The Mary Russell Series Books 1-4: The Beekeeper's Apprentice; A Monstrous Regiment of Women; A Letter of Mary; The Moor (24 page)

The little man gaped and burst out laughing again. “Yes, sir, Mr. Holmes, I do see what you mean. I don’t know how you’ve done it, but it could have been you saying that. You’re absolutely right, Miss. His wife and daughter were killed four years ago, and he took to drinking, even at work. We kept him on at a desk job where he’d do no one any harm, and a year ago he pulled himself together. He’ll be back up there in no time, I think. Come now, I’ll get a lamp so we can look at your cab.” He went off shouting for a light.

“Russell, that last line was a bit overly dramatic, don’t you think?” Holmes murmured at my side.

“A good apprentice learns all from her master, sir,” I answered demurely.

“Then let us go and see what is to be learnt from this old horse cab. I greatly desire news of this person who plagues us and continually attacks my friends. I hope that the case will at last provide us with a thread to grasp.”

The cab stood cordoned off in a circle of flares, its shabby exterior even more obvious now than it had been by the streetlamps.

“This is where we found your man,” Lestrade said, pointing. “We tried to keep off the ground right there, but we had to get him up and out of there. He was lying on his side, curled up on that old suit with a rug tucked around him.”

“What?” The suit was Holmes’ cabbie outfit; the rug was from the cab.

“Yes, wrapped up and snoozin’ like a baby he was.”

Holmes handed his hat, coat, and stick to Lestrade and took a small, powerful magnifying lens out of his pocket. Down on the ground he looked for all the world like some great lanky hound, casting about for a scent. Finally he gave a low exclamation and produced a small envelope from another pocket. Scraping gently at various tiny smudges on the paving stones, he sat back on his haunches with an air of triumph, careless of the beating his back had taken.

“What do you make of this, Russell?” he asked, sketching a vague circle.

I walked over to peer at the marks. “Two pairs of feet? One has been in the mud today, the other—is that oil?”

“Yes, Russell, but there will be a third somewhere. At the door to the cab? No? Well, perhaps inside.” And so saying, he opened the door. “Lestrade, your men will go over the whole cab for fingerprints, I take it?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve sent for an expert; he should be here before too long. New man, but seems good. MacReedy, his name is.”

“Oh yes, Ronald MacReedy. Interesting article of his, comparing whorls with the personality traits of habitual criminals, didn’t you think?”

“I, er, didn’t happen to see it, Mr. Holmes.”

“Pity. Still, never too late. Russell, I take it these were all your things?”

I looked in past his shoulder at the wreckage. All that was left of my lovely and exorbitantly expensive clothes were the dress and cloak I was wearing and numerous scraps of coloured fabric. Small shreds of blue wool, green silk, and white linen littered the inside of the cab, alternating with torn bits of the boxes, twine, and paper they had been in. I picked up a short bit of string for something to fiddle with. The tufted leather seat had been deeply and methodically slashed from one end to another, with the exception of approximately a foot on one end of the front seat cushion. Horsehair stuffing had sifted over everything.

Holmes got to work with his glass by the light Lestrade held for him. Envelopes were filled, notes made, questions asked. The fingerprint man arrived and set to. A brazier had appeared from somewhere, and the uniformed police were standing around it, warming their hands. The night was very late, and the cold, though not bitter, was penetrating. Impatient grumbles and glances were beginning to drift our way. There was no room for me in the cab, so I left and went to stand by the fire with the police constables.

I smiled up at the big one next to me. “I wanted to tell you how glad I am of your presence here, all of you. Someone seems to bear Mr. Holmes considerable ill will, and he is—well, his body is not quite so fast as it once was. I feel considerably better with some of the force’s best on hand. Particularly you, Mr.—?” I leaned toward the older constable, a question on my face.

“Fowler, Miss. Tom Fowler.”

