A Letter of Mary mr-3

by Laurie R. King

  "Couldn't hurt." Lestrade flipped to a blank page in his lined notebook, and I wrote down several names and where they might be found. He looked in satisfaction at my scrawl, then turned back to his place.

  "Wednesday, she reached you at midday, which means she had very little time in the morning to see anyone, though the hotel was not certain just when she left. She came back to the hotel for a very short time Wednesday night, apparently to change bags, but not clothes, and met the colonel for dinner at nine o'clock."

  "Tell us about the colonel," suggested Holmes, who looked deceptively near sleep in the depths of his armchair. Lestrade flipped pages, dropped ash onto his trouser leg, and cleared his throat again.

  "Colonel Dennis Edwards, age fifty-one, retired after the war— a widower with one son, aged twenty-one. He was in and out of Egypt before the war, and in 1914 he was posted to Cairo. Went into Gallipoli in March of 1915, and stayed until the end, the following January. Given a fortnight's home leave and then was shifted to the Western Front. Decorated in 1916 when he pulled three of his men out of a collapsed trench under fire. Wounded in March of '17, spent six months in hospital, and returned to active service until the end of the war. There seems to have been some unpleasant business about his wife, though the exact story is hard to pin down. She died in York in July of 1918— he was in the thick of things at the Marne— though why York, nobody seems to know, as she had no family there. The boy, by the way, didn't go to her during the school holiday— he'd been sent off to an aunt up in Edinburgh."

  "What did she die from?" I asked.

  Lestrade rumpled his hair absently, thus adding another endearingly unattractive characteristic. "Funny thing, we haven't been able to find out. The hospital moved their offices three years back, and some of the records went missing. All they've been able to come up with is one of the older nurses, who remembers a woman by that name dying either, she says, of pneumonia or childbirth fever; she can't remember which. She thinks the woman was brought in by a handsome young man but couldn't swear to it. Don't know if I'd trust her if she could, anyone who can't even remember whether a patient was in the maternity ward or in with the respiratory diseases. However, it does seem that Mrs Edwards was brought in by a man, according to the one piece of paper the hospital found relating to her admission, but he signed his name as Colonel Edwards. The real colonel was, as I said, in France, had been for more than eight months, and the signature was not his."

  "There are distinctly unpleasant overtones in all of this." Mycroft's distaste spoke for us all.

  "Nothing conclusive yet, but I'd have to agree. Seems the colonel found the circumstances of his wife's death too much to take, too, on top of everything else. He was demobbed in February of 1919, and five months later he spent seven weeks in hospital, with a diagnosis of severe alcoholic toxaemia. They dried him out and sent him home, and after that he straightened out. He got himself involved with the local church and from there met this same group of retired Middle East hands who were about to provide the backing for Miss Ruskin's excavation— the Friends of Palestine."

  "I've been wondering, Inspector," I interrupted, "how did the colonel miss the fact that it was a woman who was in charge of the project? Holmes said the man was surprised at that."

  "Yes, that was odd, wasn't it? I spoke with two of his friends on the committee that recommended the project, and according to them, Miss Ruskin always signed herself as D. E. Ruskin and never corrected their form of address."

  I had to smile. "Her articles were all published under that name," I admitted. "She was, after all, a realist and very anxious to get her dig. I doubt that it was deliberate to begin with, but she probably knew the sort of men she was dealing with and therefore allowed them to continue in their false assumption until they were in too far to back out."

  "I imagine it appealed to her sense of humour, as well," commented Holmes.

  "That, too. Can't you just hear her laugh?"

  "Nothing else about Colonel Edwards?" asked Mycroft.

  "We're still looking at bank accounts and family connexions. The son is still away, expected back this weekend."

  "And the driver?"

  "The colonel's man and the man's wife are the only permanent household servants. They've been with the family for thirty years, and the man's father served the colonel's father before him."

  "Any change in their account of Wednesday night?" asked Holmes.

