The Mary Russell Series Books 1-4: The Beekeeper's Apprentice; A Monstrous Regiment of Women; A Letter of Mary; The Moor (18 page)

W
E TOOK OUR
leave of an uncomfortable Chief Inspector Connor, who arranged a car to Bristol so we might catch an earlier train and be off his turf all the sooner. Again we had a compartment to ourselves, though we were no longer more disreputable than our bags. Bristol turned to fields outside our window, and Holmes reached for his pipe and tobacco pouch. Normality tugged at me, becoming more firm with each accelerating clack of the iron wheels, but there was something to be set aright between Holmes and myself before we went further.

“Holmes, you did not wish to let me join you in this case,” I said. He grunted in agreement. “Do you now regret that you did so?” He knew immediately what I was talking about and did not pretend otherwise. However, he did not look at me, but took his pipe out of his mouth and examined the bowl closely, retrieved his little tool, and fussed with the tobacco for a moment before answering.

“I was indeed filled with a singular lack of enthusiasm at the prospect. I admit that. However, I hope you understand that this was not due to any doubts concerning your abilities. I work alone. I always have. Even when Watson was with me, he functioned purely as another pair of hands, not in anything resembling true partnership. You, however—I have seen for some time that you are not the type to be content to follow directions. My hesitation was not out of fear that you might put a foot disastrously wrong, but that I might cause you to do so by misdirection and my longstanding disinclination to work in harness with another. As it happened, by hesitating to give you even the responsibility for creating the necessary diversion, I paradoxically presented you with an opportunity for independently solving the case.”

“I’m sorry, Holmes, but as I was—”

“For God’s sake, Russell,” he interrupted impatiently, “don’t apologise. I know the circumstances; you made the correct decision. You should have been quite wrong, in fact, had you let the opportunity slip through your fingers. I admit that I was severely taken aback when I saw you running down the road with the child on your back. It was something Watson could never have done, even discounting his bad leg. Watson’s great strength has always been his utter, dogged dependability. His attempts at independent action tend to blow up in my face, so I have never encouraged them, but I allowed you to come in with me on this case because the step had to be taken at some time, and it was best done while I was immediately to hand at every moment. Or so I thought, not knowing that the first time I let you out of my sight you would take it into your head to perform an appallingly dangerous stunt like—” He stopped and turned again to his pipe, which seemed to be giving him considerable difficulty. When it was finally belching smoke to his satisfaction, he looked at me, and in his eye was what I can only describe as a rueful twinkle. “It was, in fact, precisely what I myself might have done, given the circumstances.”

In an instant twenty pounds were lifted from my shoulders and five years added to my posture. Although the compliment was distinctly backhanded, I felt ridiculously pleased, though I hid the satisfied smile on my lips by looking out the window. After a few dozen telegraph posts my thoughts turned back to other concerns, to the child in the hotel and the struggle she faced. Holmes read my mind.

“What did you say to the child, to cheer her so? She seemed a different person when we left.”

“Did she? Good.” The poles flipped rhythmically past, and the steady beat of the wheels called hypnotically, and because he was Holmes I finally answered him.

“I told her some things that someone told me, when my family died. I hope they do her some good.”

I sat and watched our reflections in the darkening window, and Holmes smoked his pipe, and we spoke no more until we came to Seaford.

H
OLMES’ ASSESSMENT OF
the case had been quite right, of course. The men in Wales had been paid—well paid—for their work and had received their orders anonymously, from a hoarse voice in London and through the post. All had been meticulously planned. They had been instructed in every detail, from the hiring of the house and the purchase of clothing in Cardiff to the construction of the gas-gun, the route to take away from the tent, how to word messages in the agony column, the wearing of masks around the child (which had been a relief to me, knowing that murder was not intended)—all this within the space of a few weeks, and all without any trace of the link with London. When the men were taken, all threads snapped, and we were left with five talkative men, some untraceable money, and the knowledge that the puppet-master behind the deed had walked away scot-free.

