Miss Moriarty, I Presume?, page 30
“You’re most likely right,” said Charlotte. “But we must consider all the possibilities.”
Mrs. Felton looked about the pub and then whispered, “You can’t just cast a body out to sea in these parts, Miss Holmes. The sea washes them right back to Fetlock Cove, two miles southwest.”
“I’ve heard the same,” said Mr. Mears. “It’s no use weighing bodies down either. The currents are such that not even clothes can stay on, let alone ropes and chains and whatnot.”
Mrs. Felton quailed. Mrs. Watson hastened to put her mind at ease. “I wouldn’t worry about Mr. Craddock yet. Remember how anxious everyone was for Miss Baxter? She proved right as ninepence, didn’t she?”
That reassurance worked. Mrs. Felton, her good humor restored, finished her hearty lunch and shared a heroic serving of rice pudding with Charlotte before bidding the London visitors good day outside the pub. The London visitors, driven by Mr. Mears, headed for the Garden.
The day continued to be beautiful, the air clear and pure, with bright notes of salt and grass. But perhaps because there were more clouds in the sky, or perhaps because the wind had nearly sheared Charlotte’s turban off her head as she was about to climb into the remise, it seemed only a matter of time before atmospheric conditions changed.
Charlotte watched the sea for another minute, then turned to Mrs. Watson. “Ma’am, I didn’t give you a complete account of what happened when I went to Dr. Robinson’s cottage.”
She brought up the man who had been in Dr. Robinson’s cottage when she’d stolen inside and who had clamped a hand over her mouth to keep her silent when she’d happened upon his hiding place.
Mrs. Watson worried the drawstring of her reticule. But she only said, after a moment, “I’m glad you escaped unscathed, my dear. Please go on.”
“I’m likewise glad to have been unharmed.” Charlotte inclined her head toward the dear lady who always wanted to protect and comfort everyone. “Now this man couldn’t have been Dr. Robinson, who was in the cottage at the same time. He wasn’t Mr. Peters, who, according to Lord Ingram, did not stray from the vicinity of Miss Baxter’s lodge.
“The man wasn’t Mr. McEwan, who was on the wall with Miss Stoppard. He didn’t smell of horses, so he wasn’t John Spackett, who had harnessed a horse to a carriage just before that. And he also didn’t smell of Mr. Steele’s cologne water.
“At the time, I thought he had to be Mr. Craddock and suspected him of being Moriarty’s minion. I also thought it likely that he trespassed for the same reason I did: to obtain indirect intelligence on Miss Baxter.
“That in itself was not remarkable—it was already a foregone conclusion by then that Mrs. Felton could not be the only Moriarty spy at the Garden. But if the man was an imposter—that is much more interesting. The imposter, chosen to replace the original Mr. Craddock, should number among Miss Baxter’s loyalists. Yet he was there spying on Dr. Robinson, who is surely someone she trusts completely.”
“Is it possible that . . .” Mrs. Watson’s voice trailed off. “What is going on?”
Their remise crested an incline. The Garden of Hermopolis, its castle-like walls gleaming under the sun, came into view, looming in the distance with a vaguely sinister magnificence.
Except now, on the headland to the west, several tents were being erected. Or rather, one was staked in and ready, and half a dozen men were working on two more.
Camping had been a popular pastime along the Upper Thames for years, developed in conjuncture with pleasure boating, as heavy tents were more easily transported by watercraft. But the Garden was not situated along any river, and its surroundings, while beautiful, would not have lured Charlotte to spend a night outdoors in February.
Mrs. Watson must have come to a similar conclusion. Her fingers closed around the handle of her umbrella—also a gift from Lord Ingram, capable of firing two shots. “Did . . . did Moriarty send these men?”
“Probably,” said Lord Ingram. His tone suggested that the probability verged on one hundred percent. “But why?”
Why indeed?
* * *
The residents of the Garden of Hermopolis had noticed the men and the tents outside their front gate. With her binoculars, Charlotte counted eleven figures atop the wall—everyone except Mrs. Crosby, Miss Baxter, and Mr. Craddock.
