Murder on Cold Street, page 30
Mrs. Sullivan pulled a few pins out of her coiffure and set to work on the padlock.
“You’ve had plenty of experience,” said Charlotte after a moment. She herself had spent significant hours at this exact activity, albeit with better tools and under the guidance of a master practitioner.
“The books he allowed me to read were too tedious—much more fun to try to find out what he’s hiding from me,” said Mrs. Sullivan with two pins held between her lips, her syllables somewhat squashed. “But maybe if I’d read those books, his soul wouldn’t be headed straight for, well, you know where.”
Charlotte was not interested in Mr. Sullivan’s fate in the afterlife, if such a thing indeed existed. “What do you enjoy reading?”
Mrs. Sullivan shrugged. “Many things. At one point we had every published volume of the ninth edition of the Britannica. And then one day he cleared them all out of the house, while I was still in the middle of the entry about Madame de la Live d’Épinay.”
Charlotte’s attention perked up. “Why do you suppose that was the case?”
“He said too much education wasn’t good for a woman.” Mrs. Sullivan made a dismissive sound. “I think he just wanted to frustrate me. He put locks on things for the same reason.”
“You don’t think he had anything to hide?”
Mrs. Sullivan went completely still. Then, she pulled a different pin from her lips and went on with her lock-picking, as if that moment had never happened. “Of course he had something to hide. I’d rather believe that he was playing lovers’ games with me, but I doubt he cared enough to put that much effort into foiling me.”
“Did you take up reading the small notices because he had an interest in them?”
“You were the one who put the notice about the carriage in the paper, weren’t you?” Mrs. Sullivan put her ear on the padlock. “They don’t offer much challenge anymore, the small notices. Hardly anyone thinks to devise real ciphers. One can only decode so many Caesar ciphers before they become as tasteless as old bread.”
The padlock popped open.
“Well done,” said Charlotte.
Mrs. Sullivan turned around, looking surprised—almost flustered—at the compliment. She cleared her throat. “That’s the easy part—Mr. Sullivan liked padlocks. I’m not sure I can work the lock mechanism on the door itself.”
“You don’t need to. Mrs. Portwine graciously allowed me to borrow something from the housekeeper,” said Charlotte, taking out a ring of keys from her reticule.
Mrs. Sullivan stared at them as if they were the best Christmas present she would ever receive.
Charlotte opened the door. Mrs. Sullivan rushed in and immediately began to open drawers on the large mahogany desk. Her face fell to find them unlocked—and mostly empty.
The leather-bound volume Charlotte took off the shelf did not have any of its pages cut. She checked a different book from a different shelf, the same. A third book, still uncut.
Mrs. Sullivan, meanwhile, had discovered an unopened box of Cuban cigars, as well as a loaded revolver and a box of cartridges. Charlotte pulled open the glass door on the top half of a display cabinet and inspected the decanter of whisky that had been thoughtfully placed inside.
“Did Mr. Sullivan enjoy his cigars and whisky?”
“As much as any other man,” muttered Mrs. Sullivan, who was now on her knees, peering at the drawers.
Charlotte felt under the shelves, examined the cabinets, and even looked inside the grate. When she was satisfied that these locations held no other secrets, she approached the desk, the top of which held a marble inkstand, a blotting paper holder, and a copy of Paradise Lost by John Milton.
Unlike the books on the shelves, the pages of this volume had been cut, every last one.
“Was Mr. Sullivan interested in poetry? Or metaphysics?”
“One time I saw him read Shakespeare—First Folio,” said Mrs. Sullivan, as she perused every square inch of the desk. “But when I asked him about his favorite plays, he said Shakespeare made his head ache. I even came across him with an open Bible in his hand on a few occasions—and he grew no closer to God. So who knows why he read Milton.”
A movement outside the window caught Charlotte’s eye. She had told Miss Redmayne to go home, as it was cold and she didn’t want the young woman perched on the driver’s box for too long. But now Mrs. Watson’s carriage was back, driven by her coachman, Lawson.
