Page 34 of The Vanished Sister

Everett Carstairs sat up straight. “I did not believe it at all. Nevertheless, I felt I’d been suspended upside down and blood vessels in my eyes were about to burst. I was in purgatory until I saw just now that it wasn’t her.”

Again his confidence struck Charlotte, a confidence that might be considered delusional if the physical evidence didn’t also suggest that the deceased had been dead for longer than Mrs. Carstairs had disappeared.

And this was before one considered the victim’s lack of pierced ears. One could make up stories about hairlines but holes in the earlobe were not repaired by a mere steeping in seawater.

“I do hope you will soon discover the identity of the poor woman,” said Everett Carstairs, his voice clear and strong. “As for me, I can’t wait to tell my children that their mother is still alive and well and we need only to wait for her to come home.”

Inspector MacDonald tapped his pencil again. He and Charlotte had discussed the likelihood that the woman Lord Ingram and Mr. Mears fished out of the sea was not Mrs. Carstairs, and the newly minted inspector had hoped rather fervently that it wouldn’t be the case.

The possibility certainly caused an awkward lull in the interrogation, especially as Mr. Carstairs had already declared that he had no idea who this other woman might be.

Charlotte had every confidence that Inspector MacDonald would prove himself a formidable investigator someday, but this pause revealed his relative inexperience. Inspector Treadles would not have allowed for this gap of uncertainty. Chief Inspector Fowler, that old fox, would have used the silence to intimidate. And Chief Inspector Talbot, the most remarkable police detective Charlotte had ever met, he would have taken the time to probe Mr. Carstairs’s soul.

Carry on, she spoke to Inspector MacDonald via telepathic abilities that she did not possess. Carry on.

He must have come to the same conclusion himself, for he said, as if his interrogation had not taken an unwanted detour, “Mr. Carstairs, I’ve heard from several sources that you were highly solicitous of Mrs. Albright.”

Mr. Carstairs’s brow furrowed, as if he hadn’t expected the change of subject. He shrugged. “Mrs. Albright and the first Mrs. Carstairs were very close. I’ve always felt guilty toward my late wife. Her great dowry saved Noble House, yet she herself lost her life giving birth to my heir. That self-reproach drove my attentiveness toward Mrs. Albright, not any extraordinary affection for her person.”

“Yet when I spoke to Mrs. Watson yesterday,” Inspector MacDonald pointed out, with perhaps a bit of perverse pleasure, “she recounted a conversation—her last—with Mrs. Carstairs, in which Mrs. Carstairs claimed that you have only ever loved one woman, and that woman is Mrs. Albright.”

Mr. Carstairs sighed. He took a scone and applied to it a liberal amount of butter and jam, only to set the scone back down on its plate. “Are any of you gentlemen married?”

The gentlemen present, Charlotte included, shook their heads.

Mr. Carstairs wiped his fingers with a handkerchief. “Marriage produces…complicated sentiments. If Mrs. Carstairs believed that I loved Mrs. Albright, it is not because it was so but because I wished for her to think so.”

Was that regret Charlotte heard in his voice, or merely resignation? In any case, the ensuing silence from the “bachelors” evinced a combination of astonishment and fascinated discomfort.

“May I ask, sir, why you wished for her to think so?” Inspector MacDonald managed at last.

Mr. Carstairs folded his handkerchief so that the resultant square showed his perfectly embroidered initials, white silk thread upon white linen. “The world is convinced that a man should be the master of his own domain. But unless a man is willing to practice violence or deprivation against a woman, it is his wife who steers the course of their combined life—and decides his happiness. I do not begrudge any woman that domestic authority; the females of our species have few outlets for their intelligence and discernment.

“But Mrs. Carstairs is no ordinary woman. It would be all too easy for a man to be entirely captivated by her. I did not want to surrender so easily. She could have my hand, my name, and the run of Noble House, but I decided long ago that she must not think my heart was entirely hers. Mrs. Albright was a convenient decoy as she was far away on a different continent.”

As an experienced and arguably highly successful participant of London’s Marriage Mart—based on the number and quality of proposals received during her tenure—Charlotte had seen such tactics as described by Mr. Carstairs deployed on a regular basis. Someone pretending to enjoy the company of others in order to pique the interest of the one he or she truly wished to attract? A maneuver as old as courtship itself.

Such gambits sometimes worked to great effect. But in the hands of less skillful practitioners, they could also result in spectacular misfires.

“So you were wary of Mrs. Carstairs?” Inspector MacDonald’s tone was reluctant, probably sensing that he was being led by Mr. Carstairs at this point.

The wistfulness in Mr. Carstairs’s reply was palpable. “Yes, I’ve always been wary of my wife. She is a great beauty, but beauty is also the least of her assets. She has a trenchant mind, untold fortitude, and endless resilience. It would never do to underestimate her, not for a second.”

Inspector MacDonald asked the only question he could. “Pray elucidate for me, sir, the reason you married a woman toward whom you must be constantly vigilant.”

Mr. Carstairs looked him in the eye. “Because I loved her, of course. Loved her enough that all the better options lost their appeal. Why else?”

Eleven

Four years ago, Lord Ingram had been under suspicion for the murder of his then-wife. Having no concrete proof but a mountain of circumstantial evidence, the Scotland Yard investigator in the case had latched onto Lord Ingram’s preference for Charlotte Holmes as a central motive. According to Chief Inspector Fowler, by disposing of his wife Lord Ingram became free to rescue Charlotte from destitution and disgrace.

During a carriage ride, Lord Ingram was asked the question point-blank. Charlotte, also dressed as Sherrinford Holmes on that day, had been seated directly beside him—and had no choice but to look at him in order to appear halfway normal.

He had turned his face toward the window and said, with great unwillingness, Yes, I am. I am in love with her.

His admission of love and Mr. Carstairs’s were not analogous. For Lord Ingram to admit to deep feelings for Charlotte was to hand Chief Inspector Fowler more ammunition. Mr. Carstairs, on the other hand, stood to reap great benefit if he could convince Inspector MacDonald that he loved his wife deeply, if reluctantly.

Nevertheless, there was something nakedly vulnerable about Mr. Carstairs’s avowal. Perhaps it was because he was a generation older than Lord Ingram. Perhaps it was because his wife was not there to hear it. However resistant Lord Ingram had been to lay bare his sentiments, in his most desperate hour, Charlotte had stood by his side.