As the remise drew near, several people disappeared from the ramparts. Mr. Peters and John Spackett opened the gate. Miss Ellery greeted them. Charlotte had cabled the Garden the day before, soon after she learned they would be forced to return. Their arrival therefore surprised no one, but Miss Ellery’s smile was both awkward and uneasy.
Charlotte, leaving Mrs. Watson to speak with Miss Ellery, went in search of Abby Hurley, the kitchen maid. Abby Hurley, who had just climbed down from the wall, was surprised to be accosted, but told Charlotte readily enough that yes, Mr. Craddock used to pick up his meal baskets himself. But around Christmas he moved to another cottage and left to visit some friends. When he came back, he began a meditative retreat. Since then, she had delivered and retrieved his baskets, leaving them outside his door and picking them up again from the same spot.
Charlotte thanked her and proceeded directly to the cottage currently occupied by “Mr. Craddock,” in the back of Miss Baxter’s cluster, with its noted view of fruit trees espaliered against the wall. A slate tablet hung on the door: Meditative retreat in progress. Pray do not disturb.
By this time, Lord Ingram had caught up with her. So had Mr. Peters.
“Miss Holmes, are you planning to disturb Mr. Craddock?” he asked with a tilt of his head.
Before he’d threatened Mrs. Watson and Charlotte on the wall, their first night at the Garden, Mr. Peters’s boyishly good-looking face had appeared convivial and occasionally mischievous—Mrs. Watson would have characterized that mischief as malicious. Now there was no trace of playfulness—malicious or not—left in his countenance, and no round cheeks or mop of hair could soften the iciness of his gaze.
“Mr. Craddock does not observe his retreat strictly.” Charlotte made her counterargument. “He was out and about, wasn’t he, the night of the fireworks?”
“Therefore?”
“Therefore I am going to inform him of my deep interest in his welfare. I don’t believe I will be allowed to return to London unless he proves himself to be in good condition.”
She pulled out a folded piece of paper from her reticule and slipped it under Mr. Craddock’s door. Then she headed toward Miss Baxter’s lodge.
Mr. Peters caught up with her on the lodge’s veranda. “Miss Baxter will not receive you.”
“Perfect, as I am only leaving a calling card, now that we are back.”
She folded a corner of one of Sherlock Holmes’s cards and left it under the door.
“Aren’t you going to leave one for Miss Fairchild, too?”
Normal rules of card-leaving stipulated the acknowledgment of one’s hostess.
Charlotte rose and turned around. “Would that help me depart here sooner?”
Mr. Peters said nothing. He glanced at Lord Ingram, who stood against the handrail of the steps leading up to the veranda, two steps behind him.
“Mrs. Crosby is still not back?” asked Lord Ingram.
A pause. “No,” answered Mr. Peters quietly.
“Miss Baxter is lucky to have her,” said Charlotte.
Mr. Peters regarded her with narrowed eyes.
Charlotte headed toward the kitchen garden. “Does Miss Baxter know what’s happening outside?”
Mr. Peters fell in step beside her. “Yes.”
Charlotte took Lord Ingram’s arm—he was on her other side—and waited, in case Mr. Peters had anything else to say. But the young man only glanced toward the western wall, his jaw set.
He was afraid. This was the first time she’d sensed fear in him. Did this mean that Miss Baxter was also afraid?
“The campers arrived mid-morning,” he said eventually. “And looked around for some time before they erected the first tent.”
The “campers” had to have come on the overnight train. De Lacey had given no hint that such a thing was being planned. Had it been decided only after he had called on Charlotte the second time yesterday?
But why? Lord Ingram had asked earlier.
Why indeed.
They reached the shade hut, under which Lord Ingram had stood long hours the night of the fireworks. The hut’s two support pillars in the back were in fact two small storage sheds. Charlotte opened the door on the support shed to the north, took out a long, sharp wooden stake meant for building trellises, and marched toward the kitchen garden.
Mrs. Steele, who stood at the edge of the kitchen garden, said from underneath her creamy lace parasol, “Why, hullo, Miss Holmes. Hullo, Mr. Hudson. You came back on a lovely d—”
She leaped back in surprise as Charlotte struck the stake directly into the kitchen garden’s tilled, loosened soil. “Miss Holmes, what are you doing?”