And there was a passenger inside.
She turned back to Mrs. Sullivan. “Allow me.”
She removed all the drawers for a closer look. None had false bottoms. She lit a pocket lantern and shone its light inside the gaping cavities where the drawers had been.
On the right side of the desk, at the very back, the bottom seemed a little thicker. She reached in. Her hand discerned a piece of wood a quarter inch thick, placed along the back panel. It was little more than an inch in width, and exactly as long as the cavity was wide.
She tried to move it, but it remained firmly in place. A few seconds later, she felt a depression on top of this small plank. Hooking two fingers inside the depression, she pulled.
A thudding noise came from the other side of the desk.
The small plank must have been dovetailed into the bottom of the back panel. With the plank removed, the back panel had dropped down.
Mrs. Sullivan, who had been crouched beside Charlotte, leaped up for a look. Charlotte followed her.
On the other side of the desk, a hidden drawer had been revealed. Mrs. Sullivan pulled it open.
Only the left side of the drawer was occupied: four thick envelopes. Mrs. Sullivan’s eyes rounded as she opened one envelope. “This must be—this must be—”
Charlotte took it from her and fanned out the crisp banknotes. “A thousand pounds.”
The next envelope held five thousand dollars, the near equivalent of one thousand pounds. And the remaining two envelopes proved to contain a thousand pounds in francs and marks, respectively.
“Is . . . is this why he didn’t want me to come in here?”
Charlotte did not answer, but took the hidden drawer’s dimensions with a measuring tape.
“What am I to do with all this money?” murmured Mrs. Sullivan.
“Leave what you owe Mrs. Portwine for today’s visit on the desk and take the rest, of course—I doubt this money will be mentioned in Mr. Sullivan’s will.”
Mrs. Sullivan hesitated only slightly before doing as Charlotte suggested, setting a generous amount on the desk—likely far more than Mrs. Portwine’s fees—before tucking the envelopes into her reticule.
Charlotte examined the desk again. Only when she was sure it had given up all its secrets did she and Mrs. Sullivan return it to its original state.
Mrs. Sullivan peered at Charlotte, her expression unusually diffident. “Will you accompany me back to my house, Miss Holmes? I don’t know that I feel safe traveling across London with this much cash.”
“My carriage is outside; I will see you home. But before that, I have a few more questions.”
Mrs. Sullivan sighed. “I’ll tell you what I did that night. Mr. Sullivan told me that Miss Longstead’s coming-out party would be a circus. He said that he’d sent a note to Inspector Treadles and that the inspector would go into number 33, see how his wife conducts herself in his absence, and fly into a rage. But it wouldn’t stop there. Mr. Sullivan anticipated that Inspector Treadles would then march into the party, make a nasty scene, ruin Miss Longstead’s night, and forever rupture relations not just between himself and his wife but between his wife and Mr. Longstead.
“Mr. Sullivan lied as easily as he breathed and I didn’t really believe him. But such was what passed for excitement in my life.” Mrs. Sullivan pushed her lips to one side, an expression of forlorn resignation. “Besides, he’d never promised anything of the sort before, an actual scandal. I went to Cold Street with bloomers underneath my skirt, so I could climb over the garden gate if I had to.
“Which I did, when the front door of number 33 proved to be locked. But the back door was open. It was dark inside the house. I groped my way from floor to floor, hoping for an open room with windows that would give me a good vantage point.
“All the rooms were locked. I came back down to the ground floor, where the windows didn’t face those of number 31 directly. But even with an oblique view, I saw that Mr. Sullivan had lied to me again. He said Mrs. Treadles fancied him. But when he approached her, she couldn’t get away fast enough.”
The toe of her boot dug into the large Aubusson carpet that covered most of the study. Her voice became barely audible. “He was an awful person. But I still wanted someone, besides me, to care about him. To like him a little, at least.”
