The ambushes laid by a hastening twilight — the cold menace of winter.
Three 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 comer 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.
I reached the second layer of dark windows and could see the lighted squares of my own just above my head. With renewed caution I reached for the next handhold, only to find that my hand had not loosed from the previous hold. From then on I had to consciously think the muscles of my hands open and, more important, shut on the vine. Slowly, slowly I pulled myself up beside the first of my windows and peered in the inevitable crack between the scant curtains. Nothing there, only the room fire blazing merrily. Cursing gently to myself I forced my fingers to carry me across to the other window. The ivy was thinner here, and once, when my hand did not completely close, I nearly fell to the stones below, but my other hand kept hold, and the wind hid my noises. I made it to the second cheerily lit rectangle and dangled myself like a sodden monkey to peer into the narrow curtain-crack.
This time I was successful. Even without my spectacles I could see the old woman Mr. Thomas had described, sitting before the fire, bent over a book, her stockinged feet propped up on the rail. I fumbled with the sensationless protuberances on my hand and managed to pop the button from my shirt pocket, lay hands on my spectacles, nearly dropping them to destruction twice, and finally draped them crookedly across my nose. Even from the side she was extraordinarily ugly, with a black mole that resembled a large insect crawling across her chin. I pulled back, trying to think. I should have to do something quickly, as my hands were on the verge of becoming completely useless.
A stream of liquid ice was running down the back of my shirt and streaming off my bare foot. My brain was sluggish with the penetrating cold, but something stuck in my mind about this old woman. What was it? I rested one foot on the mossy stone sill, leant precariously forward, and studied the figure. The ear, was it? And then suddenly it all fell together in a neat pattern. I wedged my poor frozen fingers under the edge of the window and pulled. The old woman looked up from her book, then rose and came to open the window more fully. I looked up at "her" bitterly.
"Damn you, Holmes, what the hell are you doing here? And for God's sake help me in this window before you have to scrape me up off the pavement."
Soon I stood shivering and dripping on my carpet, and awkwardly dried my spectacles on the curtain so I wouldn't have to squint to see Holmes. He stood there in his dingy old lady's dress, that horrid mole on his face, looking not in the least apologetic for the trouble he had put me to.
"Damn it, Holmes, your flair for the dramatic entrance could have broken my neck, and if I avoid pneumonia it'll be no thanks to the last few minutes. Turn your back; I must get out of these clothes." He obediently turned a chair to a blank wall, one with no reflecting object, I noticed, and I peeled off my clothes clumsily in front of the hot little fire, put on the long grey robe I had left folded over the stool that morning, and got a towel for my hair.
"All right, you may turn around now." I pushed the sodden clothing into a corner until I could deal with them later. Holmes and I were close, but I didn't care to wave my underclothing about in front of his nose. There are limits to friendship.
I went to the night table for my comb and, pulling a stool in front of the fire, I began to undo my wet braids to steam in the heat. My fingers, toes, and nose were fiery with returning sensation. The shivering had subsided somewhat, but I could not suppress the occasional hard shudder. Holmes frowned.
"Have you any brandy?" he asked in a low voice.
"You know I don't drink the stuff."
"That is not what I asked," he said, all patience and condescension. "I asked if you had any. I want some brandy."
"Then you'll have to ask my neighbour for some."
"I doubt that the young lady would appreciate a figure like myself at her door, somehow."
"It doesn't matter, she's home in Kent for the holidays anyway."
"Then I shall just have to assume that she gave her permission." He let himself out into the hallway, then put his head back in the door. "By the way, don't touch that machine on the desk. It's a bomb."
I sat eyeing the tangle of wires with the black box in its centre until he returned with my neighbour's bottle and two of her magnificent glasses. He poured generously and handed me a glass, and poured a smaller amount for himself.
"Not a very nice brandy, but it will taste better in these glasses. Drink it," he ordered.
I dutifully took a large mouthful and swallowed. It made me cough but calmed my shudders, and by the time I finished it I was aware of a warm glow spreading out to my very fingertips.
"I suppose you know that alcohol is not the optimum treatment for hypothermia?" I accused him, somewhat truculently. I was really most annoyed at the whole charade, and the melodramatic touch of the bomb was tiresome.
"Had you been in danger of that I would not have given you brandy. However, I can see that it has made you feel better, so finish combing out your hair and then sit in a comfortable chair. We have a long conversation ahead of us. Ah, how forgetful I am in my old age." He went over to the old lady's shopping basket and drew out a parcel that I immediately recognised as Mrs. Hudson's handiwork. My attitude lightened immediately.
"What a life-giving surprise. Bless Mrs. Hudson. However, I cannot eat sitting across from a dirty old woman with an insect crawling up her chin. And if you leave fleas in my rooms, I shan't forgive you easily."
"It's clean dirt," he assured me and peeled off the gruesome mole. He stood up and removed the skirt and loose overshirt, moving stiffly, and sat down again as Sherlock Holmes, more or less.
"My appetite thanks you."
I finished towelling my wet hair and reached greedily for one of Mrs. Hudson's inimitable meat pies. I did keep bread and cheese for informal meals, but even two days old, as this one seemed to be, it was much superior even to the Stilton that lay festering nobly in my stocking drawer.
I emerged from the feast some time later to find Holmes watching me with a curious expression on his face, which disappeared instantly, replaced by his customary slightly superior gaze.
"I was hungry," I declared unnecessarily, somewhat defensive. "I had a murderous tutorial, for which I skipped lunch, and then worked in the Bodleian all afternoon. I don't remember if I had breakfast. I may have done."
"What so engrossed you this time?"
"Actually, I was doing some work that might interest you. My maths tutor and I were working with some problems in theory, involving base eight, when we came across some mathematical exercises developed by an old acquaintance of yours."
"I assume you speak of Professor Moriarty?" His voice was as cold as the ivy outside my window, but I refused to be subdued.
"Exactly. I spent the day hunting down some articles he published. I was interested in the mind and the personality as well as the mathematics."
"What impression did you have of the man?"
"The subtlest of all the beasts in the garden' comes to mind. His cold-blooded, ruthless use of logic and language struck me as somehow reptilian, although that may be unkind to snakes. I believe that had I not known the identity of the writer, the words alone would have succeeded in raising my hackles."
"Being a good mammal yourself apparently, rather than a cold-blooded thinking machine such as your teacher is known to be," he said drily.
"Ah," I said, speaking lightly with the freedom of the brandy's glow, "but I have never called you cold-blooded, now have I, my dear Holmes?"
He sat very still for a moment and then cleared his throat. "No, you have not. Have you finished with Mrs. Hudson's picnic?"
"Yes, thank you." I allowed him to pack away the remnants. His movements seemed terribly stiff, but as he hated to have his ailments noted, I said nothing. He had probably taken a chill in his old woman's clothes, and his rheumatism was acting up. "If you would just put it over there, I will enjoy it greatly for lunch tomorrow."
"No, I am sorry, but I shall have to put it back in my shopping basket. We may need it tomorrow."
"Holmes, I don't much like the sound of that. I have an engagement for tomorrow. I am going to Berkshire. I have already put it off for three days, and I have no intention of further delaying it because of some demand of yours."
"You have no choice, Russell. We must be away from here, before they find us."
"Who? Holmes, what is going on? Don't tell me you suggest we go out again into that." I waved my hand at the window, where the damp, splashing drops told of rain halfway to being snow. "I'm not even dry from the first time. And what is that thing you've brought — is it really a bomb? Why did you bring it here? Talk to me, Holmes!"
"Very well, to be succinct: We shall go out, but not yet; the bomb was here, attached to your door when I arrived; and 'what's going on' is nothing less than attempted murder."
I stared at him aghast. The tangled object on the desk seemed to writhe gently in the edges of my vision, and I felt cold fingers running up my spine. When I had my breath back I spoke again and was pleased to find that my voice was almost firm.
"Who wishes to kill me? And how did you know about it?" I did not think it necessary to ask why.
"Well done, Russell. A quick mind is worthless unless you can control the emotions with it as well. Tell me first, why did you come up the ivy, rather than through the door? You did not have your revolver and could hardly have expected to leap in the window and overpower your intruder." His dry voice was marginally too casual, but I could not see why this was so important to him.
"Information. I needed to know what awaited me before making a decision. Had I found an armed reception party I'd have gone down and had Mr. Thomas telephone for the police. Am I correct in assuming that you left the black smudge on the doorknob for me to find?"
"I did."
"And the mud and leaves on the opposite window ledge?"
"The mud was there before I came. One leaf I added, as assurance that you should notice."
"Why the charade, Holmes? Why risk my bones coming up the wall?"
He looked straight at me and his voice was dead, flat serious.
"Because, my dear child, I needed to be absolutely certain that despite being tired, cold, and hungry, you would pick up the small hints and act correctly."
"The business of the note in my pigeonhole was hardly a 'small hint.' A bit heavy-handed for you. Why didn't you ask Mrs. Hudson which room I was in? She has been to my rooms before." There was something here I was just not seeing.
"I have not seen Mrs. Hudson for some days."
"But — the food?"
"Old Will brought it to me. You may have seen that he's more than just the gardener," he added with apparent irrelevance.
"I surmised that some time ago, yes. But why have you been away — ?" I stopped, and my eyes nan-owed as various facts merged and his stiffness came back to me. "My God, you're hurt. They tried to kill you first, didn't they? Where are you injured? How badly?"
"Some distinctly uncomfortable abrasions along my back, is all. I'm afraid I may have to ask you to change the dressings at some point, but not immediately. The person who set the bomb thinks I'm dying, fortunately. Some poor tramp was run over just after they took me to the hospital, and he's there still, with bandages about his head and my name on his chart. And, I might add, a constable at his side at all times."
"Was anyone else hurt? Mrs. Hudson?"
"Mrs. Hudson is fine, although half the glass in the south wall is out. The house is miserable in this weather so she's off to that friend of hers in Lewes until repairs are made. No, the bomb was not actually in the house; they set it in one of the beehives, of all places. He, or they, must have laid it the night before, expecting it to catch me on my morning rounds. Perhaps he used a radio transmitter to trigger it, or else motion at the adjoining hives was enough. In any case, I can only be grateful that it did not go up in my face."
"Who, Holmes? Who?"
"There are three names that come to mind, although the humourous touch of using the hive is of a level I should not have credited to any of the three. There are four bombers I have put away in the past. One is dead. One has been out for five years, though I had heard that he had settled down and become a strong family man. The second was let out eighteen months ago and has apparently remained in the London area. The third escaped from Princetown last July. Any one of the three could have been responsible for my bomb, which was professionally laid and left very little intact evidence. Yours, however, is a different matter. A thing like that is as individual as a fingerprint. Not being entirely up to date on bombs myself, however, I need an expert to read this particular fingerprint. We shall take it with us when we go."
"Where are we going?" I asked with considerable patience, I thought, considering the havoc I could see this was going to wreak on my plans for a lovely holiday.
"To the great cesspool, of course."
"Why London?"
"Mycroft, my dear child, my brother Mycroft. He possesses the knowledge of Scotland Yard without the obsessional reticence of that good body, which tends to hoard information like a dragon its gold. Mycroft can, with a single telephone call, tell me the precise locations of our three possibilities, and who is the most likely author of your mechanism here. Assuming my attempted murderer still believes me to be in hospital, he would not connect you with Mycroft, as the two of you have never so much as met. We will be safe with him for a day or two, and we shall see what trail turns up. The scent in Sussex is, I fear, very cold. I did come up here as quickly as I could, but I was not in time to catch him at his work. I am sorry about that. You see before you a distinctly inferior version of Sherlock Holmes, old, rusty, and easily laid out."
