Chapter Eight
Mr. Underwood’s mistress, Mrs. Claiborne, had an address in St. John’s Wood.
It was an excellent neighborhood in which to keep one’s mistress, especially if one wished to be discreet. The area was not too fashionable, yet not too remote. The rent was affordable. Freestanding houses on larger lots, called villas, rare in Mayfair and Belgravia, were more plentiful in these parts. With spacious gardens, and driveways that curved under large porticos, a man could visit his paramour regularly without ever being seen by nosy neighbors.
Mrs. Claiborne, however, lived in a row of town houses packed as tight as matches in a box.
Lord Bancroft had cautioned Miss Charlotte that Mrs. Claiborne, concerned for her safety, no longer answered the front door. Miss Charlotte and Mrs. Watson therefore approached from the back.
The alley behind a row of town houses, at the best of times, smelled of horses. In the heat of August, all the uncollected droppings in all the mews had aged to a fine stench. The onslaught of odors made Mrs. Watson’s head throb.
Miss Charlotte had given her an account of the meeting with Lord Bancroft, and Mrs. Watson didn’t believe a single word the man had said. She could only hope that this whole rigmarole wasn’t some horrible trap. No, she knew it to be a horrible trap; she simply didn’t know yet what would trigger its razor-sharp steel maw to snap shut around them.
But for the sake of everyone in Paris, they had to keep Lord Bancroft happy. And if that meant finding Mr. Underwood—or his corpse—then so be it.
Mrs. Claiborne’s mews was empty, neither horse nor carriage stowed therein. The ladies sidestepped fresh knolls of equine excreta, entered Mrs. Claiborne’s tiny back garden on the other side of the alley, and rang the bell.
The curtain on the window next to the door fluttered. “Who is it?” called out a voice speaking with a soft but noticeable French accent.
“Miss Holmes and Mrs. Hudson,” answered Miss Charlotte. “We are here to see Mrs. Claiborne on behalf of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, at Lord Bancroft Ashburton’s request.”
The door opened immediately.
Most men chose mistresses on the basis of physical attractiveness. Even so, Mrs. Claiborne was exceptionally lovely—her eyes made Mrs. Watson think of a starlit sky, and her figure was superb. She wore a white blouse and a skirt in the same shade of sky blue as the ribbons that trimmed her lacy sleeves.
A very pretty ensemble that might have been a bit too pastel for a woman in her early thirties were it not for the crispness of the fabric and the simplicity of the cut.
“Thank goodness you’re here!” she cried. “When Lord Bancroft said that he’d have Mr. Sherlock Holmes help me, I thought he meant only to keep me from losing my mind. Do please come in!”
The visitors folded their parasols and entered the house. The ground floor felt dim and smelled a little stale. The upstairs parlor Mrs. Claiborne ushered them into, its drapes completely drawn, turned out to be gloomier and even more airless.
“My apologies—I wasn’t expecting callers.”
But instead of pulling back the curtains, Mrs. Claiborne turned on all the lamps in the room, revealing a profusion of red velvet and golden fringes. The curtains, the upholstery, and even the piano cover used the same fabric and trimming—Mrs. Watson had visited less exaggerated theaters.
Their hostess plumped seat cushions, offered chairs to her visitors, put water to boil, and set out plates of cake. “Please allow me to thank you again, ladies, for coming to my aid.”
Relief and gratitude shone in her eyes—yet they couldn’t quite hide the panic simmering underneath. Mrs. Watson felt an involuntary twinge of sympathy. Sternly, she warned herself not to get carried away. She’d heard this story before—a lonely woman desperately seeking her lost beloved—and this time around she refused to be deceived.
Miss Charlotte, her purple-and-white-striped day dress clashing overwhelmingly with the décor, said, after they’d spent a few minutes on small talk, “I understand that you began to worry when letters and visits from Mr. Underwood ceased. Can you elaborate a little, beginning with how he became a…regular member of your household?”
Mrs. Claiborne perched at the edge of her chair. There had been a magazine lying there, which she’d picked up and set on her lap. Her thumb rubbed against the edge of the publication. “Well, um, I was under Lord Bancroft’s protection for three years. Then one day he told me that it was time to let me go, because he wished to court a young lady and his brother advised him not to keep a mistress at the same time, if he wished his suit to succeed.”