“How do you do, Mrs. Steele? And yes, indeed, since we must come back, we’ve at least come on a lovely day,” said Charlotte, pushing the stake farther into the ground. “By the way, Mrs. Steele, have you heard the local wisdom that a body tossed off these cliffs would wash up in due time in Fetlock Cove not too far from here?”
“Ah, no, I’m—I’m sure I’ve never heard of that.”
Mrs. Steele, her eyes bulging a little, stared at Mr. Peters, as if he could furnish an explanation for Charlotte’s macabre question.
“I have, from multiple sources.” Charlotte pulled up the stake and sank it into a different spot. “Therefore, if one wants to get rid of a body, one cannot shove it into the sea. But a vegetable patch might not be a bad place for it, don’t you think? Much easier to dig up a vegetable patch than an unimproved spot of headland.”
Mrs. Steele’s lips flapped. Once again she stared at Mr. Peters, who glowered at Charlotte but didn’t say anything.
Charlotte was about to pull the stake up again when Lord Ingram said, “Allow me, Miss Holmes. I found this in the storage shed.”
This was a hammer. He struck the stake straighter and deeper into the ground, before pulling it up and repeating the action two feet away. Memories of long-ago summers came to mind, halcyon days when she used to watch him drive small stakes into the ground, and then mark the peripheries of his dig by tying strings to those stakes. The man always knew his way around a hammer.
“Excellent work, Mr. Hudson.”
He smiled at her. “I have dealt with a kitchen garden or two in my time.”
“Indeed, I am very fond of your kitchen garden. And no disrespect to the Garden of Hermopolis, of course, but truly your fruit trees are vastly superior.”
“Do fruit trees mean something different these days?” Mrs. Steele asked her husband, who had just arrived at the vegetable garden and responded to her question with a look of thorough confusion.
She took him by the hand. “Let’s go. I’m going to ask the campers why they couldn’t set up their tents a mile south or a mile north, rather than exactly in front of our gate.”
Mr. Steele didn’t look at all eager to accompany his wife but allowed himself to be led toward the gate.
“Before you leave, Mr. Steele, Mrs. Steele,” Charlotte called out, “when was the last time you saw Mr. Craddock?”
“Not since he went to see his friends before Christmas,” said Mr. Steele. “Why, is anything amiss with him?”
Mrs. Steele, too, turned around.
“No,” said Charlotte. “I just realized that I haven’t met him, that’s all. I’ve met everyone here except him.”
Mr. Peters’s countenance grew even darker.
Charlotte was never going to omit him in her questioning. “Mr. Peters, when was the last time you saw Mr. Craddock?”
“Three nights ago.”
“It was dark that night. Did you see his face?”
Mr. Peters’s voice became ever brusquer. “No.”
Dr. Robinson sauntered to the edge of the plot, glanced around, and said, “Oh, have we already started spring planting?”
* * *
“I hear you are a sworn enemy of Moriarty, Miss Fairchild,” said Mrs. Watson.
With Miss Ellery having gone with Dr. Robinson to see what was happening around the kitchen garden, Mrs. Watson invited Miss Fairchild for a walk. John Spackett, who had just closed the gate after the Steeles went out, opened it for them again.
The two women rounded south of the compound. Mrs. Watson kept her gaze on the uneven ground underfoot—she did not want to add a bad stumble to her list of troubles. Miss Fairchild, however, glanced several times behind them, at the men who were still putting up one last tent, her expression not so much one of fear as one of consternation, as if she faced not agents of Moriarty but an infestation of weevils.
They went down to the promontory. A few miles from the coast clumps of dark cloud hung low, rain falling in their shadows even as the surrounding sea continued to gleam under the sun.
Miss Fairchild’s attention had been behind them. A man stood at the edge of the headlands—one of the campers. She had scanned him, her bearing straight, her face severe.
At Mrs. Watson’s statement, however, her expression congealed. Her head turned, a fraction of an inch at a time, until she looked Mrs. Watson in the eye.
“I hear that you are a sworn enemy of Moriarty, Miss Fairchild,” Mrs. Watson repeated herself. “And that the blame also falls on him for the condition of your vocal cords.”