"By a bomb that nearly killed you." His long, expressive fingers waved away my proffered excuse. "Do we go now?"
"I think not. He already knows the bomb did not go off. He will no doubt assume that you will be on full guard tonight — that you have not called the police already tells him that. He will bide his time tonight, and tomorrow either lay another bomb for you, or if, as I suspect, he is intelligent and flexible enough, he will be creative and use a sniper's rifle or a runaway motor car, should you be so foolish as to provide a target. However, you will not. We will be on the streets before light, but not earlier. You may rest until then."
"Thank you." I tore my eyes from the bomb. "First, your back. How much gauze will I need?"
"A considerable quantity, I should think. Do you have it?"
"One of the girls down the hall is a hypochondriac with a nurse mother. If you can do your lock trick on her door as well as you did on that of my other neighbour we should be well supplied."
"Ah, that reminds me, Russell. An early birthday present."
Holmes held out a small, narrow package wrapped in shiny paper. "Open it now."
I undid the wrappings with great curiosity, for Holmes did not normally give gifts. I opened the dark velvet jeweller's box and found inside a shiny new set of picklocks, a younger version of his own.
"Holmes, ever the romantic. Mrs. Hudson would be pleased." He chuckled and stood up cautiously. "Shall we try them out?"
Some time later we were back in front of my fire, richer by several square yards of gauze, a huge roll of sticking plaster, and a quart bottle of antiseptic. I poured him a large brandy, and when he took off his shirt I could see that I was going to need most of that gauze. I refilled his glass and stood assessing the job.
"We ought to let Watson do this."
"If he were standing here I would. Get on with it." He swallowed this second brandy neat, so I poured him a third, picked up the scissors, and paused.
"Personally I have found that the mind handles pain best if it is given a counterirritant to distract it. Aha, I have just the thing. Holmes, tell me about the case of the King of Bohemia, and Irene Adler." Holmes was seldom beaten, but that woman had done it, with an ease and a flair that I knew still rankled. Her photograph stood on his bookshelf, as a reminder of his failure, and telling me about it would very possibly distract him from his back.
At first he refused, but as I continued snipping and pulling off bits of sticking plaster, bandage, and skin, he began speaking through clenched teeth. "It began one night, in the spring of 1888, March I think, when the King of Bohemia came to my door to ask for some — dear God, Russell, leave me a bit of skin, would you? — some assistance. It seems he had been involved with a woman, a totally unsuitable woman from the point of view of a royal marriage, an opera singer. Unfortunately for him she loved him, and refused to return a photograph she possessed of the two of them in a position of obvious affection. This photograph he wanted back, and he hired me to retrieve it."
The narrative wound on as I doused and snipped and peeled, pausing often as his jaws clamped down and beads of sweat came to his brow. I finished before his account had ended, but he continued as I took his bloodstained shirt to the basin in the corner. With the end of the story, the final description of how she saw through Holmes' disguises and with her new husband eluded both detective and monarch, he swallowed the last of the brandy and sat staring into the fire, breathing heavily.
I arranged the shirt in front of the coals to dry and turned to the exhausted man next to me.
"You need to lie down and sleep. Take my bed — no, I'll not hear protest. You need to be on your stomach for a while, and you cannot sleep in a chair in that position. No, I refuse to accept gallant stupidity in place of rational necessity. Go."
"Defeated again. I surrender." With a wan imitation of his sardonic smile he stood and followed me. I pulled aside the bedclothes, and he slowly lowered himself forward into my bed. I gently pulled the blankets up over his naked shoulders.
"Sleep well."
"You will need to wear a young man's clothing tomorrow. I trust you have some," he said around the pillow.
"Of course."
"Take a small knapsack with a few things in it. We will buy clothing if we are to be gone very long."
"I will pack it tonight." "And write a note to Mr. Thomas, telling him you've been called away for a few days, that you understand Mr. Holmes has been in an accident. He is in my employ; he'll understand."
"In your — you are a devious man. Go to sleep."
I wrote the note, including a request to ring Veronica Beaconsfield, telling her not to meet my train, and sat before the fire to braid my hair, which was dry at last. (The one drawback to long hair is washing it in the winter.) I studied the flickering coals as my hands slowly bound one- half of the fluffy cloud into a long plait that reached past my waist and tied a cord around the end. I had started on the other side when his voice came again from the dark corner, low and slurred with drink and sleep.
"I asked Mrs. Hudson once why she thought you wore your hair so long. She said it was a vestige of femininity."
My hands went still. This was the first time in our acquaintance that he had commented on my appearance, other than to disparage it. Watson would never have believed it possible. I smiled down at the fire and continued the plait.
"Yes, she would think that, I suppose."
"Is it true?"
"I think not. I find short hair too much fuss, always needing combing and cutting. Long hair is much easier, oddly enough."
There was no answer, but soon a gentle snore reached my ears. I took a spare blanket from the shelf and pulled it around me on the chair. My spectacles I laid on the little table next to me, the room retreated into fuzzi ness, and I slept.
I awoke once, some hours later, stiff and uncertain of my surroundings. The fire had burnt down, but I could see a figure seated at the window, wrapped in a blanket looking out at the night. I sat up and reached for my spectacles.
"Holmes? Is it — ?"
The figure turned quickly toward me and held up a ringer.
"No, hush, child, go back to sleep. I'm only thinking, as best I can without lighting my pipe. Go back to sleep for a while. I'll wake you when it's time."
I laid my spectacles back onto the table, reached over to throw more coal on the fire, and settled myself again into the chair. As I drifted back into sleep, I experienced one of those odd and memorable dream-moments that lodge in the mind and, with hindsight, seem precognitive of events that follow. A phrase presented itself to my mind, with such stark clarity that it might have been in print before my eyes. It was a remembered phrase, from the speculative or philosophical introductory chapter in Holmes' book on bee-keeping. He had written, "A hive of bees should be viewed, not as a single species, but as a triumvirate of related types, mutually exclusive in function but utterly and inextricably interdependent upon each other. A single bee separated from its sisters and brothers will die, even if given the ideal food and care. A single bee cannot survive apart from the hive."
The surprise of the statement half woke me, or I seemed to half wake, and when I looked over at Holmes I had the oddest impression that there was a drop of rain on his cheek. Impossible, of course. I am now quite convinced that it was a dream, although the visual impression was vivid, if blurred through myopia. I mention it, not as historical truth, but as an indication of the complex state of my unconscious mind at the time — And, as I mentioned, because of the events it foreshadowed.
We must disentangle, therefore, what now is obscure.
"Wake, Russell," said a voice in my ear. "The game's afoot!" The room was dark but for the flame of the Bunsen burner, and the air smelt of coffee.
"Cry 'God for Harry! England and Saint George!'" I muttered grumpily to complete Henry's speech. Once more unto the breach, and all that.
"Indeed. But I fear that the game after whom the greyhounds strain is us. Up, now, drink your coffee. It may be some long time before your next hot drink. And your clothing — everything warm you own, while I return our borrowed goods to your neighbour. Perhaps," he added, "you might purchase another bottle of this ghastly brandy before your near neighbour returns. No light, now, we must be invisible."
By the time he returned I was dressed as a young man and held my heaviest boots in my hands.
"I shall put these on at the outer door. Mr. Thomas has excellent hearing."
"You know the building better than I, Russell, but I had thought to leave from the other end. Your corner here will be under observation from the street."
I sipped gingerly at the steaming coffee while I thought, and grimaced at the taste.
"Couldn't you have washed out the beaker before you made coffee in it? It tastes like the sulphur I was using yesterday. It's a good thing I wasn't experimenting with arsenic."
"I smelt it first. A little sulphur is good for the blood."
"Spoils the coffee."
"Don't drink it then. Come, Russell, stop dawdling."
I gulped half the scalding drink and poured the rest into the hand-basin.
"There is another way," I suggested thoughtfully, "one that avoids both the street and the back alleyway, and I doubt that anyone who hasn't studied a medieval map of the area would know about it. It debouches into an absolutely foul yard," I added.
"That sounds ideal. Do not neglect to bring your revolver, Russell. It may be needed, and it does us no good in your drawer with that disgusting cheese."
"My lovely Stilton; it's almost ripe, too. I do hope Mr. Thomas enjoys it."
"Any riper and it will eat through the woodwork and drop into the room below."
"You envy me my educated tastes."
"That I will not honour with a response. Get out the door, Russell."
We crept noiselessly through passages and hallways, into an attic where I used my new picklocks on the connecting door, and into a kind of priest's hole that had lain undisturbed for 250 years until the previous summer, when the fiancé of one of my housemates found a reference in a letter in the bowels of the Bodleian, searched it out, and landed a readership for his efforts. At one point we took to the dangerously slick roof, two inches of snow over ice.
Finally Holmes hissed at me.
"Are you lost, Russell? We've been nearly twenty minutes in this labyrinth. Time is of the essence, I trust you understand."
"I do. Our other possible route involved hanging by our hands and swinging between the buildings. While I know that physical discomfort is nothing in your eyes, I should prefer to wait until later in the day to have your back opened up, if you don't mind." The strain of responsibility was sharpening my tongue, and I bit back further words to concentrate on the route.
We eventually reached the noxious yard and stood before its pristine white surface, which obscured decades of horse droppings, kitchen slops, and other unmentionables. In the summer it rivalled my Stilton for olfactory potency.
We huddled in the door's recess, and I spoke to Holmes in a whisper.
"As you see, other than this doorway and two others, neither of which could conceal anyone, the yard itself is secure. I see two possible problems: one, that there may be watchers in the street outside the gate, and two, that when they find me gone they may search the area and find two sets of footprints. If you prefer, we could take to the roofs again."
"Really, Russell, you do disappoint me, allowing yourself to be limited by the obvious options. There is no more time for scaling the heights. They will soon know that you have escaped them; giving them your footprints will do no harm. We will not give them mine. If there are watchers, use your gun."
I swallowed, put my hand in my pocket, and strode off firmly into the open yard, grateful for the heavy nails on my boots. I looked back to see Holmes mincing within my footsteps, his skirt drawn up to reveal the trousers below. Were it not for the threat hanging over us, I would have given out with a girlish giggle at the sight, but I refrained.
I passed the gates with the revolver in my hand, but there was no human there, only a scurry in the dustbins.
We followed this singular method of travel up the alleyway to the main road, where the few early travellers had already turned the snow to mire. Here we could walk abreast, Holmes as a hobbling old lady, myself as a gawky farm boy. His dingy black skirt and cape of yesterday had been reversed to an equally dingy blue, and the mole on his chin had disappeared, to be replaced by a mouthful of rotten teeth. Not an improvement from my point of view, but few eyes would look past the mouth to the face beyond — what face there was between scarfs and hat.
"Don't stride so, Russell!" Holmes whispered fiercely. "Throw your boots out in front of you as you walk and let your elbows stick out a bit. It would help if you let your mouth hang open stupidly, and for God's sake take off your glasses, at least until we get out of town. I won't allow you to walk into anything. Do you think you could persuade your nose to drip a bit, just for the effect?"
