The Mary Russell Series Books 1-4: The Beekeeper's Apprentice; A Monstrous Regiment of Women; A Letter of Mary; The Moor (34 page)

“You do know my methods, Russell. Ah, here we are.”

I drove through the gates and up to the doors of the old barn that lay apart, next to the road. Holmes jumped out and opened the door for me. Once we had shifted a few hay bales the vehicle fit in snugly between the stalls, and Vicky and her various family members peered at the odd black intruder with mild curiosity.

“I’ll go tell Patrick it’s here, so he’ll keep the doors shut. Back in a few minutes.”

I let myself into Patrick’s house and climbed the stairs to his room, whispering his name at regular intervals so that he wouldn’t take me as a burglar. He was a sound sleeper, but I finally roused him.

“Patrick, for God’s sake, man, the barns could burn and you’d sleep on.”

“What? Barns? Fire? I’m coming! Who’s that? Tillie?”

“No, no, Patrick, no fire, don’t get up, it’s I, Mary.”

“Miss Mary? What’s wrong? Let me get a light.”

“No light, Patrick. Don’t get up.” I could see by moonlight that the top half of his body was unclothed, and I had no wish to find out about the other. “I just had to tell you that I’ve hidden my car in the lower barn. Don’t let it be seen: It’s very important that nobody knows I’m here. Even my aunt. Will you do that, Patrick?”

“Certainly, but where are you, here?”

“I’ll be at Holmes’ cottage.”

“There’s trouble, Miss Mary, isn’t there? Can I help?”

“If you can, I’ll get a message to you. Just don’t let anyone see my car. Go back to sleep now, Patrick. Sorry to wake you.”

“Good luck, Miss.”

“Thank you, Patrick.” Holmes was waiting for me outside the house. We set off in silence across the dark downs, empty but for the foxes and owls.

It was not the first time I had walked that way at night, though the setting moon lit the first couple of miles. I was concerned at first that his confinement might have lessened Holmes’ normally iron constitution, but I needn’t have worried. It was I who breathed heavily at the tops of hills from the hours spent in the library, not he.

Sounds carry at night, so our conversation was low and terse, dwindling to a few muttered words as the miles passed and his cottage neared. The moon had set, and it was the darkest time of night before the stars faded. We stood on the edge of the orchard that backed the cottage, and Holmes leant close to breathe words into my ear.

“We’ll circle around and go in through the end door, then straight up to the laboratory. We can have a light in there; it won’t be seen. Keep to the shadows and remember there’s a guard about somewhere.”

He felt my nod and slipped away. Five minutes later the door clicked lightly to his key, and I stood inside the dark cottage breathing in the mingled smells of pipe tobacco, toxic chemicals, and meat pies, the fragrance of home and happiness.

“Come, Russell, are you lost?” His low voice came from above me. I pushed away the feelings of reunion and followed him up the worn steps and around the corner, not needing a light, until my hand touched the air of an open doorway and I stepped inside. The air moved as Holmes swung the door closed.

“Stay there until I make a light, Russell. I’ve moved some things about since you were here last.” A match flared and illuminated his profile, bent over an old lamp. “I have a cloth to tack up over the door edges,” he said, and adjusted the flame to give the greatest light, then turned to set it on a worktable.

“My nose tells me that Mrs. Hudson produced meat pies yesterday,” I said, shrugging off my coat and hanging it on the peg on the door. “I’m glad she is convinced of your approaching recovery.” I turned back to Holmes, and I saw his face. He was looking across the lamp to the dark corner, and whatever it was he saw there bathed his face in dread and despair and the finality of defeat, and he was utterly still, slightly bent from depositing the lamp on the table. I took two quick steps forward so I could see around the bookshelf, and there, dominating my vision, was the round reflected end of a gun, moving to point directly at me. I looked at Holmes and saw then the first fear I had ever witnessed in his eyes.

“Good morning, Mr. Holmes,” said a familiar voice. “Miss Russell.”

Holmes straightened his long body slowly, looking terribly, utterly exhausted, and when he replied his voice was as flat as death.

“Miss Donleavy.”

