Page 64 of The Vanished Sister

“Not even to monogram a handkerchief as a Christmas present?”

“I asked my stepmother-in-law about it my first Christmas as a member of the family. She said all the Carstairs men receive their handkerchiefs from Savile Row shops already monogrammed—and that was that.”

To Lord Ingram’s surprise, Emaline Carstairs continued, “When she was alive, my own mother produced beautiful samplers. Some were framed, others used to cover chairs or serve as pelmets. But Noble House isn’t the sort of place where the ladies of the house contribute to the upholstery. I was very impressed by that at first. But now I rather hope that in my new home, my mother’s needlework wouldn’t feel out of place.”

Or she herself, for that matter.

“So there are no decorative pieces of needlework at Noble House?”

“There are Japanese screens and Flemish tapestries, and some antique lace that I’ve heard about but never seen, but nothing done by those who live there.”

“And that’s the case at the London town house and High Burrow, too?”

“Very much so.” Emaline Carstairs paused. “Does this have to do with my stepmother-in-law’s disappearance or Mrs. Whitehill’s death?”

“We do not know,” answered Holmes with great serenity. “We haven’t the faintest idea.”

After Emaline Carstairs’s departure, Lord Ingram tapped Mrs. Watson on the shoulder. The dear lady, who sat at the edge of the perennially unoccupied bed, staring at the hoard of tinctures and patent medicine on the nightstand, looked up and smiled wanly. “I was just thinking to myself how frustrated Justina must have been to have her daughter in that terrible marriage for so long. And the moment she felt a bit of relief, Mrs. Wellesley’s return became a disruption in her stepson’s marriage. If it were me, I don’t know how I—”

A knock came. The door of Sherlock Holmes’s bedroom opened a crack. “My lord, will you take a look at these letters for us?” asked Inspector Treadles.

Lord Ingram gave what he hoped to be a reassuring squeeze on Mrs. Watson’s shoulder and answered Inspector Treadles’s call for help.

He was first given two letters Mr. Broadfield had written to his mother to study the man’s handwriting. Then he was asked to look at a letter that had been in Emaline Carstairs’s possession, signed by Chester Broadfield and dated a few days ago.

“Written by the same person.” He gave his verdict after a few minutes. “Except the more recent letter was composed in a state of greater agitation, and possibly on a moving vehicle, which produced some slight breaks in what should have been continuous strokes.”

Judging by what he’d overheard of the interview, this would be the letter Mr. Broadfield had written his beloved during the railway journey back to Birmingham, in which he debated nervously whether to speak to his mother at the earliest opportunity.

Inspector Treadles probably had not expected a different assessment. All the same, he frowned. “That Broadfield had written this letter doesn’t guarantee that its contents are genuine. He had enormous motive. And he certainly had the opportunity: He was on the ground in Combe Martin; Mrs. Whitehill would scarcely have been wary of her own son.

“It needed not have been a premeditated crime. Mr. Gregory might not have bandied about the name Cromer to Mrs. Whitehill. But who was to say that his sister, Miss Gregory, hadn’t mentioned it to other guests at the inn. And who was to say that in being passed from person to person, Cromer didn’t become Combe Martin by the time it reached Mrs. Whitehill’s ear.

“She made up her mind to go to Combe Martin in the hope of running into Mr. Gregory again. Only to run into her son. Anything could have happened at that point. She might have demanded to know what he was doing there. He might have told the truth. A confrontation could have taken place then and there. He might not even have intended to harm her. But a shove somewhere near the waterfront, a stumble, and the next thing he knew, her body had disappeared beneath the waves.”

Inspector Treadles had visited Sans Souci a number of times and gone for rambles on the coastline along Combe Martin. Lord Ingram wondered whether he was picturing mother and son standing at the edge of Sans Souci’s terrace while they argued, as he himself could not think of another place where the old lady could so easily pitch over and “disappear beneath the waves.”

“At that point,” continued Inspector Treadles, “Broadfield made sure to act in a way that convinced Emaline Carstairs that his mother was still alive—after all, she never had any reason to suspect otherwise.

“Or perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps all the time these two were holed up in the library at High Burrow they were discussing what to do, given he had accidentally done his mother in. He, the worse liar, was told to say as little as possible if he was ever questioned. And to let her testimony create the impression that he was completely ignorant of Mrs. Whitehill’s fate.”

“I see that Emaline Carstairs, for all her efforts, has not managed to convince Scotland Yard that they ought to look harder elsewhere,” said Holmes wryly.

Lord Ingram sighed. He did feel rather sorry for Emaline Carstairs. In this he was not that different from Mrs. Watson: When he was faced with a woman in torment, his suspicion was likely to take a distant second place to his compassion.

“I don’t believe I’m more convinced of Broadfield’s guilt after speaking to Emaline Carstairs, but I’m also not less convinced of it, in the absence of other candidates,” said Inspector Treadles. “However, I believe we now turn our attention to Mrs. Rebecca Wellesley?”

“She’s already here,” called out Mrs. Watson from the bedroom. “And that’s Reginald Carstairs with her.”

Lord Ingram walked to the bow window of the parlor and glanced down. In terms of facial features, Mrs. Wellesley was not, perhaps, that much more beautiful than Emaline Carstairs, who was handsome by any standard. Yet her arrival on Upper Baker Street pulled the attention of every pedestrian: Watching her descend from her town coach felt like an event.

After he helped her down, Reginald Carstairs let go of her hand. They stood face-to-face for a moment, speaking, a liege lady and the knight errant sworn to her.

Much like the situation between Emaline Carstairs and Chester Broadfield, highly romantic if only one of them hadn’t married someone else.

“My lord?” Holmes beckoned from the bedroom. She’d been on the Marriage Mart the single Season Mrs. Wellesley had spent in London; she didn’t recall ever meeting Mrs. Wellesley but out of an abundance of caution, she would listen to, rather than attend, the meeting.

“Yes?” He approached. She wore a beige blouse with thin vertical stripes of charcoal and green, a no-nonsense sort of garment except for the great big green bow at the collar. Still, very tame for her.