A Monstrous Regiment of Women - Laurie R. King [69]
As I read through it, and decided that Holmes could not possibly have assembled the documents himself, I gradually realised that the most interesting thing of all was not the information itself, but the way it was presented: The writing was that of one individual, distinctly a professional clerk; the ink and the paper were both uniform and fresh; the method behind the collection, although at first glance nonexistent, revealed a devious style of investigation I thought I recognised; and the sorts of information—interviews with chairwomen, the revealing contents of a dustbin, lengthy periods of following key members about—smelt of an investigator with machinations more subtle, and more extensive, than those of the official police.
It appeared that for some reason Holmes’ brother Mycroft, whose title of “accountant” for an unspecified governmental agency referred to more than fiscal matters, had become mildly interested in Margery Childe’s church several months earlier. He had begun to account for her movements, her resources, and the people she came into contact with, and when his brother had appealed for information, it was simply a matter of having a clerk copy the file. It would have taken Holmes and me weeks to duplicate the work here, and inevitably we should have missed things.
My diagnosis of a mild curiosity came not so much from the desultory nature of the information as from the actual gaps, which would never have happened had Mycroft turned his full attention to the question. There was a report of Iris Fitzwarren’s death, for example, but not the details. The full report of the inquest held on Delia Laird’s drowning the previous summer was included, but it only confirmed in greater detail what I had already learned from Veronica. The file contained various unimportant items, such as a mention of Veronica’s flirtation with Socialism her final term at Oxford, but for the most part the information was thought-provoking, even in its incomplete state.
It was in the collection of financial data that Mycroft had dug deepest, and with the most disturbing results.
Delia Laird’s “good family” that Ronnie had referred to was also a wealthy one. They were long-established manufacturers from the Midlands, and Delia herself had inherited a sizeable part of her father’s estate when both her brothers were killed in France. She had left all her money to Margery. There was a great deal of money.
Iris had left less, a matter of ten thousand pounds. And there was a third woman, whose name I had not heard before: Lilian McCarthy. She too was moderately wealthy, she too had died—in a road accident, without witnesses, back in October. It seemed to have been her death that sparked Mycroft’s interest. And she too had left a major part of her possessions to the New Temple in God.
Aside from that trio of suspicious deaths, however, Mycroft had found nothing concrete. There were rumours, for the most part about Margery herself, but none were substantiated and many were absurd, the sorts of wild accusations a figure like Margery Childe would tend to attract. Even Mycroft, who had never met the woman and who possessed an endless depth of suspicion, particularly when it came to females, had clearly discounted the tales of black rituals and witchcraft. She had no criminal record, she was generally well regarded even by people who detested her message, and she seemed to have solid alibis for the days all three women had died. I was interested to see that Ronnie’s information had been correct, that Margery had indeed been married and widowed. In fact, this was the most devious thing Mycroft had been able to find about her: that she did not talk about having had a husband.
The Vicissitude had gone silent as my fellow club members dressed and ate and left for the day. With difficulty,