"W
HAT, MR. HOLMES, NO
bon mots? ‘I perceive you have been in Afghanistan,’ or New York? Well, not every utterance a gem, perhaps. And you, Miss Russell. No greeting for your tutrix, not even an apology for the inadequacy of your final essay, which was not only sodden but hurried as well?”

At the sound of her precise, slightly hoarse voice I was overcome, pierced to the core of my being. Her voice, sweeping me into memories of her dim and opulent study, the coal fire, the tea she served me, the two occasions when she had given me a glass of rare dry sherry to accompany her rare, dry words of praise: I had thought…I had thought I knew what her feelings towards me were, and I stood before her like a child whose beloved godmother has just stabbed her.

“You do look like a pair of donkeys,” she said in irritation, and if her first words had left me stunned, her quick ill humour jolted me back into life, an automatic response learnt early by all of her students: When Miss Donleavy snaps, one gathered one’s wits with alacrity. I had seen her reduce a strong man to tears.

“Sit down, Miss Russell. Mr. Holmes, while I have this gun pointed at Miss Russell, would you be so good as to switch on the electrical lights I see over our heads? Move very carefully; the gun is already cocked, and it takes very little pressure to set the trigger off. Thank you. Mr. Holmes, you look considerably further from Death’s door than I was led to believe. Now, if you would please bring that other chair and place it at the table to the left of Miss Russell. A bit farther apart. Good. And the lamp, extinguish it and place it on the shelf. Yes, there. Now, sit down. You will please leave your hands on top of the table at all times, both of you. Good.”

I sat at arm’s length from Holmes and looked past the gun’s maw at my mathematics tutor. She was sitting in the very corner of the room behind a rank of shelves, so that the shadow cast by the shelves cut directly across her. The overhead glare illuminated her tweed-and silk-covered legs from the knee down, and occasionally the very end of the heavy military pistol. All else was dim: an occasional flash of teeth and eyes, a dull glint from the gold chain and locket she wore at her throat; all else was shadow.

“Mr. Holmes, we meet at last. I have been looking forward to this meeting for quite some time.”

“Twenty-five years or more, isn’t it, Miss Donleavy? Or, do you prefer to be addressed by your father’s name?”

Silence filled the laboratory, and I sat bewildered. Did Holmes know where the woman came from? Her father…?

“Touché, Mr. Holmes. I take back my earlier criticism; you still do a nice line in bon mots. Perhaps you might explain to Miss Russell.”

“It was her own name that Miss Donleavy signed on the seats of the four-wheeler, Russell. This is the daughter of Professor Moriarty.”

“Surprise, surprise, Miss Russell. You did tell me what a very superior sort of mind your friend has. What a pity he was born trapped in a man’s body.”

With a wrenching effort I took control of my thoughts and sent them, useless as it might now seem, in the direction of the last plan that Holmes and I had laid. I swallowed and studied my hands on the tabletop.

“I cannot agree, Miss Donleavy,” I said. “Mr. Holmes’ mind and his body seem to me well suited to each other.”

“Miss Russell,” she said delightedly, “sharp as always. I must admit I had forgotten how I always enjoyed your mind. And, as you intimate, I had also forgotten that the two of you have become…alienated. I must say I often wondered what you saw in him. I could have done a great deal with you had it not been for your irrational fondness for Mr. Holmes.”

I pointedly said nothing, just studied my hands. I did wonder why they weren’t shaking.

“But now the fondness has turned, has it?” she said, in a voice that was soft and tinged with sadness. “So very sad, when old friends part and become enemies.”

My heart leapt with hope, but I kept all expression from my face. If she believed this, we might yet get around her. It was difficult for me to tell, partly because I had to judge solely by her voice and also because my trust in my own perceptions had been badly shaken, but beyond this she also seemed somehow foreign, her reactions exaggerated, fluctuating.

I had little time to reflect on the question, because Holmes stirred at my side and spoke up, his voice flat.

“Kindly refrain from baiting the child, Miss Donleavy, and continue: I believe you have something you wish to say to me.”