“Mr. Fowler, particularly with you. Mr. Holmes found your fast action most impressive.” I smiled sweetly around the fire. “Thank you, all of you, for your vigilance and attention to duty.”

I went back to the cab then, and though there were numerous glances, they were directed into the dark night, and there were no more grumbles. When Lestrade was called away to attend to some matter, I held the lamp for Holmes.

“So you think I am slowing down, do you?” he said, amused.

“Your mind, I think not. I said that to encourage the troops, who were getting careless with having to stand about to no purpose. I exaggerated, perhaps, but they will be attentive now.”

“I told you, I do not think we shall be attacked.”

“And I am beginning to suspect that this opponent of yours knows you well enough to take your thoughts into account when planning his actions.”

“Slow as I am, Russell, that idea had come to me. Now.” He sat back. “Your turn. I need you to go through and tell me if there are any scraps that are not from your things. It will take some time, so I will send over that tall young PC to help you, and another to find some hot drink. I shall go and examine the neighbourhood.”

“Take someone with you, Holmes, please.”

“After your performance out there they’ll be tripping over each other in their eagerness to protect my doddering old frame.”

It took some time to sift through the cab’s contents, but eventually, with the help of young PC Mitchell, I had a large pile of paper and fabric scraps heaped outside, and three thin envelopes in my hand. We climbed out of the cab and stood stretching the cricks out of our spines, drinking mugs of hot, sweet tea until Holmes reappeared with his eager bodyguards.

“Thank you, gentlemen, you have been most dutiful. Go and have some tea, now. Off you go, there’s a good fellow,” he said, giving the most persistent constable a pat between the shoulder blades that shoved him off towards the tea station. “Russell, what have you found?”

“One button, with a scrap of brown tweed attached, cut recently from its garment by a sharp instrument. Another thick smudge of light brown clay. And one blonde hair, not my own, considerably shorter. Plus a great deal of dust and rubbed-about dirt and débris, indicating that the cab has not been cleaned in some time.”

“It has also not been used in some time, Russell, so your three finds are undoubtedly worthy of our attention.”

“And you, Holmes, what have you found?”

“Several things of interest, but I need to smoke a pipe over them, perhaps two, before I have anything to say.”

“Will we be here long, Holmes?”

“Another hour, perhaps. Why?”

“I have been drinking champagne, then coffee, now tea. I cannot last another hour without doing something about it.” I was determined not to be embarrassed about the problem.

“Of course.” He looked around at the noticeable dearth of female company. “Have the older man—Fowler—show you the…facilities…in the park. Take a lamp with you.”

With dignity I summoned the man and explained the mission, and he led me off through the park along its soft gravel paths. We talked inconsequentially of children and green areas, and he stood outside as I entered the little building. I finished and went to wash my hands, placing the lamp on the shelf that stood above the basin. I reached for the tap and saw there a smear of light brown clay. I took the lamp to look more closely, unwilling to believe.

“Mr. Fowler,” I called sharply.

“Miss?”

“Go and get Mr. Holmes.”

“Miss? Is something wrong?”

“No, something is not wrong, for a change. Just get him.”

“But I shouldn’t…”

“I’ll be safe. Just go!”

After a moment’s hesitation, his heavy footsteps went off quickly into the night. I heard his voice calling out loudly, answering shouts, and the thud of several running men returning up the path. Holmes stood at the door of the Ladies’, looking in uncertainly.

“Russell?”

“Holmes, could the man we’re looking for be a woman?”

"R
USSELL, YOU HAVE
struck the very question upon which I proposed to meditate with my pipe. You have also saved me from the worst sin a detective can commit: overlooking the obvious. Show me what you have found.” His eyes gleamed fiercely in the lamplight. More lamps were sent for, and soon the little stone building blazed with light. Fowler was consulted and confirmed that the building had been cleaned about eight o’clock on what was now the previous night. I stood back with Lestrade, watching Holmes as he worked, tensely examining every scrap of evidence, muttering to himself continually, and occasionally snapping out instructions.

