A Conspiracy in Belgravia

by Sherry Thomas

  It was as if she were trying to listen to someone timidly tapping out a message in Morse code on the window, in the midst of a hailstorm.

  She pushed away from the door. The dossier from Lord Bancroft lay on her bed. She pulled out the next envelope.

  A cipher: a page of uppercase letters with no breaks.

  The clue informed her that it was a Vigenère cipher. Vigenère ciphers had been in use for centuries but were first solved only a generation ago. Mr. Charles Babbage, who managed the groundbreaking feat, did not publish his methods. But Charlotte, with a mind in search of use and a great deal of time, had made Livia compose several Vigenère ciphers, so she could learn how to decode them on her own.

  And what she learned was that solving Vigenère ciphers was an experience best compared to being kicked in the head by a distempered mule. Repeatedly—because not only was it brain-crackingly difficult, but the long, drawn-out process could not be made shorter or less tedious.

  Lord Bancroft believed this to be the kind of mental exertion that would give her pleasure?

  To be fair, before she knew exactly what solving Vigenère ciphers entailed, she had thought so, too.

  At least now she knew that Lord Bancroft had instructed his underling to select difficult cases for her—and that most certainly counted as a point in his favor.

  A Caesar cipher, despite its majestic name, was a simple one, in which each letter of the plaintext was replaced by another letter a fixed number of positions up or down the alphabet. In a Caesar cipher with a right shift of 2, for example, A was replaced by C, B by D, and so on.

  The Vigenère cipher incorporated the principle of Caesar ciphers. First, Charlotte constructed a tabula recta, a twenty-six-by-twenty-six square that represented all possible letter-to-letter substitution schemes.

  If she were writing the cipher, this would be the point at which she chose a keyword.

  To encode the sentence CHARLOTTE IS SHERLOCK, with the keyword HOLMES, she would write the following:

  CHARLOTTEISSHERLOCK

  HOLMESHOLMESHOLMESH

  In coding the first letter C, one consulted column C, row H of the tabula recta. The next letter was to be found at the intersection of column H, row O. The process was repeated as many times as there were letters in the original message. In the end, the cipher text would read:

  JVLDPGAHPUWKOSCXSUR

  But since someone else had chosen the keyword for this cipher, Charlotte must first find out what it was. She examined the huddle of letters that formed the cipher text, looked for repeated sequences, and counted the number of letters between each iteration of the same sequence—to help determine the length of the keyword.

  By the stroke of midnight, her temples throbbed. Mr. Babbage, in fact, had turned down the opportunity to decipher King Charles I’s coded letters—probably because his head still ached from the Vigenère ciphers.

  She rose and walked to the window. Almost immediately she saw Lord Ingram in her mind’s eye. Winter, two months after his wedding, at a house party in the country. She had come upon him outside, on a snow- and mistletoe-draped terrace. He had been smoking, his head tilted back, blowing a leisurely stream of smoke into the air.

  His eyes had been closed—and he had smiled at the overcast sky. At what he believed to be a benevolent universe.

  “Hullo, Holmes,” he said, his shoulders relaxed, his eyes still closed, and a trace of smile still on his lips. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I knew it was you?”

  “You’d tell me because no one else would stand here without saying anything.”

  He laughed and opened his eyes. “It’s you all right, Holmes.” He took a drag on the cigarette. “You look different. Have you lost weight?”

  She had. “No,” she said. “You look happy. Marriage must agree with you.”

  “It does indeed.” He was magnanimous in his happiness, refraining from reminding her that she had warned him against this particular match. “You should give it a try.”

  He and his wife had come back only a few days ago from their honeymoon, their return more than a fortnight late. They had arrived at the house party in the afternoon but had not made an appearance at dinner. Lady Ingram was said to be a little under the weather.

  Charlotte felt as if she had been harpooned. “You’re going to be a father, aren’t you?”

  Present-day Charlotte turned away from the window.

