Page 4 of Miss Moriarty, I Presume?
I also have ready banknotes, though an order of magnitude fewer. In that moment, I calculated how long eleven hundred pounds would last us, if we took only Bernadine as opposed to if we took Mrs. Watson’s entire household.
No, not too excessive a reaction when a representative of Moriarty declares his intention to call.
But when I spoke, I said only, “If Moriarty wishes to endanger us, he need not send a note first.”
Mrs. Watson swallowed. “You said something similar on New Year’s Eve, my dear, when you told me that we were under surveillance and would be for the foreseeable future. Then, too, you said that we need not worry for our safety. But the situation has clearly escalated, has it not? First he sent people to watch us. Now he’s sending someone to interrogate us. How long would it be before we are whisked away somewhere like Château Vaudrieu’s dungeons?”
“Let me say the same thing now that I said to you then, ma’am,” I answered. “Moriarty needs to watch us and speak to us because he doesn’t know what we have done. He has suspicions but no firm evidence. If we run, however, it will be an unequivocal admission of guilt.”
Mrs. Watson said nothing.
I walked to the window. No one lingered outside in the rain, but then again, no one needed to. Moriarty’s underlings have taken two flats nearby, one diagonally across from 18 Upper Baker Street, the other a mansard on Allsop Place, high enough that its view of the back of Mrs. Watson’s house is not obstructed by the mews.
I turned back to Mrs. Watson, who now held on to a bedpost with both hands. “Since you usually reply to clients, ma’am, may I ask that you offer Mr. de Lacey an appointment late in the day tomorrow?”
“What if he’s going to ask you about—”
“Then there is even less chance for us to escape undetected.” I took Mrs. Watson’s hands. “Let us listen to de Lacey and find out what he knows and what he wants. And then we will make our decisions as to what to do.”
Mrs. Watson took some convincing. But in the end she agreed to reply to de Lacey. I asked for a plate of cake, consumed all the slices, and doubted myself with every bite. Even now I am not sure whether I haven’t placed everyone in greater jeopardy by not fleeing immediately.
But my choice has been made and I will meet with Moriarty’s lieutenant.
Yours,
Holmes
2
“Ma’am, miss, Lord Ingram called while you were out,” said Mr. Mears, the butler, as he welcomed Mrs. Watson and Charlotte back into the house.
It was tea time the next day and the ladies had returned from another successful small case. For the services rendered, Mrs. Watson had collected two pounds and twelve and a half shillings. The amount was no pittance: During Charlotte’s time as a runaway, that much money would have lasted her a month, if she didn’t eat very much. But she estimated that Mrs. Watson could have demanded another half crown and the grateful client would still have considered their fees eminently reasonable.
Mrs. Watson had been badly distracted.
“Lord Ingram is in town? Thank goodness!” Mrs. Watson closed her eyes and exhaled.
His lordship’s arrival came as no surprise to Charlotte. If hehadn’trushed to London after receiving her letter, she would have been astonished—and perplexed. But now that he was here, she exhaled, too, a great tension leaving the muscles of her neck and shoulders, making her realize that all day she’d held herself stiffly.
“When he heard that you were out, his lordship asked for the key to number 18,” said Mr. Mears.
18 Upper Baker Street served as Charlotte’s office. It was where she met those who came seeking her “brother” Sherlock Holmes’s help, and informed them that the consulting detective was unwell and needed his sister to serve as both his eyes and ears and the oracle via whom he dispensed his great insight.
Mrs. Watson settled her black velvet toque back on her head. “Thank you, Mr. Mears. Let’s go see him, Miss Charlotte.”
Mr. Mears, always prepared, held out a covered rattan basket. “For your tea, ladies.”
Charlotte inclined her head. She had not eaten much this day and looked forward to an extravagant tea. She hooked the basket over one arm, Mrs. Watson took her other arm, and they exited the house.
According to the calendar, March was less than a week away. But there was no hint of spring in the wind that cut Charlotte’s cheeks, the cold that seeped in beneath her clothes, or the sky above that remained a resolute grey.
“Did you write Lord Ingram, my dear?” asked Mrs. Watson in a low voice. “I wanted to ask you to write him—oh, how I wanted to. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
“Because he has children to think of?” murmured Charlotte. “True, but he would have been extremely upset if we’d kept him out of the matter.”
She sounded unhesitating, but before writing him she had wavered for twenty minutes, a long time for an otherwise decisive woman. She was not inclined to withhold the truth from those to whom it mattered. But if she could predict how someone would react upon receiving a particular piece of information, then in relaying that information was she letting a grown man make his own choice, or had she already taken away every choice except one?
He did have his children to think of. With their mother in exile, his safety was of paramount importance to their well-being. And De Lacey’s impending visit was no ordinary peril.
