
“Miss, have you found your ticket yet?” asked the attendant.
Her heart thumped even faster. Could she say she’d misplaced her ticket? No, then she’d need to leave her spot to find it. Could she pretend that she was having trouble locating it in her handbag? Well, under the attendant’s gaze, she’d probably need to remove her eyes from the register and actually look into the handbag.
There was no point doing either. She bit the inside of her cheek, pulled out Mrs. Watson’s ticket, and handed it to him.
The moment he took it to look, she flipped the register ahead to the latest page, where she was supposed to sign and put down her place of residence.
“Mrs. Watson.”
He meant her, the imposter. Was he about to take away the register? She gripped it tight, her eyes glued to the page.
Charles Edmonds, 36 Piccadilly W
John Dore, 37 Chalcot Crescent, Primrose Hill
Elliot Hartford, 23 Hanley Street
Clarissa Cockerill, Marble Hill House
Alfred Barr, 41 Eden Grove
Charles Bird, 8 St. Marys Road
Victoria Rowland, 15 Park Lane
William Korley, 13 College Place, Camden
No, she did not know any of these people, and she did not know anyone who lived at these addresses.
Except . . . something skittered across the surface of her mind. What was it?
“You don’t need to renew your ticket yet, Mrs. Watson,” continued the attendant, interrupting her train of thought. “You’ve still two weeks left.”
She nearly tore off the page in her frustration.
But wait, it was the name Elliot Hartford that had plucked at the edges of her memory.
Elliot Hartford.
She sucked in a breath and looked into the attendant’s baffled face.
She remembered now. Last summer Miss Marbleton, Mr. Marbleton’s sister, had gone by the name Ellie Hartford. It might be a coincidence. Or it might not be.
She stared down at the address again, imprinting it on her memory.
And then she said to the attendant, her heart still pounding, “Oh, I don’t need to renew my ticket now? Very well, then, thank you and good day.”
* * *
Lord Ingram awakened a little past ten, groggy and hungry. He found the note the ladies had left, as well as slices of buttered toast they had made for him.
Those were good, but not enough. He visited the kitchen and asked for some more bread and butter, which Mrs. Brown, the cook, readily dispensed, alongside a jar of raspberry jam, a jar of potted chicken, half a dozen boiled eggs, and two sausages. When she heard that he planned to heat water for the ladies’ bath, she even sent the kitchen maid to bring him a few extra buckets.
When Mrs. Watson and Holmes returned, he’d already placed a pan of hot coals in the bath and heated enough water for two people. The ladies both expressed great gratitude and great interest in a wash, but Holmes had, as he’d thought, a more pressing need for food.
After Mrs. Watson left for her ablutions, Holmes, spreading butter and potted chicken on her toast, glanced up and said, “So you have found favor with Mrs. Brown.”
“Have I?” he murmured, his face heating a little.
She took a bite. “I approve. You should make it your mission to find favor with every cook we come across.”
His face heated more. “I could have bought all these for you at the village, without finding favor with anyone.”
She took another bite. “But I prefer that she gave this feast to you because she likes the way you look. God took His time to make you striking, Ash. Don’t let His effort go to waste.”
“And I will have squandered His effort if I don’t charm every cook for your sake?”
She smiled very slightly. “Yes, indeed.”
He poured tea for her. “Very well, you continue to write your erotic tale and I will inveigle unsuspecting cooks into offering me additional breakfast dainties.”
She stopped eating—he’d managed to astound her. “You want more epistolary prurience?”
“I’ve come to enjoy the feeling of . . . outrage.”
She resumed chewing, looking him up and down. Then she took two sips of tea, looked him over some more, and licked her lips in a gesture of provocation.
One second passed. Two seconds. Three seconds.
He licked his lips in the exact same manner. Or, perhaps, more blatantly.
She stared at him. “That is . . . shameless.”
“You wouldn’t have kept after me all these years if you didn’t always believe me to be shameless, deep down.”
