The interrogation
August 1887
Before Inspector Robert Treadles had wanted to be Sherlock Holmes, he had wanted to be Chief Inspector John Talbot.
The
chief inspector had retired the year after Treadles had been promoted
to detective sergeant, but Treadles had worked with him once. The senior
officer had been patient and fair, interested not in producing
likely-seeming culprits to prosecute but in chiseling away at a case
until he had revealed everything about the crime and its participants.
Under
any other circumstances, Treadles would have been delighted to welcome
the chief inspector out of retirement-and to observe the wise old
policeman again in a professional capacity.
Under any other circumstances.
The
parlor of the hotel suite in which he found himself boasted dark
varnished wainscoting, scarlet velvet curtains, and a deep pile
blue-and-gold Turkish carpet underfoot. The décor had been conceived to
provide luxurious warmth during London's long and gloomy winter. But on
this sultry day, the room closed in.
Chief Inspector Talbot, his
thick head of white hair combed back, his gaze kind yet penetrating,
asked, "Young lady, may I inquire as to the nature of your association
with the deceased?"
The young lady in question, a woman in her
mid-twenties, was attired in a full English garden. So many roses,
foxgloves, and hydrangeas flourished upon her dress that it had taken a
while for Treadles to discern that the garment was made of a light green
muslin. And, of course, embroidered sprigs of lavender proliferated
across the circumference of the hem.
In contrast to the gaudy botanical excesses of her frock, her expression was solemn and blank.
"Lord
Bancroft Ashburton was the brother of my friend Lord Ingram Ashburton.
Several years ago, Lord Bancroft asked for my hand in marriage. I did
not believe we would suit and declined his proposal."
She spoke
with a calm detachment, as if she were fielding slightly intrusive
questions at a tea party rather than inquiries stemming from a murder
investigation.
"And was that the extent of your acquaintance?"
"Not
quite. Due to certain events, I am now no longer welcome in polite
circles. After I became an exile from Society, much to my surprise, Lord
Bancroft proposed again."
Treadles, who had been in the middle of tugging on his collar, stilled.
He
had learned some time ago that Miss Charlotte Holmes had been highly
successful on the Marriage Mart: Several of the proposals she'd received
had been considered not just good but spectacular.
Even so, to number Lord Bancroft as a suitor not once but twice.
"And I surmise that, once again, you turned him down?" murmured Chief Inspector Talbot.
"He
withdrew his offer, rather," said Miss Holmes. "But you are correct,
Chief Inspector, in that after much consideration, I still did not wish
to marry him."
"And yet lately you have visited him-repeatedly."
She was, in fact, the only person Lord Bancroft had met with in the weeks preceding his death.
The grandfather clock in the corner gonged. Treadles glanced at it. Half past three in the afternoon.
Miss Holmes cast her gaze in the same direction. "Our tea should be here."
As
if on cue, a knock came. Miss Holmes excused herself, went to answer
it, and returned with a laden tea tray. She poured for her callers and
handed around a plate of baked delicacies. "The hotel provides an
excellent Madeira cake. The tea cakes are very decent, too."
The
hotel also provided suites that functioned much as residences, with
private entrances from the street. That Miss Holmes had chosen to lodge
at a hotel, rather than opening up 18 Upper Baker Street or Mrs.
Watson's house, had signaled to Treadles her intention of only a brief
stay in London.
Surely she hadn't planned on becoming a murder suspect in so short a time?
Miss
Holmes took a bite of the tea cake she had recommended. "Lately I have
called on Lord Bancroft a little more than is my wont."
She glanced at Treadles. "Are you sure you wouldn't care for a tea cake, Inspector?"
Treadles's
innards, wound tight, rebelled at the thought of sugar and butter. He
didn't know how she managed to enjoy-or at least appear to enjoy-the
rich assortment on her plate. "I'm quite all right, thank you."
Chief
Inspector Talbot, in his dove grey Newmarket coat, sipped his tea and
studied Miss Holmes. He seemed very much a benevolent if youngish
great-uncle, inquiring after the latest doings of his favorite
grandniece.
"And what would be the reason, Miss Holmes, for your more frequent visits to Lord Bancroft?"
The
older policeman, too, sounded as if he were on a mere social call.
Wildebeests rampaged inside Treadles's stomach. Talbot could control an
interview as well as anyone. But unlike some other investigators from
Scotland Yard that Miss Holmes had dealt with, including Treadles
himself at one point, Chief Inspector Talbot never underestimated women.