  "No, we went over it again, and he says he left the restaurant around midnight, was driven home, and went to bed."

  "Did you ask him about the telephone call he made from the restaurant?" Holmes asked.

  "That I did. He says he was trying to reach the friend who arranged the meeting with Miss Ruskin, but he couldn't get into contact with him. We talked to the man— name of Lawson— and he agrees that he was not at home that night."

  "No way of finding where the colonel phoned, then?"

  "Afraid not. All the exchange can tell us is it wasn't a trunk call."

  "A London number, then."

  "Must've been. If, indeed, he actually made the call. Any road, there were no notable inconsistencies between his story and his servant's, not yet anyway. I'll question them both again tomorrow."

  "Does he know yet that this is a murder investigation?"

  "We left it as a death under suspicious circumstances, but he's not stupid. He may have guessed it's more than routine."

  "Well, it cannot be helped. What about Mrs Erica Rogers?"

  "I was up there again this morning, but I can't say we have too much on her yet. The neighbours say she was at home both Wednesday and Friday, as far as they can tell. However, Miss Russell will have told you that the house is peculiarly difficult to overlook— it is near the main road, but bordered by woods on one side and a high privet hedge between it and the nearest neighbour. Her lights did go off as usual around ten-thirty, both nights, and nobody noticed any car arrive after that. She lives alone with her mother; a day nurse comes in Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. Doctor regularly, too."

  "What's wrong with the old lady?"

  "Just age, I think. Lots of small things, arthritis, bronchitis, heart— nothing quite big enough to carry her off. Must be a stubborn old thing. Totally useless trying to question her, by the way— hearing like a fence post and pretty near gaga to boot."

  "It must be expensive, caring for an invalid. What income is there?"

  "Investments by the father, for the most part— not big, but steady. He's been dead for twelve years. Two-thirds of the income goes to Mrs Rogers and her mother, one-third to Miss Ruskin."

  "And the will?"

  "Mrs Rogers directed us to the family solicitor, who showed me the will Miss Ruskin drew up ten years ago. It left everything to her mother and sister, aside from a few specific items, which she wanted sent to various individuals, some to the British Museum. A codicil added five years ago specified additional items, but that did not change the will itself."

  "Any other family?"

  "Now, that was an interesting thing. Mrs Rogers was most cooperative when it came to questioning the mother, and she came across with the solicitor's name, but as soon as we branched off onto the rest of the family, she seemed to lose interest in the conversation. She mentioned that she has two sons, and then it seemed we would have to leave, it was time for Mama's bath."

  "Any idea what colour hair the sons have?" Holmes murmured.

  Lestrade looked up at the question, then started to shake his head.

  "There were two men among the photographs in Mrs Rogers's house," I remembered. "Nothing to give a reference for their height, but both of them had very dark hair."

  "Ah. Lestrade, when you find them, if you can get a sample of their hair without being too obvious, it might be useful. Was there anything else?"

  Lestrade had to admit that until such a time as the enquiries concerning wills and safe-deposit boxes began to come in, there was nothing else. However, I thought it was a tremen
dous amount to have pulled together in such a short time, and I said so. He blushed and looked pleased.

  "I agree," said Holmes dutifully. "Well done. All right, I shall go over what I have learnt, though you've all heard parts of it already." He then touched his fingers together in front of his lips, closed his eyes, and reviewed the results of his work in the laboratory, the mud and the hairs left by the intruders, the examination of the papyrus. I brought out the box and allowed it to be handled and admired while I read my translation of the letter. I then gave box and manuscript to Mycroft for safekeeping. He took them off to the other room, then returned with four glasses and a bottle of brandy.

  "It is becoming late, and I believe the good inspector has been short of sleep lately," Mycroft began. "I shall try to make this brief." He paused and turned his glass around in his massive hands, gathering our attention to himself— he was as much of a showman as his brother. He broke the tension by shooting Lestrade a hard look. "You understand that some of what I will tell you is not common knowledge and must under no circumstances make itself into any written record, Chief Inspector."

