READ AN EXCERPT:
Devonshire, England
1886
Had anyone told the Honorable
Harrington Sackville that the investigation into his death would make the name
Sherlock Holmes known throughout the land, Mr. Sackville would have scoffed.
He had never heard of Sherlock
Holmes. But more importantly, he despised the idea of death. Of his death, to
be precise—others could die as they wished.
He loathed old age almost as
much: that long, vile decline into helplessness halted only by the final
breath, falling like a guillotine blade.
And yet his reflection in the
mirror made it increasingly difficult to tell himself that he was still a young
man. He remained a fit man, a handsome man, but the skin beneath his jaw
sagged. Deep grooves cut into the sides of his mouth. Even his eyelids drooped,
heavy from the passage of time.
Fear hooked through him, cold and
sharp. Every man was afraid of something. For him, death had long loomed as the
ultimate terror. A darkness with fangs.
He turned away from the
mirror—and the unwelcome thoughts that always simmered these days a scant inch
beneath the surface. It was summer. The glow of twilight suffused the house.
From his perch on the headlands, the bay blazed with the flame of the setting
sun. A hint of salt fragranced the breeze that meandered in; the top note of
that perfumed air was tuberose, bulbs of which he had imported from Grasse, in
the south of France.
But a storm was coming; inky
clouds gathered at the edge of the sky . . .
He inhaled deeply. No, he must
not let his mind wander to shadowy places. Recent weeks had been difficult—the
events in London particularly distressing—but in time things would improve. He
still had many good years left to relish life, and to laugh at death and its
still distant grasp.
No premonitions crossed his mind
that death was to have him by morning.
But have him it would—and the
last laugh.
Chapter 1
London
On the day Mr. Harrington
Sackville met his darkness with fangs, certain parties in the know were bracing
for—and eagerly anticipating—a major scandal involving the youngest member of
the Holmes family.
Lord Ingram Ashburton did not
share in their anticipation. The idea that such a catastrophe could come to
pass had haunted him for days. He did not yet know that Holmes was already
doomed, but a sense of dread had been growing in him, a tumorlike weight on his
lungs.
He stared at the envelope on the
desk before him.
Mr. Sherlock Holmes,
General Post Office,
St. Martin’s Le Grand,
London.
Any idiot could see the
frustration that seethed with every stroke of the pen—at several places the nib
had nearly torn through the linen paper.
The writing on the note next to
the envelope was equally agitated.
Holmes,
Don’t.
And if you must, not with Roger
Shrewsbury. You will regret it relentlessly.
For once in your life, listen to
me.
He dropped his forehead into his
left palm. It would be no use. Holmes would do as Holmes pleased, carried along
on that blitheness born of extraordinary ability and favorable circumstances.
Until disaster strikes.
You don’t need to let it happen,
said a voice inside him. You step in. You give Holmes what Holmes wants.
And then what? Then I carry on
and pretend it never happened?
He stared out of the open window.
His unimpeded view of the sky appeared as if seen through a lens that had been
smudged with a grimy finger—a polluted blue, a fine day for London. Peals of
irrepressible mirth rose from the small park below—his children’s laughter, a
sound that would have brought a smile to his face on any other day.
He picked up his pen.
Do not do anything without first
consulting me again.
Please.
Was he acquiescing? Was he
jettisoning all caution—and all principle as well?
He sealed the unsigned letter in
the envelope and walked out of his book-lined study, envelope in pocket. He was
scheduled to give an archeological lecture in the evening. But first he wanted
to spend some time with his daughter and son, rambunctious children at the peak
of their happy innocence.
After that he would decide
whether to post the letter or to consign it to the fire, like the dozen others
that had preceded it.
The front door opened and in came
his wife.
“Afternoon, madam,” he said
politely.
“My lord.” She nodded, a strange
little smile on her face. “I see you have not heard about what happened to your
favorite lady.”
“My favorite lady is my daughter.
Is anything the matter with her?”
He kept his voice cool, but he
couldn’t stop the hair on the back of his neck from standing up: Lady Ingram
was not talking about their child.
“Lucinda is well. I refer to . .
.” Her lips curled with disdain. “I refer to Holmes. Your Holmes.”
“How dare you humiliate me this
way?” Mrs. Shrewsbury rained down blows on her husband. “How dare you?”
The painted French fan, folded
up, made for a surprisingly potent weapon—a cross between a bolt of silk and a
police baton. Roger Shrewsbury whimpered.
He didn’t understand the way her
mind worked.
Very well, he had committed an
unforgivable error: The night before he’d been so drunk he mistook his wife for
Mimi, his mistress, and told the wife what he was going to do this afternoon
with Charlotte Holmes. But if Mrs. Shrewsbury hadn’t wanted him to deflower
Miss Holmes, why hadn’t she smacked him then and there and forbidden him to do
anything of the sort? Or she could have gone ’round to Miss Holmes’s and
slapped her for not having a higher regard for her hymen.
