A Ruse of Shadows, page 12
Aha, so the Harcourt ladies had indeed been the more fervent ones in their friendship with Mrs. Meadows.
Charlotte told Miss Harcourt the story of how her younger self, lonely and homesick in Australia, had exchanged letters with a young Angelica Tipton for two years. “My letters spilled on for pages and pages, but hers were always short and to the point.”
That regular correspondence ended abruptly.
“I found out later it was around the time of her wedding that Angelica stopped writing. My mother cautioned me against reading anything sinister into it, but I was never able to feel completely at ease about her marriage. She was only sixteen, and it followed so closely on the heel of her parents’ bankruptcy and deaths.”
The path turned. They had reached the center of the maze. In the small clearing, a stone nymph danced in a fountain, water pouring from the vase she held aloft.
“Even my mother didn’t know much about the state of her marriage—she wasn’t close to her brothers,” said Miss Harcourt. “But my aunt Meadows was thought of as a dutiful wife who managed her household well and rendered onto her husband all due deference. And we never heard about my uncle Victor not treating her well or anything of the sort.”
She looked contemplative. “He was eighteen years her senior. But age difference aside, theirs was a domestic arrangement that attracted little attention. And knowing Aunt Meadows, it feels…deliberate. There was always something unknowable about her, do you not think, Mrs. Beaumont?”
Miss Harcourt would have been all of seven when Victor Meadows had married his young wife, and fifteen at the time of his murder. If even her mother hadn’t known much about the state of the Meadowses’ marriage, then there was no point for Charlotte to press further on the topic.
Charlotte made a show of twirling her parasol and thinking. “Yes, I do believe you’re right, Miss Harcourt. She listened far more than she spoke, and even when she spoke, it was rarely of herself.”
“Yes, that was exactly how I remembered her,” concurred Miss Harcourt.
The maze path turned again. Now their shadows were in front of them, small, stubby shapes surrounded by more nimbus-like shadows cast by the lace parasols.
“My mother always felt curious about her,” continued Miss Harcourt. “After Uncle Victor died, Aunt Meadows lived in Manchester for a while and our family, too, because Mother had to look after the factories. During that time, Mother called on her regularly, often with me tagging along. And most of our visits consisted of Mother and me blathering on and on about this and that, and my aunt Meadows listening with a nunlike concentration.”
“Did she never say anything about herself then?”
“She was more likely to say something about Cousin Miriam. Cousin Miriam was very active and curious, so we heard tales about her spraining her foot trying to teach herself ballet and such.
“But even though Aunt Meadows didn’t like to talk about herself, I never received the impression that she found us trying,” Miss Harcourt went on. “She was curious about Mother’s work running the factories. And she always made sure to tell us how much Cousin Miriam enjoyed our visits. Which was why her disappearance dumbfounded us so—and baffles me to this day.”
Their shadows disappeared—a tall plume of a cumulus had eclipsed the sun. Charlotte turned to Miss Harcourt. “Can you tell me exactly what happened?”
Miss Harcourt looked at the darkening sky and collapsed her parasol, its trimming beads clinking pleasantly. “For Cousin Miriam’s twelfth birthday, we called on them with presents. As Mother had just then learned how to use a camera, she also photographed the two sisters together.
“When the photograph was developed, we used the opportunity for another visit. But when we reached their hired house, Aunt Meadows and Cousin Miriam were gone, and a for-let sign had been put up. When we found the estate agent, he said the house was vacated a fortnight earlier—mere days after the birthday visit—and the departing tenants had left no forwarding addresses.
“Mother spoke to two women who had been Aunt Meadows’s neighbors when Uncle Victor had been alive. They called on her occasionally, but it was from Mother that they first learned Aunt Meadows had moved away. She then managed to track down a few distant cousins of Aunt Meadows’s, but they hadn’t heard from her since before her marriage.
