Page 7 of A Conspiracy in Belgravia
And it wasn’t only her parents. Charlotte’s infamy affected Livia’s chances at a good marriage. Livia had scoffed at the idea, declaring herself the biggest obstacle to matrimony that she would ever face. But Charlotte could not be so blithe about it.
Moreover, if she did marry Lord Bancroft, then she could provide shelter for Livia, who would no longer face daily belittlement from their parents. And Bernadine, too, if at all possible—she couldn’t imagine that the atmosphere at home was conducive to Bernadine’s well-being.
On the other hand, marrying Lord Bancroft would make her Lord Ingram’s sister-in-law, a situation so fraught even Livia’s imagination might prove unequal to the ramifications. Not to mention, he clearly required her to give up her fledgling enterprise—and she was rather attached to the income it generated.
She bit down on another slice of pound cake, her appetite for rich, buttery solace even greater when faced with intractable dilemmas.
Suppose she persuaded Lord Bancroft to settle five hundred pounds a year on her... She would have an independent income—enough to look after Livia and Bernadine. She would still be able to see Mrs. Watson. And if he should indeed prove the wellspring of intriguing and diverting cases...
She picked up the dossier he left behind.
It contained six envelopes. She unsealed the first envelope and pulled out a sheet of paper.
In 18__, Mr. W., a young widower whose wife had perished in childbirth, traveled to India to take a civil service position in the Madras Presidency. A few weeks after his arrival, he attended an afternoon tea party. Taxed by the heat—even though the rainy season had arrived and temperatures were cooler than they would otherwise have been—he sat down on the veranda and closed his eyes for a nap.
The party dispersed. As the family dressed for dinner, a servant informed the mistress that a sahib was still on the veranda, asleep. The lady of the house went to rouse him and, much to her shock, found him dead.
Mr. W. had no connection to power, prestige, or fortune. He held no position whereby his removal—or his cooperation, for that matter—would have given anyone any noticeable advantage. And in his personal life, he was vouched to have been timid and trouble-averse—no criminal tendencies or unwise dalliances.
How and why did Mr. W. die?
India. Monsoon. The answer seemed much too obvious.
Charlotte dug further into the envelope and found a folded strip of paper that saidClueon the outside and a smaller envelope markedAnswer.
The clue read,Mr. W.’s death was declared an accident.
Well, that settled it. She opened theAnswerenvelope.
The physician who examined Mr. W.’s body found puncture marks on the latter’s wrist. Common kraits, highly poisonous snakes indigenous to India, sometimes enter dwellings to keep dry during monsoon months. Mr. W. was not the first, nor would he be the last, to be bitten in his sleep and never wake up again.
Snakebite, as she’d thought. She studied the sheets of paper and the typed words. The case might be old, but the construction of case-as-puzzle was recent. And it was meticulously done.
Not by Bancroft, obviously—he was too busy for that. A minion, then, one with access to the archives. What had been Bancroft’s instruction?Reach in and grab the first few records?
She shook her head. She was being unfair. Bancroft dealt with real life, and real life seldom made for particularly intriguing puzzles. Not to mention, the construction of puzzles was an art. A minion who had no prior experience in said art—and who had never met Charlotte Holmes—could very well consider Mr. W.’s case, as it was presented, a first-rate conundrum.
She opened the next envelope.
On the last Sunday of January 18___, the S___ family did not attend Sunday service. Mr. S. was a laborer, Mrs. S. a housewife who took in washing. They were poor but devout. Neighbors knocked on their door after church, concerned that they might have fallen ill. No one answered.
When the neighbors at last entered the dwelling, they found the entire family—husband, wife, and three children—dead in their beds.
What was the cause of death?
Where were the S___family? Had they been in England, Charlotte would hesitate longer, but if they lived on the Continent...
This case also came with a clue, which read,The S___ family resided in Minden, Germany.
A guinea said that they perished from carbon monoxide poisoning.
The incident took place in a cottage, which happened to be the end house in a row of cottages, located directly above a disused mining shaft. All five members of the household, along with two cats and a caged songbird, died overnight. In the cottage opposite, also an end house, the occupants also fell ill, and they, too, lost family pets that night, though the humans eventually recovered.
The theory is that harmful gas from the mine shaft seeped upward through the dirt floors of the cellars. The cellars were fitted with doors that opened to the outside, but in the case of both houses, they had remained closed during the preceding weeks—it was winter and the families did not want cold air coming up into the house. The neighbors, when questioned, recalled that members of both families had complained of headache and nausea for a while. It then came to be viewed as a matter of luck. Similar conditions, similar dangers. One family succumbed, the other survived.
Charlotte would have thought it was simply due to insufficient ventilation for the stove—the composition of coal on the Continent made it more likely to emit carbon monoxide as a by-product of under-aerated combustion.
So...slightlymore interesting, but hardly stimulating.