  "Would you prefer that I leave?" Lestrade said stiffly.

  "Not unless you prefer not to be put in the awkward position of having to withhold information from the official record. Your word is sufficient assurance of that for me."

  "I have no real choice, have I?"

  "I'm afraid not."

  "Very well, I agree."

  "Good. My information concerns Miss Ruskin herself. Like most of the English in the Near East, she was connected with Intelligence during the war, and in fact she worked for some months in an unofficial, but nonetheless vital, capacity for His Majesty in 1916 and 1917. It is mildly surprising that she and Colonel Edwards seem to have never crossed paths, but at the time he was in Cairo, she was a small and private cog, in addition to being for the most part, as they say, 'in the field.' A curiosity, perhaps, that they never met, but hardly sinister. Her work began with translation, first of documents and then in interviews and interrogations. She acted as a guide on a handful of on-the-quiet occasions, and several times as a courier. By late 1916, she had gained a certain level of independence in her activities and had befriended a number of leading Arabs. They were fascinated by her, as their brothers to the east were by Gertrude Bell, and gave her the freedom of movement and speech that normally only men are allowed in that society. Plus, of course, having access to the women's quarters.

  "However, in 1917 a small thing happened. History is often made by small things, which is why it can be useful to maintain a person such as myself to take notice of them. The small thing that happened to Miss Ruskin was that her car broke down near one of the new Zionist settlements, and while she was waiting for the driver to return with a part, she ate a boiled egg that had sat too long in the heat. She became very ill. The Zionists took her in, their doctor cared for her, and she spent several days recuperating amongst the gardens they were calling into existence from out of the bare earth. She saw their commitment, the strength and pleasure they drew from the land and from their children, and by the time she drove away, she was a Zionist. A Christian still, perhaps even more of a Christian than she had been before, but a Zionist.

  "She was a highly intelligent woman from all indications. I believe I should have enjoyed meeting her. It did not take her long to decide that Zionism and Arab self-rule were fundamentally incompatible. There are many people who would not agree with her, but Miss Ruskin became convinced that Jews and Mohammedan Arabs could not easily be neighbours in the same small country, and so she gradually withdrew herself from her former work and returned to archaeology. Her work for the Zionist movement has gone on, but quietly, so as, I think, not to oppose directly her Arab friends and not to burden the movement with an apparent turncoat.

  "Inevitably, there were some members of the Arab faction who were angered by what they saw as her desertion of their cause, her betrayal. There was one family in particular with cause for bitterness. She had been supporting them in a land dispute before her, shall we say, 'conversion,' and afterwards she backed away. They lost their claim and were forced to move into town. Last year, the Zionists established a settlement on that piece of land."

  "And equally inevitably, there are at least two young men in the family who are well educated, and they were in this country last Wednesday, and they naturally have black hair," I groaned. "Oh, why couldn't this be a simple case?"

  "Don't complain, Russell," said my unsympathetic husband. "Just think how pretty it will look when you get around to writing your memoirs."

  "I would settle for writing my Wisdom book, thank you."

  "Well, you'll not have time for either just yet. There remains much to do. Lestrade, shall we meet tomorrow night to discuss tactics?"

  "Here?"

  "Mycroft?"

  "Certainly. I cannot promise grouse again, but my housekeeper is always happy to oblige."

  "Eight o'clock, then, Lestrade."

  Good nights were given all around, glasses were cleared away, Mycroft excused himself, and I went off to our rooms to wash the late-night grit from my eyes. I came back, to find Holmes where I had left him, curled into a chair with his pipe, glowering fiercely at the scoured, empty tiles of the fireplace. I turned down the lights, but he did not move. The threads of smoke surrounding his head looked like the emissions of some hard-pressed engine, smoking with the fury of its labours. I turned at the doorway and watched him for a long minute, but he gave no sign of feeling my eyes on him.

