Page 56 of The Hollow of Fear
Most of the other guests, ladies by and large, had been at various other gatherings before they alighted at Mrs. Newell’s. None of them seemed to have any cause for wanting Lady Ingram dead. Many knew her only minimally.
Mrs. Newell gave the reason. “She had never cared for me, nor I for her. You will excuse an old woman’s pride, but I have always been a good judge of character and I knew from the beginning that she did not love him. That woman did not have his best interests at heart, not for a day of her life.
“I never invited her to my house and she returned that favor. Our circles did not intersect very much. Lord Ingram always called on me here and in London, when I still went for the Season, but she never accompanied him.”
Fowler glanced down at Sergeant Ellerby’s notes. “You are related in some way to Lord Ingram, am I correct?”
“My late husband’s sister was married to Lord Ingram’s maternal uncle. It’s hardly a close kinship, but I’ve always been fond of him. And Remington. Their two elder brothers, not so much.”
Mrs. Newell then went on to berate Fowler for even harboring the slightest suspicion concerning Lord Ingram. “I don’t know who killed her and I don’t particularly care—if there weren’t children involved I’d say good riddance. But her husband did not do it.”
Fowler waited until she had finished testifying to Lord Ingram’s general saintliness before asking, “Madam, you must have heard Lady Avery’s report on the meeting between Lord Ingram and Miss Holmes in the summer, after she’d disappeared from Society. What do you think is going on between those two?”
“I will not stoop to speculations. But I will tell you this, Chief Inspector. That young lady knows everything. I’ve known her since she was a little girl—her father is my cousin—and it was the most disconcerting thing to hear her tell people things about them that she couldn’t possibly have known in advance.”
“What things, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Once she told the late Duchess of Wycliffe, Lord Ingram’s mother, that she was sorry about the news from the doctor. Her Grace had just learned that she had a tumor—the tumor that would kill her—and she hadn’t informedanyone. Not a soul, because she refused to believe it herself.”
“Hmm,” said Fowler.
“Precisely. Later she learned not to say such unsettling things to people—or at least to do so less frequently. But trust me when I tell you that her powers did not disappear when she came of age. If Lord Ingram killed his wife, then he could never again appear before Miss Holmes. Even if no one else ever knew, she would. And I don’t think she would countenance a cold-blooded murder, not even on the part of a very good friend.”
The policemen askedto see Lord Ingram again and were received in the library. This time, Lord Ingram was alone, the heavily disguised Miss Holmes nowhere to be seen.
Chief Inspector Fowler got to the point. “You mentioned, my lord, that Lady Ingram consulted Mr. Sherlock Holmes. We should like to speak with the detective as soon as possible.”
Lord Ingram nodded. “Naturally. I will ask his brother to send a message.”
“Excellent,” said Fowler. “There is someone else we would like to see—Miss Charlotte Holmes.”
“I’m afraid I have no idea how to get word to Miss Holmes,” answered Lord Ingram, without any change in tone or expression.
He looked at Fowler, but Treadles felt himself at the center of Lord Ingram’s attention.
He didn’t know whether Lord Ingram and Miss Holmes had expected him as an emissary of Scotland Yard. Nor could he be sure whether Miss Holmes had been aware the exact moment he had seen through her disguise. But when Lord Ingram had made it known that Sherrinford Holmes was brother to Sherlock Holmes, who, as a fictional character, could have no flesh-and-blood brothers, he had announced to Treadles loud and clear that Miss Holmes was among them.
Had, in effect, asked him, out of friendship, not to inform anyone of her presence.
Because Chief Inspector Fowler was not the only one conducting a murder investigation at Stern Hollow.
Miss Holmes, despite Treadles’s unease at her unchaperoned attendance, was not there to engage in an illicit affair with Lord Ingram—or at least not only that—but to find out the truth of what had happened to Lady Ingram.
For her work to continue unhindered, there could not be any challenge to Sherrinford Holmes’s identity.
But this went against everything Treadles believed about how a man and an officer of the Criminal Investigation Department ought to conduct himself. He would be breaking so many rules that he might as well set Buckingham Palace on fire too, while he was at it.
Not to mention, by allowing Lord Ingram to get away with this massive lie, he would open himself up to accusations of criminal misconduct, of a magnitude to end his career with the C.I.D.
“Are you sure about that, my lord?” he heard himself ask. “That you have no means of reaching Miss Holmes?”
Lord Ingram looked him in the eye. “I am sure.”
If Lord Ingram killed his wife, then he could never again appear before Miss Holmes.
Treadles said nothing else.
Fowler sighed. “I do wish that were otherwise.”