“The photograph of the two sisters together, which we weren’t able to give to them, found a place on our mantelpiece for a time—for as long as Mother’s search continued. We used to stand together and look at it. And then one day the photograph disappeared. Mother said that it felt wrong to keep staring at Aunt Meadows, when it was obvious she didn’t want to see us again.”
A stiff breeze blew. The fringes on Charlotte’s parasol streamed horizontally. “I was seventeen then, and took the snubbing personally. Aunt Meadows was like the Mona Lisa, smiling yet inscrutable. We crowded near her not because we wished to be kind to someone less fortunate but because she was this beautiful mystery and we, her gauche admirers, longed to bask in her enigmatic allure.
“I’d been angry, but when the photograph disappeared and Mother said aloud what we’d both been thinking, I was crushed. Perhaps that’s how a rejected suitor feels—all that fervor and adoration marked undeliverable and returned to sender.”
This disclosure was not meant for Charlotte Holmes. Even Mrs. Watson, before whom everyone opened up like steamed clams, might not have elicited as deep a confession. These words were meant only for Mrs. Beaumont, a fellow devotee who had been ejected from Mrs. Meadows’s orbit just as unceremoniously—and who understood Miss Harcourt’s distress and bewilderment.
They walked silently for some time before Charlotte asked, “Would it be possible for me to see this photograph? I should dearly love to see her all grown up.”
“I would love to show it to you. In fact, I long to see it myself and started looking for it as soon as I received your note. But it was put away so many years ago and—”
Another gust of wind blew, and with it came large raindrops. Charlotte swung aside her parasol and looked up just as a small deluge came down, heavy and cool on her face, while the sun emerged at the same time.
She and Miss Harcourt stared at each other for a moment.
“This way!” cried Miss Harcourt. “There’s a covered swing!”
They were shaking out their drenched parasols—at least parasols could not develop pneumonia—when Miss Harcourt’s servants sprinted over with raincoats, umbrellas, and towels.
After inquiring into Charlotte’s preference, Miss Harcourt asked the staff to return to the house with the soaked parasols but leave behind the extra umbrellas that they had brought, along with the flask of whisky that the housekeeper had thrust into one footman’s hand.
The sun shone fiercely. The rain came down just as fiercely. Charlotte drank a small draught from the flask and offered in return a ginger-studded biscuit from her reticule—after having known real hunger the summer before, she never went anywhere these days without a supply of foodstuff.
The biscuits were the last of what remained of Lord Ingram’s hamper, now that most of its vast contents had been donated to Mrs. Watson’s staff in Paris. Miss Harcourt was eating solemnly when she broke out laughing. “My goodness, I don’t remember the last time I was caught in the rain.”
“I don’t mind this sort of being caught in the rain,” murmured Charlotte, “with shelter almost immediately at hand, and people to see to our comfort within seconds.”
Miss Harcourt laughed again. “True, this is a very pleasant way to be caught in the rain.”
Threads of rain shone white and silver in the brilliant sunlight—and then in the next minute dwindled to almost nothing, except for a steady drip-drip from some nearby trees.
In the new silence, Charlotte gauged that the time had come. “Miss Harcourt, do you think my Angelica had anything to do with her husband’s murder?”
Miss Harcourt, who had been brushing crumbs from her fingertips, stilled.
“Over the years, I’ve always worried about her, especially after I learned about her parents’ bankruptcy,” said Charlotte, her tone urgent. “She was a young girl left alone and destitute, with the care of a sister barely out of infancy. Maybe she married a man more than twice her age out of something other than desperation, but I’m no longer an adolescent romantic who can convince myself of that.
“And his death was so gruesome. If someone had shot him, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so perturbed, but I went to Manchester and found articles in the newspaper archives and—” She took a deep, audible breath. “I hope I don’t sound a complete ghoul, but I’ve been terrified ever since that Angelica—Mrs. Meadows—that—”
Miss Harcourt placed a finger before her own lips.
Charlotte hushed accordingly.
“If she did it, then it must have been for a good reason.” Miss Harcourt’s voice was low and equally urgent. “And if she did it, she’s been able to keep herself free all these years. Let’s not accidentally shatter the safeguards she may have put into place for her well-being.”
