Page 28 of Murder on Cold Street

“Sergeant Howe didn’t say anything. I had the feeling that... he didn’t think what I told him mattered. But it has to matter, doesn’t it, if the inspector never had the revolver? Unless, oh, goodness, unless...”

Unless the police believed it to have been an act on Inspector Treadles’s part.

Briefly Mrs. Graycott covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes wide with fear. When she had herself under control again, she asked in a low voice, “Miss Holmes, we’ve heard of Sherlock Holmes in this household, of course. Will he be able to bring the inspector back home soon?”

“I don’t know,” said Charlotte.

Mrs. Graycott swallowed.

Charlotte briefly set a hand on her arm. “It is thus at the beginning of any new venture for Sherlock Holmes and company. We cannot predict outright that we will succeed, but we also have no reason to expect failure. And we are determined to be as thorough and enterprising as Inspector and Mrs. Treadles would wish us to be, and to get to the bottom of the case as soon as possible.”

Which, of course, would be easier if Mrs. Treadles would tell the whole truth.

Seven

Papa, what are stars made of?” asked Carlisle, Lord Ingram’s son.

Lucinda, Carlisle’s elder sister, was usually the one who stayed awake longer at bedtime and had more questions. But tonight she was already fast asleep. Carlisle, though his eyelids drooped, still persisted in curiosity.

“Stars are mostly hydrogen,” said Lord Ingram.

Carlisle should have a fairly good idea what hydrogen was: Not long ago, Lucinda had asked what water was made of, which had necessitated a plunge into the basics of chemistry.

Lord Ingram wondered if he had better go fetch a volume ofEncyclopedia Britannicain case his grasp of astronomical spectroscopy proved too shaky for Carlisle’s ensuing questions, one of which was bound to be“But how do you know?”

Carlisle frowned. “Can you wish on hydrogen?”

Lord Ingram almost laughed out loud. “Well, why not?”

It had to be just as valid as wishing on chunks of rock and metal, the composition of falling stars.

“But how do you know stars are made of hydrogen?” asked Carlisle, yawning widely.

As his father was still recounting Newton’s experiments with light and prisms, the boy fell asleep. Lord Ingram tucked his handsunder the blanket and kissed him on the forehead. He then moved to the other bed and kissed his daughter on her cheek.

Outside the nursery, Miss Potter, who had once been his own governess, awaited.

“They are asleep now,” he said. “I’ll leave them in your care.”

She smiled at him. “Very good, my lord. And good evening to you.”

He arrived at Mrs. Watson’s afternoon parlor, where the windows and the mantelpiece were now draped in garlands of spruce and red cedar—Mrs. Watson and Penelope worked fast—just before Holmes entered in her dinner gown.

She loved a frock, Holmes. He wouldn’t say she loved her clothes as much as she loved her cake, but the love was just as sincere and unabashed. Her taste in clothes, well, he’d used to semi-dread what she might appear in; these days he rather looked forward to seeing her outfits, the way one didn’t mind encounters with cherished old friends, even if they now communed with fairies via games of dominoes.

Had his retinas not been seared by the Christmas tree dress, her dinner gown would have been the most outlandish thing he witnessed today. It had a red redingote with enormous black dots, and the exposed skirt was black with small red dots.

A dress that would have swallowed its wearer whole, were it not for her evident enjoyment of its flamboyance.

“Hullo, Ash.”

“Hullo, Holmes. New frock?”

“Indeed. The first I’ve commissioned since I left home—with money I made off you, in fact.”

“I am delighted that my pounds sterling have gone on to support so worthy a cause, madam.”

The other two ladies were also taken aback by the new dress. “A unique and sensational confection, my dear,” declared Mrs. Watson diplomatically, after a moment of gaping. And Penelope, with evident relish, exclaimed, “It’s a ladybird beetle dress!”