The Mary Russell Series Books 1-4: The Beekeeper's Apprentice; A Monstrous Regiment of Women; A Letter of Mary; The Moor (23 page)

“Holmes?” It was Watson, very, very tentative. “Old friend, are you going to be all right? The pain, I mean. Do you want something? I have a bottle of morphia in my bag….” He trailed off uncomfortably. Holmes looked astonished, then began to laugh uncontrollably, until his make-up threatened to flake off.

“After all the times—” he spluttered. “
You
offer
me
morphine. My dear Watson, you do have a talent for reducing things to their proper perspective.” He softened and raised one mocking eyebrow. “You know I never indulge when I’m on a case, Watson.” He slipped the putty forms into his cheeks and was gone.

His passage down the street sent a small, ragged boy away from the blind beggar’s side and out of sight. It was soon my turn. I turned to thank Mycroft and shook his hand, then leaned forward impulsively and kissed his cheek. He turned scarlet. Watson returned my embrace with avuncular affection, and I let myself out into the hallway, black medical bag in hand, the revolver a comforting weight in my pocket.

As the outside door latched behind me I was aware of eyes on me, Watson and Mycroft Holmes watching from the window above, but other, hostile eyes also, from the street behind me at the very least. It took considerable control to hold myself to Watson’s ponderous and limping gait rather than dash off down the street, but I plodded on through the slush, for all the world an old, retired doctor on his way home. Following Holmes’ precise instructions, I hailed a cab, then changed my mind. I walked west, as if towards Green Park, then hailed another. I turned it away too, and a street later finally got warily into the third. I gave the driver Watson’s address, in a gruff voice, but when we had rounded Park Lane I redirected him. At the building Holmes had told me to go to, I paid the driver generously, went inside, checked my medical bag (which was empty) with the attendant, climbed to the third floor—watching the stairs below me—and through the tearoom on that floor to a passageway, a further set of stairs, and at last a door marked Storage Room. The key Holmes had given me let me in. I flicked the electrical light switch on, closed the well-fitting door, spat out the mouthful of noxious putty, leant against the door, and gave way to a fit of mild hysterics.

E
VENTUALLY IT RAN
its course. I got somewhat shakily to my feet, curiosity coming to the fore. The Storage Room was one of Holmes’ bolt-holes, his handful of small, almost inaccessible hideaways in unlikely places across London, from Whitechapel to Whitehall. Watson had mentioned them in several of his stories, and Holmes had made passing reference to one or another of them in conversations with me, but I had never actually been inside one.

It was, I found, little more than its name implied, a windowless, stuffy, oddly shaped room providing the most basic necessities of life and a remarkably elaborate amount of equipment for changing identities. Three metal dressmaker’s racks bulging with clothes took up a quarter of the floor space, and an enormous dressing table littered with tubes, pencils, and pots and overhung by a wall-sized mirror surrounded by small electrical light bulbs took up another quarter. The kitchen consisted of a stained hand-basin, a minuscule geyser, a gas ring, and two pots. There was one chair, at the desk, a piece that looked to my half-educated eyes like a particularly beautiful Chippendale that had spent part of its recent life as a painter’s stool, judging from the varicoloured splashes across the seat and back. The only other furniture was a long sofa, taking up more than its quarter of the room and looking as if it had been hauled up from beneath a bridge somewhere, and a garish Chinese screen behind the “kitchen.” Behind the screen, as I might have suspected, was a water closet, gleaming new and, I soon discovered, remarkably silent.

As I nosed about I began to shed my numerous layers of disguise. The outer clothing I folded neatly to return to Watson, the mummy layers I shoved, plaster and all, into a bin of what I took to be rags behind the sofa, and the make-up joined the stains in the hand-basin. My own shirt was hopelessly stuck together by the tape that Holmes had strapped on to change the set of my shoulders, but after a bit of rummaging about in the clothes racks (where I found an evening suit and tweed plus-fours cheek-by-jowl with a linen chasuble, the brocade tunic and trousers of a maharajah, and a stunning scarlet evening dress) I came up with a comfortable embroidered cotton dressing gown and put it on in lieu of the shirt, which followed the mummy strips into the bin.

