The Mary Russell Series Books 1-4: The Beekeeper's Apprentice; A Monstrous Regiment of Women; A Letter of Mary; The Moor (8 page)

Up until now my sporadic attempts to help out with the myriad farmyard tasks had been met with the same polite disbelief with which the peasants at Versailles must have greeted Marie Antoinette’s milkmaid fantasies. I was the owner, and if I wanted to push matters he could not actually stop me from dirtying my hands, but other than the seasonal necessity of the wartime harvest (which obviously pained him) My Lady’s Daughter was taken to be above such things. He ran the farm to his liking, I lived there and occasionally wandered down from the main house to chat, but neither he nor I would have thought of giving me a say in how things were run. This morning that was about to change.

I trudged down the hill to the main barn, my breath smoking around my ears in the clear, weak winter sunshine, and called his name. The voice that answered led me through to the back, where I found him mucking out a stall.

“Morning, Patrick.”

“Welcome back, Miss Mary.” I had long ago forbidden greater formality, and he in turn refused greater familiarity, so the compromise was Miss and my first name.

“Thank you, it’s good to be back. Patrick, I need your help.”

“Surely, Miss Mary. Can it wait until I’ve finished this?”

“Oh, I don’t want to interrupt. I want you to give me something to do.”

“Something to do?” He looked puzzled.

“Yes. Patrick, I’ve spent the last six months sitting in a chair with a book in my hands, and if I don’t get back to using my muscles, they’ll forget how to function altogether. I need you to tell me what needs doing around here. Where can I start? Shall I finish that stall for you?”

Patrick hurriedly held the muck-rake out of my reach and blocked my entrance to the stall.

“No, Miss, I’ll finish this. What is it you’d like to do?”

“Whatever needs doing,” I said in no uncertain terms, to let him know I meant business.

“Well…” His eyes looked about desperately and lit on a broom. “Do you want to sweep? The wood shavings in the workshop want clearing up.”

“Right.” I seized the big broom, and ten minutes later he came into the workshop to find me furiously raising a cloud of dust and wood particles that settled softly onto every surface.

“Miss Mary, oh, well, that’s too fast. I mean, do you think you could get the stuff out the door before you fling it in the air?”

“What do you mean? Oh, I see, here, I’ll just sweep it off of there.”

I took the broom and made a wild sweep along the workbench, and an edge of the unwieldy head sent a tray of tools flying. Patrick picked up a chipped chisel and looked at me as if I had attacked his son.

“Have you never used a broom before?”

“Well, not often.”

“Perhaps you should carry firewood, then.”

I hauled barrow-cart after barrow-cart of split logs up to the house, saw that we needed kindling as well, and had just started using the double-bitted axe to split some logs on a big stone next to the back door when Patrick ran up and prevented me from cutting off my hand. He showed me the cutting block and the proper little hand axe and carefully demonstrated how not to use them. Two hours after I had walked down the hill I had a small pile of wood and a very trembly set of muscles to show for my work.

The road to Holmes’ cottage seemed to have lengthened since last I rode that way, or perhaps it was only the odd sensation of nervousness in the pit of my stomach. It was the same, but I was different, and I wondered for the first time if I was going to be able to carry it off, if I could join these two utterly disparate sides of my life. I pushed the bicycle harder than my out-of-condition legs cared for, but when I came over the last rise and saw the familiar cottage across the fields, faint smoke rising from the kitchen chimney, I began to relax, and when I opened the door and breathed in the essence of the place, I was home, safe.

“Mrs. Hudson?” I called, but the kitchen was empty. Market day, I thought, so I went to the stairs and started upwards. “Holmes?”

“That you, Russell?” he said, sounding mildly surprised, though I had written the week before to say what day I would be home. “Good. I was just glancing through those experiments on blood typology we were doing before you left in January. I believe I’ve discovered what the problem was. Here: Look at your notes. Now look at the slide I’ve put in the microscope….”

Good old Holmes, as effusive and demonstrative as ever. Obediently, I sat before the eyepieces of his machine, and it was as if I’d never been away. Life slid back into place, and I did not doubt again.

On the third week of my holiday I went to the cottage on a Wednesday, Mrs. Hudson’s usual day in town. Holmes and I had planned a rather smelly chemical reaction for that day, but as I let myself in the kitchen door I heard voices from the sitting room.

