while hardly that of two newlyweds expecting a first child, nonetheless seemed to indicate friendship rather than a mere business transaction. They were leaning into one another, their faces at ease, as if each were taking a pause from the world’s tumult with a similarly beset companion-at-arms. Neither seemed to place much trust in the other’s strength, but at the same time, neither seemed to think it likely that the other was an active threat. And in the sort of life their faces testified to their having led, being safe from attack was nearly as good as being protected.
Holmes laid aside the photo of Terese with Pieter and his last letter to her, put the rest back into the music box, then eased the lid down and locked it.
“She’ll notice them missing,” I remarked, not meaning it as an objection. Holmes did not take it as such, either.
“That may be for the best,” he replied as he carried the box back to the cupboard.
I could see what he meant: that Terese Hughenfort would take the missing objects as a declaration that the family was on to her scheme. However, when the monies continued to come (as I assumed they would, knowing Marsh), their arrival would send the further message that support would continue, so long as she did not attempt to foist her cuckoo’s child into the family nest.
Out on the street again, doors locked behind us and dogs safely passed, I brought out the only real disappointment of the evening’s excursion.
“It would have been nice to have some hard evidence of Sidney Darling’s involvement in the attempt to place the boy in Justice.”
Holmes was shaking his head before I had finished. “I believe you’d find that one of those occasions when the truth does more damage than a convenient lie, Russell. We still can’t be certain if Darling was planning actual fraud, or if he was simply aiming at the easiest path for everyone: giving the duke an acceptable heir, a boy with the potential of being shaped to make a master for Justice when his time comes. Darling no doubt believes that such a situation would set Marsh’s mind at rest, allowing a return to the status quo: Marsh and Alistair back to wherever they’ve been for the last twenty years, the Darlings back in charge of Justice. Nothing criminal there.”
He was right. The peculiar thing was, Darling’s goal and ours were proving to be more or less the same thing. And as I’d said before, if I had to choose a commoner to train up as a duke, Thomas Hughenfort would be an ideal candidate: a supple mind, good manners, and an unspoilt upbringing by a caring mother.
Alistair’s response to that, unfortunately, would dominate: The boy’s blood was simply not that of the Hughenforts.
There was little more to be done in Lyons, short of confronting Mme Hughenfort, which was most definitely not in our brief. We spent an hour in the morning uncovering the owner of the flat to which the mother and son had fled, finding to our utter lack of surprise that the name was that of her long-time accountant to whom cheques were sent.
We were on the next train to Paris, where we spent the night, and arrived in London to the sound of church bells.
Holmes went into the first telegraph office we could find that was open on a Sunday, to dispatch a brief message to Justice Hall saying that we were back in the country and would report soon. Then we took ourselves to a small and inordinately luxurious hotel, where we were fed and pampered and could talk the whole matter through without being overheard.
In most investigations, Holmes aimed for the truth—no less, no more. In this case, we sought the truth, but perhaps not too much of it, and preferably truth of the right sort. Marsh was both client and brother, and his fate was in our hands.
Put simply, if we loved Mahmoud, we would lie to him. A simple declaration that, yes, the boy is your brother’s son, and the huge weight of Justice would be lifted from Marsh’s shoulders, allowing him and Ali to slip out from under that estate, those walls, that role of self-mutilating service, and resume the light existence of nomads. Marsh wished to trade stone walls for those of goat’s hair as badly as his cousin did—of that we were both certain. All it would take was one word, a simple, unadorned “yes,” and our brothers would be free.
“I have, on occasion, lied to a client,” Holmes mused, addressing rather owlishly his several-times-emptied glass. “It goes against my grain, rather, but particularly in my youth I hesitated not to play God.”
“But—with Marsh?”
“There’s the rub,” he agreed. “If it were merely a matter of backing Marsh up, I should happily lie to the prime minister himself, perhaps even the king. But to keep the facts from him, to make his decision for him? That is a far different matter.”
My initial objection had been founded more on the impossibility of deceiving the man than on the immorality of doing so, but I had to agree with this argument as well.
“What do you suggest?” I asked him.
“I propose to return to the scent I was working before Mme Hughenfort led us astray.”
“Interviewing soldiers?”
“One in particular, although not a soldier. The chaplain who wrote that letter of condolence to Gabriel’s father. Hastings said he’d known Gabriel, and may well have sat with Gabriel his last night. I wrote to him before we left for France, and hope to collect his answer in the morning. Considering the bureaucratic tangle the boy appears to have been caught up in, the companion of his last hours may know more than the commanding officer.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
In the morning, however, there was no letter waiting at the small tobacconist’s shop that Holmes used for a convenience address. He scowled absently at the woman who ran the shop, then turned on his heel and left the cramped, fragrant little place. I threw a couple of soothing phrases at her and scurried after him; when I caught him up, he was deep in thought and I decided that he had been unaware both of his scowl and its effect.
“We may as well go to Sussex,” he declared. “I left at least three vital letters unanswered, a week and a half ago.”
So we went to Sussex, to tidy up the many things left dangling by Alistair’s arrival and precipitate demands. We spent the night under Mrs Hudson’s care and returned to London, and the tobacconist, in the morning. She still had no letters, and she bristled and protested in florid Cockney that she couldn’t be expected to produce a letter that never came. Holmes seemed not to think it an unreasonable expectation, and on that note we left the shop.
“I shall go to Dorking,” he declared.
“Even though the Reverend Mr Hastings may be absent?”
“The letter will have dropped through his letter-box more than a week ago. If he were away, a housekeeper would have sent it on to him. Of course, he may be ill, or out of the county; on the other hand, he may have had other, more subtle reasons for failing to respond.”
Such as being long dead, I thought, but did not say.
“Dorking is not so remote as to constitute an unreasonable waste of time,” he decided. “Come, Russell,” and so saying, he threw up his hand to summon a passing taxi cab.
The Reverend Mr Hastings’ cottage was at the end of a lane that ran from the high street towards open downland. With a ruthless hand at the pruning shears the cottage might have presented a more friendly face, but between the untrimmed ivy and the overgrown bushes in the garden, the house windows looked dully out like the eyes of a long-unshaven prisoner of war. There appeared to be no-one at home, but I thought it would look the same way even if the entire Women’s Institute had been gathered inside. We picked our way up the weedy gravel path and rang the bell.
No sound followed the clamour, but the house seemed to grow watchful, and the image of a wary prisoner returned more strongly.
