Page 35 of Murder on Cold Street

Lord Ingram glanced at Holmes. The pressure on her must be enormous—even he felt it difficult to breathe sometimes, thinking of the possible consequences ofnotsucceeding.

But she only nodded calmly. “Then we’d best get to work.”

Sergeant MacDonald, too, nodded, if more grimly. He showed them two sets of men’s evening attire, including a walking stick that he said belonged to Mr. Longstead. One otherwise snow-white shirt, Mr. Longstead’s, judging by the bullet hole on the chest, was dark red in the front; the other had very little blood.

Holmes inspected all the pockets on the clothes. They’d already been emptied, but she turned out one particular pocket and sniffed at a white residue on her fingertips. To Lord Ingram’s inquiring gaze she said, “I’m not going to taste it but it certainly smells like peppermint.”

“And here’s what Inspector Treadles was wearing that night,” said Sergeant MacDonald, producing more items.

Lord Ingram almost gasped aloud. Inspector Treadles’s clothes had a lot of blood. His boots looked as if they had sloshed through blood. The front of his trousers was blood-soaked from the knees down. His coat, jacket, and shirt were all slashed through and bloodstained at the same spot.

“I think he might have tripped in Mr. Longstead’s blood,” Sergeant MacDonald explained hurriedly, seeing Lord Ingram’s reaction. “He doesn’t have any injuries to his lower limbs.”

But that didn’t explain the cuts and blood on his upper garments.

“Was a blade of some kind found on the scene?” asked Holmes, fingering the sleeve of the coat.

“No, miss,” said the sergeant.

Despite the severity of the situation, he seemed fascinated by Holmes’s disguise. But Lord Ingram sensed in his gaze no greater interest in the woman, only in how she had been believably transformed.

Holmes now touched the coat where it was missing two buttons on the front. The ends of the threads left behind were jagged, indicating that the buttons had not been cut away, but ripped off.

“Were the missing buttons found at the scene?”

“No, miss.”

Holmes lined up all three men’s footwear side by side and, with her magnifying glass, scrutinized their soles.

“Inspector Treadles and Mr. Sullivan both have specks of glass in their soles, Sergeant. Was there broken glass on the scene?”

Sergeant MacDonald glanced at the reports in his hands. “In the attic of the house, yes.”

“But the men were all found in a bedroom, weren’t they?”

“Indeed they were, in a bedroom two floors down.”

Lord Ingram suppressed a grimace. Knowing what he did now, it was difficult not to imagine a confrontation between Inspector Treadles and Mr. Sullivan, the would-be interloper in his marriage. But if they had indeed confronted each other, why in the attic? How had they then ended up in a different room? And where had Mr. Longstead been during that time?

Or Mrs. Treadles, for that matter.

Holmes returned to the formal evening clothes of the victims and scrutinized their gloves.

Mr. Longstead’s white ball gloves were both bloody.

Mr. Sullivan’s, on the other hand, were all but pristine.

“Was Mr. Sullivan wearing his gloves at the time of death, Sergeant?” she asked.

Sergeant MacDonald again consulted his reports. “No, Miss Holmes. His gloves were tucked into an inside pocket.”

“Carefully?”

“The report does not say that.”

She lifted the firearm that had been found at the scene of the crime and turned it before her eyes. Her fingers were long and delicate, but the backs of her hands were very slightly chubby, a sight that always made Lord Ingram want to smile. Even now, he allowed himself a small one.

“Official issue, I take it?” she asked.