“Russell?” his voice called.

“Yes, Holmes.” I walked to the door and was surprised to see Holmes at the fire beside an elegantly dressed woman with a vaguely familiar face. I automatically began to reconstruct mentally the surroundings where I had seen her, but Holmes interrupted the process.

“Do come in, Russell. We were waiting for you. This is Mrs. Barker. You will remember, she and her husband live in the manor house. They bought it the year before you came here. Mrs. Barker, this is the young lady I was mentioning—yes, she is a young lady inside that costume. Now that she is here, would you please review the problem for us? Russell, pour yourself a cup of tea and sit down.”

It was the partnership’s first case.

I
T WAS, I
suppose, inevitable that Holmes and I would collaborate eventually on one of his cases. Although ostensibly retired, he would, as I said, occasionally show all the signs of his former life: strange visitors, erratic hours, a refusal to eat, long periods at the pipe, and endless hours producing peculiar noises from his violin. Twice I had come to the cottage unannounced and found him gone. I did not enquire into his affairs, as I knew that he accepted only the most unusual or delicate of cases these days, leaving the investigation of more conventional crimes to the various police agencies (who had come to adopt his methods over the years).

I was immediately curious as to what Holmes might see in this case. Although Mrs. Barker was a neighbour, and a wealthy one, that would hardly keep him from referring her to the local police if he thought her problem was of the common or garden variety, yet far from rebuffing her, I could see that he was more than a bit interested. Mrs. Barker, however, seemed puzzled at his vague manner, and as he spent the better part of the interview slouched down in his chair with his fingers steepled, staring at the ceiling, she talked at me. I knew him well enough to see that this apparent lack of interest was actually the opposite, the first stirrings of mental excitement. I listened carefully to her story.

“You may know,” she began, “that my husband and I bought the manor house four years ago. We had been living in America before the war, but Richard—my husband—had always wanted to come home. He was very fortunate with several of his investments, and we came to England in 1913 to look for a house. We saw the manor house here, fell in love with its possibilities, and bought it just before the war started. Of course, with all the shortages and the men off in Europe it has been slow work doing the renovations, but one wing is now quite livable.

“At any rate, about a year ago my husband became ill for a few days. At first it seemed nothing serious, merely an upset stomach, but it progressed until he was curled up in his bed, bathed in sweat, and groaning horribly. The doctors could find no cause, and I could see they were beginning to despair, when the fever finally broke and he went to sleep. In a week he had fully recovered, or so we thought.

“Since then he has had ten episodes similar to the first, though none as bad. Each one begins with a chill sweat, and proceeds through cramps and delirium, and finally a pitch of fever and a deep sleep. On the first night he cannot bear to have me with him, but a few days later he is restored to himself, until the next time. The doctors were baffled, and suggested poison, but we always eat the same foods. I watch it being cooked. It is not poison but an illness.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking, Mr. Holmes.” Holmes raised an eyebrow at this statement. “You’re wondering why I’m asking you about a medical problem. Mr. Holmes, I have come to believe it is not a medical problem. We have consulted specialists here and on the Continent. We even made an appointment with Dr. Freud, thinking it might be of mental origin. They all throw up their hands, with the exception of Dr. Freud, who seemed to think that it was the physical manifestation of my husband’s guilt over marrying a woman twenty years younger than himself. I ask you, have you ever heard such twaddle?” she asked indignantly. We seriously shook our heads in sympathy.

Holmes spoke from the depths of his chair.

“Mrs. Barker, please tell us why you do not believe your husband’s illness to be simply a medical problem.”

“Mr. Holmes, Miss Russell, I will not insult you by making you swear that what I next say goes no further than this room. I decided before I came here that you would have to know, and that your discretion in the matter was a certain thing. My husband is an advisor to the government of England, Mr. Holmes. He does not inform me of the details of his work, but I could hardly miss such activities when they are under my nose. It is also the reason why the telephone line runs such a distance from the village exchange. Your own telephone, Mr. Holmes, is available because the Prime Minister needs to be able to reach my husband at any time. Everyone assumes the line comes this way because we were willing to spend the money for it, I know, but it was not our idea, I assure you.”

“Mrs. Barker, the fact that your husband is a government advisor and the fact that he periodically becomes ill are not necessarily related.”

