Chapter Thirty-Three
Ten hours before the jailbreaking
Charlotte examined her walking dress. Its skirt could be detached and she had brought along a pair of bloomers for the night, for ease of movement. Should everything go well, it would be midmorning tomorrow when she and Mrs. Watson returned to London. By coming back to their hotel in walking dresses, they would appear to have taken a turn in the park—a perfectly salutary activity for a pair of law-abiding ladies.
The bell rang.
Charlotte approached the street entrance. What could it be? Another message from Lord Bancroft? Further news from Paris? As long as something hadn’t happened on Miss Moriarty’s end…
“Who is it?”
“It’s me!”
Mrs. Claiborne?
Charlotte opened the door. Mrs. Claiborne had not come alone: Mrs. Farr stood beside her, a patch over her blind eye. Her hair was smoothly chignoned, her dress modest but handsome and well-fitted. Her hat even featured some ribbons and a bow in black velvet.
Charlotte stood aside to let the two black-clad women enter. She was short on time, but Mrs. Farr did not make idle calls.
Indeed, Mrs. Farr wasted no time getting to the point. In fact, they were still in the vestibule, but she advanced no farther. “I’ve come to apologize, Miss Holmes, for my action last night. And to thank you for your help in finding my sister last year, as I don’t believe I said anything to that effect at the time.”
Her voice had its usual heaviness, but she spoke without hesitation.
Charlotte was not sure how to respond—she had not expected to see Mrs. Farr again so soon, and she had certainly not expected expressions of either contrition or gratitude.
In the silence came the sound of the hotel entrance of the suite opening and closing and Mrs. Watson’s voice, “All right, my dear, let’s go. Lord Bancroft’s comeuppance will not happen by itself.”
?Mrs. Watson was still kicking herself in the carriage. If only she hadn’t said anything about Lord Bancroft’s comeuppance!
But she had. Miss Charlotte played a grand chess game, in which every piece had its precise function and movement. The board, on this day at least, did not include Mrs. Farr or Mrs. Claiborne. Yet they were the ones who truly mattered. The ones for whom this was not a contest of strategies but life itself, replete with devastating losses.
Still, they could have denied the women their pleas. But then Mrs. Watson had begun to waver. Seeing her irresolution, Mrs. Claiborne had pressed her point, and Miss Charlotte had sighed and said, “All right, you can come. We’ll get you some food and water, but you’ll have a very long wait in the middle of nowhere. And you absolutely must not make your presence known, especially after we reach there—probably around three o’clock in the morning—until you hear from me otherwise.”
Lawson had been surprised at the number of women he was to drive to the vicinity of Ravensmere, but gamely asked no questions. As the carriage wove through London’s busy afternoon traffic, Mrs. Watson cautioned the women several more times that they must remain hidden and not draw any attention to themselves.
And then silence fell.
They were on the northern outskirts of London when Miss Charlotte said, “How are Mumble and Jessie, Mrs. Farr? Are they fully recovered?”
“I hope so. They refused to take more rest. Both went to work,” said Mrs. Farr with a sigh. “We were lucky that it was you I sent them to capture—I could have put them in the way of real harm.”
She stared down at her hands, clenched in her lap, and then looked up at Miss Charlotte. “You said to me last night that I’ve become accustomed to harsher methods. You’re right. Looking back, it seems I’ve only ever taken extreme measures.”
“Yours has long been a difficult lot,” said Miss Charlotte quietly. “Your parents’ bankruptcy, their deaths, your distant relations’ unwillingness to take in a pair of impecunious girls. At sixteen, for your baby sister’s sake, you had to marry a man who was at least partially responsible for your family’s downfall.”
Mrs. Watson’s eyes widened, as did Mrs. Claiborne’s. But Mrs. Farr exhibited no surprise.
“You knew?” asked Mrs. Watson.
“Yes, I knew. I overheard my parents’ discussions.” Mrs. Farr adjusted her black eye patch, the periwinkle blue of her good eye still startling every time Mrs. Watson looked into it. “But it was Mr. Meadows or the poorhouse for Miriam.”
She laughed, a soft, bitter sound. “Maybe I should have chosen the poorhouse. Right after Miriam turned ten, he started to talk about sending her to a boarding school. To me that was the sort of place one relegated unwanted girls, but my objections fell on deaf ears. He was determined, and Miriam was excited at the prospect of friends her own age.
“Then, right before we left for Garwood Hall for Christmas, I found a letter in his pocket that declared his intention to more or less sell Miriam to his debtor, who had a penchant for little girls, under the excuse of sending her off to a girls’ school after the New Year.
“We could not flee—he was careful never to put any money in my hands. Had I known Mrs. Harcourt better at that time, I’d have sought her help. But there was only one idea in my head, and that was I must kill him, so that he could not do this to Miriam.”
She looked weary and hollow.
Mrs. Watson thought of that young woman, on that ice-cold night, struggling across a ledge as narrow as her own feet, with nothing to hold on to except the ivy on the wall that could not have supported her weight.
She had made it back to her room and she had almost carried off the whole enterprise, except…
“Did the inspector find the letter?” asked Miss Charlotte.
“In my husband’s private safe in our house in Manchester, along with all the jewelry he’d bought so I could look pretty and shiny in front of his friends. The chief inspector also found chloral in the bottle of brandy my husband drank from on Christmas Eve, and I was the only one in the house who used chloral to sleep.”
Miss Charlotte glanced outside—they were traveling past a row of factories, spewing black smoke high into the air. “The immediate assumption would be that your beauty and your plight melted the inspector’s heart. But I don’t believe that was what happened, was it?”
