Page 30 of The Vanished Sister

“The worst is when I think back to her farewell two nights ago. At the time I thought she’d spoken as she had because we were unlikely to keep in touch—our paths had diverged too much. But what if she already had her train ticket in her pocket? What if she meant a proper good-bye? What if she meant for the body to be found so that everyone would think she met with an unfortunate accident on a midnight stroll?”

Penelope opened her mouth but didn’t say anything. Lord Ingram glanced at the clock—it was early yet; the last train not due in for a long time. Miss Charlotte dabbed carefully at her beard, that costly and essential prop of her disguise.

Mrs. Watson inhaled deeply. “Will you find out the truth for me, Miss Charlotte? May I entrust this to you so that I would at least know whether to be angry—or to grieve?”

Miss Charlotte, uncharacteristically enough, poured herself half a glass of Sauternes. “Ma’am, you know this as well as anyone that often, when people come to Sherlock Holmes for the truth, what they really want is a version of events that they can accept. That they may, in fact, even prefer. But the truth hardly ever conforms to anyone’s hopes. And the full, unfettered truth may deny you not only the resolution you seek but your ability, in the future, to tell yourself a version of the story that would bring some solace.”

Mrs. Watson’s heart thumped with the inexorability of those words. “That is the unfortunate nature of the beast—only after learning the truth can one regret the decision to seek it in the first place. But you know how it is. I cannot experience the future; I can only live in the present. And in the present my ignorance has become intolerable.”

Miss Charlotte looked directly at Mrs. Watson, and in her level gaze Mrs. Watson read a steady compassion that made her tremble with an even greater fear.

“Very well, then,” said the young woman. “Our second difficulty is that the Carstairses may not wish for the involvement of Sherlock Holmes. The moment he steps off the train tonight, Mr. Carstairs would be no more a suspect than anyone else. In fact, if you examine his action, it is consistent with that of a man distraught at the sudden disappearance of his wife.”

She turned to Lord Ingram. “What would you have done, my lord, if someone in this house left such a note as Mrs. Carstairs had apparently written?”

“After I searched her room, and the rest of the house, I would have gone to the nearest railway station to see whether she might have taken the train.”

“And if you found evidence that at least she intended to?”

“Then I’d follow in her footsteps as best as I could, to see if I could find clues as to where she might have gone.”

“Precisely what Mr. Carstairs has done,” murmured Penelope.

“Precisely. In fact, if he hadn’t left then and there, but had gone back meekly to High Burrow, that would have been strange. It was only the discovery of the body that made his hasty getaway suspicious.”

“So that he left in a hurry is in fact a point in his favor?” asked Penelope, her voice a few notes higher with astonishment.

“As long as he returns. Upon his return, he would be a man who has done everything a responsible and caring husband ought to do.”

“Except reporting the disappearance of his wife,” mused Penelope. “But then again, one doesn’t report such things if one believes the missus has merely absconded.”

“Indeed one doesn’t,” said Lord Ingram, who had not reported the disappearance of his then-wife in 1886, but let it be known that she had gone to a Swiss sanatorium.

Miss Charlotte again gazed at Mrs. Watson. “So a man who has acted logically returns to cooperate with the police investigation. What reason does he have to want Sherlock Holmes mucking about? If he’s innocent, he has now further bolstered his blamelessness in the matter. If he is guilty, he wouldn’t want to double the number of people looking into the case. Same if he wishes to shield someone else.”

Having no good answer for her, Mrs. Watson swigged more of the increasingly unpalatable Sauternes.

Miss Charlotte raised her glass. “Nevertheless, I accept your commission, ma’am, and I thank you for your trust. I hope you’re prepared for what we shall find out.”

The platform felt so crowded Mrs. Watson could scarcely breathe.

All the Carstairses were on hand, the Newells likewise, with Miss Olivia hovering just behind Mrs. Newell. A disguised Miss Charlotte, Lord Ingram, and Mrs. Watson stood next to Inspector MacDonald and a young man he introduced as Sergeant Perkins.

The train crested the hill beyond and started its descent toward the end of the line. From where she stood, kept well back from the edge of the platform by the conscientious guard on duty, Mrs. Watson couldn’t see the headlight of the locomotive, only hear its iron wheels rolling down the tracks.

Brakes screeched, metal on metal, in history’s longest act of deceleration. Mrs. Watson was sure her ears must be bleeding before the train stopped with a shudder and a gust of coal-scented steam.

“There he is!” cried Charles Carstairs.

His father leaped off the train and immediately enfolded him in a tight embrace.

“Please tell me that wasn’t her,” pleaded Charles Carstairs.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” answered Everett Carstairs in a near growl, “except I don’t believe it any more than you do.”

He also embraced and consoled his stepdaughter and older son. Next he greeted all the Newells and Livia, and expressed his regret that their stay at High Burrow had been interrupted in such an unfortunate manner.

The small railway station was lit just enough for passengers to see their way out. In the flickering orange glow of its few sconces, Everett Carstairs appeared weary yet resolute, the very image of a man coming home in a moment of great crisis to look after his family.