In the kitchen I found a canister of tea leaves, a pot, and some tins of milk, so I made tea, poured myself a cup (superb bone china, no saucer) and carried it to the dressing table. As I sipped it and sat poking through the objects in and on the table, I was struck by the extraordinary fact of the room’s existence. What kind of a man would keep an entire drawer full of moustaches and beards? I thought. Or a shelf of wigs—a bushy redhead, a slicked-down black hairpiece, a woman’s blonde curls—arranged on stands to resemble eerily a row of heads on pikes? Could Holmes actually, honestly consider wearing that evening gown, high-necked though it was? Or the—was it a sari? How many normal men had hair ribbons trailing from their chest of drawers, a collection of well-padded female undergarments, three pair of false eyelashes, two dozen old-school and club ties, and a macabre cigar box filled with sets of false teeth? And even if one overlooked the reason for its existence,
how
did he manage it? How had he brought that sofa up here without inviting comment, and the mirror? Granted, it was a large and busy building, but did no one notice the occasional unexpected noise from a supply room, the sound of running water at night, the comings and goings of odd characters—some of them very odd indeed? What did Holmes do if, I wondered, while disguised as one of his more unsavoury characters, he were accosted and explanation of his presence demanded of him? The possibilities for comedy of the burlesque variety were greatly appealing, and several vignettes worthy of the lower classes of stage went through my mind. And, my mind continued, who had plumbed in the sink and WC? Who paid for the gas, the electricity, for heaven’s sake?

The more I thought about it, the curiouser it became. What kind of human being would need a refuge capable of sustaining life in a siege? For the plentiful if desultory tins of food, the two travelling rugs tossed over the sofa, three tins of pipe tobacco, a pound of coffee, and the copious reading material—staid medical journals, philosophical tomes, novels with lurid covers, and brittle newspapers ancient enough to qualify as archaeology—all testified that the room’s purpose was to make possible a prolonged captivity. It was quite patently not a refuge for comfort or convenience; at his height, Holmes would find the sofa a dismal night’s sleep. And it was also clearly no holiday retreat; the threadbare line down the center of the carpet bespoke hours spent measuring its half a dozen paces of clear space.

No, there was no question in my mind: Either my friend and mentor was quite mad, a man willing to go to considerable difficulty and expense to satisfy a bizarre and romantic fantasy of paranoia, or else the life of my rustic beekeeping companion with the odd skills was extraordinarily more demanding, even dangerous, than I had fully realised.

Somehow I could not think him mad.

There was no doubt that the room had been recently occupied: The tea leaves were relatively fresh, the dust had not settled much onto the desk or teapot, the air, though stuffy, was not stifling and smelt faintly of tobacco. I shook my head. Even I had not suspected how very active his career still was.

I wondered, not for the first time that day, nor for the last, what he was doing and how he was holding up.

Which brought me around to wonder what I was going to do. I could, of course, stay here until it was time to meet Holmes, and at the thought of explosive devices and flexible and imaginative would-be murderers, the bolt-hole’s canister of tea, tins of beans, and lurid novels (to say nothing of the revolver I had brought and the other one I had found in the kettle) seemed both tempting and eminently sensible.

Still, there was Holmes in the streets, and Mycroft and Watson bolting for cover, and to sit in a hole with the bedclothes over my head seemed disloyal, cowardly even. Illogical, but true. There might well be nothing I could do, but my own self-respect demanded that I not be completely intimidated by this unknown assailant. Of course, had I known then how very flexible and imaginative our foe actually was, I should probably have stayed well hidden, but as it was I decided defiantly to see what I could do about depleting the number of high-denomination notes that lay in my handbag on top of the gun, and went to assemble an appropriate wardrobe.

By the end of four years of war, standards of dress had become markedly less demanding, and even the upper levels of society were occasionally seen in clothing that before 1914 would have been given to the maid or the church’s next jumble sale. Still, it took me some time to find myself clothes among Holmes’ collection. In the end I uncovered a tweed skirt that I might tuck up to current length, and a blouse that did not look like something handed down from the butcher’s wife. Stockings and suspenders I found aplenty, but I nearly gave up altogether on the shoes. Holmes’ feet were larger than mine, and his selection of women’s shoes somewhat limited. I held up a pair of scarlet satin sandals with four-inch heels and tried to imagine Holmes in them. My imagination failed. (But if not Holmes, then who? I put them down abruptly, shocked at myself. Keep your mind on the business at hand, please, Russell.) I picked up a pair of dowdy black shoes with a strap across the instep and low Cuban heels and found that I could at least walk in them.

I switched on the row of lights and sat down with the pots and sticks to change my face (How many young women had been taught the subtleties of make-up by a man? I reflected idly.), added a long string of pearls (real) and small earrings (fake), wrapped my head in a piece of cloth from the scarf drawer (which had, judging from the shape, once been the lining of a coat), and finally stood away from the desk to look at myself.

