Page 87 of Murder on Cold Street
“Mr. Mortimer Cousins?”
“Yes, a truly excellent man, old Mr. Cousins. Mr. Longstead’s innovations were the lifeblood of the company, but for Mr. Longstead’s health, Mr. Cousins gave up untold future profits. The first time Mr. Longstead nearly ruined his health, he said he wouldretire, but he still had shares in the company and couldn’t help getting involved. The second time, Mr. Cousins bought out his shares on terms highly advantageous to Mr. Longstead. Mr. Longstead separated himself thoroughly from the company, and rusticated for some years. Lo and behold he was fine. Mind you, he was never as hale and robust as me—my normal self, that is—but speaking as his physician, his was a perfectly tolerable state of health.”
Charlotte had always been open to the possibility that the partnership between Mr. Longstead and old Mr. Cousinshadn’tbeen as robust and mutually affectionate as those around them preferred to believe. Yet here another person had added his voice to the chorus and attested to the very solidity of that friendship and alliance.
“Did Mr. Longstead have any recent health issues?” she asked.
“None that I was aware of, and we saw each other regularly. In fact, I would have been there that night at his niece’s party, if I hadn’t caught this accursed cold the day before.” Dr. Ralston coughed again. “And this tragedy has not helped my recovery.”
It was rather warm in the room for Charlotte, but Dr. Ralston gazed with some longing at a thick, knitted shawl draped over the back of a chair. Charlotte rose, retrieved the shawl, and handed it to him. “When you say you saw each other regularly, do you mean in a professional capacity?”
“Thank you, Miss Holmes,” said Dr. Ralston gratefully, spreading the shawl over his lap. “Mr. Longstead and I saw each other more as two bored old men—I am three quarters retired myself. When he was in town, we attended lectures together about once a month. Once a month I also host a whist game, to which he had a standing invitation.
“And when he came to my card games, either before or after, I would serve as his physician for a quarter of an hour: take his pulse, look him over, and ask him about his health. Sometimes I think his niece was the best thing to ever happen to his health. He very much wanted to be sure that he didn’t orphan her—not before she found a good man to marry, in any case.”
But despite her uncle’s intentions to the contrary, Miss Longstead was now once again an orphan.
Dr. Ralston fell silent.
Charlotte took out Mr. Longstead’s appointment book. The dates of Mr. Longstead’s last few visits to the pharmaceutical chemists, at least according to Messrs. Sealy and Worcester, hadnotagreed with the ones recorded inside.Thosetook place at the beginning of December. She opened the appointment book to the page on which the word “physician” had been jotted down, and showed it to Dr. Ralston. “Does this appear to be the correct date and time for your card games?”
“Yes, I always have them on the second Thursday of the month, in the afternoon.”
“And he played on that day?”
Dr. Ralston put a lozenge in his mouth. “No, Mr. Longstead didn’t play on that day. Eight of us should have been there but two bowed out at the last minute. We were going to take turns, but Mr. Longstead entered into a conversation with Dr. Motley and they seemed to enjoy themselves. They even went for a walk together.”
The name was familiar to Charlotte from an earlier case. “Dr. Motley, Mrs. Treadles’s family physician?”
“Indeed, the very same.”
“Did they know each other well?”
“They most certainly knewofeach other but I don’t believe their paths crossed very often.”
Charlotte looked again at the word “physician,” scrawled on the still open page of the appointment book. “Were you surprised that they took so well to each other?”
Dr. Ralston drank more of his honey lemon tea, his eyes taking on a faraway look. “The day before the whist game I ran into Miss Longstead. She confessed herself nervous about her coming-out party. When Mr. Longstead came the next day, he appeared unusually grave. I attributed his sober mood to worries about his niece.But then he and Dr. Motley began chatting and he seemed fascinated by everything Dr. Motley had to say.
“Perhaps I was surprised, too. But my most prominent feeling, both as his friend and his host, was one of relief, to see him keen and animated. After that I allowed myself to be absorbed in the game.”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “But now I look back, and wonder whether I shouldn’t have paid closer attention.”
On her way back to Mrs. Watson’s house, Charlotte read Mr. Longstead’s appointment book one more time, beginning on the first of January, commemorated with an instance of sledge driving with his niece in newly fallen snow.
By the time she arrived home, she had the distinct sensation that something was missing from Mr. Longstead’s records—and that she should have already realized what it was. Yet the realization refused to drop into her lap.
She blamed her sluggish brain on the fact that she still hadn’t had her luncheon—how could she expect to think properly, being underfed on a day when she was already underslept?—and repaired immediately to the dining room.
As she was tucking into an excellent roast beef sandwich, Miss Redmayne returned, bringing with her a large pile of letters that she had retrieved from the general post office: Sherlock Holmes had called for the public to write with information about the murders and the public had responded.
She joined Charlotte at the table—though not for the meal, as she had already eaten at the proper hour. They spoke of their respective findings and Charlotte learned that at least according to the register of admissions, Mr. Longstead hadn’t been anywhere near the Reading Room of the British Museum in recent weeks, despite what he had told his niece and his housekeeper—and written down in his appointment book.
“The clerk at the Reading Room was terribly helpful, and lookedup instances of Mr. Longstead’s visits going several months back,” said Miss Redmayne with an approving nod. “We compiled a record of his attendance from August onward. I’ll set it here for you.”
She left the dining room shortly thereafter, as Lord Ingram had sent a cable and she had to prepare for the imminent arrival of Mr. Bloom, the expert who had inspected Mrs. Treadles’s factory in Reading and now wished to see the Cousins accounts.
Charlotte wiped her hands with a napkin and perused Mr. Longstead’s attendance record. Prior to the last week of November, the dates accorded with the instances noted down in Mr. Longstead’s appointment book. But after that, outings documented as visits to the Reading Room had turned out not to be visits to the Reading Room.