Soon I was slouching along blindly in the bleak dawn light, stumbling occasionally while appearing to support my aged mother. ,By the time it was fully light we stood on the Banbury Road going north out of town.
"North, away from London? This is going to be a long day."
"It's safer. See if you can persuade that wagon to take us a few miles."
I clumped off obediently into the road to intercept the farmer returning from town with an empty wagon and glad for thruppence, to "save me old mum a walk to Bamb'ry to see her newest grandchild."
He was a talkative man and jabbered away the whole time as his horse meandered about the road. It saved us from having to construct a story for him, though by the time he left us in Banbury I was most weary of smiling stupidly out from under my hat brim and trying not to squint. As his wagon pulled away I turned to Holmes.
"Next time we do this, I will play the deaf old woman and you can laugh at rude jests for an hour."
Holmes cackled merrily and shuffled off down the road.
It was a long day's work that brought us to London, two cold and hungry travellers who kept moving largely through force of habit. We went north and west out of Oxford to reach London to the southeast, and covered a weary number of miles in circling widely across the countryside in order to enter the city from the south, for the Oxford road was the natural target of watchers. From Ban bury to Broughton Foggs, Hungerford to Guildford, touching Kent and Greenwich we came; on foot, farm wagons, horse buses, and motorcars we bought, begged, and — once — stole rides to bring ourselves to the great city of London, to which all roads lead, eventually. I could tell by Holmes' silence that his back was paining him, but there was nothing to do but buy him a bottle of brandy and press on. With Mycroft we would find the assistance we needed.
The snow started up again late in the afternoon, but not severely enough to stop the flow of vehicles. It was half past seven when we numbly stepped from a public omnibus onto Pall Mall, a hundred yards from the doors of the Diogenes Club, of which Mycroft Holmes was a founder and prime member.
Holmes fished out a pencil stub and a grubby, twice-used envelope from a pocket. By the light of the lamp overhead the ends of his fingers looked blue where they stuck out from his fingerless gloves, and he wrote slowly and awkwardly. His thin lips appeared purple in his pale face, despite the shawl pulled up tight to hide his day's stubble.
"Take this to the front of the Club. They won't let you in, I shouldn't think, but they will take this to Mycroft if you tell them it's from his cousin. Have you a half crown if they're hesitant? Good. I will stay here. And, Russell, perhaps you should put your glasses on."
I pushed myself into a heavy trot, the boots which had kept me so dry during the day now seeming to weigh approximately two stone each. The man at the entrance to the Club was indeed reticent about taking my disreputable looking message to a member, but I persisted and within a minute found myself being escorted into the warm air inside. My glasses promptly fogged up, and when a voice rumbled from before me, "I am Mycroft Holmes. Where is my brother?" I could only thrust out a hand in the general direction of the speaker. It was seized and shaken firmly by what felt like a pillow of warm, raw bread dough. I peered over my glasses at his enormous figure.
"He waits outside, sir. If it is convenient, he needs — we need — a roof for the night and a hot meal. Also," I added in a low voice, "a doctor might be of some use."
"Yes, I knew he was injured. Mrs. Hudson telephoned me with a very graphic account, and would have turned me out to bring Dr. Watson to Sussex had I not convinced her that our presence would not be a kindness, and that the doctors in Sussex were quite adequate. In the end she agreed not to inform the good doctor until Sherlock seemed strong enough for visitors. I admit I was surprised to hear from my friends at Scotland Yard that he had disappeared from the hospital. Are the wounds so light, then?"
"Not light. I'm certain they are very painful, but his life is not in danger, if he avoids infection, that is. He needs rest, food, and quiet."
"And he stands in the cold." He raised his voice and called for his coat, and we plunged back into the snowy street outside. My spectacles cleared quickly, and I looked down towards the next streetlamp.
"I left him there," I said, and pointed.
The man next to me was every bit as large as his grip had indicated but surprisingly quick on his feet, and he was first to reach the rumpled figure in dark blue and help it rise from an upturned crate. "Good evening, Mycroft," said Holmes. "I apologise for intruding on your quiet reading with my little problem, but unfortunately it appears that someone is attempting to exterminate Miss Russell and myself. I thought you might be willing to be of assistance."
"Sherlock, you're a fool not to have called me in earlier. I could have saved you what was obviously a strenuous day's work. And you know that I am always interested in these cases of yours — apart from those requiring excessive physical activity, of course. Come, let us cross over to my rooms."
My glasses rendered me blind again as we entered the building across from the Club, so I removed them and stumbled heavily up the stairs behind the brothers. Once inside, the curtains drawn tight, I dropped my laden knapsack to the floor, remembering belatedly the explosive device it contained, and collapsed into a chair before the fire. I was vaguely aware of Mycroft Holmes sending for some food and pressing hot drinks into our hands, but the warmth and the lack of movement were such sheer bliss that I was not interested in anything else.
I must have drifted off to sleep there, for I awoke with a start some time later with Holmes' hand on my shoulder and voice in my ear.
"I won't permit you to spend two nights running perched in a chair, Russell. Come and have some food with us."
I stood up sheepishly and put on the tiresome spectacles. "May I wash first?" I asked to a point halfway between Holmes and his brother.
"Of course," exclaimed Mycroft Holmes. He ushered me down a hall to a small room with a daybed. "This will be yours while you are here, and the bath and such are through here. I borrowed a few things from a neighbour, if you would like to shed your present attire." He looked a bit embarrassed at the inescapable intimacy of this offer, but I thanked him warmly, and he looked relieved. He was quite obviously no more accustomed to having to take the needs of a female into account than Holmes had been before I walked into him on the downs.
"Just one thing," I added hesitantly, and saw the anxiety come back to his corpulent face. "Your brother's injuries — he really should not be allowed to spend the night in a chair. If he would be better in here — ?"
His face cleared. "No, worry not, Miss Russell. I have sufficient space for the both of you," and he left me for his imminent food.
I washed quickly and dressed in a thick blue robe I found hanging in the wardrobe. My hair I left pinned up on my head, escaping tendrils and all. My feet went gratefully into a pair of slightly too small carpet slippers, and I went to join the brothers at the table.
When I walked into the room, Mycroft immediately scraped back his chair, stood up, and went to pull out a chair for me. Holmes (returned now to his normal self, white teeth and all) watched him for a moment, looked at me, laid his serviette on the table, and slowly stood, smiling curiously. I was seated, Mycroft took his seat, and Holmes sat, a peculiar twist to the corner of his lips. Reminders of my femininity always took him by surprise. However, I could not hold him to blame, for they took me by surprise as well.
The roast capon was delicious, the breads fresh, the wine sparkled on the tongue. We spoke of inconsequentials and finished with a platter of cheese, among which I was pleased to find a piece of old Stilton. Mycroft and I shared it, leaving the cheddar to Holmes. It was a most satisfying meal. I said as much as I pushed back my plate.
"A full stomach, a slightly tipsy brain, and the knowledge of a safe place to sleep. What more could a person ask? Thank you, Mr. Holmes." We adjourned to the fire, and Mycroft poured out three large brandies. I looked at my glass and wished for bed, and sighed quietly.
"Will you see a doctor tonight, Holmes?"
"I will not see a doctor, no. It must not be known that we are here."
"What of the Club, and the cook? They must know, surely."
"The Club is discreet," said Mycroft, "and I told the cook that I was exceedingly hungry."
"So, no doctor. Even Watson?"
"Especially Watson."
I sighed again. "I suppose this is another of your tests of my abilities at basic first-aid, or some such. Very well, bring on the gauze."
Mycroft went off to find the necessaries, and Holmes removed his jacket and began to undo his buttons.
"How may I distract you this time?" I asked sympathetically.
"The story of Moriarty and the Reichenbach Falls, perhaps?"
"I need no distraction, Russell," he said curtly. "I believe I have already told you that a mind which cannot control its body's emotional reactions is no mind worth having."
"As surely you should know, Holmes," I responded tartly. "Perhaps you could turn your mind to closing the physical reaction of those holes in your back. This shirt is beyond salvation."
The gauze that met my eyes was stained brown, and underneath it the skin was a mass of purple bruises and scabs. However, all but the worst of the wounds were intact, and only one, puckered by several sutures, was angry and red.
"I think there may be some bit of débris left in this one," I said. I looked over at Mycroft, who had perched fastidiously in a corner during the work. "Can you bring me something for a hot poultice?"
For the next half hour I held heated poultices to Holmes' side as he and Mycroft reviewed the known facts of the two attempts. Holmes had me insert my part of the story as he lit a pipe with unsteady hands.
"And the bomb?" asked Mycroft at the end of it.
"In Russell's haversack."
Mycroft retrieved it and sat with it on the table in front of him, lifting up wires and gently prodding connexions. "I will have a friend look at this tomorrow, but it does look similar to the one you took from the Western Street bank attempt some years ago."
"And yet, you know, I had placed that man, Dickson his name was, on the bottom of the list of possibilities. In the five years since he was released, Inspector Lestrade informed me, he has married, had two children, made a success of himself at his father-in-law's music shop, and worships his family. An unlikely candidate."
As Holmes talked an unpleasant suspicion began to unfurl itself in my mind. When his voice stopped I blurted it out.
"Holmes, you said that Mrs. Hudson was out of the way, but do you think we should ask Watson to move into an hotel for two or three days, or go visit a relative, until we know what's going on?"
The thin back went rigid beneath my hands, and he jerked, cursed, and turned more slowly to me, aghast. "My God, Russell, how could 1 — Mycroft, you're on the telephone. You talk to him, Russell. Do not let him know where you are, or that I am with you. You know his number? Good. Oh, if anything has happened to him through my utter and absolute, boneheaded stupidity — "I held the telephone to my ear and waited to be connected. Watson usually retired early, and it was after eleven o'clock. Holmes gnawed on his thumb as he waited, watching my face. Finally the connexion was made and the sleepy voice came up on the line.
"Hmmmph?"
"Watson, dear Uncle John, is that you? Mary here, I must — no, I am fine. Listen Uncle, I — no, Holmes is well, or was well, when I spoke with him last. Listen to me, Uncle John, you must listen to me. Are you listening? Good, yes, I am sorry that it is so late, I know I woke you, but you must leave your house, tonight, as soon as possible. Yes, I know it is late, but surely there is an hotel that would take you in, even at this hour? The what? Yes, good. Now you must take some things and go now. What? No, I have no time for explanations, but there have been two bombs set, one for Holmes and one for me, and — yes. No. No, mine did not go off, and Holmes had only minor injuries, but Uncle John, you may be in great danger and must leave your house at once. Now. Yes, Mrs. Hudson is safe and sound. No, Holmes is not with me, I don't know exactly where he is." I turned my back carefully so I could not see Holmes, and thus preserve an iota of the truth. "He told me to ring you. No, I am not in Oxford, I'm at the house of a friend. Now please go; I will call you at the hotel when I've heard something from Holmes. And Uncle, you must not mention this call to anyone, do you understand? No one must think that Holmes is anywhere but safely at home. You are not terribly good at dissimulation, I know, but it is terribly important. You know what the newspapers would do if they heard of it. Go to your hotel, stay there, talk to no one, until I call. Please? Ah, thank you. My mind will rest easier. You won't delay, will you? Good. Goodbye."
I rang off and looked at Holmes. "Mrs. Hudson?" I asked.
"No need to disturb her at this hour. The morning is soon enough."