  Normally when Holmes was in this state, I would slip away and leave him to his thoughts, but that night something pulled me over to his chair. He started when I touched his shoulder, and then his face relaxed into a smile. He uncurled his legs, and I wedged myself next to him in the chair, which, being fitted to Mycroft, held the two of us with ease. We sat, silent, aware of the occasional clop of shod hooves, the growl of motors, the slight shift of the building around us going to bed, once the call of a night vendor wandered away from his home territory. The lace curtains moved faintly and brought in a much-adulterated hint of a change in the weather.

  Holmes and I had met when I was fifteen, and I became, in effect, his apprentice. Under his guidance, I harnessed my angry intelligence, I found a direction for my life, and I came to terms with my past. When I was eighteen, we worked together on a series of cases, which culminated with finding ourselves the target of one of the cleverest, most deadly criminals he had ever faced. After that case, I was an apprentice no longer— I was, at the age of nineteen, a full partner.

  I was now twenty-three, though considerably older internally than the calendar would suggest. However, for the last year and a half the partnership had been, in some ways, in abeyance. We had worked together on only two serious cases since our marriage. Instead, I had immersed myself in the rarefied air of Oxford, where I was beginning to make a name for myself in the more abstruse divisions of academic theology. My only real contact with the art of detection for some months had been in its theoretical aspects as I helped Holmes with his magnum opus on that subject. Holmes had, I realized now, been waiting, and now his world had come again to lay claim upon me.

  As if to underscore the point my thoughts had reached as I lay back in the chair with my eyes closed, half-drowsing, I felt my left hand taken up. In the silence of our breathing, he began to explore my hand with his, in a slow, almost impersonal manner that left me unaware of anything else in the universe. He ran his smooth, cool fingertips along each of my fingers, exploring the swell of the knuckles and the shape of my nails, teasing the tiny hairs, probing the soft webs between the fingers and the joint of the thumb and the tendons and the large vein up to the wrist, arousing the skin and the hand itself to a most extraordinary pitch of awareness. He ended, at the point when the exquisite sensations threatened to become unbearable, by raising my hand almost formally to his lips, lingering there for an instant, and then restoring it to me.

  I sat for a l
ong moment, eyes closed as before, but glowing now and no longer in the least drowsy, and said what was foremost in my mind.

  "What is troubling you, husband?"

  I thought he would not answer me. Eventually, he disentangled himself and reached forward to knock his pipe out with unnecessary violence into the pristine fireplace.

  "Data," he said, sounding like a man pleading for water in a desert place. "I cannot form so much as an hypothesis without raw material."

  I waited, but no more was forthcoming. He sucked at the empty pipe stem and squinted at the mantelpiece as if there were words to be deciphered in the grain of the wood. I finally broke the silence.

  "Yes, we need more information. Neither Lestrade's information nor Mycroft's has changed that. Assuming that I followed your train of thought this evening, this means that you will have to go to Mrs Rogers, while I ingratiate myself to Colonel Edwards. I ask you again, why does this trouble you?"

  "I don't—" He stopped, then continued more quietly. "I do not know why, and I realise it is unreasonable, but I find that the idea of your being in the colonel's house makes me profoundly uneasy. It brings to mind the day we returned from Palestine all those years ago, when I stood on the boat and watched you walk away, completely exposed, while I knew full well that the trap we were setting might catch you instead. It was, I think, the hardest thing I have ever done."

  "Holmes," I said, startled into speech, "are you going all sentimental on me?"

  "No, you're right, that would never do. What I am trying to say in my feeble male way is that I cannot think why the idea troubles me. I cannot see any signs of a trap, I could detect no threat in his manner when I met him, and I cannot put my finger on any one piece of data that makes me mistrust him. It is a totally irrational reaction on my part, but nonetheless, the thought of placing you within his reach disturbs me greatly."