"I
received a letter from Lord Bancroft," answered Miss Holmes, who
consumed her tea cake at a steady pace. "He expressed a desire to see
me. The missive was unexpected, as were his sentiments. He had retired
from public life under occluded circumstances, and I was curious as to
why he wished to meet again."
"Did you find out why?"
"He told me that he feared for his life."
Treadles
hadn't expected the lies to start flying so soon. When they'd met
earlier in the month, Miss Holmes had said nothing to him about Lord
Bancroft cowering in mortal dread. He tugged at his collar again,
wishing for a draught of fresh air.
"And it appears now," mused
Chief Inspector Talbot, "that his lordship was right in his
apprehension. But if you will forgive my question, Miss Holmes, why did
he wish to burden you of all people with the knowledge that he might be
in danger?"
"Do you believe, Chief Inspector, that there is any reason why he shouldn't have?"
"I
can play games with you, Miss Holmes, but I won't." Chief Inspector
Talbot set down his teacup and leaned back in his chair. "Part of the
reason that I am investigating this case is a matter of personnel: Chief
Inspector Fowler, who most likely would have been given the portfolio,
is otherwise occupied.
"But in truth, that is only a convenient
excuse. The real reason is that in the past I have worked with certain
more obscure bureaus of the government and have become trusted for my
discretion. For example, I have long known that Ravensmere, where Lord
Bancroft dwelt for the better part of a year, is no ordinary lodging
house for gentlemen but a cushioned facility for sensitive prisoners.
"I
have also been informed, though much more recently, that you, Miss
Holmes, far from languishing in your exile, have in fact become the
celebrated-but-reclusive consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, who has,
among other great deeds, cleared my young colleague here of suspicion of
murder last December."
Treadles could only hope that Miss Holmes
would not think he had been the informer. It had been discomfiting to
learn from Chief Inspector Talbot that the senior officer already knew
of Sherlock Holmes's true identity. But at the same time, that had been
nothing compared to the shocking revelations concerning Lord Bancroft.
The
previous autumn, during the investigation of a murder for which Lord
Ingram had been-briefly-the chief suspect, Treadles had met Lord
Bancroft. It had seemed natural enough that with his youngest brother in
trouble, Lord Bancroft had come to Stern Hollow, Lord Ingram's estate,
to lend moral and practical support. It had seemed equally natural that
after the case was resolved, Treadles had never heard from or about Lord
Bancroft again.
The police and the public had eventually learned
that Lady Ingram, Lord Ingram's then wife, had run away with a man
named Moriarty. And that the body found in Stern Hollow's icehouse had
belonged not to her but to her twin sister, killed by Moriarty to frame
Lord Ingram.
In private, however, Lord Ingram had informed
Treadles that no, Lady Ingram had never formed a romantic liaison with
Moriarty. She had done something far worse: She had worked for Moriarty
and used her proximity to Lord Ingram, and therefore Lord Bancroft, who
handled highly sensitive portfolios for the crown, to ferret out bits of
intelligence to pass on to Moriarty's organization.
Treadles had
been chosen to assist Chief Inspector Talbot because he was already
acquainted with Miss Charlotte Holmes, the current case's-as of now-sole
suspect. And because he had at least met the victim and knew something
of his general background.
Only to then learn that he'd known
nothing of the dead man when Chief Inspector Talbot notified him that
Lord Bancroft had not stopped by Stern Hollow last autumn as a concerned
brother but as a perturbed perpetrator. He had placed a body in the
estate's ice well, hoping to frame his brother. Moriarty had played the
spoiler and swapped one body for another, but the scheme had begun with
Lord Bancroft.
As for why Lord Bancroft had done something so
nefarious? In the end, it had been to protect himself: He had been
living a secretly lavish lifestyle, which he had financed by selling
state secrets in his keeping.
"You need not worry that the
knowledge of your secret profession will travel beyond this parlor,"
continued Chief Inspector Talbot to a Miss Holmes who, on the surface of
it, did not appear remotely concerned.
Once Treadles had
believed her unfeeling. But now that he knew her-and himself-better, he
saw that in the past he'd missed a number of clues with regard to her
state of mind. For someone who delighted in food, last autumn she'd
scarcely touched the myriad delicacies served at Stern Hollow.