The tension subsided in the room, and the weariness crept back into my bones. I lightly fastened the dressings over Holmes' back, picked up my glass, and lifted it to the two brothers.
"Gentlemen, I bid you good night. I trust our plans may wait until morning for their formulation?"
"When brains are fresher," said Holmes, as if quoting someone whose opinions he considered suspect — Oscar Wilde perhaps. "Good night, Russell."
"I trust, Holmes, that you will allow your body some rest tonight."
He reached for his pipe.
"Russell, there are times when the infirmities of the body may be used as a means of concentrating the mind. I should be something of a fool were I not to take advantage of that phenomenon."
This from a man who could not even sit back in a chair. I unclenched my jaw and spoke with deliberate cruelty.
"No doubt that marvellous concentration explains why you neglected to include Watson in your calculations." I regretted it as soon as the words were said, but I could not very well take them back. "Get some sleep, for God's sake, Holmes."
"I say again, good night, Russell," he bit off, struck a match with a violence that must have hurt his back, and applied it to the bowl. I looked at Mycroft, who shrugged minutely, threw my hands in the air, and went to bed.
It was very late, or very early, when the smell of tobacco no longer drifted under my door.
The massacre of the males —
I was awakened by the shout of a street hawker in the grey morning, and as I lay there summoning the energy to find my watch, the gentle clatter of cup meeting saucer in the next room evoked certain possibilities. I dressed quickly in crumpled trousers and shirt from my knapsack and made my way to the sitting room.
"I hear I have not missed breakfast entirely," I said as I entered, and stopped dead as I saw the third figure at the table. "Uncle John! But how — ?"
Holmes vacated a chair and took his cup over to the window, where the curtains were still tightly drawn. He moved with care and looked his age and more, but there was no pain in his face, and his shaven chin and combed hair bespoke a degree of back movement that would have been difficult the previous day.
"I fear my long-time chronicler has taken a few of my lessons to heart, Russell. We have been run to earth."
His expression was of amusement and chagrin laid over something darker, worry, perhaps. He grimaced as Watson chuckled and buttered his toast.
"Elementary, my dear Holmes," he said, and Holmes snorted. "Where would Mary be, if you were both in danger, but with you, and where would you go but to your brother's? Have some tea, Mary," he offered, and looked at me over his glasses. "Though I should like an apology for your telling me an untruth." He did not sound hurt, only resigned, and it occurred to me that Holmes was well accustomed to deceiving this man, because he was, as I had said, not gifted with the ability to lie, and thus quite simply could not be trusted to act a part. For the first time I became aware of how that knowledge must have pained him, how saddened he must have been over the years at his failure, as he would have seen it, his inability to serve his friend save by unwittingly being manipulated by Holmes' cleverer mind. And when I continued the pattern, he only looked a mild reproach at me and beheaded a second egg. I sat down in the chair Holmes had left and put a hand on his.
"I am sorry, Uncle John. Really very sorry. I was afraid for you, and afraid that if you came here they'd follow you. I wanted to keep you out of it."
He harrumphed in embarrassment and patted my hand awkwardly, pink to his bushy grey eyebrows.
"Quite all right, my dear, quite all right. I do understand. Just remember that I've been watching out for myself for a long time now, I'm hardly a babe in the woods."
And perhaps also, my mind continued, it was an unkind way to remind him that he had been displaced from Holmes' side by an active younger person — a female at that. I was struck anew by the size of this man's heart.
"I know that, Uncle John. I should have thought it out more carefully. But you — how did you get here? And when did you shave off your moustache?" Very recently, from the looks of the skin.
Holmes spoke from his position by the curtains, sounding for all the world like a parent both proud and exasperated at a child's clever but inconvenient new trick.
"Put on your alter ego, Watson," he ordered.
Watson obligingly put down his spoon and went to the door, where he struggled into a much-repaired greatcoat cut for a man considerably taller than he, a warped bowler, knit wool gloves out at the fingers in three places, and a knit scarf with a distinctly loving-hands-at-home air about it.
"They belong to the doorman at the hotel," he explained proudly. "It was just like old times, Holmes, really it was. I left the hotel by the kitchen entrance, through three restaurants and Victoria Station, took two trams, a horse bus, and a cab. It took me half an hour to walk the last quarter mile, watching for loiterers from every doorway. I do not think even Holmes himself could have followed me without my seeing," he winked at me.
"But, why, Uncle John? I told you that I'd ring you."
The old man drew himself up proudly. "I am a doctor, and I have a friend who is injured. It was my duty to come."
Holmes muttered something from the window, where one of his long fingers pulled back one edge of the thick draperies. Watson did not hear it, but to me it sounded like, "Goodness and mercy shall plague me all the days of my life." I had once thought him to be nearly illiterate when it came to Scripture, but he was ever full of surprises, although he did tend to change quotes to suit the circumstances.
"Watson, why should I let you do further damage to my epidermis, what little Russell has left for me? It has already entertained two doctors and a number of nurses at my local hospital. Are you so needy of patients?"
"You will allow me to examine your injuries because I will not leave until I have done so," Watson said with asperity. Holmes glared at him furiously, and at Mycroft and myself as we began to laugh. He jerked his hand from the drapes.
"Very well, Watson, let us get it over with. I have work to do." Watson went with Mycroft to wash his hands, taking with him the black doctor's bag he had openly carried through the streets. I looked at Holmes despairingly. He closed his eyes and nodded, then gestured to the window. "At the end of the street," he said and went off after Watson.
I put one eye to the edge of the fabric and looked cautiously out. The snow had melted into yellow-grey drifts along the walls, and far down the street there sat a blind man selling pencils. Business was almost nonexistent at that hour, but I watched for several minutes, half hearing the raised voices in the next room. I was just about to turn away when a child came up to the well-swaddled figure and dropped something into the cup, receiving a pencil in return. I watched thoughtfully as the child ran off. A very ragged schoolboy, that one. The black figure reached into the cup, as if to feel the coin, but it had looked to me like a folded square of paper. We were discovered.
Mycroft came into the room then and poured himself a cup of tea dregs. There was a rustle outside the door, and I tensed, but he calmly said, "The morning news." He went to bring it in from his mat. Just then Watson's voice came from the next room asking for something, so he handed me the paper and went off. I unfolded it, and my breath stopped. A headline on the front page read:
BOMBER KILLED BY OWN DEVICE
WATSON, HOLMES TARGETS?
A large bomb exploded shortly after midnight this morning at the home of Dr. John Watson, famous biographer of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, apparently killing the man who was in the act of setting it.
Dr. Watson was evidently not at home, and his whereabouts are currently unknown. The house was badly damaged. The resultant fire was quickly brought under control, and there were no other injuries. A spokesman for New Scotland Yard told this paper that the man killed has been identified as Mr. John Dickson, of Reading. Mr. Dickson was convicted of the 1908 bombing attempt on the Empire Bank on Western Street, Southampton.
Mr. Holmes gave key evidence against him during the trial.
Unconfirmed reports of an earlier bomb at the isolated Sussex farm of Mr. Holmes have reached this newspaper, and one reliable source states that the detective was seriously injured in the blast. There will be further details in our later edition.
I reread the short article, little more than a notice, with a feeling of drunken unreality. I quite literally could not comprehend the words before me, partly due to shock, but more because it simply made no sense. I felt as if my brain were moving through tar. My hands laid the paper down on top of the débris of teacups and eggshells and then folded themselves into my lap. I am not certain how long it was before I heard Mycroft speak sharply over my shoulder.
"Miss Russell, what is the matter? Shall I send for more tear I unfolded one hand and laid a finger across the newsprint, and when he had read it he lowered himself into a sturdy chair. I looked over at him and saw Holmes' glittering, intense eyes sunk into a fleshy, pale face, and knew he was thinking as furiously and as fruitlessly as I.
"That is most provocative," he said at last. "We were barely in time, were we not?"
"In time for what?" Holmes came into the room fastening his cuffs, his voice edged. Mycroft handed him the paper, and a sibilant whistle escaped him as he read it.
When Watson entered, Holmes turned to him. "It seems, my old friend, that we owe a considerable and deeply felt thanks to Russell."
Watson read about his near escape and collapsed into the chair Holmes pushed into the back of his knees.
"A whisky for the man, Mycroft," but the big man was already at the cabinet pouring. Watson held it unsee ingly. Suddenly he stood up, reaching for his black bag.
"I must go home."
"You must do nothing of the sort," retorted Holmes, and took the bag from his hand.
"But the landlady, my papers." His voice drifted off.
"The article states that no one was hurt," Holmes said reasonably. "Your papers will wait, and you can contact the neighbours and the police later. Right now you will go to bed. You have been up all night and you have had a bad shock. Finish your drink." Watson, through long habit of obedience to the voice of his friend, tipped the liquor down his throat and stood looking dazed. Mycroft took his elbow and led him off to the bed that Holmes had occupied for such a short while the night before.
Holmes lit his pipe, and its slight sough joined the mutter of the traffic below and the indistinct voices from the bedroom down the hall. We were silent, although I fancy the sound of our thinking was almost audible. Holmes frowned at a point on the wall, I fiddled with a piece of string I had found in my pocket and frowned, and Mycroft, when he appeared, sat in the chair between us at the fire, and frowned.
My fingers turned the string into a cat's cradle and made various intricate shapes until I dropped a connexion and held only a tangle of string. I broke the silence.
"Very well, gentlemen, I admit I am baffled. Can either of you tell me why, if Watson was followed here, Dickson would persist in setting the bomb? Surely he couldn't have cared about the house itself, or Watson's papers?"
"It is indeed a pretty problem, is it not, Mycroft?"
"It changes the picture considerably, does it not, Sherlock?"
"Dickson was not operating alone — "
"And he was not in charge of the operation — "
"Or if he was, his subordinates were extremely ineffective," Holmes added.
"Because he was not informed that his target had left an hour before — "
"But was that deliberate or an oversight?"
"I suppose a group of criminals can overlook essential organisational — "
"For pity's sake, Mycroft, it's not the government."
"True, a certain degree of competence is required for survival as a criminal."
"Odd, though; I should not have thought Dickson likely to be clumsy."
"Oh, not suicide, surely? After a series of revenge killings?"
"None of us are dead," Holmes reminded him.
"Yet," I muttered, but they ignored me.
"Yes, that is provocative, is it not? Let us keep that in mind."
"If he was employed — " Holmes began.
"I suppose Lestrade will examine his bank accounts?" Mycroft asked doubtfully.
" — and it was not just a whim among some of my old acquaintances — "
"Unlikely."
" — to band together to obliterate me and everyone close to me — "
"I suppose I should have been next," Mycroft mused.
" — then it does make me wonder, rather, about Dick-son's death."
"Accident and suicide are unlikely. Could a bomber's boss bomb a bomber?"
"Pull yourself together, Mycroft," Holmes ordered sternly.
"It is a valid question," his brother protested.
"It is," Holmes relented. "Can some of your people look at it, before the Yard?"
"Perhaps not before, but certainly simultaneously."
"Though there will not be much evidence left, if it was tampered with."
"And why? Dissatisfaction with the man's inefficiency?"
"Or wishing to save a final payment?"
"Makes it difficult to hire help in the future," Mycroft noted practically.
"And I shouldn't have thought money was a problem, here."
"Miss Russell's bomb is of the highest quality," agreed Mycroft.
"It is most irritating that Dickson is no longer available," Holmes grumbled.
"Which may be why he was removed."
