Page 19 of A Ruse of Shadows
Still, the gain of two stones struck her. He was not fat. He could not even be considered stout. But for a perpetually slender man, this plumping-up was drastic. And his sack suit, made of a strange orange-brown fabric and cut far too loose, was something his former self would never have glanced at, let alone donned.
Yet this man, who bore little resemblance to his sleek, fashionable former self, had managed to organize a successful invasion of Mrs. Watson’s household.
There was no welcome in his gaze. “Will you join me for a walk, Miss Holmes?”
She did. “How do you do, my lord Bancroft?”
“A rhetorical question, I presume, as my circumstances are hardly ideal,” he replied, his tone as devoid of warmth as hers.
“That you can now take walks outside would indicate that your circumstances have improved markedly.”
When Lord Ingram last visited Ravensmere in February, he’d reported that his brother remained confined to his rooms.
“Half an hour a day outside does not make me content with my lot.”
“Interesting. Your dissatisfaction with your lot was what led to your downfall in the first place.”
Her host snorted without humor and made no reply. They walkedtwice along the periphery of the diminutive side garden in silence. There was no rustle of trees—there were no trees nearby—but an occasional bird trilled.
“Tea?” he offered at last, indicating a pair of wicker chairs.
She took a seat.
Two plainclothes guards had followed in their wake during their promenade. Lord Bancroft spoke to one. The man left, returned a few minutes later with a tea tray, and set it on the wicker table between the chairs.
It was the first time Charlotte had ever seen tea served in wooden cups. She picked one up and examined the handleless, rustic-looking container.
“Height of elegance, is it not?” murmured Lord Bancroft.
A year ago he had treated her to the best Victoria sandwich she’d ever enjoyed—at a murder site, no less, with a body in the next room. Mostly she remembered the perfection of the cake itself, but the presentation, too, had been flawless: etched-glass cake stand, hand-painted plates, and monogrammed linen napkins.
The guards were now stationed out of earshot. Did they think that a dialogue of delicate sentimentality might be taking place? “What is it you want Sherlock Holmes to do for you, my lord?”
“Underwood is missing. I want you to find him, if he is alive. Otherwise, find out what happened to him.”
When Lord Bancroft had been in charge of certain clandestine operations for the crown, Mr. Underwood had been his right-hand man.
Hewas the reason Bernadine became a hostage?
“I thought Mr. Underwood was in Paris, overseeing the occupation of Mrs. Watson’s house.”
Lord Bancroft bit into a biscuit that had come with the tea and frowned, an expression of profound disdain. “It would be wholly unnecessary, would it not, to secure your assistance for a problem I didn’t have?
“Besides, you might be an excellent investigator, but you’ve beenno lucky charm to those who have come to you in search of missing persons. The matter ended badly for Lady Ingram; it did not prove much better for Moriarty. I would have hesitated to use you at all, but I need Underwood found and you are good at the hunt.”
Charlotte took a sip of her tea. The water used for steeping the leaves hadn’t been hot enough, and the brew was anemic. “How do you know that Mr. Underwood hasn’t been found and arrested by the crown?”
“Because the crown would have told me. You believe that I’ve been punished very lightly for my supposed crimes, I imagine?”
“Yes.”
Her unembellished answer seemed to surprise him. He stared at her a moment, his gaze flat and cold. “You might have guessed—or certainly Ash would have—that my life has been spared because I know enough secrets about enough people. I’ve let it be known that those secrets would become common knowledge should anything untoward happen to me—and, well, thus far I have been safe.
“But my former superiors have been urging me, with much greater frequency and impatience, to give up what they consider to be my ill-begotten gains. Had they caught Mr. Underwood, they would have informed me straightaway, in the belief that it would make me more pliant to their demands.”
True, an underling such as Mr. Underwood had no value on his own. He was only important as an appendage to his master. “Fair enough. Tell me what you can of Mr. Underwood. I know what he looks like, but beyond that, nothing else.”
“He is forty-three years of age and hails from the countryside surrounding Eastleigh Park. He was orphaned early in life. His cousin was an under-housekeeper at Eastleigh Park, and so he became a hallboy there at age ten.”
