by Lyndsay Faye
“Not for any sum, as I stated. No, Mrs. Treadwell may be in danger.” The sleuth lowered his voice yet further. “I know her fears sound fantastical, but have you ever heard of aconitine poisoning?”
Aghast, I gaped at him. “Good heavens, Holmes. Monkshood?”
“Precisely. It is a very long shot, but that tincture can penetrate the skin, as you may be aware.”
“Your idea is horrifying. But even supposing this bizarre fixation of hers is based in truth, why should the scheming husband consult you—indeed, insist upon your aid?”
“I never said her fixation was necessarily based in truth, but it could be, and that is enough cause for me to take interest. There may be forces at work here of which Mr. Treadwell is unaware, an enemy masked in silence and secrecy.” Donning his gloves, Holmes cast about for his keys.
“Of course you are right. Though it is exceedingly unlikely that even the most potent preparation of monkshood could be made to adhere to metal in such a manner as to affect the wearer.”
“I’m aware of the fact. Still, there are stranger things, et cetera.”
I shook my head, slipping into my coat. “To think that you may accidentally have real need of me after all—Mrs. Treadwell could simply be the victim of some obscure nervous malady.”
“Perhaps. In any event, abandoning her gems by no means indicates an affair. Mr. Treadwell suggested that transgression only because he is both dull and mean. No, lacking any legitimately damning clues, we must commence our investigation believing her blameless in that regard.” My friend pressed his lips together and cocked his square chin at me, resembling a cat which has spied a dish of cream resting unguarded on a windowsill. “But her husband, despite his obnoxious manner, was telling us the truth, or at least the truth as he knew it; I should stake my reputation on that. Something foul is afoot.”
“And yet you believe Mrs. Treadwell to be an honest woman?” I pressed as I followed Holmes’s sharply angular form down our staircase.
“I don’t believe any woman honest,” he corrected me as we stepped into the clear early-spring light, turning to lock the door behind him. “They are all of them lying about something. The question is, what is this one lying about?”
“Holmes, that is absolutely disgraceful.”
“Yes, a great many truths are disgraceful.”
I already knew better than to challenge such outrageous aspersions on the comprehensive whole of the female character, for trying to prove to Sherlock Holmes that something is not the case is like trying to prevent water from pouring out of a sieve. Instead I stepped into the waiting cab, Holmes following after, and Mr. Treadwell called up to the driver an address on Prince of Wales Road. We set off, wheels echoing sharply against the paving stones in the swelling bustle of a mauve Westminster morning. Sparrows twittered on the dawn-illumined branches, and the sun gleamed in the vanishing puddles like the shards of a shattered decanter, but I could take no joy in these harbingers of finer weather—not when I pictured Mrs. Treadwell (a wisp-thin, ethereal creature in my imagination) donning an ornate diamond collar which bled poison into her cobalt veins, slowly destroying her.
Mr. Treadwell set the facts before us as we traveled, missing no opportunity to vex our spirits. He had been married for two years to Alice Treadwell, and their union apparently had once been a blissful match—he a wealthy and altogether ruthless banker, he boasted, and she the daintiest blossom upon the vine. However, six months previous, she had stopped leaving her letters lying about the house (the majority were from her sister, Rose, who resided alone in Brighton, and one or two other female companions) and taken to locking them in a carved teak box in her bedchamber. Mr. Treadwell was tempted to force the lock, but wished not to admit his grave suspicions in quite so obvious a manner, which notion Holmes applauded with seemingly perfect seriousness.
Alice Treadwell had, around the same period, ceased wearing a necklace of rubies and pearls which had previously been a staple item, claiming she felt sick to her stomach every time she handled it—and following up this assertion by spending a day in bed in a ghastly state after having been compelled to wear it to a charity dinner. A bezel-set porcelain brooch depicting the ruins of the Roman Forum had also been abandoned, as well as a bracelet of finest scarlet rose-cut Bohemian garnets, and an exquisite die-stamped hair ornament covered in seed pearls. Piece by piece, her entire collection—including new items Mr. Treadwell brought home in an effort to lift her spirits—were banished to a safe despite the protests of her husband and the coaxing of her servants. When asked why she would not wear them, Mrs. Treadwell insisted that they must have been treated with some noxious compound, hinting strongly that only Mr. Treadwell could have cause to detest her so.
“And do you?” Holmes interrupted blandly.
“Of course not.” Mr. Treadwell’s jaw jutted, and I thought I had been wrong to compare him to a lion—an alley tom would have been more accurate, all cocky swagger without gravitas. “She felt guilty, that was all. Guilt over her failure at running a household, guilt over comforting herself with another man, no doubt. God, the mere thought makes me ill, but I must steel myself to stay the course, since the pair of you are going to prove the latter conclusively.”
“Failure at running a household?” I repeated when Holmes looked as if this assessment of the task at hand was causing him physical anguish. “Has that particular shortcoming to do with the melancholy to which you referred?”
“Indeed, yes. Alice is periodically quite useless.” Mr. Treadwell made a dismissive clicking sound. “Many’s the time I tried to explain to her what a privilege it is to want for nothing, to oversee bounty instead of penury, but to no avail. It’s a good thing for Alice’s sake that she’s so comely and tractable, or she’d have nothing to recommend her at all—the flighty girl never attends to a word I say.”
“What a shocking lapse,” Holmes said without inflection, and for the remainder of the journey, all three of us wisely held our tongues.
We arrived at a costly townhouse of pure white stone, with cheerful white shutters and windows which sparkled like brilliants in the increasing glow of the ivory-hued easterly sun. Like its owner, it announced itself as rich without the need for gauche trappings, and I wondered whether in two years’ time Alice Treadwell had managed to put any stamp of her own upon the dwelling. Having myself not long previous escaped a dismal life at a featureless hotel in the Strand, having nothing to do and no one with whom to do it, I could not help feeling sympathy for any fellow creature in a similar state of metaphorical homelessness. In contrast, while 221B Baker Street was already as suffused with Sherlock Holmes as its atmosphere was with shag tobacco—a phrenology skull wearing a jaunty fez in the corner, letters pinned to the mantel with a jackknife, several delicate chemistry pipettes carefully thrust into the soil of a potted plant for safekeeping—it was wholly mine as well, littered with my books and journals and cigar ends.
Holmes popped out of the cab as if propelled from a slingshot, and I followed suit as Mr. Treadwell paid the fare. The uneasiness which had plagued me only increased with proximity to our goal.
“Holmes,” I whispered, “I understand that we must see her, but we cannot intend to walk inside and announce ourselves as—”
“Of course not,” he replied stridently. “We are insurance assessors. Isn’t that right, Mr. Treadwell?”
“Whatever you like, so long as you get some results,” Mr. Treadwell barked.
When we entered the sitting room, we found a young and lovely woman reclined in an armchair, reading a volume of French poetry. My heart sank when I saw that I had been largely correct in my fanciful vision of Mrs. Alice Treadwell. Her hair was of a pale butter yellow, done up simply and shining in the golden lamplight, and her equally delicate face was quite bloodless save for the natural blush upon her lips. Upon further scrutiny, I wondered whether Holmes’s grotesquely far-fetched suggestion
of monkshood poisoning might not be correct after all, for this was not the natural pallor of a life spent listlessly indoors, that unfortunate affliction which plagues too many of our well-bred young society ladies, but rather the chalky whiteness of ill health. I thought additionally that he had been right to reject the calumny of infidelity, for there was such a spiritual air about her that I could not imagine a duplicitous nature behind the translucent skin. Alice Treadwell was in every apparent sense a woman of statuesque beauty and refined sensibilities, and when she looked up at us in startlement, I loathed our duplicitous errand no matter how intrigued Holmes was by her aversion to gemstones or how justified we were in wanting to ascertain she was safe.
“Who are these men, Lucien?” she inquired softly, rising and summoning a tired smile to her face.