Instead she had mustered a
regiment of sisters, cousins, and friends, set his mother at the helm of the
entire enterprise, and stormed the Bastille just as he settled into Miss
Holmes. So how could she accuse him of humiliating her, when she was the one
who had made sure that a good dozen other women saw her husband in flagrante
delicto?
He knew better than to give voice
to his thoughts. After twenty-six years as Lady Shrewsbury’s son and three as
Anne Shrewsbury’s husband, he’d learned that he was always wrong. The less he
said, the better.
The missus continued to hit him.
He wrapped his arms around his head, made himself as small as possible, and
tried to disappear into a nice memory, a time and a place in which he wasn’t a
bounder twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
Lady Shrewsbury frowned mightily
at the young woman who sat opposite her in the brougham. Charlotte Holmes was
still, her face pale but composed.
Eerily composed, given she was
now ruined beyond repair.
So composed that Lady Shrewsbury,
who had been prepared for any amount of hysterical sobbing and frantic pleas,
was beginning to feel rattled—a sensation she hadn’t experienced in years.
Lady Shrewsbury had been the one
to throw a sheet over the girl. She had then ordered her son to go home with
his wife, and the rest of the women to disperse. Miss Holmes had not trembled
in a corner, her hands over her face. Nor had she stared numbly at the floor.
Instead she had watched the goings-on as if she were a mere bystander, one
whose own fate had not in the least taken an unthinkable turn. As Roger was
shoved out by his wife, Miss Holmes glanced at him, without anger, loathing, or
any reflection of his helplessness.
It had been a sympathetic and
apologetic look, the kind the ringleader of a gang of unruly children might
give one of her followers, after she had got the latter into unlimited trouble.
Lady Shrewsbury had fully
expected this bravado to disintegrate once the others had gone. She was famous
for her sternness. Roger, whenever he found himself alone with her, perspired
even when she hadn’t planned to inquire into what he had been doing with himself
of late.
But her formidableness had no
effect on Charlotte Holmes. When the gaggle of eyewitnesses departed to spread
the salacious story in drawing rooms all over London, Miss Holmes, instead of
dissolving into tears, dressed and ordered a considerable tea service.
Then, under Lady Shrewsbury’s
increasingly incredulous gaze, she proceeded to polish off a plate of plum
cake, a plate of cherry tartlets, and a plate of sardine and toast. All without
saying a single word, or even acknowledging Lady Shrewsbury’s presence.
Lady Shrewsbury controlled her
vexation. Silence was one of her greatest weapons and she would not be goaded
into abandoning that strategic advantage. Alas, her magnificent silence had no
effect on Charlotte Holmes, who dined as if she were a queen and Lady
Shrewsbury a lowly lackey, not worthy of even a spare glance.
When the girl was ready to leave,
she simply walked out, forcing Lady Shrewsbury to catch up. Again, as if she
weren’t a strict moral guardian escorting a fallen woman to her consequences,
but a simpleminded maid scampering behind her mistress.
The silence continued in the
brougham. Miss Holmes studied the carriages that clogged the street—shiny,
lacquered town coaches jostling for space amidst long queues of hansom cabs.
From time to time her gaze fell on Lady Shrewsbury and Lady Shrewsbury had the
distinct sensation that of the two of them, Miss Holmes considered Lady
Shrewsbury the far stranger specimen.
“Have you nothing to say for
yourself?” she snapped, unable to stand the silence another second.
“For myself, no,” Charlotte
Holmes said softly. “But I hope you will not be too harsh on Roger. He is not
to blame for this.”
Inspector Robert Treadles of the
Metropolitan Police always enjoyed an outing to Burlington House, especially to
attend Lord Ingram’s lectures. They had met via a shared ardor for
archeology—Lord Ingram had sponsored Treadles’s entry into the London Society
of Antiquaries, in fact.
But this evening his friend was
not himself.
To the casual observer, his
lordship would seem to command the Society of Antiquaries’s meeting room,
thorough in his knowledge, eloquent in his presentation, and deft with a touch
of dry humor—his comparison of the ancient family strife caused by variation in
size and ornateness of each member’s jeweled brooches with the modern jealousy
aroused by the handsomeness of a sibling’s new brougham drew peals of laughter
from the audience.
To Inspector Treadles, however,
Lord Ingram’s delivery had little of its usual élan. It was a struggle. A futile
struggle, moreover: Sisyphus pushing that enormous boulder up the hill, knowing
that it would roll away from him near the top, condemning him to start all over
again, ad infinitum.