  It was the most joyous she had ever seen him. She’d never trusted that joy, but to look back, knowing exactly how false its foundation had been, how ephemeral its soap-bubble brightness . . .

  She marched back to the desk and reimmersed herself, almost gratefully, in the mind-pulverizing tedium of the Vigenère cipher.

  Six

  MONDAY

  Livia didn’t mind music. But she would enjoy a soiree musicale much better if she could dance—or read. Dancing, however, was not to be had, and reading would be profoundly frowned upon. So she had no choice but to listen, bored, irritated, and worried—her usual state of mind—as the soprano warbled on.

  When the broad Italian woman hit another glass-scratching high note, Livia simply had to get out. She had taken care to sit in the back of the drawing room, at the edge of a row of chairs. Her mother glared at her as she rose. Livia headed toward the cloakroom—she didn’t need to use it, but Lady Holmes would be less likely to follow if she believed Livia had gone to answer a call of nature.

  When she was far enough from the drawing room, she leaned against a half pillar in the passage. Whose house was she in? Oh, what did it matter? The Season was drawing to a close. Soon London would empty, and Livia would take part in the exodus.

  Usually, by this point in July, despite the disappointment of having once again failed to secure a husband, she would be more than ready to return to the country, so as not to be obliged to constantly smile, nod, and make pleasant conversation, in a futile quest to prove herself worthy of that holy grail, matrimony.

  But this time Charlotte would not be coming with her. This time she would truly be all alone.

  At the sound of approaching footsteps, she straightened hastily. A woman turned the corner from the direction of the cloakroom. Lady Ingram. She had arrived late to the soiree, after the first piano recital had already begun. But the hostess had been overjoyed to see her and had hovered about her for an indecent length of time.

  Lady Ingram appeared equally startled to run into Livia. “Miss Holmes.”

  “Lady Ingram.”

  They had rarely spoken to each other before. Lady Ingram surrounded herself with women who were as cool and sophisticated as she. And the power of their combined beauty and influence was such that Livia was afraid to go near. She was invisible enough as it was without placing herself in the shadows cast by such luminosity. And she was also proud enough not to want to be seen as a hanger-on, someone who would never be accepted into the group but was allowed to exist at its periphery, a barnacle on an otherwise sleek ocean liner.

  There was a moment of awkward silence. Then Lady Ingram said, with a small smile, “I don’t know about you, Miss Holmes, but I, too, prefer singing that doesn’t threaten to pierce my eardrums.”

  Livia was astonished. This woman was almost . . . approachable. Who was she? “And here I thought I gave a convincing impression of someone who needed to visit the cloakroom.”

  Lady Ingram laughed softly, not with ridicule but with understanding. For some reason Livia couldn’t shake the impression that there was something else to her expression. A weariness, perhaps.

  Fatigue.

  “Are you well, Miss Holmes?”

  The question arrived so unexpectedly; Livia felt almost . . . ambushed. “Ah, I am—tolerably well. You, my lady?”

  “Also tolerably well, I suppose.” Was that an ironic curve to Lady Ingram’s lips? “And Miss Charlotte, have you any news of
her?”

  Since Charlotte had run away, other than ladies Avery and Somersby, Society’s leading gossips, no one had brought her up in front of Livia. Her parents might argue about Charlotte with each other, but they didn’t involve Livia in those discussions. Even Lord Ingram, Charlotte’s most trusted friend, had refrained from speaking her name, the one time he had called on Livia, shortly after Charlotte had made her escape. Livia had been the one to do so, feeling as if she’d broken a cardinal law.

  But now Lady Ingram asked about Charlotte. Without malice. And conversationally, as if Charlotte had gone on a trip to Amazonia, rather than fallen through the floor of ignominy.

  Lady Ingram, of all people.

  Charlotte, being Charlotte, had no particular feelings toward Lady Ingram. Lady Ingram, on the other hand, had always been less than friendly to Charlotte. It was Livia’s belief that in the days of antiquity, Lord Ingram had rather relished those displays of frostiness on the part of his future wife. But Lady Ingram had never warmed up to Charlotte, not after she had secured Lord Ingram’s hand in marriage, not even after their estrangement. In fact, her coolness toward Charlotte had become even more pronounced after everyone learned that she had married her husband solely for his inheritance. This Livia had never understood: Why this antagonism toward his friend when she didn’t even want his love?

  Perhaps Lady Ingram had at last realized that Charlotte had never been a threat to her position. Perhaps that Charlotte had been ruined by a different man gave her a better sense of Lord Ingram’s propriety of conduct all these years. Or perhaps Charlotte’s downfall had been so extreme, her fate so unknown—at least to the general public—that even Lady Ingram was moved to a measure of pity and concern.

  “I’m—I’m afraid not,” said Livia, belatedly realizing she still hadn’t answered. “We’ve had no news of her.”

  “And that’s the worst, isn’t it, the waiting?”

  Livia was taken aback to see Lady Ingram’s throat move, as if she weren’t merely being polite, but was recalling—or even experiencing—her own agony at the disappearance of a loved one. At being left behind to drown in uncertainty and despair.

  “You are right about that, ma’am.”

  Lady Ingram smiled. “If you’ll excuse me, Miss Holmes, I believe I’m needed at home.”

  Long after they had parted company, Livia still saw Lady Ingram in her mind’s eye, her smile full of regret and desolation.

  TUESDAY

  Charlotte rubbed her eyes.

  Livia was the night owl in the family, able to stay up for forty-eight hours at a stretch and need only a brief nap before she was good as new again. She also skipped meals without feeling the effects of an empty stomach. Charlotte, on the other hand, adhered to a rigorous schedule: She needed to be fed ’round the clock and enjoyed her sleep almost as much as she enjoyed her food.

  Therefore, Charlotte was not accustomed to scraping along on four hours of sleep. But that was all she’d had the past two nights thanks to the onerous Vigenère cipher from Lord Bancroft’s dossier.

  But better that than lying in bed thinking about Lord Ingram, Lady Ingram, and Mr. Finch. Not to mention Lord Bancroft’s proposal.

  She rubbed her eyes again. She must look lively. Sherlock Holmes’s next client was already here. The parlor door opened and Mrs. Watson ushered in Mrs. Morris.

  Mrs. Morris, according to her letter, was married to a naval captain currently at sea. In his absence she had decamped to London to look after her aging father.

  The aging father had been a physician in his prime: The handbag Mrs. Morris carried was larger and sturdier than the usual ladies’ accessory and would have served capably as a doctor’s bag in its former life. In fact, it must have been a doctor’s bag very recently—it was new enough to have been acquired within the past year.

  So the good doctor had retired not long ago—and since he wouldn’t have invested in a new bag knowing he was quitting the practice, the retirement must have been a somewhat abrupt decision.

  As Mrs. Morris set down the rain-flecked bag, Charlotte noticed that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Nor did her ring finger show the telltale mark left by a ring that had recently been taken off for cleaning.

  “Mrs. Morris to see you, miss,” said Mrs. Watson.

  Charlotte shook hands with the woman, who was in her midthirties, pretty in an anemic fashion, her demeanor eager but brittle.

  The usual pantomime ensued. Tea was offered. Mrs. Watson left to sit with “Sherlock Holmes.” This was usually the point at which Charlotte asked her clients whether they needed proof of Sherlock’s deductive powers. But to Mrs. Morris she wasn’t sure whether she ought to mention anything she had observed.

  Regulations to the contrary, for as long as there had been a navy, the wives of naval officers—not all of them, but the more intrepid ones—had gone on tours of duty with their husbands. And if Mrs. Morris didn’t care for life as one of a handful of women sharing cramped quarters with an overwhelmingly male population, she could always travel to ports of call where her husband would be spending considerable amounts of time ashore.

  But Charlotte wasn’t convinced that Captain Morris was in fact at sea.

  Or that Mrs. Morris was staying with her father solely because she wished to look after the latter.