"But he did not manage to kill us," Holmes protested.
"Anger at his failure, and determination to use alternate methods?"
"That's encouraging," I tried, "no more bombs," but Holmes ploughed on.
"You're probably right. Still, I should have liked to speak with him."
"I blame myself. I ought to have put a man to watch immediately, but — "
"You had no reason to assume he would arrive so quickly."
"No, not after his gap of — "
" — a full day," supplied Holmes blandly.
" — a full day," said Mycroft, not looking at me.
"If only I had been able to reach Russell's place earlier — "
I had had enough of this verbal tennis match, so I walked out onto the court and sliced through the net.
"You did not reach 'Russell's place' because Sunday's attempt to blow you into many untidy bits left you unconscious until dusk on Monday." Holmes looked at me, Mycroft Holmes looked at his brother, and I looked at the string in my hands complacently, like Madame Defarge at her knitting.
"I did not say I was unconscious," Holmes said accusingly.
"No, and you tried to make me think the bomb went off Monday night. You forget, however, that I have had some experience of the progressive appearance of cuts and bruises, and the wounds on that back of yours were a good forty-eight hours old when I first saw them, not twenty-four. On Monday I was in my rooms until three o'clock, and you did not get into touch with me. Mrs. Thomas laid a fire, presumably at her customary time. Therefore you were still non compos mentis until at least five o'clock. At eight o'clock, however, when I returned, I found Mr. Thomas unnecessarily repairing a light fixture in the hallway outside my door, and as you now tell me he is in your employ, it becomes evident that at some point between five and eight you telephoned him and ordered him to watch my rooms until I returned. And probably after that, as well, knowing you.
"On Tuesday I expect that you would have had Mr. Thomas keep me from my rooms, had you not been determined to make your way up yourself, despite a concussed brain and a raw back. I assume that you intended to arrive somewhat earlier than you did, and Mr. Thomas went off his guard, as he had been told that his services would after that time no longer be required. What held you up, that you did not arrive until six-thirty?"
"Six twenty-two. A positively diabolical series of happenstances. Lestrade was late for our meeting, the matron hid my clothes, the tramp was brought in, and I had to seize the opportunity to arrange a sleight-of-body with the hospital staff, and then when I arrived at the cottage it was swarming with police and I had to wait for them to amble off for their tea before I could get what I needed from the house and see what they'd left at the hive — thank God for Will, I'd never have managed without him. And I missed a train and there were no taxis at the rank in Oxford — positively diabolical, as I said."
"Why didn't you just telephone from the hospital? Or send a telegram?"
"I did send a telegram, to Thomas, from a station so small I doubt more than six trains stop there in a year. And when I finally made Oxford I telephoned to him and told him not to mention anything to you, that the little problem had been taken care of."
"But, Holmes, what made you come? Did you have any cause to think I was in danger? Or was it just your generally suspicious mind?" He was looking very uncomfortable, and not because of his back. "Did you have any reason — ?"
"No!" My last word made him shout, made us all aware of the glaring inconsistency of his actions. "No, it was a fixation visited upon an abused brain. Reason demanded I stay on the scene of the crime, with perhaps a telephone call to put you on your guard, but I — to tell you the truth, I found it impossible to retain a logical train of thought. It was the most peculiar side-effect of concussion I've ever experienced. At dawn on Tuesday all I could think of was reaching your door by dusk, and when I found I was able to walk — I walked."
"How odd," I said, and meant it. I would not have thought his affection for me would be allowed to interfere with the investigation of a case, shaken brain or no. And as for his obvious reluctance to trust me with the necessary actions — lying in wait for an attack, using my gun if necessary — that hurt. Particularly as he had not been altogether successful himself. I opened my mouth to confront him with it but managed to hold my tongue in time. Besides, in all honesty I had to admit that he was right.
"Very odd," I repeated, "but I am glad of it. Had you not interfered, I should almost certainly have walked in the door, as the only indications of tampering were two tiny scratches on the keyhole and one small leaf and a spot of mud on a window that was across a dim passageway from where I would stand to insert my key."
He let slip a brief flash of relief before an impassive reply. "You'd have noticed it."
"I might have. But would I have thought enough of it to climb up the outside ivy, on a night like that? I doubt it. At any rate, you came, you saw, you disconnected. Incidentally, did you come up the ivy too, with your back like that? Or did you manage to disarm the bomb from outside the door?"
Holmes met his brother's eyes and shook his head pityingly. "Her much learning hath made her mad," he said, and turned back to me. "Russell, you must remember the alternatives. Alternatives, Russell."
I puzzled for a minute, then admitted defeat.
"The ladder, Russell. There was a ladder on the other side of the courtyard. You must have seen it every day for the last few weeks."
Both Holmes and his brother started laughing at the chagrin on my face.
"All right, I missed that one entirely. You came up the ladder, disconnected the bomb, put the ladder away, and came back through the hall, leaving one leaf and an unidentifiable greasy thumbprint. But Holmes, you couldn't have missed Dickson by much. It must have been a near thing."
"I imagine we passed each other in the street, but the only faces I saw were hunched up against the rain."
"It shows that Dickson, or his boss, was well acquainted with my circumstances. He knew which were my rooms. He knew that Mrs. Thomas would be in the rooms and waited until she left, which I suppose he could see from the street below. He went up the outside ivy in the dark, carrying the bomb, went in the window, picked my lock, set the thing — " I thought of something to ask Mycroft. "Could he have left through the door after the bomb was set?"
"Certainly. It was triggered by a one-way toggle. He mounted it with the door standing open, and closing the door armed it."
"Then he went out the window and made his escape, all of that in little over an hour. A formidable man, Mr. Dickson."
"And yet, thirty hours later he makes a fatal mistake and dies in blowing up an empty house," Holmes said thoughtfully.
"Your young lady has brought up another point worthy of consideration," Mycroft Holmes said. "That is the fact of Dickson's familiarity with her habits. The same could surely be said of his — their — awareness of your own movements."
"That I check my hives before retiring? Surely most beekeepers do so?"
"But you yourself state that to be your habit, in your book?"
"I do, yes, but had it not been then, it would have been in the morning."
"I cannot see that it would have made much difference," agreed Mycroft.
"I suppose I ought to purchase a dog," said Holmes unhappily.
"However, no published account that I know of includes Miss Russell."
"Our collaboration is no doubt common knowledge in the village."
"So, this opponent has read your book, knows the village, knows Oxford."
"Lestrade must be made aware of these facts," said Holmes.
"There is also the matter of the use of children as messengers."
"An uncomfortable similarity with my Irregulars, you feel?"
"I do. You said, though Watson forgot today, that they are invisible."
"I dislike the idea of a murderer employing children," said Holmes darkly.
"It is, I agree, bad for their morals, and interferes with their sleep."
"And their schooling," added Holmes sententiously.
"But who?" I broke in desperately. "Who is it? Surely there cannot be all that many of your enemies who hate you enough to kill off not only you but your friends as well, who have the money to hire bombers and watchers, and who have the wits to put all this conspiracy together?"
"I sat up until the wee hours contemplating precisely that question, Russell, with absolutely no results. Oh, there are any number of people who fit the first category, and a fair handful of those would have the financial means, but that third characteristic leaves me, to borrow your word, baffled. In all my varied acquaintances I cannot call to mind one who fits with what we know of the mastermind behind these attacks."
"There is a mastermind, you would say?" I asked.
"Well, a mind, certainly. Intelligent, painstaking, at the least moderately wealthy, and absolutely ruthless."
"Sounds like Moriarty," I said jokingly, but he took it seriously. "Yes, remarkably like him."
"Oh, Holmes, you can't mean — "
"No, no," he hastened to add. "Watson's account was accurate enough; the man is dead. No, this feels very like another Moriarty, come on us unawares. I think the time has come for me to renew my contacts with the criminal world in this fair city." His eyes gleamed at the prospect, and my heart sank.
"Today? Surely your brother here — "
"Mycroft moves in circles rather more exalted than those I have in mind. His is the realm of espionage and political backstabbing, with only a peripheral interest in the world of retired bombers and hungry street urchins. No, I must go and ask questions of certain friends."
"I shall join you."
"That you most definitely will not. Don't look at me like that, Russell. I am not protecting your gentle virtue, although I admit that there are sights to be seen underground in London that might give even your eyes pause. It is a job for a specific old man, a man already known to be an occasional visitor to the dregs of London society. A companion would cause comment, and tongues would not flap so freely."
"But your back?"
"Is very well, thank you."
"What did Watson say?" I persisted.
"That it was healing more quickly than I deserved," he said in tones that said very clearly that the matter was closed. I gave in.
"You wish me to remain here today?"
"That will not be necessary, as long as you are not followed. In fact, it is probably best if you are not here, and if they are aware of that. How shall we — ah, yes," he breathed, with the satisfied air of genius operating. "Yes, that will do nicely. Where did we stash the box of makeup last time, Mycroft?"
His brother heaved his weight from the relieved chair and padded off. Holmes squinted at me.
"Russell, if I have learnt nothing by seven o'clock, there will be little point in persisting, and it is an Italian night at Covent Garden. Shall we agree to meet there, at seven-forty-five? After that, depending on what the day's results are, we can decide to come back here or to go home for our Christmas preparations." This last I took as a symbol for carefree frivolity rather than any actual possibility.
The previous year we had both spent Christmas Day dissecting a poisoned ram. "You will, I trust, have a greater than normal caution during the day, stay in crowds, double back occasionally, that sort of thing? And you will keep your revolver close to hand?" I reassured him that I would do my best to make our rendezvous that evening, and he gave me spécifie instructions both for shedding the disguise in which I would make my escape, and for getting to Covent Garden.
Mycroft came in carrying a bulky carpetbag, which he set down in front of Holmes, and looking vaguely worried.
"You will take luncheon before you go, please, Sherlock. Do not drag Miss Russell out into the cold again without allowing her to eat first, I beg you."
It was barely two hours since the breakfast things had been cleared away, but Holmes answered his brother soothingly.
"But of course. The preparations alone will take an hour. Order some lunch, while I make a start."
"But first," I said, "the telephone." I made Holmes speak with Mrs. Hudson. It was a long conversation, cut off once by the exchange and threatened twice more, but in the end she agreed to stay where she was for a few days, and not approach the cottage or the hospital. My own conversation with Veronica Beaconsfield was briefer and even less amicable; lies to friends are usually less successful than lies to strangers or villains, and I did not think she believed in my sudden emergency. I returned saddened to the meal that arrived while Holmes was making his disguise.
Sherlock Holmes had invented his profession, and it fit him like a glove. We watched in admiration that verged on awe as his love of challenge, his flair for the dramatic, his precise attention to detail, and his vulpine intelligence were called into play and transformed his thin face by putty and paint into that of his brother. It would not stand up to close supervision, but from a few yards the likeness was superb. He removed the putty pads to speak, and I hurriedly swallowed the last of my lunch.
"Fortunately, if uselessly, Watson has sacrificed his moustache for his own masquerade, or we should have to glue some hair under your nose, Russell. Mycroft, would you kindly go and lift the trousers and coat worn by our friend from his bed, and also find us some suitable padding and a large quantity of sticking plaster?" Under his hands I felt the putty fill out my cheeks, hair was added to my eyebrows, lines and creases painted on. He eyed me critically. "Don't move your face too much. Now, I'll tear up some of these blankets while you tape yourself to reduce your height. Take off your shirt, Russell," he said absently, and so matter-of-fact was his command that I had my hand on my shirt-collar when Mycroft cleared his throat gently behind us.