“Boots again, the small boots, square heels, not new. A bicycle rider I see. Lestrade, have you had the Men’s blocked off, and the street outside? Good. She went here, here she stood. Hah! Another blonde hair; yes, too long for a man in this day, I think, and quite straight. Mark these envelopes please, Russell. Mud on her heels, traces in the sink, yes, and the tap. But no fingerprints on the mud. Gloves?” Holmes looked up absently at his reflection in the mirror, whistling softly through his teeth. “Why should she have mud on her gloves, and wash them? A perplexing question. Another light over here, Lestrade, and have the photographer take another set of the cab, would you, after MacReedy has finished? Yes, as I thought, right-handed. Washed, shook the water from her hands, or rather her gloves, and to the door. Off the footprints, man! Heaven help us. To the street, then…no! Not to the street, back on the path, here it is, and here.” He straightened up, winced, frowned vacantly up the bare branches overhead while we watched in silence. “But that makes no sense, unless—Lestrade, I shall need your laboratory tonight, and I want this entire park cordoned off—nobody, nobody at all to set foot here until I’ve seen it by daylight. Will it rain tonight, Russell?”

“I don’t know London, but it does not feel like rain. It’s certainly too warm to snow.”

“No, I think we may risk it. Bring those envelopes, Russell. We have much to do before morning.”

Truth to tell it was Holmes who had much to do, as there was but one microscope and he refused to say what he was looking for. I labelled a few slides, my eyes heavy despite strong coffee, and the next thing I knew it was morning, Holmes was standing at the window tapping his pipe on his teeth, and I was nearly crippled from being asleep with my head on the desk for several hours. My spine cracked loudly as I sat back in the chair, and Holmes turned.

“Ah, Russell,” he said lightly, “do you always make such a habit of sleeping in chairs? I doubt your aunt would approve. Mrs. Hudson definitely would not.”

I rubbed my eyes and glared at his ever-tidy person bitterly. “I take it that your revolting good humour means that something from last night’s exercise has pleased you?”

“On the contrary, my dear Russell, it has displeased me considerably. Vague suspicions flit about my mind, and not one of them pleases me.” His manner had grown distant and hard as he gazed unseeingly at the slides sprawled out on the workbench. He looked back at me with his steely eyes, then relaxed into a smile. “I shall tell you about it on our way to the park.”

“Oh, Holmes, be reasonable. You may be presentable, if a bit idiosyncratic in topper and tails, but how can I go out like this?” He took in my rumpled gown, my town stockings and impractical shoes, and nodded. “I’ll ask if there’s a matron who can help us.” Before he could move, there was a knock at the door.

“Come in.”

A tense young PC with an untamed cowlick stood in the doorway.

“Mr. Holmes, Inspector Lestrade asked me to tell you that there’s a parcel for the young lady at the front desk, but—”

Holmes exploded out of the room, giving lie to any rumours of slowness, pain, or rheumatism. I could hear his voice shouting “Don’t touch that parcel, don’t touch it, get a bomb disposal man first, don’t touch it, did you catch the person who brought it, Lestrade…”

His voice faded as I followed him down the hall to the stairs, the young policeman jabbering away at my side.

“I was going to say, but he left, the package is with the bomb squad now, and Inspector Lestrade would like Mr. Holmes present at the questioning of the young man who brought it in. He didn’t give me a chance to finish, sir.” This last to Lestrade, who had intercepted Holmes in his precipitous flight. We could see the men at work downstairs, one with a stethoscope to the paper-wrapped parcel on the desk. We watched tensely, and I became aware of the unaccustomed silence. Traffic had been diverted. Holmes turned to the inspector.

“You have the man who brought it?”

“Yes, he’s here. He says a man stopped him in the street an hour ago, offering two sovereigns to deliver this package. Small blond man in a heavy coat, said it was for a friend who needed it this morning but he couldn’t take it himself. Gave him a sovereign then, and took his address to send the second after he’d confirmed delivery.”