The Game’s Afoot

T
HREE TERMS GO
to make up the Oxford calendar, each with its own very distinct flavour. The year begins with Michaelmas term and the autumn closing in, when minds and bodies that have ranged free during the summer are bent again to the life of academe. Days grow short, the sky disappears, the stones and bricks of the city become black in the rain, and the mind turns inward to discipline.

In Hilary term winter seems eternal, with the barest hint of lengthening days and the first sprouts of new life, but with the return in May for Trinity term the sap rises strong with the sun, and all one’s energies are set to flower in the end-of-the-year examinations.

Of the terms, my favourite is that of Michaelmas, when the mind is put back into harness and the wet leaves of autumn lie thick in the streets.

I find I cannot look back on that Michaelmas term of 1918 as an isolated thing, separate from the storms that followed. I know I was filled with tremendous joy as I began seriously to flex my muscles in the realm of the mind. The first year had set my feet underneath me, and I was now ready to build. I was no longer intoxicated by long hours in the Bodleian, though my spirit still soared at the smell of the books. I began serious work with my tutors, and I remember two or three occasions when their looks of respect and interest pleased me as much as a “well done, Russell” from Holmes. The world’s intrusions were few, although the vision of the High on the day the guns of Europe stopped will remain with me to my dying day, with the black gowns swarming the streets and the mortarboards flung into the air, the shouting and the kissing and the wild clamour of the long-stilled bells, and the fervent and reverent minute of silence.

I can hardly call the adventure that began at the end of that term a “case,” for the only clients were ourselves, the only possible payment our lives. It burst upon us like a storm, it beat at us and flung us about and threatened our lives, our sanity, and the surprisingly fragile thing that existed between Holmes and myself.

For me it began, appropriately enough, on a filthy, bitterly wet night in December. I was quite fed up with Oxford and all the tricks she played, not the least of which was her infamously gruesome climate, in this case snow followed by great downpours of near-sleet, buckets of icy rain that drenched the thickest of wool coats and turned normal shoes into sodden leather sacks. I was dressed for the weather, but even so my high hiking boots and shiny so-called waterproof had let in a miserable amount of weather on the walk from the Bodleian to the lodgings house. I was sick of the weather, tired of Oxford, irritated by the demands of my tutors, prickly from being cooped up inside, hungry, tired, and generally ill-tempered.

One thing alone kept me from total bleak despair, and that was the awareness that this was a temporary state. I hugged to myself the knowledge that tomorrow I should be far away from it all, that tomorrow evening at this hour I should be seated before an immense stone fireplace with a glass of something warming in one hand and a large and expertly prepared meal about to find its way to the table, with good company, good music, good cheer. To say nothing of Veronica Beaconsfield’s darkly good-looking older brother, home on Christmas leave.

Best of all—oh joy, oh bliss—no Christmas with my aunt: I was going to Ronnie’s country house in Berkshire for two weeks, beginning tomorrow. Indeed I might have been there already, for I had intended to leave with her three days ago, but for the unreasonable and unexpected demand for a final, late essay from one of my more capricious and demanding tutors.

But it was now over: The essay had been presented and the three points that had been raised in the presentation had been beaten into place by six hours in Bodley; the essay and its annotations I had left (damp, but legible) at the tutor’s college. I was free now of responsibility. The tiny glow of what tomorrow meant protected me from the worst of the cold and, as it warmed and grew, even nudged me into a dash of mordant humour.

I felt very like the proverbial drowned rat when I reached the lodgings house. Stopping in the portico I peeled off several outer layers and left them on a nail, dripping morosely onto the stones. I could then dig an almost dry handkerchief from a pocket to clean my spectacles while I let myself into the porter’s lodge.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Thomas.”

“Evening is more like it, Miss Russell. Real nice out, I see.”

“Oh, it’s a perfectly lovely evening for a stroll, Mr. Thomas. Why don’t you take the Missus out for a picnic on a punt? Oh, I like that. Did Mrs. Thomas do it?” I put on my glasses, which promptly fogged up, and peered at the tiny Christmas tree that stood bravely on one end of the long counter.

