Page 58 of The Hollow of Fear
“She... rather defies description.”
Fowler would not take that for an answer. “Lady Avery and Lady Somersby characterize her as odd, grandly odd. What do you think?”
Lord Ingram picked up a paperweight from his desk and turned it around in his hand. “If I were to think of it at all, I would be struck by how grandly and inhospitably strange the world must appear to Charlotte Holmes.”
Charlotte had originally plannedto inquire at nearby railway stations as to whether any coffins had recently arrived. But by the time she reached the village, she had changed her mind.
A coffin coming to a small community invited questions.Who was inside? Where would the burial take place? How was this person related to local residents?All inquiries that those transporting murder victims on the sly would not want to answer.
She next thought to check with station porters for trunks that weighed more than a hundred pounds. But those might appear suspicious, too. Worse, they might prove memorable.
Crates, then. People expected crates to be heavy. Not to mention, so many things were shipped in crates they would arouse no more curiosity than a...
“Sir? Sir? May I help you?”
She started, but it was only the station agent. She realized that she had been standing four feet away from his window for several minutes, caught in her own thoughts. She stamped her feet—the train shed shielded the platform from the rain tapping at the roof, but not from the cold, which seeped in patiently, inexorably—and approached the man.
“Yes, you may, my good man.”
“Excellent. Where are you headed? Miserable day to be out, isn’t it?”
Perhaps he was loquacious by nature; perhaps sitting inside a small brick box all day long, on this not-at-all-busy platform, had given him a hunger for conversation. In either case, he was exactly what Charlotte was hoping for.
“Miserable day, indeed,” Charlotte agreed heartily. “I wouldn’t mind sitting by a fire with a hot toddy in hand, I tell you. Anyway, Sherrinford Holmes, at your service.”
“Wally Walpole, at yours.”
“I just came from Stern Hollow. You’ve heard what happened?”
Wally Walpole’s eyes widened with both dismay and the anticipation of gossip. “Terrible, terrible thing. And she such a beautiful young woman, too.”
“A tragedy, no doubt. But now we must find out what happened. I’ve been tasked by Lord Ingram’s family to investigate on his behalf. I understand that some crates headed for Stern Hollow came through here recently.”
Wally Walpole blinked, not quite seeing the connection between crates and Lady Ingram’s sensational death. But that did not prevent him from answering Charlotte’s query. “Yes, two large crates. I had to sign for them, since they were put into the station’s care. But that really wasn’t necessary. Lord Ingram’s lads were already here, waiting.”
“How did they know to come?”
“From what I understand, the London agent of the company that sells the equipment sends a note around and tells Lord Ingram when his orders are expected to arrive.”
“So the lads show up and you have a chat.”
“Not too long, since they do have work to do.” Wally Walpole sighed with regret. “But yes, a bit of a chat.”
Since he seemed in dire need of company, Charlotte related some of what had been going on at Stern Hollow, nothing any of the servants wouldn’t have been able to tell him, had they come through the railway station. He listened with his mouth half open, his throat emitting occasional gurgles of disbelief.
When she judged that she’d given him enough, she paused, as if remembering something. “By the way, the two crates you mentioned, were those the only ones that came for Lord Ingram recently?”
Wally Walpole’s eyes lit up. “Funny you should ask.”
One of thereasons Chief Inspector Fowler, the Bloodhound of the Yard, had come by that moniker was his legendary ability to sniff out a valuable witness from a mere bystander.
That ferocious instinct was on display when he and Treadles interviewed the outdoor staff. As he had done with the indoor staff and the guests, Fowler spoke to them in groups. This time, however, when he had seen everyone, he asked to see one particular gardener again.
The young man trudged back inside the blue-and-white parlor, and immediately glanced at Treadles, as if seeking reassurance. He appeared scared and, Treadles had to admit, guilty.
Of something.
“Mr. Keeling,” said Fowler coldly, “I don’t think you’ve told us everything you know.”
