Authors: Laurie R. King
The Mary Russell Series Books 1-4: The Beekeeper's Apprentice; A Monstrous Regiment of Women; A Letter of Mary; The Moor (92 page)
“Not for you. A couple for me to send for him—one to Inspector Lestrade about a Jason Rogers, another for Mr Mycroft Holmes, something about sending a brown suit to be cleaned.”
Which could mean, I realised, some prearranged code—All is known, must fly—or could mean merely that the brown suit wanted cleaning. I took the wad of paper apprehensively. “I’m glad he finally surfaced, if briefly. You saw him, then?”
“I did, for two minutes as he changed trains. He told me to say he was sorry he couldn’t come tonight but that he’d see you tomorrow night.”
“I’ll believe that when I see him. How did he look?”
Billy hesitated, his worn face searching for words. He had begun life on the hardest of London streets, employed and fostered by Holmes, and though he was quick, he was not an educated man. He finally settled for: “Not himself, if you know what I mean. Of course, he was wearin’ them old things and hadn’t shaved, but he looked tired, too, and stiff. Not all an act.”
“Hardly surprising. I hope he gets a proper bed tonight. Thank you for this.” I held up the flattened scroll.
“He said you might want me to take it to someone else later. If you do, I’ll be home.” He jerked his thumb to indicate the room across the hall. I thanked him again and closed the door, put hat and gloves and shoes in their places, and poured myself a small brandy, which I took with the letter to the chair next to the window. I raised my eyebrows at his first paragraph.
My dear Russell,
I write this hurriedly on, as you will no doubt have noted, a train car whose underpinnings have seen better days. The information it contains may be of use to you, but the presentation of that information is of value to me: I find myself in the singularly vexing position of possessing a series of facts which, as you know, I habitually review aloud and put into order, even if my audience is no more responsive than Watson often was. However, you are off on your own track, Watson is in America somewhere, and I haven’t time to wait about for Mycroft or Lestrade. Hence the letter. I should prefer
to have the patterns reflected either by your perception or Watson’s lack thereof; however, a stub of lead pencil and this unsavoury length of butcher’s paper will have to suffice. (From the expressions on the faces of my compartment mates, none of them has ever before witnessed the miraculous generation of the written word. I shall attempt not to be distracted.)
First to the information: I successfully ingratiated myself into the employ of Mrs Rogers by the approach we had agreed upon—that is, I am an unemployed sailor who knew her husband, and I am as offensive as possible without quite coming to blows. She positively melts in my unshaven presence.
I was up on a ladder in Mrs Rogers’s guest room, cursing the general intractability of inexpensive wallpaper, when I heard a car drive in, and shortly thereafter, without a knock, came the sound of heavy feet in the kitchen below. Murmured conversation followed, and I cursed further the unsuitability of my position for overhearing what was happening downstairs. In a few minutes, however, the feet came up the stairs and a head of thick black hair appeared in the door, then stared curiously at me and my work.
The owner of the hair, as you can imagine, interested me greatly. I gave him an abrupt greeting, typical of my character, and narrowly avoided dropping a length of paste-sodden paper on him. He commented on the quality of my work. I told him that she was getting what she paid for, that I never claimed to be a paperhanger.
“What are you, then?” he asked.
“Jack of all trades, master of none,” I replied.
He reacted to this bit of originality with a sneer.
“I’d believe that you’ve mastered none, by the looks of these walls. What are you good at?”
“Ships. Machinery. Automobiles.” This last was after I had seen the grease stains under his nails and the condition of his shoes and trousers.
“Hah. Probably can’t even so much as change a tyre.”
“I’ve changed a few,” I said mildly, and deposited a globule of paste on his shoe.
“Well, you can do another if you like. There’s a slow puncture in the car in the drive outside, and I’m in a hurry. You go take it off and see if you can find the hole.”
I obediently laid down my brush and knife and took up the wrenches from the car’s toolbox. It was not his automobile, of that I was certain. Too staid, too expensive, too well kept up. I would have given much to hear what was said during the next fifteen minutes, but short of climbing the wall—in broad daylight, without ivy or a convenient rope—and putting my ear to a window, I could not. I found the hole, patched it, and was putting the wheel back in place when he came out again.
“Here, don’t tell me you’ve just started?”
“Oh no, it’s all ready to go. Sir, if you’ll hand me that pump, I’ll finish it.”
As the tyre filled with air, I admired “his” automobile.
“Is it yours, then?” I asked casually.