She perused him again, her gaze passing over him like a flame. “Others have esteemed my judgment for years. For the very first time I, too, am filled with admiration for my insight.”
He laughed—and put his head down on the table because he couldn’t stop laughing.
Sounds came from the bath—not sounds of water, but of Mrs. Watson gathering up her things. He rose. “I’ll go fetch our luncheon from the kitchen.”
In case he couldn’t stop laughing even in front of Mrs. Watson.
The sea fog that had rolled in earlier in the day still persisted, not as bad as a pea-souper but dense enough that visibility was reduced to fewer than twenty feet. He checked the carriage house first—the coach taken by Mr. Peters hadn’t returned. Then he walked by Miss Baxter’s lodge—walked three times around it, in fact. The house had its doors and windows tightly secured, but not a single person came to demand what he was doing.
At last he headed for the kitchen, skirting around it so it would appear that he’d come from the direction of his own cottage, rather than the cluster of houses that contained Miss Baxter’s lodge. As he approached, voices rose from the large portico in front of the kitchen. By habit he concealed himself along a side wall.
“Miss Stoppard, Miss Stoppard, did I hear you say that you are picking up Miss Baxter’s luncheon today?”
He recognized the voice less by its timbre than by its marked tone of ingratiation. Mrs. Steele.
Miss Stoppard’s reply was curt. “Yes.”
“Is Mrs. Crosby unwell? She’s usually the one who does that for Miss Baxter, isn’t she?”
“And I do it in her absence. Mrs. Crosby has gone to visit a friend in Brighton.”
“All of a sudden?” This voice belonged to Miss Ellery. “And how is Miss Baxter?”
“She is well.”
“When can we call on her?” Mrs. Steele again. “We are anxious to see her.”
“Shortly, I’m sure. Shortly,” said Miss Stoppard, sounding as impatient as Mr. Peters had in the small hours of the morning. “Good day, ladies. Miss Baxter is waiting for her meal.”
She departed, her footsteps light but brisk.
“Shortly. Shortly,” mumbled Mrs. Steele, her words resigned. “How many times have we been told we’d see Miss Baxter shortly?”
Miss Ellery only sighed.
* * *
Lord Ingram spent some time every year at his seaside cottage in north Devon and understood the variability of maritime weather. But after a long inland winter of similarly grey days, the rapidly changing atmospheric conditions of the Cornish coast still managed to startle him. It was as if he’d been living with a companion of a dour but steady temperament and was now thrust into the presence of someone who bawled his eyes out one minute and keeled over with laughter the next.
The fog, so dense and omnipresent before luncheon, had completely disappeared an hour later, when he, Holmes, and Mrs. Watson left on their afternoon excursion. The sky was a bright, transparent blue; the sea gleamed silver with reflected sunlight. The storm of the night before was evident only on rooftops that still glistened damply, and the mud stuck to carriage wheels and soles of boots.
They collected Mr. Mears from Porthangan and drove up the headlands. Several brown goats scrambled away when they alit from the remise. At Mrs. Watson’s suggestion, they climbed up an outcrop. At the top, standing in a knot, they listened to Mr. Mears, who had been making inquiries concerning the Garden of Hermopolis and Miss Baxter, give a summary of his findings.
To be sure, there were those who did not care for a heathen outpost here in the heart of Christendom. But by and large, the residents of the Garden were not thought of as heretics. Rather, they were considered peaceful neighbors and, often, generous patrons. Much of their foodstuff was supplied by village fishermen and nearby farmers. They bought local crafts and contributed to local charity efforts. Miss Baxter, in particular, had even served as judge in a village boat race.
Mrs. Felton, the only villager in direct and regular contact with the Garden, inspired mixed feelings. Some thought her too self-satisfied, but even those who believed so had to admit that she had a good heart and was altogether harmless. Mr. Mears had spoken to her brother, who defended her good fortune in having been remembered in her late employer’s will—the excuse she gave for being able to afford her own house, carriage, and horse—as a natural consequence of her caring nature and capacity for hard work.
_preview.jpg)