“Which will never arrive.”

“The boy expects it to. Not too bright, this one. Not even sure he knows what a sovereign’s worth, just likes the shine.”

We had watched the two men work this whole time, their strain palpable as they gently snipped twine, cut away paper, and uncovered the contents, which had the appearance of folded clothing. Gently, slowly, the package was disassembled. In the end there lay draped over the police desk one silk shirt, a soft wool jacket, matching trousers, two angora stockings, and a pair of shoes. A folded note fell out of this last set of items and fluttered to the floor.

“Use your gloves on that,” called Holmes.

The puzzled but relieved bomb man brought the note to Lestrade in a pair of surgical tweezers. He read it, handed it to Holmes, and Holmes read it aloud in a voice that slowed and climbed in dismay and disbelief.

Holmes blinked several times and hurled the note at Lestrade. “Give this to your print man,” he snarled. “Give the clothes to the laboratory, check them for foreign objects, corrosive powder, everything. Find out where they came from. And, for the love of God, can someone please provide Miss Russell with ‘suitable clothing’ so this case will not come to a complete standstill?” As he turned away in a cold fury I heard him breathe, “This becomes intolerable.”

A variety of clothing appeared, part uniform, part civilian, all uncomfortable. We set off for the park in a police automobile, Lestrade in front with the driver, Holmes beside me, silent and remote and staring out the window while his long fingers beat a rhythm on his knee. He did not divulge his laboratory findings. At the park he dashed up and down the paths for a very few minutes, nodding to himself, then bundled us brusquely back into the car. He turned a deaf ear to Lestrade’s questions, and we rode in silence back to New Scotland Yard to make our way to Lestrade’s office, where we were left alone. Holmes went over to Lestrade’s desk, opened a drawer, took out a packet of cigarettes, removed one, lit it with a vesta, and went to the window, where he stood with his back to me, staring unseeing out onto the busy Embankment and the river traffic beyond, smoke curling through the dirty glass. He smoked the cigarette to the end without speaking, then walked back to the desk and pressed the stub with great deliberation into the ashtray.

“I must go out,” he said curtly. “I refuse to take any of these heavy-footed friends of yours with me. They will send the wildlife scurrying for cover. While I am away, draw up a list of necessities and give it to the matron. Clothing for two or three days, nothing formal. Men’s or women’s, as you like. You’d best add a few things for me as well—you know my sizes. It will save me some time. I shall be back in a couple of hours.”

I stood up angrily. “Holmes, you can’t do this to me. You’ve told me nothing, you’ve consulted me not at all, just pushed me here and there and run roughshod over any plans I might have had and kept me in the dark as if I were Watson, and now you propose to go off and leave me with a shopping list.” He was already moving toward the door, and I followed him across the room, arguing.

“First you call me your associate, and then you start treating me like a maid. Even an apprentice deserves better than that. I’d like to know—”

I had just come up to the window when a sound like a meaty palm slapping a table came from just outside the wall, followed a second later by a more familiar report. Holmes reacted instantly and dove across the room at me just as the window imploded in a shower of flying razor-sharp glass and a second slap came from the opposite wall. We both came up in a crouch, and Holmes seized my shoulder.

“Are you hit?”

“My God, was that—”

“Russell, are you all right?” he demanded furiously.

“Yes, I think so. Do you—” but he was sprinting low towards the door as it opened and an inspector in mufti looked in open-mouthed. Holmes gathered him up, and they pounded off down the stairs in pursuit. I steeled myself to creep around to the broken window and edge one eye over the lower corner. A steam launch was making its rapid way downriver, but there was also a mother with a pram stopped on the bridge, turned to look at a retreating taxi-cab, her shoulders in an attitude of surprise. Inside of a minute Holmes and the others had swept up to her, and she was soon surrounded by gesticulating men pointing east over the river and south across the bridge. I saw Holmes look unerringly up to where I stood in the window, turn to say something to the tweedy inspector, and then set his shoulders resolutely and walk, hatless and head down, back to the Yard.