“Perhaps not, but I have noticed a very odd thing. My husband’s illnesses always correspond with a particular weather phenomenon: It is always during a period of considerable clarity, never during fog or rain. It came to my attention six weeks ago, in the first week of March, I believe it was, following that long period of rain and snow we had. It finally cleared, and was a sparkling clear night, and my husband became ill for the first time in more than two months. That was when I realised, looking back, that it had always been so.”

“Mrs. Barker, when you consulted the European doctors, did your husband become ill during that time? How long were you there, and what were the weather conditions?”

“We were there for seven weeks, with a number of clear nights, and his health was fine.”

“I think this is not all you have to tell us, Mrs. Barker,” said Holmes. “Pray finish your story.”

The lady sighed deeply, and I was astonished to notice that her beautifully manicured hands were trembling.

“You are correct, Mr. Holmes. There are two other things. The first is this: He became ill again two weeks ago, one month after I began to wonder about the coincidence of the air’s clarity. The night his illness began he asked me to leave him alone, as usual. I left his sickroom and went outside for some air. I walked around the gardens for a time, until it was quite late, and when I turned back towards the house I happened to look up at my husband’s room. I saw a light, winking on and off from the roof over his room.”

“And you think it might be your husband, secretly passing on government secrets to the Kaiser,” Holmes interrupted with an impatient edge to his voice.

Mrs. Barker’s face went dead white and she swayed in her chair. I leapt to my feet and held her upright while Holmes went for the brandy. She never fainted completely, and the spirits revived her, but she was still pale and shaken when we sat back down in our chairs.

“Mr. Holmes, how could you have known that?”

“My good lady, you told me yourself.” Seeing her bewilderment, he said with exaggerated patience, “You told me that his illnesses correspond with clear nights when signals can be seen for miles and you told me that he is invariably alone at those times. In addition, I have seen his distinctly Germanic features in the car. Your emotions make it obvious that you are torn between finding the truth and discovering that your husband is a traitor. If you suspected someone else you would not be so upset. Now, tell us about your household.”

She took a shaky sip of brandy and continued.

“We have five full-time servants who live in the house. The others are day help from the village. There is Terrence Howell, my husband’s man, and Sylvia Jacobs, my maid; Sally and Ronald Woods, the cook and chief gardener; and lastly Ron Athens, who keeps the stable and the two cars. Terrence has been with my husband for years; Sylvia I hired eight years ago; the others came when we opened the house.”

Holmes sat staring off at a corner for some minutes, then leapt suddenly to his feet.

“Madam, if you would be so good as to go home now, I think it very likely that a couple of your neighbours may be around to your door later this afternoon. Shall we say, around three o’clock? An unexpected visit, you understand?”

The lady rose, clutching her bag.

“Thank you, Mr. Holmes, I hope—” She looked down. “If my fears are correct, I have married a traitor. If I am wrong, I am myself guilty of traitorous thoughts against my husband. There is no win here, only duty.”

Holmes touched her hand and she looked up at him. He smiled with extraordinary kindness into her eyes.

“Madam, there is no treachery in the truth. There may be pain, but to face honestly all possible conclusions formed by a set of facts is the noblest route possible for a human being.” Holmes could be surprisingly empathetic at times, and his words now had a gentling effect on the lady. She smiled wanly, patted his hand, and left.

Holmes and I proceeded with our odoriferous experiment and at two o’clock left the cottage, leaving the windows and doors full open, to walk to the manor house. We approached it casually, from cross-country rather than along the road, and studied the setting as we walked up the hill towards it.

The three-storey house dominated the area, built as it was atop one of the tallest hills. Moreover, at one end was a tall, square tower that had all the earmarks of a folly added on to imitate some spurious Norman original. It served to unbalance the rest of the building, which apart from the excrescence had a comfortable, sturdy appearance. I said as much to Holmes.

“Yes, the builder may have had some desire to view the sea,” he replied. “I believe that a close examination of the topographical maps would show a correlation between that tower and the gap in the hills over there.”

“They do.”

“Ah, so that was where you went while I was lacing on my boots.”

“To look at your maps, yes. I don’t know this part of the downs as well as you do, so I thought I would take a glance at how the land lies.”

