Page 40 of Murder on Cold Street

Lord Ingram recalled what Inspector Brighton had said to him. After he and Holmes left, would Inspector Treadles be subject to another round of interrogation?

“May I offer you some seats?” said Inspector Treadles. “I apologize that I don’t have tea or biscuits.”

Did he know that Inspector Brighton planned to formally charge him very soon? Lord Ingram could not imagine Inspector Brighton hadn’t relayed the threat in person. What did it cost Inspector Treadles, then, to be so calm, almost withdrawn?

Or was he, in fact, completely overwhelmed?

They all sat down. Lord Ingram scanned the room. They were alone inside, but he wasn’t sure that they wouldn’t be overheard.

He looked to Inspector Treadles, hoping the latter might give some indication as to whether these walls had ears. But the policeman sat with his eyes downcast and his hands in his lap, obscured by the desk.

A silence fell.

Lord Ingram glanced at Holmes. She studied Inspector Treadles for a minute, then asked, briskly, “Inspector, has Mrs. Treadles ever mentioned either of the dead men to you?”

Was Inspector Treadles surprised by this sudden transition? His speech remained uninflected. “Mr. Longstead, yes. Mr. Sullivan, no.”

“Why do you suppose she never did so, with regard to Mr. Sullivan?”

Inspector Brighton wouldn’t have inflicted his hypothesis only on Mrs. Treadles. Even if Inspector Treadles hadn’t intuited anything before the fateful night, he most assuredly had been told by now that at one point, isolated and beleaguered, his wife had depended on Mr. Sullivan more than she had on him.

“I do not have any good conjectures,” said Inspector Treadles.

Lord Ingram knew now beyond a shadow of doubt that his friend spoke to them as he had spoken to Inspector Brighton: He did not trust that the information exchanged in this room wouldn’t be overheard. But what about Mrs. Treadles? Had he been just as detached and uninformative with his own wife?

“Mrs. Treadles thought you were investigating a case in the Kentish countryside, when in fact, for the fortnight before the murders, you were on leave from Scotland Yard. Why did you lie to your wife, Inspector?”

Holmes, with her measured tone, was as inexorably forceful in her questioning as any police inspector.

Inspector Treadles’s brow furrowed, but he radiated no anger or annoyance, only an almost fatalistic forbearance. “I prefer not to discuss that.”

But we are your friends! If you don’t tell us anything, how are we to help you?

Holmes remained unaffected. “Where were you in truth, when she thought you away for work?”

“I would rather not discuss that either.”

“When did you return to London?”

A muscle leaped at Inspector Treadles’s jaw, the only indication that he wasn’t as composed as he let on. “I cannot tell you.”

“Cannot because you do not know, or because you choose not to share that with us?” Lord Ingram couldn’t help adding this question of his own.

Inspector Treadles closed his eyes for a moment. “I choose not to answer.”

Do you not know the impossible position your wife has been put in? Do you not understand that your own neck is in palpable danger?

Lord Ingram plunged his fingers into his hair, so as not to shout these questions aloud.

Holmes, undeterred, carried on. “What were you doing at 33 Cold Street on the night of the murders, Inspector?”

“I have nothing to say about it.”

“Is there anything you do have something to say about, Inspector? Your injury, perhaps?”

Coming from anyone else, the question would have dripped with sarcasm—or burned with frustration. But Holmes managed to imbue it with nothing more than professional curiosity.

Inspector Treadles raised his head for the first time. “I can assure you that I did not kill either Mr. Longstead or Mr. Sullivan.”