A Study in Charlotte

“Oh,” Lena said, surprised. “You know, her parents don’t give her any spending money or anything. And Charlotte burns through a lot. I think she does a lot of online shopping, she always has packages at the front desk.” I coughed to cover my laughter. I was positive those packages contained something more sinister than designer clothes. Lena really was the perfect roommate for Holmes, I had to give her that. “Anyway, you know. She always knows when people are lying, so I guess it makes sense for her to play poker for cash. I think it’s funny.”

Tom snuck up behind Lena and put his arms around her. “Baby, you’re drunk,” he said, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek.

“Baby, stop. I gotta poker. Charlotte’s not here, and I’m making a killing. I think I’m going to get a Prada purse.”

“Better split it with me before you cash out.” Tom kissed her again, and she wrinkled her nose. “Since I’m your muse and all.”

“Her poker muse,” I said, as seriously as I could manage.

“I bet you Charlotte’s his,” Tom stage-whispered.

“Oh my gosh, that’s so cute.” Lena touched my cheek and turned back to the game, depositing her chips on the table in handfuls. When she looked away, Tom filched a few and slipped them in his pocket.

I pitched Lena’s drink in the trash and set off in search of Holmes.

Since I was already in Stevenson, I snuck up to check her room first. It wasn’t hard at all to get past the hall mother, asleep on her pillowed arms at the front desk. I quickly found Holmes’s door on the first floor: Lena had covered it in paper flowers, and there was a notecard bearing her name in curly purple script. Holmes’s name was hastily scribbled in black ink below it. The door was unlocked—Lena’s fault, I was sure—so I let myself in.

Unlike the room Tom and I shared, which could’ve won awards for its messiness, theirs was as neat and orderly as only a girls’ dorm room could be. Lena’s side was a riot of color, big pillows and bright tapestries, the shut laptop on the desk covered in stickers. She had photos of young Cary Grant pinned to her corkboard, nestled between song lyrics that she’d copied out onto sticky notes. She’d left her keys on the desk. More or less what I’d expected.

I was much more interested in Holmes’s side, but it seemed that she had scrubbed all traces of herself from her room, saving her brilliant oddness for Sciences 442. Her desk was bare and clean, except for a digital clock, and the corkboard above boasted a single bright-blue Post-it that read luv u girlie xo Lena and had curled a bit with age. (That Holmes had left it up that long was surprisingly endearing.) On the shelf above her bed, her textbooks were all in a neat line, and on the bed itself was a navy coverlet—and below that was a sleeping Charlotte Holmes, wig askew, mascara already beginning to rub off below her eyes.

I shut the door softly behind me. “Holmes,” I whispered, and before I could say it again, she sat up like a shot had gone off.

“Watson,” she croaked, and reached blindly for her clock. “I just meant to lie down for a moment.”

“It’s fine,” I said, sitting at the edge of her bed. “You’re probably still catching up on sleep. It’s not healthy to go three days without it, you’ll start hallucinating.”

“Yes, but the hallucinations are always fascinating.” She stacked her pillows behind her back. “So?” she asked, in a Why are you here voice.

“So,” I said, “how did it go? Did you learn anything? Who were you targeting?”

She heaved a sigh, pulling off her wig and stocking cap. “Watson,” she said again, “really.”

“I’m a murder suspect too,” I reminded her, “and I thought we were partners in this. You dress up in this whole ridiculous thing and then you don’t tell me how it went? Spill.”

“I didn’t learn anything. Anything at all. I must’ve spoken to at least fifteen first-year male students—statistically, murderers are more often men, and anyway Hailey is useless with girls, they generally want to drown her in the nearest river—and none of them showed the slightest sign of being responsible.” She said it all in a rush, like she wanted to expel it from her system. “And I’m starving. I’m never starving. I ate yesterday.”

“You had to have learned something,” I said, choosing to ignore that last part. In my short experience with her, Holmes had treated her body like an inconvenience, at best, and at the worst of times like an appendage she was actively trying to destroy.

“No,” she said petulantly. “It was an utter waste of my time, and I used the last of my Forever Ever Cotton Candy perfume to do it. Which means I have to order more, and they only sell it on the Japanese eBay, and it’s not cheap for something that smells that foul. And God, the humiliation of getting those boxes in the post.” She stuck a hand under her pillow, producing a trio of wallets. “I was mad enough to pick three of their pockets, which should at least cover the cost, if not the emotional damage.”

“Holmes,” I said slowly, taking one from her. The wallet itself was worth more than my mother’s flat, and it was stuffed with cash. “You can’t do that. We have to give these back.”

She cocked an eyebrow at me. “These were the ones who tried to get me drunk so they could have their sordid way with me.”

“Well then.” I pulled out five twenty-dollar bills and tossed them on the bed. “That’s more than enough for your perfume. Do you know what we’re going to do with the rest?”