  She had arrived on foot. But the debris clinging to the soles and edges of her boots made it clear that she hadn’t been slogging through the streets of London. Rather, she had taken a walk in Regent’s Park. A vigorous one, too, judging by the grimy streaks on the inside of her boots, which could only have been made by herself.

  It was not pouring outside—that had happened during the small hours of the night, while Charlotte was still bent over the Vigenère cipher. But it was drizzling and had been for a while. Would a woman who thought this a good day for a brisk walk in the park shy away from traveling the world with her husband?

  More importantly, she was wearing her second-best pair of Wellington boots.

  If one didn’t count the pair Henrietta had left behind when she got married, Charlotte didn’t have galoshes—not even in the country, as she preferred to enjoy rainy days from inside a firmly shut window, with a cup of hot cocoa by her side.

  Livia, however, lived in her Wellington boots. And she had a second-best pair, which were ancient and used when she was certain she’d face plenty of sludge on her walk. As opposed to her best pair, donned when she suspected she might encounter, but still had hopes of avoiding, muddy puddles.

  Even Livia brought only her best pair to London.

  Would a woman who was only visiting bring her second-best pair?

  “You mentioned in your letter, Mrs. Morris, that you learned about my brother from Mrs. Gleason, who came to see him not too long ago.”

  “That’s right. Mrs. Gleason and I belong to the same charity knitting circle and she had nothing but high praise for you. So yesterday, when I couldn’t possibly go another moment without speaking to someone about my fears, I thought of you. Thank you for seeing me so soon.”

  They could scarcely make her wait, when she wrote that she was afraid for her health, and possibly even her life.

  “Not at all. Given that you’ve spoken to Mrs. Gleason, I assume you are familiar with how I help my brother in his work.”

  “Yes. Mrs. Gleason’s account gave me every confidence in Mr. Holmes.”

  “Excellent, now how may we help you?”

  “I believe I told you that when my husband is at sea, I stay in London with my father,” began Mrs. Morris. “London is a livelier place, of course, but I also promised my mother, before she passed away, that I would always look after my father. Her own father, you see, retired at sixty and promptly went into a decline.

  “My father was a very successful physician. He and his old housekeeper, dear Mrs. Foster, retired at about the same time. Th
e new housekeeper, Mrs. Burns, came highly recommended. And I can’t complain about her work. But—” Mrs. Morris twisted her handkerchief. “But with my father home so much, I’m afraid, well, I’m afraid it has led to designs on Mrs. Burns’s part.”

  “Oh?”

  That simple prompt seemed to provoke a fit of uncertainty. Mrs. Morris reddened, swallowed, and twisted her handkerchief some more. “I hope Mr. Holmes doesn’t think me ridiculous. After all, even as great a mind as his can’t prevent Mrs. Burns from wooing my father. But that isn’t all she is doing. I’ve reason to believe she’s trying to poison me.”

  Charlotte had more or less expected such an account: To someone in Mrs. Morris’s position, danger was more likely to arise from inside her own household.

  “What brought on this particular concern?” she asked.

  “I know I don’t look it, but I’m in exceedingly robust health—everyone will tell you that. I never have the sniffles, never need smelling salts, never have any aches and pains at all. My father says that I can eat rocks and horseshoes without being the worse off. But this week I felt awful twice, both times after eating biscuits made by Mrs. Burns. And no one else in the house was the least bit unwell.”

  Charlotte poured herself another cup of tea. “Please describe the circumstances of each occasion.”

  “The first time was five days ago. I came home from calling on some acquaintances and took coffee with my father. A housemaid brought the biscuits. I handed the plate to my father; he took his pick and I took mine. We spoke for some time about our day. I didn’t eat the biscuit until we were almost about to rise from the table. By the time I reached my room, ten minutes later, I was in agony.”

  “What were your symptoms?”

  “My throat burned. And I don’t mean that it was scratchy. The whole of the back of my mouth felt as if it had been flayed raw with a rough rope. I hurt so much I could scarcely breathe.”