“A Mr. Holmes and Mr. Watson, here to examine the house and make an offer on a new insurance policy,” he explained gruffly. “I see that you’ve been reading the morning away again, eh, Alice?”
“It is not yet nine o’clock,” she replied, but her tone was as docile as a shadow.
“You are quite right to think it unconscionably early, Mrs. Treadwell, and I do beg your pardon over the interruption to your day,” Holmes apologized, extending his hand as if to a frightened forest creature. “We must have a brief look around your home in order to assess its size, study its moldings and finish work, and cast an eye over your furniture, but we wouldn’t dream of disturbing you personally. Won’t you excuse us so that we might leave you in peace all the more swiftly?”
“Be my guest,” she agreed through her evident confusion.
“Mr. Treadwell, we shan’t require you either, in fact rely upon your absence to make an impartial report!” Holmes added, grasping me by the shoulder and steering me precipitately out. “We’ll just take some preliminary notes before rejoining you! This way, Watson; we passed the staircase as we came in.”
Upon the instant we had regained the front hall and Holmes had smoothly shut the double doors in our wake, he pivoted to face me with a strange fire in his eyes that had not been present in the cab. For a moment, he looked almost angry, before his inscrutable features subsided into better-veiled agitation.
“It is not aconitine poisoning.”
“No? But how can you be sure?”
“Two of the valuables she abandoned according to her husband, the brooch and the hair ornament, could not possibly have been in prolonged contact with her skin.”
“Holmes, as a doctor, I must report that she appears very ill indeed—did you note her flesh’s peculiar tone?”
“My eyesight is remarkably keen, thank you.”
“Well, perhaps some credence must be given her ailment.”
“Oh, she is not at all well; it is simply not the fault of aconitine poisoning.”
“Good heavens, then what is the matter with her? And can it be related to her gems after all?”
“Her condition and her jewelry are certainly related if my hypothesis is correct. But in order to confirm my diagnosis, Doctor, we must needs search her dressing room. Quick march!”
I hastened in the wake of Holmes’s feline tread up the richly carpeted staircase, my every instinct screaming that we were acting out of character for defenders of the fair sex. What sort of chivalry could possibly call for such skulking about? My friend, meanwhile, climbed with his head thrown back and his slim shoulders rippling with energy, hot on the trail of something entirely opaque to me. Finally, I could no longer keep silent.
“Holmes, please tell me you’re not about to break into Mrs. Treadwell’s private letter box.”
Holmes stopped in mid-stride, pivoting on the banister rail. “Can you really suppose I would do such a thing?” he asked, sounding genuinely surprised.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know quite what to suppose. Nor what we are doing.”
“I’ve a rather dark suspicion I need to clear up, Watson.”
“Regarding?”
“A very private matter.”
“To do with that lovely woman’s faithfulness to her lout of a husband?” I demanded.
“Ah, there’s your mistake, Doctor,” he returned in a much cooler tone. “You suppose us to be investigating the wrong Treadwell.”
I tried to question him over this bizarre pronouncement, but my friend silenced me with an emphatic wave of dismissal as we crossed into Mrs. Treadwell’s private bedchamber. Without an instant’s qualm he traversed the pretty room, artfully furnished and brightened with subtly rose-patterned wall hangings, examining all he saw at astonishing speed. The decorations provided a definitive answer to the query I had posed to myself outside—Mrs. Alice Treadwell had indeed carved out a space for herself, for here I glimpsed no trace of the curt braggart with whom we had just spent a long, weary hour. The thought comforted me briefly. I left off idle speculation, however, when Holmes dived for her vanity table, opening the various drawers, his pale fingers dextrously searching amongst hairpins and creams.
After a few moments of eager search I could not call fumbling, so focused was it, he pulled out a small bottle. As he held it up to the light, the acute planes of his entire aquiline face darkened. The stifled fury I had but glimpsed downstairs was revealed when his teeth flashed; an instant later, the expression had vanished.
“What is it, Holmes?”