“I think we may assume that the upper rooms in the tower are those of Richard Barker. Put on a casual, happen-to-be-in-the-neighbourhood face, now, Russell, here’s the gentleman himself.”

He raised his voice, calling “Hello, the house!”

His hail had two immediate and astonishing results. The old gentleman shot from his sunlit chair, turned his back to us and waved his hands in the air, shouting unintelligibly. Holmes and I looked at each other curiously, but the reason for his extraordinary behaviour was apparent in another instant, as a pack of what looked like forty dogs came baying and scrabbling across the terrace towards us. The multi-coloured sea parted around the old gentleman, ignoring his frantic waves entirely. Holmes and I stepped slightly apart and readied the heavy walking sticks we always carried for such occasions, but the canine mob was not out for blood and simply encircled us, baying, yapping, and barking madly. The old man came up, his mouth moving, but his presence made absolutely no impact. However, another man came running around the corner of the house, followed shortly by a third, and waded into the sea, seizing scruffs, tails, and fistfuls of fur. Their voices gradually prevailed, and order was slowly restored. Having done their jobs, the dogs sat and stood merrily awaiting further fun, tongues lolling, tails wagging. At this point Mrs. Barker came from the house, and the dogs and her husband all turned to her.

“My dear,” said he in a thin voice, “something really must be done about these dogs.”

She looked sternly at the dogs and spoke to them.

“Shame on you. Is this how you act when neighbours come to visit? You should know better than that.”

The effect of her words on the crowd was instantaneous. Jaws snapped shut, heads went down, tails were tucked in. Looking totally abashed and glancing at us guiltily, the dogs tiptoed silently away. There were only seventeen of them, I noticed, ranging from two tiny Yorkshire terriers to a massive wolfhound who could easily have weighed eleven stone. Mrs. Barker stood with her hands on her hips as the last of them disappeared into the shrubbery, then turned to us, shaking her head.

“I am very sorry for that. We have so few visitors, I’m afraid they become overly excited.”

“Let dogs delight to bark and bite, for God hath made them so,” Holmes commented politely, if unexpectedly. “We ought not to have come here unannounced, for their sakes if not yours. My name is Holmes; this is Mary Russell. We were out for a walk and wished for a closer view of your handsome home. We’ll not bother you further.”

“No, no,” said Mrs. Barker before her husband could speak. “You must come in for refreshment. A glass of sherry, or is it not too early for tea? Tea it is, then. We are neighbours, I believe. I’ve seen you from the road. I am Mrs. Barker; this is my husband.” She turned to the other two men. “Thank you, Ron, they’ll be quiet now. Terrence, could you please tell Mrs. Woods that we will take tea now, and there will be four. We’ll be in the conservatory in a few minutes. Thank you.”

“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Barker. I am sure Miss Russell is as in need of refreshment as I am after our walk.” He turned to the older man, who had stood watching his wife affectionately as she dealt with dogs, guests, and men. “Mr. Barker, this is a most interesting building. Portland stone, is it not? From the early eighteenth century? And when was the folly added?”

The obvious interest Holmes had in the structure led to a deep conversation concerning cracking foundations, wood beetles, leaded windows, the cost of coal, and the drawbacks of the British tradesman. After a hearty tea we were offered a tour, and Holmes, the amateur architectural enthusiast, talked his way into the tower as well. We climbed up the narrow, open wooden steps while Mr. Barker rode in the tiny lift he had installed. He met us at the top.

“I’ve always wanted an ivory tower.” He smiled. “It was the main reason I bought the place, this tower. The lift was an extravagance, but I have problems with climbing the stairs. These are my rooms here. I’d like you to see my view.”

The view was indeed panoramic, a northerly outlook up to the beginnings of the dark weald. Having admired it and the rooms, we set off again for the stairs, but before we reached them Holmes abruptly turned and made for a ladder leaning against a wall at the end of the hallway.

“I do hope you don’t mind, Mr. Barker, but I must see the top of this magnificent tower. I’ll just be an instant, Russell. Note this clever trapdoor here.” His voice faded and echoed as his feet disappeared.

“But it’s not safe up there, Mr. Holmes,” Mr. Barker protested. He turned to me. “I can’t think why that door is unlocked. I told Ron to fix a padlock to it. I was up there three years ago, and I didn’t like the look of it at all.”