“Nah, it’s borrowed.”
“I thought it might be. I’d see you in something a touch flashier, somehow, and faster.”
“Oh, this one’s pretty fast.”
“Don’t look it,” I announced sceptically, so he proceeded to tell me precisely how long it took him to drive from Bath, despite the hay wagons. I whistled appreciatively.
“You must’ve had to push it hard on the straight patches. A good friend, to let you treat his machine like that.”
“Ah, he’ll never know. Some of these old [censored] own these [censored] great hogs and never use them properly. Does a machine good to be stretched a bit.”
“You ought to charge him extra for it,” I jested, and he took the bait.
“Too right, add it to his bill.”
Much laughter and joviality followed and an exchange of opinions regarding pistons, body frames, and the like. (Many blessings, incidentally, were called upon Old Will’s grandson for his tutorials in automotive arcana.) He climbed into the luxurious transport that was not his own, and I stuck my head over the passenger side.
“Enjoy your drive back, Mr—”
“Rogers, Jason Rogers.”
“Enjoy the road, Mr Rogers. I hear tell there’s a very watchful constabulary round Swindon side, so if you’re going through there, you better keep a light foot on it.”
“Thanks for the warning, Basil. Give me a start, my man.”
I obliged, and he slapped the car cruelly into gear and roared off down the way.
So, as you can see, Russell, I am off to Bath, on a somewhat slower but considerably safer means of transport, to look into the possibility of a motorcar-repair establishment run by a Mr Jason Rogers, grandson of Mrs Erica Rogers, a right-handed, black-haired man of about five feet ten inches, thirteen stone, with rounded shoes, who looks the sort to own a brown tweed suit and a workmanlike folding knife. I hope to have some interesting contributions to add to the discussion tomorrow evening.
Now as to the pattern into which this information may fit: As I mentioned, Mrs Rogers is a talkative woman, easily steered into one topic and another, with certain very definite exceptions, when a thick window shade is pulled down behind her eyes and she discovers that it is time to make a pot of tea or check on her aged mother. She is not wildly intelligent, but she is very, very canny, and her suspicions bristle whenever the topics of money (particularly inheritance), grandsons, the education of women, childbearing outside of matrimony, and dogs come up. Which of these areas might concern us, and which are merely extraneous remnants of personal history, is as
yet difficult to discern, although some of the subjects are highly suggestive.
Certain oblique statements, gestures, and expressions have caught my interest, buried as they were in the flow of gossip, childhood reminiscences, and explanations of the proper technique by which a job is to be done. I shall not burden you at this point with the details of those conversations, which would exhaust my supplies of paper, lead, and time; however, the following points should be noted:
First and foremost, Mrs Rogers is possessed of a deep mistrust of close family relationships. Her asides about ungrateful siblings and faithless children do not, however, appear to extend to mothers or male grandchildren. Hence my rapid departure by rail.
Second, you noted that she seemed fond of that drivel perpetrated by Watson on the unsuspecting public, yet when I walked into the house, there was not a single thing more demanding of thought than an old copy of Mrs Beeton’s cookery book. A spot of gossip with the neighbour’s lad (never underestimate the observational powers of an intelligent child, Russell!) revealed that a load of things were carted off a few days ago, including several tea chests filled with books. Which goes to explain ten linear feet of sparsely occupied and recently scrubbed shelves upstairs. Canny, very canny.
Third, you were quite correct about the recent depature of household help. This was in the person of a rather dim child of seventeen years who was perfunctorily dismissed on the day Miss Ruskin left Cambridgeshire, sent home to her family with two weeks’ pay and no explanation.
As Pascal says, I have made this letter long because I lacked the time to make it short, but time and paper both are drawing to a rapid close, and I shall have to sprint across town to make the Bath connexion. You might have Billy take this to Mycroft and Lestrade, if he’s available.
Take care, wife.
Holmes
Postscript—I had thought to keep the following with me, but perhaps that is not a good idea. If it were found in my possession by the gentlemen I intend to visit, it could be difficult to explain. I do not need to warn you to guard it closely. I found it in a desk drawer in Mrs Rogers’s room, inside an envelope which, as can be discerned from the letter itself, was stabbed and gouged repeatedly with an ink pen, leaving pieces of the nib embedded in the paper. The letter was in a prominent spot in the drawer, but it had been returned to its envelope before it was attacked and not removed from the envelope since then. I left the empty envelope behind, lest Mrs Rogers notice its absence. I am quite aware this is not an entirely appropriate means of obtaining police evidence, but really, I could not leave it there. If I have not returned by tomorrow evening, take it with you to Mycroft’s and give it to Lestrade.
