Page 29 of The Vanished Sister

“As verified by her family members.”

Holmes passed both to Lord Ingram. “And in your opinion, sir?”

Lord Ingram excused himself. When he returned, he had the invitation he’d received from Mrs. Carstairs. “Most likely penned by the same person,” he said, after comparing the two, although he could have concluded the same without seeing the invitation again.

“The two Carstairs sons and Mrs. Wellesley all confessed themselves thoroughly bewildered by the note,” said Inspector MacDonald. “But as they could find no trace of Mrs. Carstairs inside her room, they divided the work: Reginald Carstairs combed the grounds, Mrs. Wellesley the rest of the house, and Charles Carstairs accompanied his father to Ilfracombe railway station, where, a photograph of Mrs. Carstairs in hand, they made inquiries.”

He handed over a picture. “This photograph, by the way.”

Sherrinford Holmes glanced at it. “What do you think, my lord? I have never met Mrs. Carstairs.”

Strictly speaking, she was not lying, as she’d never been introduced to Mrs. Carstairs.

The human view tabulated input from two eyes. The camera had only one eye, so to speak, and failed to capture the nuances that made Mrs. Carstairs a great beauty. Photographed, her resemblance to Mrs. Watson became more pronounced than it was in real life.

“A good likeness,” said Lord Ingram. Good enough for such things as searching for her at railway stations.

“The ticket clerk didn’t remember anyone who remotely resembled Mrs. Carstairs, nor did the porters recall seeing her during the relevant time frame,” said Inspector MacDonald. “But as they left the railway station, Charles Carstairs spoke to the hawkers who peddled their wares outside the platform.

“One of them, a woman who sold matches and boiled sweets, recognized her. She said the lady in the picture came by a few days before, bought boiled sweets, and gave the woman an extra sixpenny to go inside and buy a ticket for her. The woman remembered clearly that the ticket was for that very day—the day the Carstairs men descended upon the railway station to ask questions. And the lady wanted the first train out in the morning bound for Taunton.”

Lord Ingram was familiar with the timetable for departures from Ilfracombe. If Mrs. Carstairs had indeed departed on the seven-thirty-five yesterday morning, she would have reached London around the time she was discovered missing. And from London, she could be anywhere by now.

“The senior Mr. Carstairs immediately decided to leave on the next train out. Charles Carstairs wished to go, too, but his father sent him back home. The father cabled from Taunton and said that the clerks and porters there to whom he showed Mrs. Carstairs’s photograph didn’t recognize her, but he decided to go to London anyway, in case she’d gone to their town house. If he didn’t find her in London, he would travel on to Lincolnshire, should she have opted to go back home.”

So that was where Mr. Carstairs had been all this while, on the road. Lord Ingram had noted—and he was far from the only one—that it had been Charles Carstairs, the Carstairses’ son, who’d spoken to the Newells the previous evening. And again it had been Charles Carstairs who had ridden to the harbor this morning.

Holmes finished her second lobster salad finger sandwich and washed it down with half a cup of tea. “Charles Carstairs, once he recovered a little from his shock this morning, would have cabled his father right away, at both the town house and the country house. And if he replies…”

“We’d know that he hasn’t yet run for the hills,” answered Inspector MacDonald. “So I am happy to report that a cable did catch Mr. Carstairs in London and his reply reached High Burrow before I left to come here.”

The cable was promptly produced and passed around. It said simply, Will arrive in Ilfracombe on the last train tonight.

“Of course Everett Carstairs could be buying himself time with this cable, to deflect the suspicion that has now fallen squarely upon him because of his precipitous departure the day before,” said Inspector MacDonald. “Shall we expect him in Ilfracombe tonight, Mr. Holmes?”

“Prophesies are not my realm of expertise,” said Holmes modestly. “One could argue that Mr. Carstairs’s stop in London makes it even more likely that he would go on the run.”

Inspector MacDonald rubbed his chin. “I see what you mean. If he fled directly from the Devon coast, he’d be limited to what funds he had carried with him while on holiday. But after having stopped in London—to empty out his bank accounts, if nothing else—he is now in a much better position to support himself in exile.”

Lord Ingram put two slices of cake on a plate for Holmes. But only after he slid the plate toward her did he realize that Inspector MacDonald might consider it an odd gesture. Fortunately the officer of the law had pulled out a railway timetable to consult.

“If Mr. Carstairs does come back,” asked Lord Ingram, “does that make him an innocent man or merely an extremely confident criminal?”

“I believe Inspector MacDonald wishes he wouldn’t come back,” said Holmes dryly.

Inspector MacDonald dog-eared the page he wanted and sighed. “Indeed, if Mr. Carstairs never showed his face again, it would make my work that much easier. But I doubt we’d be so lucky.”

Mrs. Watson was silent at dinner.

She declined the fruit compote when it came around but allowed Lord Ingram to pour her a glass of Sauternes. Alas, even her favorite dessert wine tasted both too sweet and strangely astringent.

“When young Charles Carstairs—” She halted. “When my nephew claimed this morning that the woman under the tarp couldn’t have been his mother, I went wild with joy.”

She stopped again so that her voice wouldn’t break. “I did not want my sister to be dead. If she’d had enough of being the mistress of Noble House, I am all for her running away to something better. Or even just to something different.”

Lord Ingram poured himself a dram of whisky and held the glass without drinking. Penelope stirred her serving of compote, the fruits a rather unfortunate shade of bruised red. Miss Charlotte ate steadily, her eyes on her dessert, but Mrs. Watson knew she was listening as attentively as anyone else present.

“The rest of this day, however, has chipped away at my joy bit by bit. If my sister ran away, then whose body did we find? And why was she in travel attire, as Justina would have been?