Mrs. Watson barely managed not to glance at Miss Charlotte. So Mrs. Claiborne had lost her livelihood because Lord Bancroft decided to pursue Miss Charlotte’s hand in marriage?
“He was generous,” Mrs. Claiborne carried on, “and made me a gift of the house I was living in—not this town house but a villa on Prince’s Grove Close. The villa, as it turned out, became a contributing factor in Mr. Underwood’s decision to approach me.
“He was very straightforward. Were it not for the fact that I already had my own place thanks to Lord Bancroft, he said, he would not be able to maintain me in a similar style. But since I did have the house, would I be amenable if he footed the bill for my staff, carriage, and cattle, and a certain number of new garments each season?
“His frankness…had an unexpected effect on me. I confessed that over the years, in my boredom, I’d frittered away too much pin money—and must now save in earnest for the future.” Color crept into Mrs. Claiborne’s cheeks. She lowered her face to warm a teapot with freshly boiled water. “I meant to reduce my staff, get rid of my horse and carriage, and not invest in new frocks for at least three years. But if he would hand me in cash what he would have paid for those luxuries, I’d consider having him as my protector.”
Mrs. Watson was fascinated. She herself had been in the same profession but had never negotiated face-to-face with prospective protectors. Instead, she had brokered deals with their men of business to translate whatever your heart desires, darling into exact, transferable amounts.
She was also intrigued by Mrs. Claiborne’s tendency to blush, surely a rarity among kept women. But perhaps this was precisely what her protectors liked, that someone who sold her favors for a living could still appear maidenly and easily flustered.
“Mr. Underwood was amenable to my idea,” Mrs. Claiborne went on. “Lord Bancroft gave his blessing. I made my domestic reductions, Mr. Underwood deposited money into my bank account, and…well, to answer your question, Miss Holmes, that was how he came to be a member of my household.”
Miss Charlotte took a slice of cake. “The two of you got along well then, I take it?”
“We did.” Mrs. Claiborne had not looked anyone in the eye while she made confessions about her personal finance, but now she slowly raised her face, her expression dreamy. “With Lord Bancroft, I was always nervous. He wanted the best in everything, and I was convinced that I didn’t measure up. But Mr. Underwood wasn’t shy in telling me that he felt downright fortunate that I accepted him.
“Otherwise, he didn’t talk much, which suited me just fine. He was happy to study the papers while I played the pianoforte. And he liked to hear me read aloud from books and magazines while he nursed a drink.”
She patted her blouse, near the third closely spaced button from the top. Mrs. Watson, who had once worn a locket with her wedding photograph inside, wondered whether Mrs. Claiborne didn’t have a locket, too, under the blouse.
“Last September, he asked me to marry him. I said yes. I wanted to post banns, but he said a special license would be better—he didn’t want it known to people who might not be kindly disposed toward him that he would soon have a wife. He thought it could be dangerous for me, and that, in turn, would be dangerous for him, too.”
“Did that concern you, his fear?”
Mrs. Claiborne covered the diamond ring on her left hand—her engagement ring, probably—as if to protect it. “Miss Holmes, Mrs. Hudson, you must understand, my mother, she, too, was a courtesan. That’s what we are sometimes called in Paris, women destined to be wealthy men’s mistresses. And that was what she trained me to be, except I was never that good at it.
“Marriage would at last halt my progress toward life as a failed old cyprian—I was jubilant about never having to reel in another protector. That relief was real, whereas the danger Mr. Underwood mentioned seemed hypothetical.
“But I was wrong, of course. One dreadful day, Mr. Underwood didn’t come home. Instead, he sent a message saying that Lord Bancroft had been arrested and he himself must go into hiding for a while.”
Mrs. Claiborne riffled the edges of the magazine’s pages, deaf to the sibilant susurration produced by her nervous tic. “He had always instructed me not to keep any correspondence from him, but I’d kept them in secret. That night I burned everything—letters, bills, photographs, anything with his name or face on it. The next day I dismissed everyone from my already-reduced household staff.