H.
The letter, in the distinctive strong hand of Dorothy Ruskin, read as follows:
22 November 1920
Jerusalem
Dear Erica,
I hope this letter finds you and Mother well and your son’s wife recovering after her fall. My return voyage was as uneventful as possible in this day, and I have returned safely, which is all one can ask for.
Erica, I have given much thought to what I am about to say, and I pray that it will be read in as charitable a mood as it was written. I cannot leave that topic we touched on during my last week with you. I told you that I was worried about your health, but I may not have expressed myself clearly. Erica, there is no longer any reason to feel that mental imbalances are any less deserving of straightforward medical treatment than are physical weaknesses. Even more, perhaps,
for the former can easily lead to the latter. Please believe me when I say that I wish the very best for you. You are my sister, my only family, and (to speak honestly) I do not believe that you are yourself.
I know that you feel quite normal, but I could see clearly that you are not. Mental illness is a beast who wanders about inside one, seeking which part he may devour, and that beast is loose inside you now. Please, dear sister, do not let him remain uncaged. I am willing—indeed, I should be happy—to pay for the cost of psychoanalytic treatment and for the cost of care for Mama if necessary during that time.
I will ask a friend to be in touch with you with some names of good doctors. I hope you will at least go to see one, for my sake, if only to obtain a clean bill of health and prove me wrong.
Speaking of health, we are in the midst of an outbreak of dysentery here, as it seems that in my absence no one bothered to educate the new cook on basic sanitation issues. I am writing this in Jerusalem, where I have come to buy the necessary medications.
Please know that I write this letter out of affection and concern for you and that I remain, as always,
Your loving sister,
Dorothy
I
DID NOT
go down to supper that night, though Billy later brought me up a piece of apple tart and some cheese and coffee. I stood at the window and watched the London night fall. The rain stopped abruptly just before dusk, and I thought of Patrick on the farm, praying for some dry days to finish the late harvest.
For a few hours this afternoon, I was so sure of myself, I thought. Where there were clear motive and opportunity, could firm evidence be far behind? And now Holmes tells me the trail lies elsewhere. My efforts since Tuesday have been in vain. Thank God I don’t have to go there tomorrow—I don’t know how long I can keep it up, knowing there is a good chance that it is futile. But, why the sister and the
sister’s grandson? The murder was calculated, not merely an act of insane rage. Money, then, that most ubiquitous of motives?
I stood unseeing and rubbed at the dull ache in my right shoulder, my mind an undisciplined welter of unconnected images and phrases. A thin memory wafted up, evoked no doubt by the reference to wall climbing in the letter I had just received. A memory of salt air, and a strong, young body, and the wonder of life opening up. A memory of a girl, not yet a young woman, sitting at the edge of a cliff, tossing pebbles at the rocky beach far below. Her blond hair is tugged out of the long plaits by the wind, and wisps blow into her mouth and across her steel-rimmed glasses. The lean grey-haired man next to her sits quietly, one knee up under his chin, the other dangling carelessly into space.
“Holmes?”
“Yes, Russell.”
“What do you think makes a person kill?”
“Self-defence.”
“No, I mean murder, not just defending oneself.”
“I know what you meant. My answer is, self-defence, always.”
The young face squints out across the Channel haze.
“You are saying that all murders are committed because the killer feels that he is being threatened by the other person.”
“I should qualify that, I suppose, to admit the occasional unhuman who kills for pleasure or payment, but for the rest, yes. The injunction against the taking of human life is so strong, the only way most people can break it is to convince themselves that their life, their welfare, or the life of their family is menaced by their enemy and that, therefore, the enemy must be removed.”
“But, revenge? And money?”
“Subdivisions of self-defence. Revenge returns the killer to a position of self-respect and reestablishes his sense of worth and power in his own eyes. The cousin of revenge is jealousy, anticipating the need for revenge. The other subdivisions are all forms of power—money being
the most obvious and the most common.” And, his voice added, the least interesting.
“What about the fear of being caught?”
“It acts as a balance to the urge for self-defence. Most people know at least one person whom they could be tempted to do away with, were it not too unpleasantly messy, but for the fear of being caught and having freedom, honour, and perhaps even life itself taken away by the judicial system. Be honest, Russell. If you found yourself in a position where you could rid yourself of another person, and you were absolutely certain that no one would ever even suspect you, would you not be sorely tempted?”