Her fingers plucked at the black crape of her mourning reticule. “I left via the front door, because I wasn’t going to climb the gate again. Whitmer drove me here. But later, well past two o’clock, when Whitmer came back alone, I wondered whether Mr. Sullivan hadn’t told me some truth after all. What if he had indeed summoned Inspector Treadles? What if, instead of turning his wrath on his wife or Mr. Longstead, Inspector Treadles had gone after the true culprit?
“I wanted to go back to Cold Street but Whitmer said it was too dangerous and took me home. I fretted and paced. I never imagined that my husband would be dead—I thought he’d be lying on a pavement, hurt and bleeding, after a solid beating from Inspector Treadles. But I couldn’t go out and get him in the fog, so I took some laudanum and went to sleep. And, well, you know the rest.”
She tried to give an insouciant toss of her head, but only looked like a child pretending not to care.
“If I may ask,” said Charlotte, “as you left number 33, did you close the front door behind you or did you leave it open?”
“I closed it. Carefully pulled it shut.” She plucked at her reticule some more. “Can we leave now? Or do you still have other questions?”
Charlotte gazed at her a moment. “Are you all right, Mrs. Sullivan?”
Mrs. Sullivan laughed as her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know. Even with all his lies and cruelty—perhaps particularly because of them—he was the center of gravity in my life. I revolved around him as the moon does around the Earth. What happens to the moon when the Earth is no more?”
Charlotte closed the distance between them and pulled the drawstring of Mrs. Sullivan’s reticule into a tight knot. “My understanding of physics is very shallow, but I imagine the moon will continue to fly through space, and eventually settle into its own orbit around the sun. Now shall we find our hostess and bid her good night? It’s time we delivered you home, Mrs. Sullivan.”
Nineteen
Charlotte had expected to see Lord Ingram. Still, her heart leaped at the sight of him standing beside Mrs. Watson’s town coach, his posture straight and perfect, a slight smile about his lips. He did not let his hand linger on hers as he helped her into the carriage; all the same, heat vaulted up from her gloved fingers.
They had been apart for less than twenty-four hours. There was, therefore, no reason for her to react so extravagantly. But how could she mind, when those extravagant reactions were also so pleasurable?
The ride, beyond initial introductions between Mrs. Sullivan and Lord Ingram, and the latter’s murmurs of condolences, was silent.
At her own front door, Mrs. Sullivan turned around and waved to Charlotte, still in the carriage, and Lord Ingram, who stood by the carriage door, having helped Mrs. Sullivan descend a moment earlier. They both inclined their heads.
When he climbed back inside, he did not immediately approach Charlotte—not with the carriage curtains still open.
The coach left the curb. He closed one curtain. And Charlotte’s heart leaped again.
But she did not let herself get carried away. “What was marriage like for you?”
He stilled, obviously not having expected that question. “You observed it, didn’t you?”
“I have made my observations, yes. But I’ve never heard your thoughts on the matter, except once, shortly after your honeymoon.”
“Ah, when I was still in thrall to the wondrous newness of it all—and even recommended marriage to you, of all people.” He had been reaching toward the other curtain, but now he dropped his hand to his seat. “Why are you asking the question now?”
She had delved too deeply into Mrs. Sullivan’s marriage today. Yet with regard to his, she had often felt as if she stood on the street in front of a shuttered house, not getting any glimpses inside except on the rarest of occasions, when a window was accidentally left open.
“I have—” She stopped, surprised by how reluctant she was to make this confession. “I have long wished to know. But it’s only recently that you’ve become forthcoming.”
His brow lifted, as if he, too, was taken aback by her admission. His thumb slid back and forth across the dark velvet of the carriage seat.
It was an intrusive question. He would be within his rights not to answer. And yet, as seconds dripped past, she felt her stomach tighten at the prospect of his refusal.
