Page 88 of The Vanished Sister

The smaller lumber room was located on the top floor, just beneath the attic. Most lumber rooms were dusty and jumbled, full of old furniture and useless gewgaws that a house had been “lumbered” with over the years. This one was nearly spotless, and as neatly organized as Justina’s dressing room.

Mrs. Watson commented to that effect.

“Oh, because it’s all good things here,” replied Dawkins. “Furs and heavy coats for the winter, children’s christening gowns, Mr. Carstairs’s clothes from when he was a child, that sort.”

Justina’s wedding gown, in an out-of-the-way chest beneath dresses that she had probably worn late in her second pregnancy, was stored in a large linen bag, wrapped in several layers of tissue, and surrounded by sachets of camphor and cedar. Miss Charlotte lifted the sapphire blue garment and shook it out. Something fell out of the skirts: the petticoat that had been specially made to go with the dress, white with several scalloped edges in the same sapphire blue so that should the bride lift up her skirts for anything—to head up a flight of steps, for example—those around her would not see a plain petticoat underneath, but one that seemed part and parcel of her dress.

Mrs. Watson picked up the petticoat. Her heart thumped violently. On the upper portion of the petticoat proliferated white-on-white, almost invisible embroidery in the geometric codes Justina had devised.

Miss Charlotte, who must have seen it, too, did not bat an eye. She restored the contents of the chest, closed its lid, and only then said to Dawkins and Mr. Gables, who’d been watching a man expertly handle women’s clothes with a mixture of fascination and dismay, “We will be taking the petticoat as evidence.”

“But—” Mr. Gables began.

He was cut off by calls from below. “Mr. Holmes! Mr. Holmes!”

That sounded like Inspector Paulson. Miss Charlotte took the petticoat from Mrs. Watson, dropped it into a satchel, and brushed past Mr. Gables, Mrs. Watson in her wake.

They met the police inspector halfway down.

“Mr. Holmes, you need to see this.” Inspector Paulson handed over a telegram. “From Inspector Treadles. Delivered to me just now.”

It was near midnight. Mrs. Watson was still calculating the cost of this cable when Miss Charlotte touched her on the elbow. “It’s bad news. I’m very sorry.”

What more bad news could there be? What else had Justina and her husband done? Mrs. Watson glanced down at the piece of paper Miss Charlotte placed in her hand. J. Carstairs shot to death in St. John’s Wood house. Location of Everett Carstairs, last person known to visit the address, currently unknown.

Mrs. Watson opened her mouth but her scream would not dislodge from her throat. It simply caught there, growing silently shriller and shriller, until she clawed at her jugular in desperation.

An uncapped flask appeared before her. She waved it away. She didn’t need to drink; she needed to breathe. And she could not, not with this land mine of rage and frustration exploding in her air pipe at the same time.

Was she hanging on to the stair balustrade? Was she half bent over? Were tears cascading from her eyes that could see nothing?

Gradually she became aware of a disturbance. Of distant conversation and then someone racing up the grand staircase.

Mrs. Watson lifted her head with some difficulty. Like a mirage, Everett Carstairs appeared. His cool gaze scanned the collection of people congregated in his manor, on his grand staircase. But he did not stop to speak to them. Instead he began to take the steps two at a time, going past Inspector Paulson and Miss Charlotte.

Mrs. Watson hurtled toward him, yanked him around, and slapped him so hard the sound reverberated from the painted ceiling high above. “You killed her, you bastard. How dare you? How dare you!”

Perhaps Justina no longer deserved to live, but that judgment should not have been meted out by him, of all people.

Everett Carstairs, who had stumbled and caught himself on the balustrade, straightened. He stared coldly at Mrs. Watson. “I have never harmed a single soul in my life, Mrs. Watson, and therefore have no idea of what you speak so hysterically. If you will excuse me.”

Doggedly he resumed his ascent. Mrs. Watson panted, but a new scream had blocked her trachea and she could not speak.

“We’ve just received news, Mr. Carstairs, that your wife was found dead in St. John’s Wood,” said Miss Charlotte, speaking at a slightly higher volume than usual. “Our condolences.”

Everett Carstairs stilled. He turned around and fixed his gaze upon Sherrinford Holmes as if the latter were a newel post that had suddenly spoken aloud. “That is not possible.”

Mrs. Watson’s mangled heart soared at his words. Maybe he was right and Inspector Treadles was wrong. Maybe this was a trick by Scotland Yard to get him to confess.

His brow furrowed. “Who told you she was in St. John’s Wood? What did you do to her? Where is she now?”

Miss Charlotte bent down—when had the cable that was in Mrs. Watson’s hand fallen to the stair landing?—and picked up the piece of paper. She handed it to Everett Carstairs. “This is all we know. The cable was sent by Inspector Robert Treadles of the Metropolitan Police and addressed to Inspector Paulson here.”

Everett Carstairs scanned the telegram. He stared at it. After a few seconds his hand began to shake; his eyes lost focus. He gripped the telegram, his fist swallowing the slip of paper. “This cannot be true. It cannot be. She was perfectly alive when I saw her only hours ago.”

He threw down the telegram, turned, and ran down the stairs. Hadn’t he also rushed out of High Burrow in a similar manner after Justina was discovered missing? Mrs. Watson picked up her skirts and started down after him, praying that this was not the day she broke her neck.

She was relatively fleet-footed for her age, but Everett Carstairs descended with a speed she could not hope to match. This had been his home, after all, since the moment he was born, and the grand staircase must be as familiar to him as the shape of his own face in the mirror.