The round metal circle on her knee began to shake slightly, and after a brief moment of terror I heard her laughter, and I felt ill. She had been playing with me. We might have fooled her for a time, but now our act was exposed, and even the small chance we’d had with deception was no longer ours.

“You are right, Mr. Holmes. I have not much time, and you have robbed me of a great deal of energy in the last few days. I have no great energy to spare, you understand. I am dying. Oh yes, Miss Russell, my absence from the college was no sham. There is a crab with its claws in my belly and no way to remove it. I had originally planned to wait several years for this, Mr. Holmes, but I do not have the leisure now. Before much longer I will not have the strength to deal with you. It must be now.” Her voice echoed in the tiled laboratory and whispered away like a snake.

“Very well, Miss Donleavy, you have me at your mercy. Let us dismiss Miss Russell and get on with the issues between us.”

“Oh no, Mr. Holmes, sorry. I cannot do that. She is a part of you now, and I cannot deal with you without including her. She stays.” Her voice had gone cold, so cold it was hard for me to connect it with the person who had drunk tea with me and laughed in front of a fire. Cold, and with danger uncoiling from its base. I shivered, and she saw it.

“Miss Russell is cold, and I imagine tired. We all are, my dear, but we have a while to go before the end. Come now, Mr. Holmes, don’t keep your protégée here all day. I am sure you have a number of questions you would like to ask me. You may begin.”

I looked at Holmes, sitting less than a yard from me. His hand rubbed across his face in a gesture of fatigue, but for the briefest fraction of an instant his eyes slid sideways to meet mine with a spark of hard triumph, and then his hand fell away from features that were merely bone tired and filled with defeat. He leant back in his chair with his long, bony hands spread out on the table before him and gave a tiny shrug.

“I have no questions, Miss Donleavy.”

The gun wavered for a moment.

“No questions! But of course you have—” She caught herself. “Mr. Holmes, you needn’t try to irritate me. That would be a waste of our precious time. Now come, surely you have questions.” Her voice had an edge to it, and a flash of memory came, of a time when I had failed to make a logical connexion that ought to have been obvious, and her voice had cut deep. In perfect counterpoint came the voice of Holmes, fatigued and slightly bored.

“Miss Donleavy, I tell you, there are no questions in my mind regarding this case. It has been very interesting, even challenging, but it is now over, and all the significant data have been correlated.”

“Indeed? Pardon me if I doubt your word, Mr. Holmes, but I suspect you are playing some obscure game. Perhaps you might be so good as to explain to Miss Russell and myself the sequence of events. Hands on the table, Mr. Holmes. I have no wish to cut this short. Thank you. You may proceed.”

“Shall I begin with the occurrences of last autumn, or of twenty-eight years ago?”

“As you wish, though perhaps Miss Russell may find the latter course of some interest.”

“Very well. Russell, twenty-eight years ago I, not to mince words, killed Professor James Moriarty, your maths tutor’s father. That it was self-defence does not contravene the fact that I was responsible for his falling to his death over the Reichenbach Falls, or that it was my investigation into his extensive criminal activities that was the direct cause of his seeking to kill me. I found him out, I exposed his network of crime, and I was the immediate cause of his death.

“However, Russell, I made two mistakes at that time, though how I might have anticipated events I cannot at the moment think. The first was that my subsequent three-year-long disappearance from England allowed the scattered remnants of Moriarty’s organisation to regroup; by the time I returned it had succeeded in extending itself internationally, with little structure left aboveground in this country. My second mistake was to allow Moriarty’s family—the existence of which was one of his better kept secrets—to disappear from my view. His wife and young daughter left for New York, never to be seen again. Or so I had thought. Was Donleavy your mother’s maiden name?”

“Ah, so you do have a question! Yes, it was.”

“Minor lacunae, Miss Donleavy, and hardly worth the effort of pursuit. What does it matter, whether the hair you left for me to find was your father’s? or, which room in the warehouse across the river the marksman was in before shooting at Miss Russell? or indeed, was it you or some minion who prematurely triggered the bomb that killed Dickson? Peripheral matters left unanswered make for an untidy case but hardly affect its basic framework.”