Amazing. Nothing fit me, nothing matched, and my feet hurt already, yet I would easily pass for a Young Thing out for a day in Town. I darkened the rims of my spectacles with some odd brown fingernail enamel and decided reluctantly that I should have to leave them off for much of the day, as any other vain young myopic would do. I gathered up Watson’s clothes, turned off the lights, took a deep breath, and, with my hand inside my bag, opened the door.

No bombs went off, no bullets flew, no rough hands grabbed at me. I closed the door behind me and went off to spend the money I had borrowed so shamelessly from the Holmes brothers.

M
Y FIRST TASK
was to make a move towards reuniting Watson with his trousers, but as I made my way back through the tearoom and the store’s many levels, it occurred to me that Holmes’ bolt-hole was ideally situated, that I could easily spend the day without having to set foot on the street, for this was one of the two stores in London (I shall not mention which, as the Storage Room may still be in use.) that touted itself as catering for needs from cradle to grave. It could certainly afford me protection, nourishment, and entertainment for a single day.

With that happy thought I deposited the bundle of Watson’s salvaged clothing into his black bag and left it checked, mailed the receipt to Mycroft at his club, and set off on the unfamiliar but surprisingly agreeable task of spending money. Late that afternoon, my Storage Room reach-me-downs long since vanished into the rubbish bin, my hair sculpted, my fingernails buffed and gleaming beyond all recognition, my legs encased in sheer silk stockings that were actually long enough, and my feet in heeled shoes that didn’t pinch, I decided that, all things considered, the occasional dose of pampering could be great fun.

I took a light and leisurely tea, assembled my multitude of parcels (which they offered to deliver, and I refused), and was escorted to the door. Here I ran into a problem. Holmes had insisted that I follow the same routine as the morning’s, except to take the fourth cab, but here stood the uniformed doorman, and the first cab. I put on my spectacles, gave him a huge tip, and shook my head.

Fifteen minutes later the third cab arrived. It was getting very dark, and at that hour few cabs were free. This one looked enticingly warm, and my new evening clothes were not. Surely Holmes had not meant to be inflexible, had he? I looked through the door at the bored driver, stepped back, and waved him on. He looked highly irritated, which matched my mood precisely. I peered down the street in wan hope, studiously ignoring the doorman, when up before me pulled a very old and very battered cab drawn by one very old and battered horse.

“Cab, Miss?” said the voice from the moving anachronism.

I cursed Holmes under my breath. It looked very cold in there compared to the others, but it was a cab, or it had been thirty years before: a London growler. I told the driver where I wanted to go, saw my purchases piled inside, and got in. The doorman looked after me as if I were stark raving mad. Which I was.

I did not know London at all well then, though I had studied the maps a bit, so it took me a while to realise that we were going in the wrong direction. Not completely wrong, just very roundabout. My first thought was that the driver was pulling a swindle in order to charge me more for the ride. I had opened my mouth to call out when I froze with a terrible thought. Perhaps I had been followed. Perhaps this driver was an ally of the blind pencil seller. First I was frightened, but then I was furious. I fought the remnants of a window down and craned my neck out to see him.

“Oy, driver, where are you taking me? This isn’t the way to Covent Garden.”

“Yes, Miss, this is the faster way, away from the heavy traffic, Miss,” the voice whined obsequiously.

“All right, you, now look. I have a revolver, and I will shoot you if you do not stop immediately.”

“Now, Miss, you doesn’t want to be doing that, now,” he snivelled.

“I’m feeling more like it every moment. Stop this cab, now!”

“But I can’t do that, Miss, I really cannot.”

“Why not?”

The shaggy head leaned over the side, and I stared up at him. “Because we’ll miss the curtain if I do,” said Holmes.

“You! You utter bastard,” I growled. The gun shook in my hand, and Holmes, seeing it, drew his head back quickly. “Look, you, that’s the second time you’ve played your bloody tricks on me in three days.” I caught the startled look of a passerby and lowered my voice. “If you do it again and I have a gun in my hand, I won’t be responsible, d’you hear? As sure as my mother’s name is Mary McCarthy, I’ll not be responsible for my temper.”

I sat back in the swaying cab and caught my breath. Several minutes later a thin voice drifted down to me.

“Yes, Miss.”