“That she did. Looks pretty, don’t it? Oh yes, there’s a couple things in your box. Let me get them for you.” The old man turned to the series of pigeonholes behind him, which were arranged by the location of each person’s rooms. The top, third row, far left box was for my own top floor, far back room. “Here they are. One from the late post, the other from an old, er, elderly woman. She was by, asking for you.”

The post was the weekly letter from Mrs. Hudson, which invariably arrived on a Tuesday. Holmes wrote rarely, though I occasionally received a spate of cryptic telegrams, and Dr. Watson (now Uncle John) wrote from time to time as well. I looked at the other offering.

“A lady? What did she want?”

“I don’t rightly know, Miss. She said she needed to talk to you, and when I said you weren’t in until later, she left that note for you.”

I took up the indicated envelope curiously. It was a cheap one, such as can be bought at any news agent’s or the railway station, bulky and grubby, with my name written on it in a precise copperplate script.

“This is your writing, isn’t it, Mr. Thomas?”

“Yes, Miss. It was blank when she handed it to me, so I put your name on it.”

Carefully avoiding the smudged thumbprint on one corner, I opened it with Mr. Thomas’s letter opener and took out its tightly folded contents. With difficulty, as it seemed to be glued damply together, I undid it. To my astonishment the contents were no more than an advertisement for a window manufacturer on the Banbury Road, such as I had seen posted up at various places around town. This specimen had the remnants of paste on the back, but as it was still damp it was not permanently attached to itself. A partial bootprint in one corner and the mark of a large dog’s paw in the centre indicated that it had lain in the street before being inserted in the envelope. I turned it over, wondering what it meant. Mr. Thomas was watching me, obviously itching to ask the same thing, but too polite to pry. I held it up to the light on his desk. There were no pinpricks, no design.

“A very strange sort of a message, Miss Russell.”

“Yes, isn’t it? I have a rather eccentric aunt who occasionally tracks me down. I suppose it was she. I’m sorry if she bothered you. How was she looking?”

“Well, Miss, I would never have taken her as a relative of yours. Black hair like that and ugly as—Beg your pardon, Miss, but she should really have a doctor do something about that great ugly mole on her chin.”

“When was she here?”

“About three hours ago. I offered to let her stay here and wait for you, and gave her a cuppa tea, but when I went to lock up the back, she said she’d go, and she was gone when I got back. If she returns, shall I bring her up?”

“I think not, Mr. Thomas. Send someone for me and I’ll come down.” The way from my rooms to the gate house was enclosed, so I wouldn’t get wet again. However, I did not want a stranger admitted straightaway. My eyes went to the pigeonhole from which he had taken my letters. Very curious. Who was this who wanted to know where my room was, and more important, why?

I thanked Mr. Thomas and went past him into the hallway that led to the wing my rooms were in. I sat on the bottom step to remove my boots—I think, though I cannot be sure, that I only removed them because they were so uncomfortable, and I did not wish to make more of a mess for Mrs. Thomas to deal with. Whatever the motive, conscious or no, I continued up the stairs in stockinged feet, without even the rustle of the waterproof to betray my presence.

The building was silent, oppressively so. The rain on the landing windows was the loudest sound. And to think I had often, coming up these stairs, shuddered fastidiously at the quantity of noise a number of women living together can produce. Veronica’s rooms here, the doors shut as they rarely were, her presence so strong I could almost hear the wild party she’d had in that room a week earlier. Jane DelaField’s rooms here, quiet and religious and cocoa-drinking Jane with the unforeseeable gift of limericks, followed always by a blush. And Catharine, whose attractive brother had the odd passion for, what was it, roses? No, iris. And all of them gone now, back in the bosoms of their families, warm and secure, while Mary Russell, cold and lonely, went up the cold draughty stairs to her rooms.

