Page 78 of Murder on Cold Street
“Yes,” answered Miss Redmayne. “They live on Rengate Street.”
Rengate Street was one of the four streets that enclosed the private garden 31 and 33 Cold Street backed onto. Houses on Rengate were across the garden from houses on Cold Street. Depending on where on Rengate Street Miss Hendricks lived, she might have a decent view across the garden to number 31 and number 33.
Charlotte handed over Mrs. Treadles’s jeweled comb to Miss Redmayne, who turned it around in her hand. “But what could this Miss Hendricks possibly have been doing at number 33 that night? She doesn’t appear to be the sort to sneak out after dark.”
“Mr. Longstead and Mr. Sullivan died in a bedroom,” said Charlotte. “I examined the bed. Or rather, the mattress. It bore signs of having been repeatedly used for coitus.”
“Miss Hendricks?” Miss Redmayne caught the comb as it slipped from her fingers. “But aren’t governesses expected to be entirely abstemious? And if she had been caught, wouldn’t it have led to her dismissal?”
“It would have. But sometimes that isn’t enough of a deterrent,” said Charlotte, whose current occupation stemmed directly from her own dismissal from society, due to having been caught while not being abstemious.
“But surely it was reckless to hold an assignation next door to a party in full swing.”
“Quite so,” said Charlotte.
Miss Redmayne held the jeweled comb up to the light. “Why doyou think Miss Hendricks gave it back? Ten pounds is a nice sum but she could have pawned this for significantly more money.”
Charlotte stretched her arms over her head—all the hours hunched over the accounts the night before had left her shoulders sore. “Perhaps she had no rendezvous with her lover that night. Let’s suppose that she lived in a room with direct sight to number 33 and that she happened to look out of her window. At least four men, if we count the one who leaped to the street, went into the house that night. What if she saw one of those men enter the house? From the back, from that distance, might it not be reasonable to conclude she assumed that man to be her lover?
“If this wasyourlover, going intoyourplace of assignation, without having alertedyouahead of time, what would you do? Go back to sleep?”
Miss Redmayne chewed her lower lip. “So the poor dear went to investigate and, as she was feeling her way across the dining room, kicked the comb, crouched down, and felt around for this object, only to close her hand around something that she could immediately ascertain, even in the dark, to be an item of female ornamentation, something that did not belong to her.”
“And stumbled out, back to her place, convinced that she’d been played for a fool.” Charlotte pulled her right arm across her chest—ah, that felt better in her shoulder blades. “Miss Hendricks came today not for the reward, but to see the woman the comb belonged to.”
Charlotte pulled her other arm across. “What I don’t understand is, why wasn’t she at all concerned about the murders?”
“I can answer that,” said Miss Redmayne eagerly. “The children went to their cousin’s birthday party in Cambridge recently. They left early in the morning after the murder and started their return trip only this morning. They reported that Miss Hendricks purchased a paper at the train station in Oxford and was reading the small notices on the way back. And, once in London, she hailed a cab to take them not home but here to this house.”
“So she doesn’t know yet?” murmured Charlotte. “She has a shock waiting for her then.”
Miss Redmayne emitted a whistle. Not at all a ladylike action, but Charlotte enjoyed it precisely for that reason.
“Do you think we’ll ever be able to get the truth out of Miss Hendricks?” asked Miss Redmayne, giving the jeweled comb back to Charlotte.
“We may not need to. We may already know enough to find out the identity of her lover,” answered Charlotte, rising to her feet. “Cold Street beckons. I must be off.”
Miss Redmayne stood up, too. “And I should head out to the British Museum.”
They still needed to check whether Mr. Longstead had spent as much time at the Reading Room in the days and weeks before his passing as his household believed he had.
The doorbell rang, loudly and insistently. The two women glanced at each other. Had Miss Hendricks returned?
The caller Mr. Mears showed in was Mrs. Treadles, looking even worse than she had upon emerging from her interrogation with Inspector Brighton the day before. As soon as Mr. Mears left, closing the door behind himself, she blurted out, “I don’t know why, Miss Holmes—Inspector Treadles wouldn’t give me a reason—but he has begged me to please not look too deeply into the accounts at Cousins. He’s—he’s frightened.”
Charlotte poured a glass of cognac and pressed it into Mrs. Treadles’s hands. “I imagine he must be. That’s the reason he’s said nothing to anyone.”
“But—”
“Besides,” said Charlotte calmly, “it’s too late. Mrs. Watson and Lord Ingram are already looking into the matter.”
Fifteen
Livia climbed over a stile, careful to avoid a puddle as she set her Wellington boot down. It had stopped raining, but the ground remained muddy in places. She crossed the empty pasture, breathing in the cold, pure air.
The sky was a pale blue. The sun was out, a sight that usually lifted her spirits. But today her spirits refused to buoy, her heart as heavy as an anvil.
Last night she’d dreamed of Mr. Marbleton—without being able to see his face. Instead he was endlessly walking away into an all-obliterating fog. Her dream self had run after him, calling his name, except she’d been running as if in a vat of glue and her cries, too, had been stuck inside her larynx, silenced, never emerging.