And
now, despite her matter-of-fact praise for the hotel's baked goods, she
ate not with the savor of a gourmet, or even the gluttony of a
gourmand, but the resolve of a ditchdigger, one with a great deal of
cold, hard ground to bore through.
"Even if I weren't required to
keep everything concerning this investigation in the strictest
confidence, I still wouldn't have interfered with your livelihood,"
Chief Inspector Talbot went on. "But I will need you to answer my
questions honestly and completely, because I also happen to know that it
was as a result of Sherlock Holmes's inquiries at Stern Hollow that
Lord Bancroft's misdeeds came to light.
"You tumbled him off his
pedestal-into infamy among a select few, and into obscurity in the eyes
of the public. You made him an inmate. I did not know the late Lord
Bancroft very well, but I cannot imagine that he would have wished to
entrust the matter of his personal safety to the one who had deprived
him of his freedom in the first place."
Miss Holmes, having
finished the small tea cake on her plate, set it aside and took a sip of
tea. "The crown deprived Lord Bancroft of his freedom, Chief
Inspector," she pointed out, with the sort of perfect logic that worked
only for a very few. "But yes, I see what you mean. The immediate
assumption would be that Lord Bancroft would want nothing to do with me
and vice versa.
"To a certain extent, that is correct. For the
past few months, my patroness, Mrs. Watson, and I have been living in
Paris, where her niece studies medicine. Upon receiving Lord Bancroft's
letter, I was not moved to travel across the Channel solely for his
sake.
"But recently we visited England for a different reason,
and I thought I might as well look in on Lord Bancroft before I left
again. A man such as he is hardly neutered when kept behind bars. It
would be wiser, I felt, to find out his purpose."
"But once you
found out his purpose, what compelled you to care whether his lordship's
life was in danger? If you will pardon the observation, Miss Holmes,
you are of a cool disposition and not given to sentiments another young
woman might feel toward a man who has twice proposed to her. I can
easily envisage you brushing aside Lord Bancroft and his sense of
impending doom."
This was very blunt but . . . not wrong. Indeed,
sometimes Treadles worried about his friend Lord Ingram, so in love
with this woman who, by temperament, might not be able to return his
affection in equal measure.
Miss Holmes took no offense at
Talbot's remark. If anything, she seemed to warm up a bit toward the
older man. "True, Chief Inspector. It would have troubled me had Lord
Bancroft escaped. But his destruction at the hands of his enemies? That
would not have affected either my daily appetite or my nightly rest.
"Lord
Bancroft understood that. He offered me five hundred pounds sterling to
find his faithful acolytes, who had scattered in the wake of his
arrest, so that they could come to his aid. I told him that I would not
bestir myself-not for him, in any case-for less than two thousand."
"I
applaud your astute negotiation, Miss Holmes, but may I remind you that
Lord Bancroft's crimes came to light largely because of his very unkind
act toward Lord Ingram. Your friend Lord Ingram. Yet you still took him
on as a client, this man who betrayed your friend?"
Chief
Inspector Talbot appeared distressed at this line of questioning; Miss
Holmes, not so. She had been about to go out when the policemen had
arrived. Now, as if realizing she would not be going anywhere in a
hurry, she removed her hat and placed it on her knees.
"Chief
Inspector, I took on Lord Ingram's estranged wife as a client, too, when
they were still married-and for far less than two thousand pounds.
Also, do you believe Lord Ingram would have advised me differently, had
he accompanied me to my initial meeting with Lord Bancroft?
"His
lordship, as Inspector Treadles can tell you, has a truly noble soul. As
disappointed as he was in his brother, he would not have wanted Lord
Bancroft to die. Had I been able to save the latter's life and win
myself two thousand pounds in the bargain, he would not have questioned
my loyalty to him but only said, 'Well done, Holmes.'"
Chief
Inspector Talbot cleared his throat. "That is, of course, between you
and Lord Ingram, Miss Holmes. But did you also feel no compunction about
the provenance of Lord Bancroft's funds? He would have paid you with
money derived from the illicit sale of crown secrets, would he not?"
The
wide brim of the hat in her lap featured an abundance of flowers, a
circular boulevard of yellow silk petals. She smoothed the trio of
ostrich plumes that erupted from its crown, dyed a matching, eye-jabbing
yellow. "Are you trying to persuade me, Chief Inspector, that Lord
Bancroft, a son of a noble family, and a man gainfully employed for many
years in a position of high trust, did not possess two thousand pounds
that he had procured by honest means?"
.png)