“Mr. Underwood slipped into the house one night and told me that he might flee to America or Australia at some point but he couldn’t abandon Lord Bancroft just yet. From that point onward, he wrote me twice a week. Sometimes he didn’t send letters, only an empty envelope, so that I could tell by the postmark where he’d been. But I burned even those.
“The regularity of those letters lulled me into a false sense of security. I began to dream of our future in a distant land, where no one would know anything about us and we’d have that ordinary life I’d always wished for. And then his letters stopped.”
Abruptly Mrs. Claiborne rose, went to the window, and peered around the edge of the curtain. Mrs. Watson came half out of her own chair.
Mrs. Claiborne turned around. “I’m sorry. There was nothing, but I’m jumpy these days.”
Mrs. Watson slowly sat back down, the room’s stuffy warmth an abrading heat just inside her collar.
“You are sure everything is all right?” asked Miss Charlotte.
“Yes, I’m sure.” Mrs. Claiborne smiled tightly. She tugged at a few tassels on the fringe of the red velvet curtain. “When Mr. Underwood’s letters stopped, I tried to bide my time, because he’d asked me not to panic if a single letter went astray. But after a week went by, I couldn’t wait any longer.
“I went to see Lord Bancroft, worried sick that he would tell me it was nothing to lose sleep over. Fortunately his lordship was as alarmed as I was—I mean, he was calm and not in tears, but you could tell the news did not please him at all.
“He said he’d get me help. I wasn’t sure I believed him, but here you are, beyond all expectations.” She gazed at Miss Charlotte, her expression that of a believer near the end of her pilgrimage, desperate to witness a miracle. “Miss Holmes, your brother is a legend in the making—I read all about the double murder last December. I’m thrilled to have his assistance, especially since Lord Bancroft told me that he excels at finding missing persons.”
Did she not know that one such missing person had been killed by perhaps none other than Mr. Underwood himself, on Lord Bancroft’s orders? And had no one told her that Sherlock Holmes was responsible for Lord Bancroft’s current incarceration, however bucolic and genteel?
But perhaps Mrs. Claiborne, with her ardent desire for a calm and stable domestic life, was the kind of woman from whom men who did awful things kept those things hidden, so that they, too, could enjoy a pretense of normalcy, a cocoon in which their hands did not drip with blood.
After all, did Mrs. Watson not sense a desire in herself to shield Mrs. Claiborne from the knowledge that representatives of Sherlock Holmes were here against their will, their “assistance” secured by loathsome means?
Mrs. Claiborne must not have expected a profound silence to greet her account of events. She glanced uneasily from Miss Holmes to Mrs. Watson, then back again.
Miss Charlotte set down her biscuit plate and rearranged her already beautifully draped skirt. “Lord Bancroft seems to think that Mr. Underwood might have enemies stemming from his sponsorship of some boxers who compete in fights that are not precisely legal.”
“I suppose that’s possible,” said Mrs. Claiborne hesitantly. “Mr. Underwood spoke very little about boxing—he was glad that I didn’t like the sport.”
“Did he say anything about the boxers he sponsored?”
“Only that there were three of them, somewhere near New Cross—I think, but I’m not sure. I rarely venture farther afield than Oxford Street.”
“Anything else you can tell us that might lead us to find Mr. Underwood?”
“But I know so little of the rest of Mr. Underwood’s life.” Mrs. Claiborne blinked rapidly. Judging by the sudden brilliance of her eyes, she was trying to hold back tears.
Miss Charlotte folded her hands in her lap and leveled her inscrutable regard at Mrs. Claiborne. “Is this really all that you can tell me?”
Mrs. Claiborne swallowed. Possibly in an unconscious imitation of Miss Charlotte, who radiated composure, she, too, clasped her hands in front of her. But her new posture only made Mrs. Watson feel tense from shoulder to wrist.
“Ladies, will you promise never to tell Mr. Underwood what I’m about to tell you?”
“We take client confidentiality very seriously,” answered Miss Charlotte.