“Theatrical concealer,” he answered. “A brand I’ve used myself. Confound it all! Pinpointing a single hornet in a swarming hive is simpler than making deductions based upon female habits. . . . But there is no blush in this drawer, and I can find no kohl either. That must account for something. Yes, yes, I fear there is no other explanation possible.”
“She wasn’t wearing kohl, or blush, or lip rouge,” I added, quite at sea. “Or not that I could tell. But we both thought her unnaturally waxen. Do you now hypothesize that this means of masking blemishes was to blame for her pallor, rather than disease?”
“Oh, undoubtedly. This specific variety produces a porcelain-smooth finish but, lacking the warming effects of stage lights, can impart a masklike quality. I employed it to portray a consumptive, but that is a tale for another occasion.”
“So why then would a woman who is obviously not seeking to artificially enhance her beauty own a bottle of concealer in the first place?”
“Very good, Watson,” he said approvingly, though his voice was grave. “Ah, there is the teak box in question, on the nightstand. Is that where she’s hidden it all, I wonder?”
“Hidden what, Holmes?”
“Mr. Treadwell!” my friend exclaimed, whirling round. His sharper ears had caught what mine had not: the sound of our client’s footsteps upon the sage green carpet at the threshold of the bedchamber door.
“Confound it, I require immediate satisfaction!” Mr. Treadwell hissed. “You are my hirelings, do you understand me, and to take such liberties within my home—”
“We were just about to fetch you,” Sherlock Holmes replied, unperturbed. “I wonder if we might be allowed a glimpse of your wife’s neglected jewelry collection?”
“It’s here.” Mollified somewhat, Mr. Treadwell drew back a velvet curtain which skirted the bottom of a side table; he revealed a small safe and began working the combination. “Are you going to get that infernal letter box open and earn your twenty pounds, Mr. Holmes?”
“That may not prove necessary after all,” Holmes replied. Mr. Treadwell swung the thick door of the tiny safe open and my friend descended to one knee, lifting one or two radiant trinkets and holding them under a lamp. “And this is the entire inventory?”
“Quite a tidy fortune, eh? And for what, I ask you? A fat lot of good they do me when escorting a bare-necked girl who seems straight from the raw countryside whenever I attend a social event.” Mr. Treadwell scowled, passing a palm over his tawny hair. My friend seemed to have only cursory interest in the stones and t
heir settings, for he passed them back and our churlish host locked the safe once more. “Come, be frank with me, I’m fattening your coffers enough. Now you’ve seen them, do you think my wife a liar, or do you suppose these precious trinkets poisoned?”
“Poisonous in nature, perhaps, but certainly not poisoned.”
“What in the name of the devil is that supposed to mean?” Mr. Treadwell snarled as both men rose to their full height.
“It means that you’re in luck, and I’ve seen nearly everything I require,” Holmes trilled. “Might I prevail upon you to assist me in a small experiment which would prove my theory conclusively?”
“And just how am I meant to assist you?”
“Is there a good fire built up in the sunroom opposite the parlor?”
I confess I must have looked equally as confounded as our client when presented with this bizarre question. Fluidly, and with assurances that Mr. Treadwell must trust that my friend’s actions were absolutely essential, Holmes delivered his instructions. He and I were to interview Mrs. Treadwell in the parlor. Mr. Treadwell, meanwhile, was to find a set of rags to protect his hands, enter the sunroom, close the door behind him, and pull the damper tight shut, thereby stoking the flames into a fury. He was then to open the door, allowing the acrid plumes of smoke to flood the ground level.
I had already seen perhaps a dozen people regard my friend Sherlock Holmes as if he was in dire necessity of a strait-waistcoat, but never with such conviction as Mr. Treadwell.
“Allow me to explain, Mr. Treadwell,” Holmes expounded, tenting his fingers and tapping his thumbs against each other. “You asked whether I thought the jewels poisoned or your spouse a liar without entertaining a third possibility, and the one which I find the most likely by far. Based upon the evidence to hand, I believe your wife to be a good and faithful woman who has the misfortune to be suffering from a virulent form of hysteria.”