"Is that really necessary, Sherlock? Perhaps the sticking plaster could be put on over her clothing?"
"What?" Holmes looked up from his bundles and scraps and realised what had just happened. "Oh, yes, I suppose so." He looked slightly flustered. "Come here, then."
Layers of padding gave me Watson's outline; his hat, scarf, and gloves left only my made-up face exposed; and his spectacles were close enough to mine in appearance to allow me to retain my own, a great blessing.
Holmes added similar padding to himself, and we stood resembling two obese Egyptian mummies risen from our rest. He worked himself carefully into his brother's clothing and gave his make-up a final adjustment.
"Now to review our plan — Ah, Watson, you're just in time."
"Holmes? Is that you? Where are my trousers? What are you doing?" Watson's puzzled, sleepy voice brought home the absurdity of this entire venture, and I started to giggle. Holmes/Mycroft looked askance, but the real Mycroft joined in, and soon even Holmes was smiling half willingly.
"My dear Watson, we are making our escape. The enemy followed you here, I'm afraid, or were here already.
If they followed you, they may not yet realise that I am at liberty, and assume that only Russell is here. There are too many 'ifs' here for my pleasure, but there's no helping that.
Yet. I will leave here now, dressed as my brother. Russell will leave in twenty minutes, dressed as you, Watson. I shall turn to the right out the door, as my disguise is the more realistic. Russell will turn left, so they will see her clearly only from a distance. Twenty minutes after she leaves, the two of you shall depart, together, hatless, and stroll slowly down the street to the right. You will both have revolvers, but I believe they will be more interested in catching up with us than they will in committing double murder in broad daylight. You go with Mycroft, Watson, and you will be quite safe. We will meet up when we may."
He put Mycroft's hat onto his head, where it slid down to his eyebrows. Imperiously ignoring our smiles, he put multiple layers of sticking plaster inside the brim and returned it to his head. Mycroft's thick scarf went around his neck, leather gloves puffed up his hands. Holmes' own eyes looked out from Mycroft's face.
"Seven-forty-five, then, Russell, at the theatre. You know what to do. And for God's sake, be careful."
"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.
Eventually 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 maha rajah, 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 centre 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.
Ever and anon, from a sudden wave that shall be more transparent than others, there leaps forth a fact that in an instant confounds all we imagined we knew.
My 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 invigourating, 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 to you 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."
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 Les-trade 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?"
She eludes us on every side; she repudiates most of our rules and breaks our standards to pieces.
"Russell, 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 hands, 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 at 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, blonde 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.
"Dear Miss Russell [he read],
Knowing his limitations, I expect your companion will neglect to provide you with suitable clothing this morning. Please accept these with my compliments. You will find them quite comfortable.
— An admirer"
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 around him in the thin winter's sunlight that seeped 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 split 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, Les-trade'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 realised belatedly, was precisely why he had done it.
Holmes' 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 ab sentmindedness 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, though 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."
"Holmes, we must talk, but I cannot breathe in your presence. There is a fine, if austere, set of shower baths in the prisoner's section. Take these clothes, but don't let them touch the things you have on."
"No time, Russell. We must fly."
"Absolutely not." My news was vital, but it would wait, and this would not.
"What did you say?" he said dangerously. Sherlock Holmes was not accustomed to outright refusals, not even from me.
"I know you well enough, Holmes, to suspect that we are about to embark on a long and arduous journey. If it is a choice between expiring slowly from your fumes or being blown to pieces, I choose the latter. Gladly."
Holmes glowered at me for some seconds, saw that I was on this issue inflexible, and with a curse worthy of the docks snatched the proffered clothes and hurled himself out the door, furiously demanding directions from the poor constable stationed outside.
When he burst in again I was ready for travel, a booted young man. No doubt, I thought, the newness of the clothes would quickly fade in Holmes' company.
"Very well, Russell, I am clean. Come."
"There's a cup of tea and a sandwich for you while I look to your back."
"For God's sake, woman, we must be on the docks in thirty-five minutes! We've no time for a tea party."
I sat calmly, my hands in my lap. I noticed with interest that his cheekbones became slightly purple when he was severely perturbed, and his eyes bulged slightly. He was positively quivering when he threw off his coat, and one button of his misused shirt skittered across the floor. I put it into a pocket and picked up the gauze while he gulped his tea. I worked quickly on the nearly healed wound, and we were on the street within five minutes.
We dove into the back of a sleek automobile that idled at the kerb and squealed away. The driver looked more like a ruffian than he did the owner of such a machine, but I had no say in the matter. I waited for Holmes to stop his silent fuming, which was not until we were south of Tower Bridge.
"Look here, Russell," he began, "I won't have you — " but I cut him off immediately by the simple expedient of thrusting a finger into his face. (Looking back I am deeply embarrassed at the affrontery of a girl not yet nineteen pointing her finger at a man nearly three times her age, and her teacher to boot, but at the time it seemed appropriate.)
"You look here, Holmes. I cannot force you to confide in me, but I will not be bullied. You are not my nanny, I am not your charge to be protected and coddled. You have not given me any cause to believe that you were dissatisfied with my ability at deduction and reasoning. You admit that I am an adult — you called me 'woman' not ten minutes ago — and as a thinking adult partner I have the right to make my own decisions. I saw you come in filthy and tired, having not eaten, I was sure, since last evening, and I exercised my right to protect the partnership by putting a halt to your stupidity. Yes, stupidity. You believe yourself to be without the limitations of mere mortals, I know, but the mind, even your mind, my dear Holmes, is subject to the body's weakness. No food or drink-and filth on an open wound puts the partnership — puts me! — at an unnecessary risk. And that is something I won't have."
I had forgotten the driver, who proved an appreciative audience to this dramatic declaration. He burst into laughter and pounded on the wheel as he slid through the narrow streets, dodging horses, walls, and vehicles. "Right good job, Miss," he guffawed, "make him wash his socks at night, too, whyn't ya?" At last here I had the grace to blush.
The driver was still grinning, and even Holmes had softened when we reached our destination, a dank and filthy wharf somewhere down near Greenwich. The river was greasy and black in the early twilight, high and very cold looking, its calmer reaches one undulating mat of flotsam.
The swollen body of a dog rocked gently against a pier. The area was deserted, though voices and machinery noises drifted over from the next row of buildings.
"Thank you, young man," said Holmes quietly, and, "Come, Russell." We walked carefully down the planks to a gate of peeling corrugated iron, which slid open with an eerie silence and closed again after us. The man on the gate followed us down to the end of the wharf, where lay a nondescript small ship, a boat, really. A man standing on the deck hailed us in a low voice and came down the gangway to take our valises.
"Good day, Mr. Holmes. Welcome aboard, sir."
"I am very glad to be aboard, captain, very glad indeed.
This is my" — He cocked an eyebrow at me — "my partner, Miss Russell. Russell, Captain Jones here runs one of the fastest boats on the river and has agreed to take us out to sea for a while."
"To sea? Oh, Holmes, I don't think — "
"Russell, we will talk shortly. Jones, shall we be away?"
"Aye, sir, the sooner the better. If you'd like to go below, my boy Brian will be with you in a minute to show you your quarters." The child appeared as we made our way down the narrow passage, opened a door, ducked his head shyly, and went to help his father cast off.
A narrow set of stairs led down to a surprisingly spacious cabin, a lounge of sorts with a tiny kitchen/galley at one side and soft chairs and a sofa bolted to the floor. A corridor opened off the forward side, and doors led to two small bedrooms with a lavatory and bath between them.
Those are not the proper technical terms, I am aware, but the whole area so obviously was intended for the comfort of nonsailors, the lay terms are perhaps more accurate. We settled ourselves on two chairs as the engine noise deepened, and watched London slip by outside the windows. I leant forward. "Now, Holmes, there is something I must tell you — "
"First some brandy."
"Your plying me with that stuff becomes tedious," I said crossly.
"Prevents seasickness, Russell."
"I don't get seasick."
"Miss Russell, I believe you are becoming quite dissolute with the shady associations of the last few days.
That, if my ears do not deceive me, was an untruth. You were about to tell me on deck that you did not wish to go to sea because it made you feel ill, were you not?"
"Oh, very well, I admit I don't like going to sea. Give me the brandy." I took two large and explosive mouthfuls, to Holmes' disapproving grimace, and banged the glass on the table. "Now, Holmes — "
"Yes, Russell, you wish to hear the results of today's opium dens and — "
"Holmes," I nearly shouted. "Would you listen to me?"
"Of course, Russell. I am happy to listen to you, I merely thought — "
"The shoes, Holmes, those shoes that arrived in the parcel? They were mine, my own shoes, taken from my rooms at Oxford. They disappeared some time between the twelfth and the thirtieth of October."
A half minute of silence fell between us.
"Good Lord," he said at last. "How extraordinary. I am most grateful to you, Russell, I should have missed that entirely." He was so obviously disturbed that any faint malicious glee I might have had at my second piece of news withered away. "There is more. I think, in fact, that you might like to finish that drink first, Holmes, because that note, that was in the shoes ? I examined it very, very closely, Holmes, and I believe it was typed on the same machine as the notes concerning Jessica Simpson's ransom."
There was no softening the blow. The bare facts were awful enough, but the implications inherent in my having to tell him were, for him, truly terrible: Twice now in little more than two days I had rescued him from a major error.
The first might have been excused, though it nearly cost Watson his life; this one had been in his hands, under his nose, at the very time he had been searching for just such a clue. It changed the investigation, and he had missed it.
He stood up abruptly and turned his back to me at the window.
"Holmes, I — "
One warning finger was raised, and I bit back the words that would only have made matters worse: Holmes, four days ago you were concussed and bleeding. Holmes, you've had less than a dozen hours' sleep in the last eighty.
Holmes, you were exhausted and furious when you saw the note, and you would have called to mind the characteristic missing serif on the a and the off-centre, tipsy I and the high M, you'd have consciously remembered seeing them, if not today, then tomorrow, or the next day, Holmes.
However, I said nothing, because he would hear only:
Holmes, you're slipping.
We were well clear of London's fringes by the time I saw the back of his neck relax into an attitude of straightforward contemplation of data. I heaved a silent sigh of relief and settled myself to a study of the opposite windows.
Ten minutes later he came back and sat down with his pipe. He paused with the match alight in his hand.
"You are quite certain, I take it?" "Yes." I began to recite the characteristics I had noted, but he cut me off.
"That is not necessary, Russell. I have great faith in your eyes." He puffed up a small cloud and shook out the match. "And your brain," he added. "Well done. It does mean we now have something resembling a motive."
"Revenge for thwarting Jessica's kidnapping?"
"That, and the knowledge that we are waiting to pounce on any similar attempt in the future. Anyone familiar with Watson's literary fabrications will be certain that Sherlock Holmes always gets his man. Or, in this case, woman." I was pleased to hear the customary ironic humour, and no more, in his voice. "It is, however, intriguing that I could find no indication of an up-and-coming gang of criminals with a female head."
I gratefully shelved the uncomfortable topic and asked for the results of the last eighteen hours. He looked mildly surprised.
"Eighteen hours? Surely I kept you abreast of my thoughts last night?"
"Your mutterings in the park were completely unintelligible, and if you spoke to me in the laboratory before dawn, I did not hear it."