So Miss Harcourt had given the matter plenty of thought. Charlotte dropped her voice, too. “No, never.”
The errant rain cloud had moved on; the entire garden glistened under the midday sun. Miss Harcourt looked all around them before she spoke again. “The good news is that my mother didn’t think Aunt Meadows did it. The bad news is my uncle Ephraim also disappeared, sometime after my aunt Meadows. Taken together, that wouldn’t look good—if anyone were still looking into the murder, that is.”
Inspector Brighton had looked into the case. Charlotte was looking into the case. And an ambitious young detective sergeant might receive the full dossier from Scotland Yard in the near future.
Charlotte gripped the handkerchief that she had been using as a napkin. “Surely you aren’t implying that…”
That Mrs. Meadows and Ephraim Meadows, her brother-in-law, had been in collusion?
“Not only do I not want to imply it, I do not even wish to think about it.” Miss Harcourt downed another draught of whisky and scooted a few inches closer to Charlotte on the covered swing. “But Mrs. Beaumont, do you remember what I said about my mother taking away the photograph from our mantelpiece?”
“Yes?”
“We didn’t talk about my aunt Meadows for years upon years. It was only in the final months of my mother’s life that Aunt Meadows came up again as a topic of conversation. That was the first time Mother told me the reason she removed the picture: She found out from my uncle Victor’s solicitors that before my aunt Meadows left for parts unknown, she’d informed them that she had remarried and would no longer be collecting the annualized dower that had been set out in my uncle Victor’s will.”
Charlotte sucked in a loud breath.
“That was when Mother became convinced that Aunt Meadows really wanted absolutely nothing to do with us. Why else would she have not breathed a word of something as significant as her remarriage? At the time, Mother happened to be extremely busy with the factories—and with me about to leave for Girton College—so it was some time before she realized that my uncle Ephraim hadn’t either called or written for a while.
“As he usually called or wrote to ask for money, at first she was simply glad not to have his news. But when more time passed and she still received no new entreaties, she began to find it incomprehensible.”
“No!” Charlotte leaped up from the swing. Her abrupt motion caused a metallic squeak. “My friend would never have married such a leech.”
Miss Harcourt rose, too. She had in hand an umbrella that the servants had brought and tapped its tip against the flagstone clearing on which the covered swing sat. “I don’t believe so either, and neither did Mother—her dower would have been too moderate for him, and his character too deficient for her. And that she refused further dower? Without a doubt, her bridegroom could not have been a man who had never seen a farthing he didn’t try to put into his own pocket.”
Miss Harcourt exhaled. “What worried Mother more was that they might have committed the crime together.”
“I’d rather that she did the killing herself, if it had to be her!” Charlotte cried softly.
At her minor outburst, Miss Harcourt, who had been frowning and tight-jawed, blinked—and burst out laughing. “I’m sorry.” She quickly gathered herself and apologized. “I’m not sure what made me laugh—I just did.”
“It’s this ridiculous murder,” said Charlotte. “It makes one conjure up too many awful theories. If we can’t find something to laugh at once in a while, we’d all be like a cat on a hot bakestone.”
“True. And anyway, I was trying to reassure you that neither my uncle Ephraim nor my aunt Meadows had the least reason to kill my uncle Victor—they both became worse off as a result of his death, and they both knew ahead of time that, for them, his will would not prove a lucrative document.
“But still it begs the question.” Miss Harcourt looked up, but there was no rainbow in the sky. “Why did they both drop off the face of the earth?”
Charlotte sighed. “And in the end, whom did she marry?”
Twelve
Miss Charlotte returned to London in time to join Mrs. Watson and Lawson at the Unicorn of the Sea for the evening’s pugilistic matches.
Mowlem, the publican, introduced them to Johnny E., the boxer who had left Mr. Underwood for greener pastures—and the greener pastures himself, a nervous-looking grocer named Gore.
