continued as if there’d been no interruption in our conversation.
“Cyanide.”
Grayling nodded, then after a brief hesitation, took a seat next to me. There was a good space between us, I at one end, he at the other. But, still, it seemed odd to be sitting on a park bench, speaking casually with Inspector Grayling instead of competing with him.
“Yes, I suspect it was arsenic. There was enough residue left in the vial to test it, so we shall know in short order. There was a note and another item that will likely interest you.”
“An Egyptian scarab.”
The expression that flashed on his face was gone as quickly as it came, but it was testament to the fact that I had surprised him once again. “Aye, you are correct. There was a scarab with a Sedmet, er, Sethmet—”
“Sekhmet.”
“Right,” he said. “An image of Sekhmet was visible inside, once the object opened. The scarab was on the bed next to the vial and the note.”
“She wrote the note to make it appear as if she took her own life.”
“All indications are that she did take her own life,” Grayling said. But his voice wasn’t argumentative. It was filled with the same suspicion that echoed my own thoughts.
And what about the scarab? Did Lilly have another besides the one that had been found in her room, or had someone—the poisoner?—left another as a warning or as some sort of message? There had been a scarab found with Mayellen Hodgeworth’s body too.
All at once, one of those thoughts crystallized, and I actually started. Lady Cosgrove-Pitt had been there, at Lilly Corteville’s house, today.
“What is it, Miss Holmes? You’ve thought of something, haven’t you?”
“I . . .” I realized I couldn’t voice my suspicions. Not to him, and certainly not without more proof. But the fact that Lady Cosgrove-Pitt had been there was somehow relevant. It had to be. There were no coincidences.
I was even more determined to go to Witcherell’s tonight and see the Ankh. And, if possible, to unmask it.
Her.
“I . . . erm . . . suspect the note said something about not wanting to hurt her mother?”
Grayling fixed his eyes on me. At the moment, they appeared more green than gray, and their steady regard made me feel jittery. “Is that what you suspect?” he said in a mildly derisive voice.
“What did it say?”
“It did say something of that nature, in fact,” he said, still watching me. From his inside pocket, he pulled out the journal and the self-inking pen with the bulbous reservoir on top. After flipping through the pages, he stopped at one, paused, and then read, “ ‘I’m sorry, Mother and Father. I love you. But I can no longer live with this burden. Lilly.’ ”
I blinked rapidly, feeling the sting of unfamiliar wetness at the inside corner of my eyes. What burden had been so heavy that she couldn’t bear it and had chosen death over life?
She made the choice to leave her parents. For whatever reason, she took the poison. She left.
My throat burned and my eyes stung, and I could feel the inside of my nose dampening. Why was I so upset? I hardly knew the girl. Yet, I must have felt something akin to rage—as well as grief—toward the poor wretch. For she’d made the choice to leave her parents. To leave them behind, to leave them wondering what they’d done to deserve being abandoned.
I knew what it felt like, being abandoned. Left behind with no warning, no chance to right whatever was wrong. It was I who’d been left by one of my parents.
In fact, for all intents and purposes, I’d been left by both of them.
Grayling thrust something into my hand, and I looked down to see his handkerchief wadded in my palm. I dabbed sharply at my eyes, mortified that I’d revealed this range of emotion.
“It’s been confirmed,” I asked, aware that my voice was rough and unsteady, “that the note is in her handwriting?”
“Aye,” said Grayling. And even in that simple syllable, I could hear the thickness of his Scots burr. He wasn’t as unmoved as he appeared.
I wiped my nose and then, instead of giving him back the soiled handkerchief, I stuffed it inside the hidden pocket of my skirt. Never allow any form of emotion to color your investigation, observation, or deduction. It was that excess of emotion, Uncle Sherlock claimed, that made the female gender unable to make rational decisions and deductions. Which I’d spent my entire seventeen years of life attempting to disprove. At least, in my case.
I forced myself to thrust away any influence of my emotions and review the facts. I knew there were others Grayling either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t provided, but I could draw three theories:
Lilly Corteville had written the note and taken the poison.
Or she’d been forced to write the note, and then the poison had been forced upon her.
Or she’d written the note under some other circumstances, and it had been used at the scene of her murder in order to imply suicide.
If it truly was a suicide, where had she obtained the poison?
After a long moment of silence, Grayling spoke. “I suspect Miss Corteville obtained the poison from whoever murdered Allison Martindale and Mayellen Hodgeworth.”
“I would suspect the same,” I agreed, wondering if I should mention the Society of Sekhmet. “In which case, this is likely murder. Or accessory to murder.”
“I would concur.”
I opened my mouth to tell him what Miss Stoker and I had learned about the Ankh . . . and then closed it. Through Miss Adler’s direction, Princess Alexandra had insisted on utter secrecy about our work. She must have her reasons, and I dared not compromise them without permission.
We sat in silence for another stretch of time. It felt surprisingly comfortable, and I realized I was loath to disrupt it. But the clock at St. Bartholomew’s struck five, and I knew it was time for me to return home to prepare for my evening excursion.
As if reading my mind, Grayling stood abruptly. He looked down at me and said, “Miss Holmes, I hope you aren’t planning to visit Witcherell’s tonight.”
I was hardly able to control my surprise. Perhaps he knew more than he was telling me. Including about the Society of Sekhmet.
“It wasn’t difficult to find out where Miss Corteville was going on the night of April twenty-fifth,” he said in answer to my unspoken question. “She didn’t lie about taking a cab; she lied about the wheel breaking. The cabdriver left her at Witcherell’s and watched her walk inside. He remembered it because it was an unsavory establishment for a young woman of the gentry to be visiting. I suspect you gleaned at least that much from her during your interview, and I am just as certain that you’re planning to investigate it yourself.”
I felt a little like Uncle Sherlock must have when he realized Irene Adler had been one step ahead of him. “Inspector Grayling,” I said, thinking of the variety of accoutrements I borrowed from the Lyceum Theatre, “you might feel it necessary to visit Witcherell’s tonight, but I can assure you, Mina Holmes will not be sighted on the premises.”
Grayling looked at me long and hard before giving a brief nod. Nevertheless, his expression was filled with suspicion as he offered me his arm for our return to my residence.
When I arrived, I bid him farewell and went inside to find that a message had been delivered in my absence.
Dylan had found what he believed was Sekhmet’s diadem.
Now all we had to do was lure the Ankh to the museum so we could capture her.
Smiling to myself, I closed the door to my bedchamber and began the process of eliminating any resemblance to Miss Mina Holmes.
