Page 31 of The Vanished Sister

Throwing out her maxim of not wrinkling her face unnecessarily—she’d done so much of it in the past few days she might as well abandon the whole enterprise—Mrs. Watson squinted. Did she trust this brother-in-law of hers that her sister couldn’t? Of course not. But did this mean that he did away with Justina? Not necessarily.

Lord Ingram had been the chief suspect in the Stern Hollow case. But she wouldn’t mention the two men in the same breath. Granted they both possessed pedigree, looks, and a demeanor that was noble without being standoffish, but Lord Ingram, even when he had been estranged from his wife, never treated her with anything but courtesy and respect.

And he would have never paraded another woman during a social event that he and his wife hosted together.

Everett Carstairs had done his wife this insult and injury.

His ill-considered action aside, however, he did not strike Mrs. Watson as a stupid man. If he meant to do away with Justina, would he not have behaved very differently? Portrayed a devoted husband to reduce the suspicion that would fall on himself, rather than the other way around?

Inspector MacDonald allowed him another minute with his family and future in-laws before striding forward and introducing himself. Everett Carstairs shook hands with him, his attitude one of polite distance, neither trying to win the policeman over nor asserting his own superiority in stature.

“If you wish to speak to me, Inspector,” he said, “allow me to see off my family and our friends. After that I’ll be glad to come with you.”

“It’s late and you must be in need of repose, sir,” Inspector MacDonald replied, capably hiding his disappointment behind a show of magnanimity. “Shall I expect you in the morning at nine?”

Mr. Carstairs consented to the time. At last he came before Mrs. Watson, who stood near the exit of the station, between Lord Ingram and Miss Charlotte, in disguise as Sherrinford Holmes.

“I’m very sorry to have caused you distress,” he said immediately. “But I’m sure Justina will find her way home before too long.”

How do you know? Mrs. Watson wanted to demand scathingly.

But she could only say, “I’m sure you’re right. May I present Mr. Sherrinford Holmes? Mr. Holmes, who has often acted for his celebrated brother, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, happens to be Lord Ingram’s guest at the moment. He would be of invaluable help in this matter, but of course I don’t wish to presume…”

Mr. Carstairs stared at Mrs. Watson, and then at Sherrinford Holmes, as if none of Mrs. Watson’s words made any sense to him. Only after a long pause did he say, “I apologize. I’ve been so preoccupied that I didn’t immediately recognize the name of Sherlock Holmes. Of course I’ve heard of the great consulting detective. He was instrumental in clearing your name, was he not, my lord?”

“Indeed he was,” affirmed Lord Ingram. “And Mr. Sherrinford Holmes here was his representative at Stern Hollow, the one who did most of the work.”

“Am I in so much trouble as that, then?” Mr. Carstairs grimaced, with a pained frustration that felt genuine. That of a man caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, a man who already felt responsible for what happened without being blamed for it, too.

“In the end, my dear friend here made sure I was in no trouble at all,” said Lord Ingram.

But he could trust Miss Charlotte: He had been blameless and had nothing to fear from her. Did Everett Carstairs dare make a similar bet?

Everett Carstairs failed to display any visible apprehension at the prospect of being dissected by Sherlock Holmes’s representative. Instead he turned to Inspector MacDonald. “Would Mr. Holmes’s participation be agreeable to you, Inspector?”

Inspector MacDonald inclined his head in Sherrinford Holmes’s direction. “I have nothing but the highest respect for anyone who represents Sherlock Holmes.”

Everett Carstairs took a deep breath and nodded at both Inspector MacDonald and Sherrinford Holmes. “In that case, gentlemen, I shall rely on you.”

Ten

Dr. Merriweather, the pathologist for the coroner’s district, was happy to share his findings with Sherrinford Holmes: He had worked on the Sackville case in 1886, the affair that had made Sherlock Holmes’s name, and professed himself an admirer of the consulting detective.

“The deceased died of drowning—plenty of water in the lungs. She suffered a badly broken collarbone and two cracked ribs before she died: Those areas had swollen up, which would not have happened had they been inflicted after death.”

The broken bones suggested a great tumble prior to drowning, consistent with her having slipped—or been pushed—from the edge of the headlands.

Except, as Charlotte and Lord Ingram had reconfirmed the previous afternoon, the great heights of the area, though they appeared vertiginous to those standing on a goat path at the top, were typically not so steep that a person would have plummeted straight down to the waves. The growth of gorse, bushes, and small trees on most bluffs would have stopped a falling person somewhere on the shoulder of the slope.

The cliffs nearest High Burrow were sheer enough; however, they plunged not to the sea but to a rugged beach. Had the victim rolled down there, she would have been found atop the serrated rocks at the base of the precipice, where the tide did not reach.

Of course, someone could have followed her down and pushed her into the water. But Charlotte, having visited the beach in person, would have chosen to bury the victim somewhere on the headlands instead, rather than taking the trouble to dash her onto the strand, then tackle a difficult descent to drag her body over heaps of broken stone into the waves.

“Most of her lacerations were inflicted after death—from the action of strong tides upon our rocky shores, no doubt,” continued Dr. Merriweather. “And I’m confident that all of the wounds caused by the, ahem, feeding action of bottom-dwelling creatures took place after death as well. There was no bruising or inflammation associated with the lacerations or the pecking wounds.”

Charlotte stroked her beard. She needed to vary her masculine gestures, but the corridor outside the room where Mr. Carstairs was viewing the remains was not a place where she could light up a cigarette and take an insouciant puff. “Any soil or sediments on her that indicate from which locale she might have taken that plunge?”

She hadn’t seen any but she hadn’t been afforded a close examination.