“In those years when my wife and I were estranged, I thought very little of our marriage,” he said quietly. “What was the point? The mistake had already been made. The situation was permanent. My main concern was for the children, who needed to be shielded from the worst aspects of a marriage gone bitter.
“But after Lady Ingram left, after I learned the full extent of what she did while we still lived under the same roof . . .” He looked at her. “You can probably guess where my mind went.”
She exhaled, relieved that he chose to trust her, after all. And she did indeed know where his mind had gone. “To your own culpability in the matter.”
“To how much damage I’d inadvertently inflicted upon her.” He turned his face to the window. “For a long time, I saw myself as her knight in shining armor. But given that her parents allowed her no choice except to marry a rich man, to her I was but her buyer and everything that happened between us, a transaction. Even after the rupture of our marriage, when I no longer demanded her affection, she remained dependent on my support, entirely aware that I was seen as a saint, and she, a heartless opportunist.”
Silence. But in the silence she heard something else. A tentativeness approaching nerves.
“What is it?” she asked.
He turned back to face her, but his gaze was in the vicinity of her knees. He raised it slowly, as if with difficulty. “Have I—have I ever inflicted damage on you?”
She stared at him—the question was entirely unforeseen. Had he inflicted damage upon her?
“No,” she said after a minute. “You were an education in humanity, not a source of damage.”
He blinked—and laughed. “I was what?”
“I’d always thought that a quintessential aspect of being human—possibly the most quintessential aspect—lay in dealing with what one wanted but could not have. For years I believed I would not have that problem, because all I wanted was independence and I saw a clear path to it.
“Then you asked for Lady Ingram’s hand and married her. And I became human. Now I, too, wanted something I couldn’t have. It was . . . an instruction in pain. But that was merely the pain of being alive and being human.”
They passed a street lamp, and its light traveled across the wonder and compassion on his face. She remembered that she had never brought up the subject before with anyone, least of all him.
She looked out the window at the approach of another lamppost. “I should ask the same question of you—perhaps I should have asked it long ago. Have I inflicted damage on you?”
He laughed softly. “I used to believe so. I had a great fear of being wrong, especially before others. And more than anyone else, you pointed out my errors. It took me years to learn that the burning sensation I used to feel was not my soul being crushed, but simply the abrasion of my overweening pride.”
Silence. A silence like snowfall, pure and crystalline.
She pulled down the remaining carriage curtains and patted the spot next to her.
He placed his hand over his heart. “My, a Christmas miracle.”
And came to sit beside her.
* * *
As Charlotte alit before 31 Cold Street, someone pushed open the garden gate and stepped onto the pavement.
Miss Hendricks.
Who noticed Charlotte and stopped dead.
Charlotte indicated to Lord Ingram that he should wait for her and approached Miss Hendricks, who glanced apprehensively toward Lord Ingram, even though he took himself a good thirty feet away.
“Miss Hendricks,” said Charlotte in a low voice. “You must never worry that we would put your reputation or your employment at risk. Our sole aim is to find out what happened to Mr. Longstead, not to disrupt anyone else’s life.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Hendricks in a small voice.
“I hope that a certain misunderstanding has been cleared up between you and a certain someone.”
At this, Miss Hendricks bit her lower lip, as if trying to stop herself from smiling. “Yes, thank you very much. In fact—in fact, I was on my way to the postbox at the corner. I’ve written you a note. I’ll give it to you now.”
When she had disappeared back into the garden, presumably to make her way back to her employer’s house, Charlotte opened the envelope and read it in the light of the lantern hanging from Mrs. Watson’s carriage.
Dear Miss Holmes,
At the request of a friend, I am writing with information that I hope will be helpful.
On the night in question, I did step into the house in question. Perhaps I was awakened by the sound of fireworks, which have been a sporadic nuisance in the district of late. Perhaps it was simply my own nerves—I was due to take my charges to their cousin’s birthday party fifty miles away and I have never been a confident traveler.
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