It took little time to learn that Gore was a novice sponsor, Johnny E. being his very first boxer. And while Mowlem had reassured him that the rich Mr. Nelson from Manchester was interested only in Johnny E.’s friends, not Johnny E. himself, he still fretted about his new investment.
Lawson promptly took Gore aside for a chat. Johnny E., small, whipcord lean, his wary eyes set in an incongruously boyish face, darted a quick glance to where his new sponsor had been cordially abducted, then across the table at Mrs. Watson, attired as if she were on her way to the opera: glittering opera hood, satin opera cloak, sixteen-button kidskin opera gloves, all in a luxurious midnight blue and as thoroughly out of place in the tavern as a ballerina would have been at a Maypole dance.
If it weren’t for her, Miss Charlotte—in masculine disguise as Herrinmore, the parvenu Mr. Nelson’s bookish-looking general dogsbody—would have been the one standing out like a sore thumb in a crowd of working-class men drinking ale, eating whelks, and happily anticipating bouts of violence to come—no one present, however, matched the description Mrs. Claiborne had given of the scarred man who had quarreled with Mr. Underwood at her villa.
The boxer studied Miss Charlotte more closely, even though Mrs. Watson was confident that she herself was at once the most outlandish and most beautiful person inside these walls. Was it a survivor’s instinct that had him focus greater attention on the more dangerous individual, even if she presented herself as a harmless minion?
He returned his gaze to the bowl of peanuts on the table that he had been shelling since he sat down.
“Shall we order something to eat?” asked Mrs. Watson.
Johnny E. looked up. “Yes, for after the match, please.”
His voice, so young. Mrs. Watson realized that she wasn’t looking at a man with a boyish face but a boy with eyes too old for his no-more-than-nineteen summers.
The slightly singsongy quality of his speech, his blue-black hair, dark lugubrious eyes, and bronze complexion that she had assumed to have been tanned due to outdoor work—had the boy, in fact, been baptized as Giovanni?
Miss Charlotte, upon hearing Johnny E.’s affirmative answer to Mrs. Watson’s question about food, had leaped up to order at the bar. Now she returned and sat down heavily. “The kitchen will have two rump steak pies packed up for you. Chips, too. And a boiled pudding.”
Johnny E. nodded. And then, perhaps coming to the conclusion that by accepting the bribe, he must now give something in return, he said, “You want me to tell you about Mumble and Jessie?”
“We can judge them for ourselves. It’s your Mr. Underwood that we need to know about,” said Mrs. Watson. “I understand you were the first boxer he took on?”
Johnny E. nodded again, somewhat unwillingly.
“But you were also the first to leave him?”
The boy shifted but answered flatly, “I’ve a sick mother and three younger siblings. They need to eat.”
Poverty was written all over him, from his too-slight frame to the atlas of patches on his jacket, little fiefdoms of careful fabric matching and even more meticulous needlework on a garment that could very well predate his birth.
“Do you believe that he’s dead?”
“Don’t know.” As if sensing that it might be an insufficient answer, he shelled another peanut and added, “Sometimes people get in trouble and have to go where nobody can find them.”
“Do you know where he might have gone?”
“No. He never told us anything about himself.”
His reticence was not something Mrs. Watson had encountered a great deal in her life. In fact, her usual problem was how to extricate herself from those who couldn’t stop unburdening themselves on her, pouring out torrents of headaches and heartaches.
“Did you try to search for him?” she tried again.
He shook his head, an outright no.
“Why not? Was he not good to you?”
A burst of laughter came from near the door of the pub. They all glanced in that direction. It was a table full of burly men; an especially large specimen with a tattoo on his neck pointed at them.
At Johnny E.
Johnny E. only shelled another peanut. He collected a handful of shelled peanuts and ate one. “Mr. Underwood was good to me—he bought me my first pair of decent shoes. But I don’t have time to wait for him or look for him. I’m lucky if I have two more years in the ring before nobody wants to see me fight anymore.”
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