“Oh yes,” I said with feeling.
Holmes laughed dryly. “I am glad your aunt could not see your face just then, Russell. I promise you that I won’t mention this conversation to the local constable if her body is found one of these days.” Holmes, who had never been formally introduced to my aunt, was no fonder of her manipulative ways than I, her orphaned ward.
“I’ll remember that. But, Holmes, if all murderers—most murderers—are only acting in self-defence, then how can you condemn them? Any animal has the right to defend itself, doesn’t it?”
His response was as unexpected as it was electrifying. My friend, my mentor, turned on me, with a look of such absolute disgust and loathing that I could not breathe, and had I not been frozen to the spot, my body would probably have fallen forward off the cliff just to be free of that awful gaze. His voice was tight with scorn, and it shattered my fragile adolescent attempts at self-assurance.
“For God’s sake, Russell, human beings are not animals. For thousands of years, we’ve fought our way up from being animals, and the veneer is a fragile one at best. Some people forget this, but don’t you, Russell, you of all people. Never forget it.”
He stood up swiftly and stalked away, and I began to breathe again. After a while, I took myself home, shaken, confused, angry, and feeling about four inches tall.
That night after dinner, I went upstairs early to avoid my aunt’s eyes and to think. My room was small, had no view to speak of, and was located on the cold north side of the house, but it had one invaluable feature: The stones of the main chimney stepped up along the outside wall just under my window, so that with the aid of a fine, nearly invisible rope, I could leave the house unseen. I used the escape route rarely, but knowing it was available transformed the room from a prison into a safe haven. I had even mounted a bolt on the door, which I threw now, and I stood with my forehead against the cool painted wood as the confusion and the emptiness welled up in me. Holmes was my only friend, all the family I possessed, and the thought of his disapproval devastated me.
A slight noise came from behind me. I whirled around, my heart in my throat, to see the man himself in the armchair next to the window, leaning forward to replace a book on the bookshelf, his unlit pipe between his teeth. I stared at him. He took the pipe out of his mouth, smiled at me, and spoke in a low voice.
“Good evening, Russell. If you do not wish to have uninvited visitors, you ought to pull the cord up after you.”
I found my voice.
“Most people use the front door, for some reason.”
“How odd. Would you prefer I went around…”
“It would seem somewhat anticlimactic. What are you doing here? I’m afraid I can’t offer you any refreshment, if you are here because Mrs Hudson has decided to go out on strike.”
“What a terrifying thought. No, I am not in need of refreshment. I came to apologise, Russell. My words this afternoon were unnecessarily harsh, and I did not wish you to be disturbed by them.”
I turned to tidy an already-neat stack of papers on my desk.
“It is not necessary to apologise,” I said. “It was a stupid thing to say, and I deserved your response. I am relieved that you aren’t angry with me,” I added.
“My dear child, it was not stupid. The question of human responsibility is one that every adolescent must ask, or grow up never knowing
the answer. The problem is that I forgot you are only sixteen. I often do, you know. It was a valid question, and I treated it as if it were a moral flaw. Please forgive me, and I beg you, do not let it stop you from asking questions in the future. You say what you like, and I shall attempt to avoid acting like an old lion with a toothache. Agreed?”
Embarrassed and relieved, I grinned and stuck out my hand. He stood up and took it.
“Agreed.”
“I’ll be off, then, before Mrs Hudson sends out the hounds for me. There may be something in your macabre joke after all—this will be the third time in a week I have made her serve me a cold supper. Ah well. Until tomorrow, Russell.”
He reached down and pulled up the noiseless window, then threaded his long body out into the darkness.
“Holmes,” I called. His head reappeared.
“Yes, Russell.”
“Don’t come here again,” I said, then realised how it must sound. “I mean, while my aunt lives here, I can’t—I don’t—” I stopped, confused.
He studied me for a moment, and then his hard face was transformed by a smile of such unexpected gentleness that I clamped my jaws hard to block the prickle in my eyes.
“I understand,” was all he said, and was gone.
But I never forgot his words on the cliff.
W
HAT HAD MISS
Ruskin possessed that could turn two, perhaps three, human beings into killers? What of hers, what piece of paper or small, flat item could have driven someone to the extremity of running her down with an automobile? If I knew what it was, I would know who. If I knew who, I could deduce what it was. I knew neither.
So I went to bed.