"Odd, I thought I was quite garrulous. Well then, to the park, or rather to the remnants of a once-noble four- wheeler, which at first glance appears to be the least interesting of the night's works. There were two large men there, and one, so I thought, smaller, lighter man wearing boots with distinctive square heels. The two large men came up behind Billy as he was standing next to the horse, apparently talking to someone, though I should have thought him too wary. At any rate, they disposed of Billy with a cosh, and chloroform was applied by Small Boots.
The destruction of your clothing was carried out by the two big men while the smaller stayed with Billy and kept the chloroform dripping onto his face. When they had finished, Small Boots climbed in and applied the knife methodically to the seat, at which time the fibres of the other fabric pieces became embedded in the cuts, despite the extreme sharpness of the blade. It was, incidentally, a short handled, double-edged knife, the blade being about six inches in length and relatively narrow." "Nasty weapon. A flick-knife?"
"Probably. The circumstances of the cab destruction troubled me. Did you see anything amiss?"
"The slashes seemed odd. They're so precise, all the same height and direction, but they stop before the end of the seat. It was almost as if they were searching for something under the leather. There was no sign that a hand had pushed into the cuts, was there?"
"There was not. And of equal interest is the question, why was it given over to Small Boots, the boss, to do those final cuts? I am missing something there, Russell. I desire to study the photographs. Perhaps that will refresh my memory."
"And when will that be?" A look of grim humour flickered across his face.
"That, Russell, is up to you. No, let me explain that in its logical place, at the end. I dislike having to leap about in the narration of evidence, as you well know.
"To continue: Left in the cab were one button, complete with a well-defined thumbprint of a large man, one blonde hair, and a number of smudges of light brown mud on the floor and the seats. We shall return to that last item in a moment.
"As you were sifting through the wreckage of your wardrobe, I was tracking. The mud was quite clearly followed:
It had come across the park on the soft gravel pathway.
Or so it seemed at first. Of the big boots there was no sign, which was singular. It was not until you found the same mud in the Ladies' that I discovered the truth: that the three had not come across the park, but rather had come around the side of the park on the hard, well travelled paved path. The two big boots had returned that way, but Small Boots, walking backwards, had crossed on the soft central path, entered the Ladies', backwards, washed, and walked, still backwards, to the same point where they had entered the park. The three then boarded a vehicle of some kind and drove away."
"And you needed to see the prints by daylight to be certain that the set running down the middle was indeed backwards?"
"Precisely. You have seen my monograph on footprints, Forty-Seven Methods of Concealing One's Trail? No?
In it I mention that I have used various means of reversing footprints and, as you saw Tuesday morning, hiding one inside another, but there seem to be flaws detectable to the careful eye. Another article I am working on is concerned with the innate differences between the male and female footprint. Have I shown that to you? No, of course, you've been away. I have found that no matter what kind of shoe is on the foot, the lie of the toes and the way the heel hits the ground differ between the sexes. I took the idea from a conversation we once had. At night, I suspected. After your find, and after I had seen the footprints by day, I knew. This is a woman, five and a half feet tall, and slim — less than eight stone. She may be blonde — "
"Just may be?"
"Just may be," he repeated. "She is intelligent, well-read, and has a particularly grotesque and creative sense of humour."
"The note, you mean?"
"I was aware of it before that arrived. You know my monograph on London soils?"
"Notes on Some Distinctive Characteristics — " I began.
"That one, yes. I have not demanded of you an expertise in the study of London, but as you know, I spent most of my life there before I retired. I breathed her air, I trod her ground, and I knew her like — as a husband knows his wife." I did not react to the simile, despite the Hebraic overtones to the verb "know."
"Some of her soils I can identify by eye, others need a microscope. The soil I found in the cab and on the washbasin was a not-uncommon variety. My own lodgings in Baker Street were built on top of such a soil, but it crops up in several places, each distinguishable one from the other only by very close examination under a strong lens."
"And the mud on Small Boots came from Baker Street."
"How did you know?" he said with a smile.
"Lucky guess," I answered drily. He raised an eyebrow.
"Low jokes do not suit you, Russell."
"Sorry. But what does the fact that she chose to walk through Baker Street before going to the park have to do with it?"
"You tell me," he demanded, in a thin echo from a spring day long, long ago.
Obediently I set to reviewing the entire episode, running my mind over the facts like a tongue over teeth, searching for a gap in the smooth, hard surfaces. The mud, which was on the path, in the cab, on the seats (On the seats? my mind whispered.), down the path (Is that not a great deal of mud?), and in the Ladies' (grotesque and creative sense of humour) on the floor, in the washbasin (the basin? That means — )
"It was on her hand, the mud. Her left hand, and the right boot." I stopped, disbelieving, and looked at Holmes. His grey eyes were positively dancing. "She replenished the mud, to keep the path obvious. This whole episode — it was deliberately staged. She wants you to know that she was there, and she put the Baker Street mud on her shoe to thumb her nose at you. She even washed her hands of it in the Ladies' to leave you that datum, if you hadn't already worked out that he was a she. I can't believe it — no one could be mad enough to mock you like that.
What kind of game is she playing?"
"A decidedly unpleasant sort of a game, with three bombs and a death thus far, but I agree, the style of humour is a match with the clothing parcel and the exploding beehive.
One is forced to wonder — " he mused, and his voice drifted away. "Yes?" I encouraged.
"Nothing, Russell. Merely speculation without data, a fruitless exercise at the best of times. I was reflecting that the only truly superior mind I have encountered among the criminal classes was Moriarty, which ill equips me for the possibility of subtlety in our current foe. Were I quite certain of, for example, the intent of the marksman who shot at us in Lestrade's office, or of Dickson's efforts, or even — Yes, I suppose — " He drifted off again.
"Holmes, do I understand you aright? That the actions against us were not actually intended to be deadly?"
"Oh, deadly, certainly, though perhaps not merely deadly. But yes, you understand me. I mistrust a series of failures when the author otherwise gives signs of great competence.
Accidents are not unknown, but I dislike coincidences, and I deny out of hand the existence of a guardian angel. Yes," he said thoughtfully, and I winced as I heard his next phrase coming, "it is quite a pretty problem."
"Quite a three-piper, eh Holmes?" I said in hearty jocularity. He could be the most irritating individual.
"No, no, not yet. Nicotinic meditation serves to clarify the known facts, not pull them out of thin air. I do not feel we have all the facts."
"Very well, but surely you can speculate in generalities.
If she didn't wish to kill us, what are her intentions?"
"I did not say she does not intend to kill us, just possibly not yet. If for the sake of hypothesis we assume that what has occurred over the course of the last few days is more or less what she had in mind, then we are left with three possible inferences: one, that she does not want us all actually dead at this moment; two, that she wishes us to be fully aware of an intelligent, dedicated, resourceful, and implacable enemy breathing almost literally down our collars; and three, that she wants us either to go to ground or leave England." "And isn't that what we're doing?"
"Indeed," he said complacently.
"I — " I stopped, shut my mouth, waited.
"Her actions tell me that it is what she wants me to do. She knows me well enough to assume that I will perceive her intent and refuse to cooperate. Therefore I shall do what she wants."
I decided finally that the brandy was to blame for the dullness of my logical faculties, for though I was certain that there was a basic fallacy in his reasoning, I could not put my finger on precisely the juncture. I shook my head and plunged on.
"Why not just disappear for a few days? It is really necessary to — "
"Take flight?" he supplied. "Beat a hasty retreat? Run away? You're quite right. This morning I should have agreed that a few days' retreat to Mycroft's flat or one of my bolt-holes was sufficient for regrouping." (I shuddered here at the thought of being confined with Holmes in the Storage Room for any length of time.) "But today's events have proven me wrong. Not the clothing parcel — that was a clever joke. Even the shoes, though sinister, could be got around. But — that bullet. It nearly hit you. I believe it was meant to," he said, and although he did not look at me, the control in his voice and the small twitch in the right side of his mouth spoke volumes of the rage and apprehension this threat set off in him. To cover his gaffe he rose in a jerk and began to stride up and down, his hands behind him as if tucked beneath the tails of a frock coat, the smouldering pipe he still gripped endangering his clothing.
Words tumbled out of him as he paced, spoken in his high voice as if berating himself.
"I begin to feel like a piece of driftwood tumbling about between waves and sand, snatched up and tossed ftom one place to anothet. It is a most disconcerting feeling.
Were I alone I might almost be tempted to let myself be tumbled, just to see where I washed up. That, however, is not an option. "What then are the options? Offensive — an all-out attack? On what? Beating at mist with a cricket bat. Defense?
How does one defend against a mirror-image? She has read Watson's tales, and my bee book, the monographs on soil and footprints — not available to the general public — and God knows what else. A woman! She has turned my own words against me, caused me considerable mental and physical distress, kept me off my balance for five whole days, chased and harried me across my home territory until I am forced to go to ground — to sea. Do you know — " he broke off, and whirled around to shake an outraged pipe stem at me, "this — person has even penetrated into one of my bolt-holes! Yes, today, there were signs — I still cannot believe that a woman can have done this, deducing my deductions, plotting my moves for me, and all the time giving the impression that to her it is a deadly but effortless and highly amusing game. Even Moriarty did not go so far, and he was a master without parallel. The mind, capable of such coups de maître. Maîtresse." He stopped, and straightened his shoulders with a jerk as if to settle his clothing back into place.
"A most gratifyingly challenging opponent, this," he said in a calmer voice, and lit his pipe, which had gone out. When it was going again he continued in a completely different vein.
"Russell, I have been considering your words of this morning. I do occasionally take the thoughts of others into account, you know. Particularly yours. I have to admit that you were completely justified in your protest. You are an adult, and by your very nature I was quite wrong to treat you as if you were Watson. I apologise."
I was, as one might imagine, completely flabbergasted, and highly suspicious, but he went on as if discussing the weather. "Today while I was on my distressingly fruitless quest for information through the human sewers of fair London town, it occurred to me that the matter of your future has come to a head. This peculiar — present situation has forced it, but it should have come sooner or later. The question I am faced with is, what does one do with a student who has passed every examination laid before her?
Eventually she must be removed from in statu pupularis and allowed to assume the rights and responsibilities of maturity.
In your case every paper I've set you, every test, up to the viva voce question of the mud on our opponent's footwear, has come up an alpha.
"I have, then, a limited number of options. Considering the gravity of this particular case, I feel I should be justified in removing you from the firing line as I did Watson, until I can clear it up. No, do not interrupt. Much to my displeasure, I find I cannot bring myself to attempt that.
For one thing, the logistics of keeping you under control are too daunting.
"It has been on my mind since Wales that an apprentice kept from her journeyman's papers will spoil.
Faced with this, what for lack of a better term I shall call a case, I have two choices: I can maintain your 'apprenticeship' (as you yourself called it), or I can grant you your Mastery. Having never been one for half-measures, I see no point in delaying the inevitable. Therefore — " He stopped, took his pipe from his mouth, looked into the bowl, put it back into his mouth, reached for the pouch in his pocket, and I very nearly screamed at him with the tension of being torn between "Thank God, here it comes, at last!" and "Oh, God, here it comes, he's sending me away."