Some distance from the theatre he pulled the ancient cab into a dark spot adjoining one of London’s innumerable small and hidden parks. The growler sagged sideways with his weight, and in a moment the door fell open. He eyed me.

“Your mother’s name was not Mary McCarthy,” he said accusingly.

“No, it was Judith Klein. Just don’t scare me again, please. I’ve been walking around frightened and blind since I left your brother’s rooms, and I’m tired.”

“Apologies, Russell. My twisted sense of humour has had me in trouble before this. Pax?”

“Pax.” We clasped hands firmly. He stepped up into the cab. “Russell, this time it is you who must turn your back. I can hardly go into the theatre looking like the driver of a four-wheeler.” I hastily departed out the other side.

Coat and hat, stick and proper evening coat, hair combed, moustache applied, he alighted from the cab. A small man wandered up, whistling softly.

“Good evening, Billy.”

“Evenin’, Mr…. Evenin’, sir.” He touched his hat to me.

“Don’t break your neck over the boxes inside, Billy. And there’s a rug under the seat if you need it. Just keep your eyes open.”

“That I will, sir. Have a good evenin’, sir, Miss.”

I was so preoccupied that I did not notice when Holmes tucked my arm in his.

“Holmes, how on earth did you find me?”

“Well, I cannot claim it was entirely a coincidence, as I thought it possible you would fall victim to the charms of the place and be there all day. Also, both the doorman and the attendant to whom you gave Watson’s bag were watching and swore you hadn’t yet left when I asked an hour ago. That was a slip, incidentally, Russell. You ought to have abandoned the trousers.”

“So I see. Sorry. What did you find today?”

“Do you know, I found absolutely nothing. Not a rumour, not a word, nary a breath of someone moving against that old scoundrel Holmes. I must be losing my touch.”

“Perhaps there was nothing?”

“Perhaps. It is a most piquant problem, I must admit. I am intrigued.”

“I am cold. So, what are we going to do now?”

“We shall listen to the voices of angels and of men, my child, set to the music of Verdi and Puccini.”

“And after that?”

“After that we shall dine.”

“And then?”

“I fear we shall skulk back to my brother’s rooms and hide behind his drapes.”

“Oh. How is your back?”

“Damn my back, I do wish you would stop harping on the accursed thing. If you must know, I had it serviced again this afternoon by a retired surgeon who does a good line in illegal operations and patching up gunshot wounds. He found very little to do on it, told me to go away, and I find the topic tiresome.”

I was pleased to hear his mood so improved.

The evening that followed was a lovely, sparkling interval, set off in my mind by what went before and what came after as a jewel set into mud. I fell asleep twice and woke with my hat in Holmes’ ear, but he seemed not to notice. In fact, so carried away was he by the music that I believe he forgot I was there, forgot where he was, forgot to breathe, even, at certain passages. I have never been a great lover of the operatic voice, but that night—I cannot tell you what we saw, unfortunately—even I could begin to see the point. (Incidentally, I feel that this is one place where I must contradict the record of Holmes’ late biographer and protest that I never, ever witnessed Holmes “gently waving his fingers about in time to the music,” as Watson once wrote. The good doctor, on the other hand, was wont earnestly to perform this activity of the musically obtuse, particularly when he was tipsy.)

We drank champagne at the intermission and took to a quiet corner lest he be recognised. Holmes could be charming when he so desired, but that evening he positively scintillated, during the intermission with stories about the primary cast members, and over supper later talking about his conversations with the lamas in Tibet, his most recent monographs on varieties of lipstick and the peculiarities of modern tyre marks, the changes occasioned by the disappearance of castrati from the music world, and the analysis of some changes in rhythm in one of the arias we had just heard. I was quite dazzled by this rarely seen Holmes, a distinguished-looking, sophisticated bon vivant without a care in the world (who could also spend hours in a grey, biting mood, write precise monographs on the science of detection, and paint blobs on the backs of bees to track them across the Sussex Downs).

“Holmes,” I asked as we stepped into the street, “I realise the question sounds sophomoric, but do you find that there are aspects of yourself with which you feel most comfortable? I only ask out of curiosity; you needn’t feel obliged to answer.” He offered me his arm and, formally, I took it.

“‘Who am I?’ you mean.” He smiled at the question and gave what was at first glance a most oblique answer. “Do you know what a fugue is?”

“Are you changing the subject?”

“No.”

I thought in silence for some distance before his answer arranged itself sensibly in my mind. “I see. Two discrete sections of a fugue may not appear related, unless the listener has received the entire work, at which time the music’s internal logic makes clear the relationship.”