This was no promise at all, yet Mrs. Claiborne exhaled. She crossed to the sideboard and drank from a silver flask. With her fingertips, she flicked at the corner of her lips. “The last time Mr. Underwood visited me in person, six weeks ago, I woke up at night to the sound of men in a heated conversation. I recognized Mr. Underwood’s voice but not the other person’s.
“They were downstairs in the entry, and Mr. Underwood was warning the man not to come to the villa again. Shortly after that he showed the man the door. And the very next day, he found this town house and I moved.”
Mrs. Watson did think that the town house had all the signs of having been leased fully furnished and in a great hurry, as the décor was completely at odds with the soft-hued elegance of Mrs. Claiborne’s attire.
“Describe the man who argued with Mr. Underwood that night.”
“Mr. Underwood didn’t call him by name, only ‘you swine.’ As he was leaving, I saw a large scar on his face, running down the entire left side of his cheek. I assumed that he was someone Mr. Underwood knew from boxing—so many of them had that hard, battered look, and so many of them go from incarcerated criminals to feted boxers and then back again.”
She panted, as if the account had drained her of all her strength. Incongruously, a peal of laughter erupted outside, muffled by the closed window.
Mrs. Watson stared a moment at the drawn drapes and longed for fresh air.
Miss Charlotte did not reply, even after the last echo of mirth had died down. The silence dragged. Mrs. Watson’s breaths began to whoosh in her own ears.
“Have you decided against telling us the rest, Mrs. Claiborne?” said Miss Charlotte at last.
Mrs. Claiborne jerked, then keened in the back of her throat, a sound of torment.
“Sherlock Holmes’s effectiveness depends on knowing as much as he can, going into a case,” said Miss Charlotte, her tone inexorable. “What do you want more, Mrs. Claiborne, to find Mr. Underwood or to keep your secret?”
Mrs. Claiborne covered her face with her hand. It was another minute before she let that hand fall limply to her side. “Mr. Underwood and I have dealt favorably with each other from the beginning. And I believe we will be happy in the future, too. But after he went missing, I’ve had too much time to think. As good as I am at not thinking about what I do not wish to, sometimes I can’t help but remember that at times…at times…”
“Yes?” came Miss Charlotte’s implacable prompting.
Mrs. Claiborne squeezed her eyes shut. “At times I’ve smelled perfume on him—and I don’t use fragrance.”
Mrs. Watson sighed. She herself would have never expected a protector to be faithful. But an expectation to marry changed things. In her longing for a traditional life, Mrs. Claiborne had turned a blind eye. Until she could deceive herself no longer.
Mrs. Claiborne opened her eyes again; she looked nauseated. “In the past I told myself that it must have been a female relation he found after he’d come of age, or the widow of a colleague he was kind enough to visit. But now that he’s gone without an explanation to anyone, and Lord Bancroft is sure that he hasn’t been caught by the crown…
“Maybe someone in the boxing circles wished him ill. Maybe he went away with that other woman instead. Or maybe he has left us both behind. After all, women are everywhere to be had. It would be more convenient for him to find a new mistress or two in the New World, wouldn’t it, rather than taking the trouble to export one from here?”
Silence fell again. Mrs. Claiborne returned to her seat and dropped into it.
Her motion felt like a collapse, her unhappiness a great numbness in the air.
“If I may ask, Mrs. Claiborne,” said Miss Charlotte, her bland expression unchanged, “what have you done with the villa, the one Lord Bancroft gifted you?”
She did not ignore Mrs. Claiborne’s distress but cut through it like a fast, sharp-hulled vessel parted the waves.
Mrs. Claiborne appeared bewildered. “The villa? It—it’s still there. But I don’t think you’ll find anything useful inside.”
“Nevertheless, I’d like to take a look.”
“Of course. One moment, please.”
Mrs. Claiborne returned two minutes later with a set of keys—and red-rimmed eyes.
She handed the keys to Miss Charlotte, her eyes swimming again. “Miss Holmes, in case—in case you find out that Mr. Underwood left the country with that other woman, please don’t let me know. Just tell me that he emigrated by himself.”
“I’m sure it won’t come to that, Mrs. Claiborne,” said Miss Charlotte, rising from her chair, looking as serene as the Madonna of Bruges. “I’m sure of it.”