Mrs. Farr’s voice turned rueful. “I didn’t have the first idea how to use my plight—or my beauty. I only knew that he was the greatest threat I’d ever faced. He seemed implacable, and I did not want to stand trial to defend myself, because then it would become public knowledge what my husband intended, and I couldn’t bear for Miriam to find out.
“So I threatened the detective inspector. I said if he charged me, I would tell everyone he fabricated the evidence because I’d rejected his inappropriate advances.”
Mrs. Watson grimaced.
“Would you like to learn something about feminine wiles, Mrs. Farr?” said Mrs. Claiborne. “It’s not too late, and I’m an expert.”
Her unexpected interjection made Mrs. Watson titter. Even Mrs. Farr chortled, a rusty sound.
“But he would have the last laugh. A few years later, I’d lost my eye and was living in the greatest squalor I’d ever known. He saw me like that and demanded to know if this was all I’d made of the second chance he’d given me.” Mrs. Farr exhaled. “It was—a most excruciating moment.”
A mountainous load of cargo pulled by a pair of dray horses, muscles straining, hooves echoing, teetered past them in the opposite direction.
“Speaking of your presence in London,” said Miss Charlotte, “and your departure from Manchester—were you being blackmailed by your brother-in-law?”
Contempt entered Mrs. Farr’s countenance. “He knew that Mr. Meadows had bankrupted my family. For years, he’d used that over Mr. Meadows, threatening to tell me if he wasn’t given another hundred pounds. Then one day Mr. Meadows said, ‘No more,’ and he did as he threatened: He told me the truth that I’d known since the very beginning.
“That was just before Christmas dinner. When my husband was found dead, this brother-in-law of mine became absolutely convinced that I’d done it in vengeance for my parents. He held his tongue before the inspector and blackmailed me by post afterward.”
“There is one thing I do not understand about the case,” said Miss Charlotte. “When you left Manchester, you did so resolutely, telling your husband’s estate that you’d married again so that no one would look for you to give you your dower. But why did you wait so long? You would have been in better financial shape had you shaken off your brother-in-law sooner.”
Mrs. Farr’s jaw moved. “I stayed because I meant to eliminate the man who had wished to purchase my sister. Miriam was safe from him, but what about all the girls who did not have sisters willing to kill for them?”
The carriage drove over a big bump in the road, but Mrs. Farr’s words jarred just as much.
“I know—I did say I’ve only ever resorted to extreme measures, didn’t I?” Mrs. Farr smiled in self-mockery. “But the man lived in a great big estate that I couldn’t get inside. And then one day he died of undisclosed causes—perhaps someone else had succeeded in ending his life—and I left Manchester within days.”
Mrs. Watson couldn’t help herself. “I know this is a terrible question, but have you never thought of doing away with Mr. Ephraim Meadows so that you and your sister could have lived in peace in Manchester?”
At her words, Mrs. Farr’s hands shook. Mrs. Claiborne rubbed her arm, trying to exert a calming influence.
“I’m sorry!” cried Mrs. Watson.
Mrs. Farr shut her eyes for a moment. “It’s all right. I had such episodes often after I killed Mr. Meadows. They went away after some years but returned again after Miriam died.
“It was terrible, cutting his throat. I always knew there would be a high price to pay. My brother-in-law’s extortion was but a part of it. My eye. The other difficulties in our first years in London, too.
“I lived looking over my shoulder. I tried to expiate for my great sin by helping as many people as possible. But I always feared that the worst was yet to come. When I found out about Miriam and those postcards, I had a terrible premonition that she’d exposed herself to the evil gaze of the world. The moment I couldn’t locate her I knew—I knew that my sins had come home to roost.”
“She did not die because of you. She died because of Lord Bancroft,” said Mrs. Claiborne, her teeth gritted.
Mrs. Farr, her shaking now under control, nodded at her. Then she looked at Miss Charlotte and Mrs. Watson. “I went wild when I thought I could finally find out who had killed Miriam. But when I learned that you had Mumble and Jessie—
“Miriam was infinitely precious to me. But so are Mumble and Jessie—and everyone else who became my children over the years. If anything had happened to them, I would not have gained Miriam back, I would have only lost Mumble and Jessie.”
Her voice broke. “They are such good, devoted children. They deserve everything in the world—except a mad old woman driving them to ruin.”
Mrs. Watson’s eyes stung with tears. She blinked them back and said, her voice croaking only a little, “Please, Mrs. Farr, I am at least a dozen years senior to you. If you’re old, then I must have been born before recorded history.”
The mood in the carriage lightened somewhat. The sun shone. The vehicle was now in open country, clacking over a stone bridge that spanned a clear little stream.
“I recently learned something that might be of interest to you, Mrs. Farr,” said Miss Charlotte.
And proceeded to tell her that Ephraim Meadows, her onetime tormentor, had spent the past twelve years incarcerated.
Mrs. Farr was silent for a whole minute, then she began to laugh, and laughed so hard she gave herself a side stitch.
“There is an even more interesting part to this,” added Miss Charlotte. “Did Chief Inspector Talbot ever learn that Mr. Ephraim Meadows had blackmailed you?”
Mrs. Farr rubbed her side. “Yes, I confessed it—I was desperate for him not to think of me as an irresponsible fool.”
“Someone sent in an anonymous tip that led to his arrest. Not long after, Chief Inspector Talbot began to handle an occasional investigation for that particular bureau of the government. I suspect that he had been the one to put Mr. Ephraim Meadows away in the first place.”
Mrs. Farr fell silent again. Then, an ineffable sadness came over the proud, dilapidated ruins of her face. “Perhaps that is the great tragedy of my life. Not that I’d encountered my share of terrible people, but that I hadn’t known to put my faith in the good ones.”