“A conversation with you is most invigorating, Russell. That might have taken twenty frustrating minutes with Watson. Hello, what is this?” He pulled me to a halt in the shadow of the building we had just rounded, and we gazed across to the area where the cab and Billy had been left, seeing with sinking hearts the flicker of naphtha flares and the distinctive milling outline of many constabulary helmets and capes. Loud voices called to one another, and as we watched, an ambulance pulled swiftly away. Holmes slumped against the building, stunned. “Billy?” he whispered hoarsely. “How could they track us? Russell, am I losing my grip? I have never come across a mind that could do this. Even Moriarty.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “I must see the evidence before those oafs obliterate it.”

“Wait, Holmes. This could be a trap. There may be someone waiting with an airgun or a rifle.”

Holmes studied the scene before us through narrowed eyes and shook his head again, slowly. “We were excellent targets a number of times this evening. With all these police here it would be a great risk for him. No, we will go. I only hope that someone with a bit of sense is in charge here.”

I followed his vigorous stride as best I could in my heeled shoes, and as I came up behind him I saw a small, wiry man of about thirty-five thrust out his hand and greet Holmes.

“Mr. Holmes, good to see you up and about. I wondered if you might not make an appearance. I figured you must be behind this somewhere.”

“What precisely is ‘this,’ Inspector?”

“Well, as you can see, Mr. Holmes, the cab—May I help you, Miss?” This last was to me.

“Ah, Russell, I should like to introduce you to an old friend of mine. This is Inspector Lestrade, of Scotland Yard. His father was a colleague of mine on a number of cases. Lestrade, this is my…” A quick smile touched his lips. “My associate, Miss Mary Russell.”

Lestrade stared at the two of us for a moment, then to my dismay burst into raucous laughter. Was this to be the reaction of every policeman we met?

“Oh, Mr. Holmes, always the comedian, you were. I forgot your little jokes for a minute.”

Holmes drew himself up to his full height and glared at the man in icy hauteur.

“Have you ever known me to jest about my profession, Lestrade? Ever?” The last word cracked through the cold air like a shot, and Lestrade’s humour was cut off in an instant. The remnant of the smile made his face sour and slightly ratlike, and he glanced at me quickly and cleared his throat.

“Ah, yes, well, Mr. Holmes, I presume you’d like to see what they left of your cab. One of the men recognised Billy from the old days and thought to give me a ring on it. He’ll get a promotion out of tonight’s work, I don’t doubt. And don’t worry about your man—he’ll be all right in a day or two, I imagine. It looked like a clout on the head followed by a bit of chloroform. He was already coming around when they took him off.”

“Thank you for that, Inspector. Have you already gone over the cab?” His voice held little hope.

“No, no, we haven’t touched it. Looked inside, that’s all. I told you the man’d get a promotion. Quick-thinking, he is.” I noticed one of the uniformed men nearby fiddling needlessly with the horse’s reins, his head tilted slightly in our direction. I nudged Holmes and addressed Lestrade.

“Inspector, that I believe is the individual over there?” The man started and moved away guiltily, busying himself elsewhere. Lestrade and Holmes followed my eyes.

“Why yes, how did you guess?”

Holmes interrupted. “I believe you will find, Lestrade, that Miss Russell never guesses. She may occasionally reach tentative hypotheses without absolute proof, but she does not guess.”

“I am glad,” I added, “that the gentleman is working his way back up to his former position of responsibility. Men with his background can be a valuable model for younger members of the force.” I had Lestrade’s full attention now.

“Do you know him then, Miss?”

“As far as I know I’ve never seen him before tonight.” Holmes allowed his eyes to wander off to the cab, his face inscrutable.

“Then how—?”

“Oh, but it is too obvious. An older man in a low position can either have got there by being, shall we say, of limited mental resource, which according to you he is not, or by backsliding. It could not have been a criminal act that pushed him down the ladder, or he would not still be in uniform. Which personality flaw it is can readily be ascertained by the broken veins in his face, while the deep furrows around his mouth indicate either pain or sorrow in recent years. I should suspect, as his body seems unimpaired, that the latter is to blame, which would explain the abuse of alcohol, and that in turn accounts for the demotion in rank. However, his general competency and the fact that you mention the possibility of promotion tell me that he has passed through the crisis, and will now serve as an example to the men around him.” I gave the flabbergasted Lestrade my most innocent of smiles. “It’s really quite elementary, Inspector.”