“An interesting statement, from a man who bases his investigations on minutiae,” she commented, with some justification. “But we’ll let it pass. Yes, it was my father’s hair, from the days when he wore it down to his collar. My mother kept it in a locket. This locket I wear, in fact. And yes, my friend with the accurate rifle was indeed in the warehouse, although I understand that Scotland Yard is still looking for the launch. How they can imagine that anyone could aim from a boat on water and achieve any degree of accuracy—And as for Dickson, he knew the risks when he signed on. I was angry with him, for making such a mess of the bomb that incapacitated you, and it made him clumsy. I was generous with his family’s compensation, you will give me that.”

“What price a man’s life, Miss Donleavy? How many guineas is recompense to a widow, three fatherless children?” His voice hardened. “You killed him, Miss Donleavy, yourself or one of your hired thugs, who heard your anger and took it as command. You intended him dead when you opened the New York bank account from which he was paid, last November. And he is now dead.”

We sat in utter silence, and my heart beat ten, eleven times before she responded, with grudging admiration and a touch of amusement, and sounding again like herself.

“Mr. Holmes, how generous is the urge to Christian forgiveness in your soul, to perceive the man who nearly killed you and your two closest associates as a poor fellow whose widow and children weep for him.”

“John Dickson was a professional, Madam, an artist with fuse and explosive. He never killed, and only once injured, in his entire career, until you brought him out of retirement. I can only assume you held something over him, some threat to his family, I imagine, to force him to engage in wholesale slaughter. Do not play games with me, Madam, with your accidents and your shows of pique; my patience has its limits.”

The room’s silence was so heavy I was sure she would hear my heart rate accelerate when I saw the end of the gun sag slightly away from me. He had her complete attention now. In a minute her voice came from the dark corner, flavoured with what sounded like respect.

“I can see that with someone like you about a person would never become complacent. You are quite correct: I suppose I did want him dead and tidied out of the way. His affection for those poisonous children of his was a weakness, and he would have exposed me when he had the chance. Ah well; introspection has never been one of my strong points. I have an unfortunate tendency to overlook side issues when I have a goal before me. As Miss Russell could tell you, I think.”

The silver muzzle was again aimed directly at me, and I willed my muscles to relax, cursing inwardly. We were all silent for a long minute, two, and when she started again I knew that Holmes had miscalculated, that his successful gambit had, instead of distracting her, only driven her more strongly into asserting her domination over him. I could have told him, but he could not have known. Her counter-move was vicious and calculated to take him at his weakest point, where pride met aloof independence.

“I believe,” she said slowly, and again she had fluctuated into that slightly “off” manner that made me feel as if I did not know her in the least. “I believe that I shall call you Sherlock. An awkward name, that. What was your father thinking? Nonetheless, we have had such an intimate relationship—admittedly one-sided up to now—for so many years, I believe it is time to make it reciprocal. You will address me please by my Christian name.”

Before she reached the end of this bizarre little speech I knew what the strong sense of wrongness was that I had sensed in her. When I had known her at Oxford, she had struck me as a person whose frustrations with the demands of University life would cause her, before too long, to make a break with the University and go elsewhere to exercise her considerable abilities. Indeed, that is what I had half assumed had taken place when she did not return for Hilary term. It was now clear that the break had taken place, but internally: The tightly controlled impatience she had always exhibited had broken free, and the knowledge of her superiority had progressed to a sense of supremacy. Eccentricity had flowered into madness.

It was an almost textbook illustration of dementia, but I needed no book to tell me what my crawling skin knew: The woman was more dangerous than her gun, as volatile as petrol fumes and malignant as a poisonous spider. My frantic thoughts could find no option to grab hold of, could conceive of no way to calm her, or even distract her. I could only sit, still and unimportant, to one side, and leave the field to Holmes’ vast experience.

“Madam, I can hardly think that—”

“You ought to think very carefully, Sherlock, before you choose.”

I had heard that tone of voice before, on occasions when her reiterated query as to whether I was satisfied with my solution had sent me scrambling for my error before she came down on me like a barbed whip. Holmes either did not perceive the threat or chose to ignore it.