At the top of the stairs I turned towards the back of the building and pulled my key from my pocket. As I reached for the knob my mind was so filled with dolorous thoughts as to have forgotten the odd episode of Mr. Thomas’s ugly woman, and so I very nearly overlooked the marks on my door. The key was inches from the lock when I froze, feeling something like an automobile engine must when it is moving forward and is suddenly thrown into reverse gear. There was a black and greasy smudge on my shiny brass doorknob. There were tiny, fresh scratches on the inside of my keyhole. There was light coming from under the door…

I shook myself. Come, Russell, don’t be absurd. Mrs. Thomas often set a light burning at dark for me and laid a coal fire in the grate. There was nothing to be concerned about. I was on edge still, from the vile weather and the delay of my escape to Berkshire, my nerves were raw from the tutorial I had been through, nothing more. Nothing but an ordinary room on the other side of the door, as I could even see when I bent down and looked, through the keyhole and, feeling ever more ridiculous, under the door.

I reached again with my key, but my antennae were well and truly quivering now, and I drew back and looked around me, for confirmation of one attitude or the other, but no omens presented themselves. However, looking down the corridor, I was aware of a vague feeling that I had indeed seen something, some tiny thing. I went slowly back down towards the stairway and saw, on the sill of the window that had been built to illuminate the landing, a smear of mud, two ivy leaves, and a scattering of raindrops.

How did those get in? How did that smear of soil escape Mrs. Thomas’s vigilant cleaning rag?

No, Russell. Your imagination is going berserk. It must have been Mrs. Thomas herself, opening the window to let out a moth and letting in the drops and the leaves and…No? The crew that had trimmed the ivy so inadequately last spring, returned to finish the job? But why should they have the window open…

I took hold of myself firmly and strode down the hall to my door, and there I stood for several minutes, the key in my hand, and I could not bring myself to use it. More than anything I wished I had the revolver that Holmes had insisted I take, but it sat in my chest of drawers, as useless as if it had been in China.

The truth of the matter was that Holmes had enemies, many of them. He had explained this to me a number of times, drilled me on the precautions I had to take, forced me to acknowledge that I too could become a target for vengeance-seeking acquaintances. I thought it highly unlikely, but I had also to admit that it was not impossible. And right now, all the suspicions Holmes had so laboriously implanted in me wondered if tonight, in my lodgings house, on this wet night in Oxford, someone’s animosity against Holmes had not spilled over onto me.

I was sorely tempted to go back downstairs and have Mr. Thomas ring the police, but I found the thought of the Oxford constabulary walking through here with their big shoes and heavy manner little comfort. They might frighten off an evildoer temporarily, but I could not imagine myself sleeping any better after they had gone.

Discounting the police, then, I had two choices. I could use my key after all and confront whomever I found inside my rooms, but that was an action my association with Holmes made me loath to carry out. The other was to approach my rooms by another means than the door. Unfortunately, the only other entrance was through the windows that looked out onto a stone courtyard twenty-five feet below. In the summer I had once climbed the ivy in the nonalcoholic exhilaration of a long midsummer’s dusk, but it had been warm and light then, with nothing more dangerous at the end of the climb than a fall forward through an open window. I did know that the vines would hold my weight, but would my fingers?

“Oh for God’s sake, Russell, it’s only twenty-five feet. Oxford is making you lazy, sitting on your backside in the library all day. You’re afraid of the cold? You’ll warm up again. There’s really no other choice, now is there? Get on with it.” My father’s American drawl often surfaced when I spoke to myself, as did his irritating tendency to be right.

I went silently back down the hallway, down one flight of stairs, up that hallway, and down the stairs at the far end. These led into the building’s inner quad rather than out onto the street. I removed my wool stockings and jacket and left them with my boots and book bag in a dark corner. My glasses I buttoned carefully into a shirt pocket and, taking a deep breath, let myself quietly out into the wicked hands of the storm.

The temperature had dropped further since I had been out on the street, and I stood in wool clothing that might have been gauze when faced with a downpour that was perhaps three degrees from freezing. It took my breath away as the icy wave drove over me, plastering my shirt against my shrivelled breasts and encasing my legs in a thick layer of frigid wool. I pulled myself up into the greasy ivy with fingers that already had trouble moving and thrust into the branches with unfeeling toes. I really ought to get Mr. Thomas to call the police, I thought, but my body had taken over and numbly continued the climb.