Page 12 of A Ruse of Shadows
With a soft gasp, Mrs. Watson’s hand came up to her lips. She herself had raised that possibility to Miss Charlotte on the rail journey this morning, but Owen Yardley’s mother could scarcely be unmoved by such a sensational scenario. Her “son” gripped her by the shoulder even as he placed a hand over his own heart.
“I’m from hereabouts,” Stow went on. “But some of the indoor staff, they worked for Mr. Meadows in his Manchester town house and they knew more about his business. Before he died, I heard a good deal about troubles at his factories. But afterwards, those troubles went away, which tells me they could have been ginned up to pin the murder on labor agitators and whatnot.”
Mrs. Watson, obligingly, gasped again.
Stow shook his head and chortled. “But you know what the missus said? She said maybe the sister raised wages and improved conditions and the workers simply had far fewer causes to protest. And who is to say she isn’t as likely to be right about it?”
?They thanked Danny Stow profusely and left on the next train out. In Manchester, the ladies parted ways temporarily. Mrs. Watson, having sent a cable the day before, visited the archives of theManchester Guardianto see what the local newspaper had to say about the Christmas Eve Murder. Charlotte had the more pleasant task of calling on Miss Longstead in Berkshire.
The previous winter, Miss Longstead’s uncle had been shot dead, and Charlotte had worked to clear Inspector Treadles of suspicion for that crime. Despite, or perhaps due to, the inauspicious circumstances of their meeting, the two young women had forged a strong trust.
Since then, Charlotte and Mrs. Watson had come to rely on Miss Longstead, a talented chemist, to supply them with formulations that imitated the texture of skin, essential for more involved disguises.
Because Charlotte still had on her masculine veneer, to avoid causing unnecessary gossip she did not ask the trap driver to deliver her to the estate Miss Longstead inherited from her uncle but to a nearby church of some renown.
From the church it was only fifteen minutes on foot along a secluded path to reach the side gate of an unoccupied property that belonged to Miss Johansson, Miss Longstead’s neighbor and mentor in chemistry.
Miss Longstead was already waiting and quickly admitted Charlotte.
Earlier in the year, before her voyage on the RMSProvence, during the months when she’d kept out of sight following her “death” in Cornwall, Charlotte had already visited Miss Longstead dressed as a man. So her appearance today earned only a small chuckle from her hostess.
Miss Longstead had a well-sprung dogcart waiting. They climbed up, and Miss Longstead shook the reins.
“I am both envious that you get to wear disguises and worried about the necessity that drives you to it. Have you been all right, Miss Holmes?”
Her gold-flecked green eyes peered at Charlotte. The afternoon sun shone on her wide-brimmed hat, which protected her gleaming light brown skin and lovely features from the elements.
Charlotte nodded slowly. “I’m all right. More tired than anything else—there has just been so much to do.”
“At least after you see the laboratory, it will be one less task on your list.”
The laboratory, too, belonged to Miss Johansson, who was currently teaching at a women’s college in America. In her absence, Miss Longstead kept an eye on her small estate.
Prudently enough, the laboratory was in a separate building from the converted farmhouse that served as the main dwelling. Inside, it teemed with beakers, test tubes, flasks, and more Bunsen burners than any one person could possibly need. A strong smell shot up Charlotte’s nostrils, at once metallic and acidic.
Miss Longstead took out a key ring and unlocked a glass-front cabinet. “You see? There used to be four bottles of the stuff in here. Now there are only two.”
“You should put the last two bottles somewhere safer,” said Charlotte. “And just in case, it might be better for you not to come near this laboratory for some time, until you hear otherwise from me.”
Miss Longstead bit her lower lip. “Are you sure everything will be all right?”
Charlotte took a deep breath—the odor of chemicals grew harsher, more pervasive. She glanced around at the breached laboratory. Uncharacteristically, her heart thumped a few times, with a sudden surge of nerve.
“I hope so,” she said. “But there is more uncertainty than ever, and only time will tell whether our work will bear fruit.”
?Miss Longstead’s place in Berkshire, and Ravensmere, the estate that served as Lord Bancroft’s prison, were about the same distance from London. But the former was situated due west of the great metropolis, the latter north-northwest. To call on Lord Bancroft after her meeting with Miss Longstead, Charlotte had to take the train into London and then head back out.
A generation ago, Ravensmere would have been entirely outside London, a house in the country that was convenient for a well-to-do man of the city to repair to at the end of his working week. But London’s inexorable growth had devoured most of the fields and pastures that had once formed a green barrier between the estate and the capital.
The present-day villa was not exactly on the doorstep of industry—it was far from any major bodies of water that could effectively carry away effluvia. But the tiny hamlets that used to be its nearest neighbors had sprouted tracts of development that encroached in its direction, some of those tentacles almost near enough to brush up against the villa’s boundaries.
Charlotte detrained at one such hamlet and hired a trap to take her the rest of the way. When she arrived, the last of twilight had faded. The high-walled estate was eerily silent; not even a cricket chirped.
The path that would allow her inside passed directly under the arch at the center of a slate-roofed gatehouse. Unlike the usual ornamental gates meant to show off the beauty of the grounds, this gate was solid metal and fitted close to the limestone of the arch, giving no glimpse of the landscape beyond.
As she alit, a small window on the gate slid open, revealing a pair of eyes under bushy brows and an unfriendly gaze.
Charlotte stopped several feet away. “Evening. Sherrinford Holmes at your service. I’m here to see his lordship.”