With typical police efficiency and priorities, Lestrade’s office was filled with people measuring angles and retrieving bullets from the brickwork, none of whom had a dustpan or a means of blocking the icy air from the window. I retreated into the next office but one, a room with no window. As soon as Holmes appeared I knew there would be no arguing with him, although I intended to try. “I think you’d best change that order to clothing for several days, Russell,” were his first words. “Stay away from windows, don’t eat or drink anything you’re not absolutely certain is safe, and keep your revolver with you.”

“Don’t take sweets from strangers, you mean?” I said sarcastically, but he would not anger.

“Precisely. I shall return in two or three hours. Be ready to leave when I get back.”

“Holmes, you must at least—”

“Russell,” he interrupted, and came over to grasp my shoulders, “I am very sorry, but time is of the utmost urgency. You were going to say that I must tell you what is happening, and I shall. You wish to be consulted; I intend to do so. In fact, I intend to place a fair percentage of the decisions to be made into your increasingly competent hands. But not just at this moment, Russell. Please, be satisfied with that.” And he shifted his hands to both sides of my head, bent forward, and brushed his lips gently across my brow. I sat down abruptly, felled by this thunderbolt, until long after he had gone…which, I realized belatedly, was precisely why he had done it.

H
OLMES’ AIR OF
illicit excitement told me that he was extremely unlikely to be back from his haunts in two or three hours. Irritated, I scribbled the lists for the young policewoman, gave her the last of my money, and turned my back on the windowless office. I was jumpy at every window I passed, but I wanted to take a closer look at the parcel of clothing that had arrived for me that morning, which I had only seen from a distance. I made my way to the laboratories, where I disturbed a gentleman in an unnecessarily professional white coat standing at a bench with a shoe in one hand. He turned at my entrance, and when I saw what he held, I was stunned speechless. The shoe was my own.

This pair of shoes now inhabiting the laboratory bench had disappeared from my rooms some time during the autumn, in one of those puzzling incidents that happen and are finally dismissed with a shrug. I had worn them the second week of October, and two weeks later when I went to look for them, they were not there. It troubled me, but frankly more because I took it as a sign of severe absentmindedness than anything sinister. I had obviously left them somewhere. And here they were.

I was relieved to see that the clothes were not familiar to me, although very much to my taste. They were all new, ready-made from a large shop in Liverpool, unremarkable, though not inexpensive. Thus far the examiners had found nothing but clothing—not so much as a stray shirt pin.

The note that had accompanied the parcel lay in a steel tray across the bench, and I walked around to take a look at it. It was grey with fingerprint powder, but even if the sender had been careless, the paper was too rough to retain prints. I picked it up, read it with grudging amusement, noted casually the characteristics of the type, and started to lay it back down, and then I froze in disbelief. Yes, that’s one too many shocks in the last few days, my brain commented analytically. I fumbled for a stool and after some time became aware of the technician’s alarm. I told him what I had seen. I told Lestrade the same thing when he appeared. Some time later I found myself in the windowless room with the policewoman who had returned from shopping saying how she’d been careful to watch each item taken down and wrapped, and I made polite noises of (I suppose) gratitude and then sat there for a long while with my brain steaming furiously away.

By the time Holmes blew in, hair awry and a wild light in his eyes, I had recovered enough to be examining the woman’s purchases. I drew back sharply as he entered and dropped a boot.

“Good God, Holmes, where have you been to pick up such a stench? Down on the docks, obviously, and from your feet I should venture to say you’d been in the sewers, but what is that horrid sweet smell?”

“Opium, my dear protected child. It clawed its way into my hair and clothes, though I was not partaking. I had to be certain I was not being followed.”