Miss Fairchild said nothing, only continued to look at Mrs. Watson.
Mrs. Watson genuinely liked and loved people, but in return she also liked to be liked and loved to be loved. It was disconcerting to be on the receiving end of Miss Fairchild’s flat gaze.
Miss Charlotte had quite a stare, too, powered by her sometimes-overwhelming perceptiveness. It could produce an effect of mortification, of believing that one had turned into glass and that every last closely held secret was now open to scrutiny.
Miss Fairchild’s look did not make Mrs. Watson feel as if she’d been put under a microscope. Rather, it was as if she studied Miss Fairchild through the wrong end of a spyglass, with the silent woman appearing much farther away than she actually was.
Mrs. Watson steeled herself. “I also hear, from the same reliable source, that the Garden of Hermopolis has been, over the years, a place for those who oppose Moriarty to find temporary refuge.”
Miss Fairchild persisted in her stony silence.
“We have said nothing to Mr. Baxter, of course. We are neutral parties—Miss Baxter, in allowing us to come here, bears testimony to our neutrality.
“It must be a terrifying time for you, with these ‘campers’ openly staking an observatory post outside your front gate. It is an equally unnerving time for Miss Holmes, Mr. Hudson, and myself. We are only investigators. Mr. Baxter asked us to ascertain Miss Baxter’s safety; we came. He asked us to ascertain Mr. Craddock’s safety, and we have returned.
“We do not want to be thorns in your side. We only want to know about Mr. Craddock and then leave as soon as possible.”
More silence from Miss Fairchild, before she pulled out a stubby pencil and a small notebook and began writing.
Mr. Craddock is on a meditative retreat. He is not to be disturbed.
Mrs. Watson felt a stab of disappointment. “Do you really believe that, Miss Fairchild? While I don’t know why the men outside the Garden came today, I don’t think they came for you. Not yet. But I have the unhappy feeling that given time, they might make you a target, too.”
Miss Fairchild scribbled another answer. I have nothing to tell you about Mr. Craddock, other than that he is doing precisely what he came to the Garden to do.
“How can you know nothing, Miss Fairchild? For years, this man occupied a cottage from which one cannot see Miss Baxter’s lodge. All at once he was transferred to another one that was a stone’s throw from hers. Similarly, he ambled about for years, only to become a hermit at the exact moment he was moved.
“Are we speaking of the same man? Of only one man? Miss Baxter is a highly intelligent woman. Why would she suddenly allow Mr. Craddock into her orbit after keeping him at an arm’s length for so long?”
That you must ask Miss Baxter.
“But you are also trusted by Miss Baxter, are you not, Miss Fairchild? She could have gone anywhere to get away from her father. She chose to come here.”
She chose to come here because she is devoted to the teaching of the Great One, and there are not that many like-minded communities nearby, or in the entire world.
“Nevertheless, she sends Mr. Peters, her watchdog, to confer with you. I saw you two speaking right here where we are standing now. Surely you don’t mean to tell me that Mr. Peters wanted to consult you on some finer points of Hermetica?”
Mr. Peters spoke to me because he admires Mrs. Crosby and did not know what he ought to do next, not because he wanted to talk to me about Miss Baxter or Mr. Craddock.
Mrs. Watson blinked. Love bloomed ever, even inside a fortress to which Moriarty had laid siege.
Miss Fairchild pocketed notebook and pencil. “And as for that so-called reliable source of yours, Mrs. Watson, I would not place as much trust in it.”
Miss Fairchild had spoken. Her voice had the sound of a dull knife scraping over rough stone, and made Mrs. Watson want to wrap a protective hand around her own throat. A full second passed before Mrs. Watson grasped her meaning.
Miss Fairchild had already started back toward the Garden, her thin back held ramrod straight, but she was nevertheless a small woman, insignificant against these endless miles of craggy coastline.
She had at last disputed the enemy-of-Moriarty designation attributed to her—and cast aspersions on Miss Marbleton’s reliability as a conduit of information. One could almost consider it an afterthought but for the fact that she had spoken that objection aloud, using her irreparably damaged voice.
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