Page 10 of The Vanished Sister

“Perhaps it helped that Sherlock Holmes had been in the news for solving three rather infamous cases in the previous year. And not long after Mrs. Carstairs received the letter, De Lacey Industries was exposed as fraudulent and criminal. Mrs. Carstairs probably asked herself, given that the last person who wanted to bring down Sherlock Holmes met an inglorious fate, whether there was any advantage to pitting herself against such an opponent.”

“So she didn’t mention anything about Charlotte Holmes, just sent that letter about Aunt Jo’s past to Sherlock Holmes to test the water?” asked Miss Redmayne. “What was her purpose? Was she simply inquisitive?”

Beside her, Mrs. Watson tented a hand over her eyes, as if she wished she could shield herself from the revelations of the night.

Candlelight scattered from Lord Ingram’s knife as he sliced another piece of bread. This one he also passed to Charlotte with the aid of a bread fork. “Holmes and I diverge in opinion. She thinks that Mrs. Carstairs wished to verify Sherlock Holmes’s true identity because such information might have value in and of itself. I feel that Mrs. Carstairs is liable to take it one step further. What if someday she needs to get rid of someone? Wouldn’t it be nice if she could blackmail Sherlock Holmes into doing it for her and creating an unsolvable crime?”

“So all this time my sister has been trying to get Miss Charlotte to go to her function?” Mrs. Watson’s voice verged on hoarse.

“She hasn’t mentioned either Sherlock Holmes or Charlotte Holmes to you, as far as I know?” asked Charlotte.

“No.”

“Then I think, for the moment at least, she probably won’t insist on my attendance.”

Livia should have taken heart in the fact that Charlotte did not appear daunted, at least not yet. But she needed more reassurance—more reassurance than anyone could give, really. “Why did Mrs. Carstairs do nothing for three years, but all of a sudden hand over a costly seven-piece diamond parure? Surely she wants something important in return.”

Charlotte shrugged. “All I can deduce, at the present, is that whatever she wants is worth more to her than a fistful of diamonds.”

“And…Moriarty?” Livia made herself speak the word aloud.

“I can’t tell how much Moriarty is involved in this. Mr. Marbleton, you know as well as anyone his latest maneuvers. What do you think?”

Livia studied her beloved. His face seemed as young as ever, but the laugh lines that used to appear only mid-guffaw were now lightly etched at the corners of his eyes.

“Moriarty’s strength has recovered somewhat in Britain,” he said, “but not enough that he would risk an open confrontation—or so we believe. On the other hand, if he could use Mrs. Carstairs to take Sherlock Holmes down a peg or two, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

Silence. Even their handhold no longer felt so secure. Livia gripped him tighter. “But you have countermeasures in place, Charlotte?”

Surely, if she’d known about the problem this long.

Charlotte leaned forward and picked a large pink dahlia from the bud vase near the decanter of whisky. “If you’re speaking of means to neutralize Mrs. Carstairs as a threat, so that she would not expose me, then the answer is no. Unless I become privy to a scandal of equal magnitude on Mrs. Carstairs’s part, I have no countermeasures.”

“People may not believe Mrs. Carstairs,” pointed out Stephen.

Livia wished she heard more conviction in his voice.

“Perhaps not at first,” answered Charlotte, tucking the dahlia, almost the exact size and color as the silk flowers on her bodice, into her coiffure. “The problem is that Sherlock Holmes the great detective is fiction, and Charlotte Holmes the fallen woman a fact. The longer the rumors circulate, the more people might begin to put two and two together.”

Livia fortified herself with a large draught of wine, but even her favorite claret tasted like thorns.

Charlotte’s gaze came to rest on Livia. “Lord Ingram has found us a villa on the South Downs. It comes with a parcel of land and has a marvelous view of the English Channel.”

“What?” Livia scarcely followed this abrupt change in subject. “In…Sussex?”

Weren’t they talking about just that earlier in the afternoon, as they sailed back from their excursion? At that time, with the sky high and the day bright, the idea of such a villa served only as further fuel for happy daydreams.

But Charlotte hadn’t intended it to be a pleasant thought, but concrete preparation. And Charlotte did not mind wet, cold winters—she enjoyed them as long as she had a piping hot cup of tea, a plate of nibbles, and something to read. But Livia needed clear days and blue skies to avoid sinking into a deep malaise by the end of December—Livia needed somewhere like Sussex, which received more cumulative sunlight than most other places in Britain.

“The land, let to yeomen farmers, yields a small income,” continued Charlotte, addressing Livia directly. “Moreover the villa comes with a great many beehives—we’ll be able to sell our own honey. How does Granny Holmes’s Apian Nectar strike you? I have enough funds to buy it outright and the three of us—you, me, Bernadine—will always have a roof over our heads.”

Livia’s head spun. With perfect equanimity, her sister was discussing the worst-case scenario. Or rather, the aftermath of it, when she must abandon her work as Sherlock Holmes and all the freedom and independence she’d found via that work.

Charlotte now spoke to Mrs. Watson. “As for our establishment, it would be highly undesirable to lose the ordinary clientele, but at least I’ll still have the occasional investigation for Lord Remington. And from time to time, there will be individuals who have heard of Sherlock Holmes but not Charlotte Holmes—and also those desperate enough not to care that they will be dealing with Charlotte Holmes and not Sherlock Holmes. So Mrs. Carstairs’s threat would not strip me of everything—she’s four years too late for that.”

Mrs. Watson grimaced. “But not being stripped of everything doesn’t mean that your life wouldn’t be materially worsened.”

“Precisely,” said Livia in fervent agreement. “I don’t want you to remove to the wilds of Sussex yet. I don’t want you to have only bees and Bernadine and me for company. And who is to say Mrs. Carstairs wouldn’t find out about your place in Sussex and then proceed to inform the locals? I’d hate to see what sort of neighbors we’ll have when that happens.”