He opened the tobacco pouch and dug from it a small, much-folded scrap of onionskin, dropped it in front of me, went to the ashtray clipped to the table, and began to scrape the dottle from his pipe while I unfolded the paper. On it, in five lines of minute, cramped, antique, and graphologically cryptic script, were written:
Egypt — Alexandria — Sayeed Abu Bahadr
Greece — Thessaloniki — Tomas Catalepo
Italy — Ravenna — Fr. Domenico
Palestine — Jaffa — Ali and Mahmoud Hazr
Morocco — Rabat — Peter Thomas
Each of the personal names was followed by a series of numbers that looked like a radio frequency. I looked up, but Holmes was at the window again, his unrevealing back to me.
"I have said before this time that I regard it as stupidity rather than courage to overlook a danger that presses as close as this one has. Even my critics will not accuse me of stupidity, else I should not have reached my present age after a lifetime of the rough-and-tumble. I remember vividly, as if it were last week rather than two and a half decades ago, sitting in Watson's chair and admitting to him that London was too hot for my safety. The current state of affairs is — remarkably similar.
"The admission then caused me some shame. But, that was half a lifetime ago, and since then I have learnt, slowly and painfully, that time and distance can prove a powerful weapon. It is not one that comes naturally to my hand, I admit. I much prefer direct attack, complete immersion, and a quick finish. However, there is much to be said for the occasional, judicious, prodigious expenditure of time."
"What sort of time are you thinking of here, Holmes?" I asked warily. His most famous hiatus had lasted three years; that would certainly drive a cart and horses through my University degree.
"Not terribly long. Enough to instill doubts in our opponent — Was she wrong after all? Did I just choose to vanish? Where on earth am I? — and to allow Mycroft and the elephantine Scotland Yard to sweep up the data and begin to sift it over. By the time we return" (we! I snatched at) "the momentum will have been taken from her. She will be furious, and careless, with the knowledge that we have removed ourselves from her rules, that we have opted out of the traditional and expected program of threat, challenge, response, and counterattack. "For better or for worse, you are in this case." My brief surge of triumph was quickly submerged in a backwash of conflicting questions and feelings: Was he fleeing because he was saddled with me? And what on earth did he have in mind? Tibet? "What is more, you are in it as, God help us, my partner, or as near to such a creature as I am ever likely to see. Given the circumstances, I have no choice: I have to trust you."
I could think of no sensible response to this, so I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
"What should you have done if I had walked through my lodgings door the other night?"
"Hmmm. I wonder. Perhaps unfortunately, that question does not pertain. Here we stand; I can trust no other.
And as a means of noting the fact of your accession to the lofty rights and privileges of partnership, I shall grant you a boon: I shall allow you to make the next decision. Where shall we go to keep from harm's way for a bit? Do you know, Russell," he said in a voice that verged on playful, "I don't believe I've had a holiday in twenty-five years."
In the past seventy-two hours I had seen a bomb on my door and the results of another on Holmes' back, spent thirteen hard, tense hours slogging towards London, waved a gun at Holmes, seen my first major attempt at high fashion reduced to shreds, been ill-fed, under-slept, half-frozen, and shot at, witnessed Holmes in more perturbation than ever before, and now this wild swing from matter-of-fact confidences to near-teasing merriment. It was all a bit much.
I looked down at the paper in my hand, two inches of nearly transparent onionskin and its five lines of writing.
"Are these our only options?" I asked.
"By no means. Captain Jones is quite willing to steam around in circles if we ask him, or to head for South America or the northern lights. There are few limits, although if you wish to try breaking the bank at Monte Carlo I shall have to arrange a discreet transfer of funds. Just avoid the United Kingdom or New York for six or eight weeks."
"Two months! Holmes, I can't be away for two months, I'll be sent down if I miss that much time. And my aunt will have the army out. And Mrs. Hudson, and Watson — "
"Mrs. Hudson will embark tomorrow on a cruise."
"A cruise! Mrs. Hudson?"
"To visit her family in Australia, I believe. And you need not concern yourself with Dr. Watson either; his greatest danger will be gout from high living, where Mycroft has him secreted. Your college and tutors will grant you an exeat, while you attend to your urgent family business.
Your aunt will be told that you are away."
"Good Lord. If Mycroft can tame her, he's a valuable ally indeed." I could feel my objections beginning to waver.
"Well?"
"Who are these people?" I asked. Holmes plucked the paper from my hand.
"This is Mycroft's writing," he said by way of explanation.
"And Mycroft has — tasks that need doing in these places?"
"Precisely. His words were, if we choose to remove ourselves from the field of combat whilst the scouts assess the enemy's position, we may as well be of some use to His Majesty, and might care for a change of scenery under his auspices." Holmes' eyes were filled with mischief and amusement, and I could see that he had already laid our case to one side. He waved the paper gently in front of my nose. "It has been my experience," he added, "that Mycroft's assignments tend to offer quite extraordinary amounts of entertainment."
I acquiesced, took the paper from his fingers, spread it out on the table in front of me, and pointed to the fourth line.
"Israel."
"What?"
"Palestine. Israel, Zion, the Holy Land. I desire to walk through Jerusalem."
Holmes nodded slowly, bemused. "I think I can honestly say, that particular destination should not have been my first choice. Greece, yes. Morocco, perhaps. Even Egypt, but Palestine? Very well, the choice is yours, and I am certain our foe will never guess that as my destination. To Palestine it is."
By midnight we were off the coast of France and, with no signs of anyone in our wake and strict radio silence maintained, the tight knot that had held me since Tuesday evening was beginning to loosen. Captain Jones came in to our cabin, a barrel-shaped and lugubrious individual with thinning, once-red hair, distinguishable from the four crew members under his command by the state of his fingernails, which were slightly blacker than theirs, and the straight spined, confident air of one who caters to royalty. The boy was a smaller version of his father, and all, including the child, had been chosen by Mycroft from wherever he was holed up with Watson. "Good evening, Jones," said Holmes. "Brandy? Or whisky?"
"No thank you, sir. I don't drink when I'm out to sea. Asking for problems, it is, sir. I just came down to ask if you'd decided yet on our course."
"Palestine, Jones."
"Palestine, sir?"
"Palestine. You know — Israel, Zion, the Holy Land. It is on your charts, I assume?"
"Of course, sir. It's just that, well, if you've not been there recently, you'll not find it the easiest place to move around in, so to speak. There has been a war on, you know," he offered in a mild understatement. "I am aware of that, Jones. London will have to be notified, and they shall make all the necessary arrange' ments."
"Very good, sir. Shall I set course tonight, then?"
"The morning is just as well, Jones, there is no hurry.Is there, Russell?"
I opened my eyes. "None at all," I confirmed, and closed them again.
"In the morning it is, then, sir, Miss." His footsteps faded up the stairs.
Holmes stood silently, and I felt his gaze on me.
"Russell?"
"Mmm."
"There's nothing more that needs doing tonight. Go to bed. Or shall I cover you with a blanket again?"
"No, no, I shall go. Good night, Holmes."
"Good night, Russell."
I awoke when the engines changed their sounds in the early grey light of dawn. Passing through the cabin for a glass of water I saw the silhouette of Holmes, curled in a chair staring out at the sea, knees to chin, pipe in hand. I said nothing as I went back to bed, and I do not think he noticed me. I slept all that day, and when I awoke it was a summer's evening.
It was not actually summer, of course, and we were to have rain during the weeks that followed, but we had sun enough that Holmes and I could spend hours darkening our skins up on the deck. To think of London huddled under its blanket of sleet and thick yellow fogs as we sweated and dozed was like imagining another world, and I often found myself hoping fervently that our attempted murderer was caught in the worst of it, with bronchitis. And chilblains.
The days passed quickly. To my surprise Holmes did not seem to chafe under the enforced rest but appeared relaxed and cheerful. We spent hours devising complex mind games, and he taught me the subtleties of codes and ciphers. We took apart and rebuilt the ship's spare radio, and began an experiment on the point at which various heated substances will self-ignite, but as it made the captain exceedingly nervous, we moved on to picking pockets.
Christmas came and went, with flaming pudding and crackers with paper crowns and carols about iron-hard ground and snowy footprints, and after dinner Holmes came onto the upper deck with a chess set.
We had not played more than a handful of games since I had gone up to Oxford, and we quickly set to rediscovering the other's gambits and style. I had improved in the last eighteen months, and he no longer had to spot me a piece, which pleased us both. We played regularly, though first a black bishop and then the white king rolled overboard and we had to improvise substitutes (a salt cellar and a large greasy nut and bolt, respectively).
Holmes won most of the games but not all. He was a good player, ruthless and imaginative, but an erratic one, for he tended to glory in bizarre gambits and impossible saves rather than the methodical building of defence and thoroughly supported offence. Chess for him was an exercise, boring at times and always a poor substitute for the real game — rather like scales compared to the public performance of a concerto.
One hot afternoon off the island of Crete he came to the board with a greater focus than was his wont and a nervous intensity that I found disturbing. We played three half-games, scrapped each time when he was satisfied with the direction each opening gambit had established. The fourth game, though, began with a peculiarly gleeful attitude and opening moves along the very edge of the queen's side of the board. I braced myself for a wild game.
Holmes had drawn white, and he came out, whirling his knights across the board like a berserker with his chain mace, sixteen squares of shifting destruction and disruption that had me slapping together hasty defences at half a dozen spots across the board, summoning and abandoning bishops and rooks, spraying pawns ahead of the fray and leaving them in odd niches as the action stumbled away across the board. One after another he swatted aside my defences, until in desperation I separated my royalty, moving my queen away from the vulnerable king to draw my opponent's fire. For a time I succeeded, but eventually he trapped her with a knight, and I lost her.
"What's the matter with you, Russell?" he complained. "Your mind's not on the game."
"It is, you know, Holmes," I said mildly, and reached forward to move a pawn, and with that move the entire haphazard disarray fell into a neat and deadly trap that depended on two pawns and a bishop. In three moves I had him mated.
I wanted to whoop and leap into the air and kiss Captain Jones on his bristly cheek for the sheer joy of seeing Holmes' consternation and amazement, but instead I just sat and grinned at him like a dog.
He stared at the board like a conjuror's audience, and the expression on his face was one of the biggest prizes I have ever won. Then it broke, and he slapped his knee with a short bark of delighted laughter and rearranged the pieces to replay the last six moves. At the end of it he wagged his head in appreciation.
"Well done, Russell. Deucedly clever, that. More devious than I'd have given you credit for. My children have bested me," he quoted, somewhat irreverently.
"I wish I could claim credit for it, but the move came up in a game with my maths tutor a few months ago. I've been waiting for the opportunity to use it on you."
"I'd not have thought that I could be tricked into overlooking a pawn," he admitted. "That's quite a gambit."
"Yes. I fell for it too. Sometimes you have to sacrifice a queen in order to save the game."
He looked up at me, startled, and then back to the board, and his face changed. A tightness crept slowly into his features until he looked pinched and pale beneath the brown of his skin's surface, as someone does who is stricken by a gnawing pain in the vital organs.
"Holmes? Holmes, are you all right?"
"Hm? Oh, yes, Russell, I am fine. Never better. Thank you, Russell, for such an interesting game. You have given me much food for thought." His hard visage relaxed into the gentlest of smiles. "Thank you, my dear Russell."
He reached out, but his fingers did not quite touch my cheek before he pulled them back, stood, and turned to go below. I sat on the sun-drenched deck and watched his back disappear, the victory turned to ashes in my mouth, and wondered what I had done.
I did not see him again until we arrived at Jaffa.