What could be the matter? Lord
Ingram was the scion of a ducal family, an Old Etonian, and one of the finest
polo players in the world. Of course Inspector Treadles knew that no one’s
existence was perfect behind closed doors, but whatever turbulence Lord Ingram
navigated in his private life had never before been made visible in his public
demeanor.
After the lecture, after the
throng of admirers had dispersed, the two men met in a book-lined nook of the
society’s soaring library.
“I’d hoped we could dine
together, Inspector,” said Lord Ingram. “But I’m afraid I must take leave of
you very soon.”
Treadles was both disappointed
and relieved—he didn’t think he would be able to offer Lord Ingram much
consolation, in the latter’s current state.
“I hope your family is well,” he
said.
“They are, thank you. I’m obliged
to pay a call on short notice, that is all.” Lord Ingram’s words were calm, yet
there was a hollowness to his tone. “I trust we shall have the pleasure of a
more leisurely meeting in the not too distant future.”
“Certainly, my lord.”
Inspector Treadles did not mean
to delay his friend, but at that moment he remembered his other purpose for
being at Burlington House this evening. “If it isn’t too much trouble, sir, may
I ask you to convey a note to Holmes? I’m most grateful for his assistance on
the Arkwright case and wrote a few lines to that effect.”
“I am afraid that would be
impossible.”
Inspector Treadles almost took a
step back at his friend’s expression: a flare of anger that bordered on wrath.
“I understand that you are
engaged this evening, my lord,” Treadles explained hesitantly. “My note
requires no haste and needs be relayed only at your lordship’s convenience.”
“I’m afraid I didn’t make myself
clear,” said Lord Ingram. All hints of rage had left his countenance. His eyes
were blank, the set of his jaw hard. “I can’t—nor can anyone else—convey any
notes to Holmes. Not anymore.”
“I—I don’t—that is—” Treadles
stuttered. “Has something terrible happened?”
Lord Ingram’s jaw worked. “Yes,
something terrible.”
“When?”
“Today.”
Inspector Treadles blinked. “Is .
. . is Holmes still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Thank goodness. Then we haven’t
lost him completely.”
“But we have,” said Lord Ingram,
slowly, inexorably. “Holmes may be alive, but the fact remains that Holmes is
now completely beyond my reach.”
Treadles’s confusion burgeoned
further, but he understood that no more details would be forthcoming. “I’m
exceedingly sorry to hear that.”
“As am I, to be the bearer of
such news.” Lord Ingram’s voice was low, almost inaudible.
Treadles left Burlington House in
a daze, hounded by dozens of unhappy conjectures. Had Holmes leaped from a
perilous height armed with nothing but an unreliable parachute? Had he been
conducting explosive experiments at home? Or had his brilliant but restless
mind driven him to seduce the wrong woman, culminating in an illegal duel and a
bullet lodged somewhere debilitating but not instantly lethal?
What had happened to the elusive
and extraordinary Sherlock Holmes?
Such a tragedy.
Such a waste.
Such a shame.
MY REVIEW:
A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas is a 2016 Berkley publication.
Charlotte Holmes never wanted the traditional life of marriage and children. Her plan to save herself from such a fate left her in ruins, kicked out of society, and onto the streets, to fend for herself.
When three deaths occur in quick succession, Charlotte’s sister and father are prime suspects. Charlotte, with the help of her new widowed companion, a police inspector, and an old love interest, launches her own investigation, under the presumed name of Sherlock Holmes.
While Charlotte must continue to adhere to societal norms, her alter ego opens doors and passageways for her to bypass those limitations, allowing her to solidify the uncanny reputation of the great detective- Sherlock Holmes…
I read the fourth installment in this series a while back and became an instant fan, despite not knowing the entire backstory. The hints about Charlotte’s past compelled me to read the previous three installments before tackling the fifth installment. I’m so glad I did!
There are so many various Sherlock Holmes pastiches out there, some good, some not- but I always think it wise to approach such an artistic liberty with a legendary character with some skepticism. I see that the author has been quite respectful of Holmes’ observation skills, and has Charlotte expound on how she came to have such an unusual, almost spooky, talent. Thomas cleverly, and skillfully, flips the genders of familiar characters, which is absolute genius, and works beautifully!
In Charlotte’s first case, she gets a crash course in real life, learns some painful truths about her parents, and manages to solve three murders. I have a little more insight into Charlotte’s character now that I know her background and how she managed to become 'Sherlock Holmes' and how she came to know the recurring characters, or her history with them.
I am looking forward to seeing how Charlotte’s character develops from here, but, of course, let’s not forget the mysteries- which is what we came here for! The case in this book was very well constructed- and executed, and I’m looking forward to seeing the amazing Holmes solve more mysteries, along with and her supporting cast!
The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh
