“Yes, please.”
The inn’s box was not in the smokehouse rafters, nor down the odoriferous pit. Nor did I find it dangling in the well or, moving inside, under the man’s bed or on the attic rafters or even under a loose floor-board. The driver outside was deeply entrenched in a cheap novel, happy enough to wait, but it was getting late. Holmes and I met in the tiny kitchen over the dirty dishes. Sylvester had eaten beans for supper the night before, and the pan stood on the sideboard, well crusted over. The remainder of the fourth ham was on a plate in the cupboard. The flies were enjoying it.
“He wasn’t too clever in the taking of it, but he has hidden it well,” I said.
“Yes, has he not? What time did Mrs. Whiteneck say he was relieved? That’s right, seven o’clock. It’s six-thirty now, so the car must go. May I suggest we send him off with a note to our good constable, whose presence might be of some service at about, shall we say, seven-thirty?”
“Perhaps slightly later. It will take Sylvester at least twenty minutes to bicycle back here from the inn. It wouldn’t do to have him overtaken by the police on his way home.”
“You are right, Russell, make it seven-forty-five. Good. I’ll give a note to the driver and have him take it to Constable Rogers.”
“Have him take Justinian back, too. Let him go home in glory.”
The car turned around in the front of the house and departed, and Holmes disappeared into one of the outhouses and returned with a rusty chisel and hammer, with which he approached the open door.
“What are you doing, Holmes?” I asked. He stopped.
“I beg your pardon, Russell, I was forgetting myself. Old habits die hard. I shall just return these to their place.”
“Wait, Holmes, I was only asking.”
“Ah. Well, I have occasionally taken advantage of the fact that a person who sees a clear danger to something he or she values tends to reach immediately for that object. You undoubtedly have another plan. Forgive me for interfering.”
“No, no, that’s fine. You go right ahead, Holmes.” I stood watching while he deftly locked the kitchen door with his picklocks, then destroyed the lock in a shower of splinters with the hammer and chisel. He went to return the tools, and I stepped into the kitchen to liberate four stale bread rolls from a parcel on the table and then returned to the smokehouse to help myself to a few slices of one of Mrs. Whiteneck’s purloined hams that had not already fed half the houseflies in Sussex. I do not normally eat pork, but decided that this time I might make an exception. I brushed a dirty smear from the greasy surface, sliced the ham onto the rolls, and looked thoughtfully at my hand, then at the ham, then at the floor.
“Holmes!” I called.
“Found something, Russell?”
“Is senility contagious, Holmes? Because if so, we’ve both got it.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“This ham has been put down in a patch of red clay soil, and a foot has deposited red clay soil onto the floor of the smokehouse. Don’t you think it might be a good idea to investigate further that outcropping of red clay soil? Here’s a sandwich; sorry there’s no beer to go with it.”
“Just a moment.” Holmes walked back through the broken door and, after several heavy thuds and the crash of breaking glass, returned with a large bottle of Bass ale and two glasses, which he rinsed off under the pump. “Shall we go?”
We carried our picnic up the slope that lay near the house and found the red clay lying at the side of an upthrust cliff of tumbled boulders. It was now after seven o’clock, and it would take some time to scramble over the rocks and look for possible hiding places. An examination of the soil showed several mates to the print we had seen on the inn’s carpet. Red smudges led up the cliff. I took a bite of my sandwich and grimaced at the bread.
“I propose we let him bring the box down for us, Holmes. I should like to enjoy this ham and have something to drink.”
“It is a very nice ham, despite the second smoking. Perhaps Mrs. Whiteneck could be persuaded to part with some, in lieu of payment. I believe, Russell, that if we take up a position among those shrubs there, it will afford us both cover and an excellent view of house and hillside.”
That is precisely what we did. Holmes opened the bottle and we refreshed ourselves. Soon our quarry appeared, pedalling rapidly down the road and into his gate. From there it went rather like a well-constructed fall of dominoes, set off by the splintered lock on the back door. We munched and drank and peered through the leaves at the sight of Sylvester standing shocked at his door, disappearing inside, where he found all the signs of a violent search, then bursting outside again and hurtling up the hill towards us. His face was red and sweating as he scrambled up the rocks, and I winced as he slid hard and bashed his shin. At the halfway point he lay down and reached far back behind two large rocks, and we could see his entire body relax as his hand encountered the box.
“Come, now,” murmured Holmes, “bring it down like a good boy, and save us a climb. Ah, good, I thought you might like to play with it again.”
Sylvester, hugging the metal box awkwardly to his chest, worked his way slowly down the rocks. He nearly fell once, and I held my breath in anticipation of broken bones and scattered money, but he recovered with no more than a torn knee and made it safely to the bottom. His face was eager and gloating as he trotted off to his house, cradling the heavy box in his arms. Holmes and I finished the beer and followed him.
“Russell, I believe this is the point at which your reinforcements come into play. I shall wait here while you go up the road and bring PC Rogers—quietly!”
“Holmes, the Barkers’ dogs may listen to me, but PC Rogers does not. I think if there is any fetching and commanding to be done, you had best do it.”
“Hum. You may be right. However, if you remain here you must under no circumstances approach Mr. Sylvester. If he leaves, then follow, at a very discreet distance. Cornered rats bite, Russell: no heroics, please.”
I assured him that I had no intention of taking on the man single-handed, and we separated. I took up a position behind the smokehouse, where I could see if he made a dash for the river, and picked up a handful of stones to practise my juggling. I had managed to work my way up to keeping five stones in the air when something invisible and inaudible to me set off another series of rapid events.
The first indication was a scrabble and thump from within the house. The kitchen door crashed open and a young thief with black hair and a frightened face exploded out, trailing currency notes like autumn leaves. Shouts and the pounding of heavy feet came from the front of the house, but Sylvester was fast and had a considerable lead. He flew past me, accelerating, and without thinking I plucked one of my remaining stones from the air and sent it spinning after him. It took him on the back of his leg and must have numbed it for an instant, because the knee collapsed and he tumbled heavily onto the ground. I reached down to snatch up another rock, but Holmes and Rogers came up then, and it was unnecessary.
WE DINED THAT night at Mrs. Whiteneck’s inn. Holmes had the ham, and I enjoyed mutton with mint sauce, and we helped ourselves from bowls of tiny potatoes and glazed carrots and a variety of other delicacies from the good earth of the Sussex countryside. Mrs. Whiteneck herself served us with an unfussy competence and withdrew.
Some time passed before I sat back and sighed happily.
“Thank you, Holmes. That was fun.”
“You find even such rustic and unadorned sleuthing satisfying?”
“I do. Did. I cannot see spending my life pursuing such activities, but as a romp through the countryside on a summer’s day, it was most pleasurable. Don’t you agree?”
“As an exercise, Russell, you conducted the investigation in a most professional manner.”
“Why, thank you, Holmes.” I was ridiculously pleased.
“By the way, where did you learn to throw like that?”
“My father thought all young ladies should be able to throw and to run. H
e was not amused by cultivated awkwardness. He was a great lover of sports, and was trying to introduce cricket into San Francisco the summer before…the accident. I was to be his bowler.”
“Formidable,” my companion murmured.
“So he thought. It is a useful skill, you must admit. One can always find chunks of débris to heave at wrong-doers.”
“Quod erat demonstrandum. However, Russell…” He fixed me with a cold eye, and I braced myself for some devastating criticism, but what he said was, “Now, Russell: concerning that haemoglobin experiment…”
Book Two
Internship
The Senator’s Daughter
5
The Vagrant Gipsy Life
Seize her, imprison her, take her away.
THE MONK’S TUN case was, as I said, but a lark, the sort of non-case that even a dyed-in-the-wool romantic like Watson would have been hard put to whip into a thrilling narrative. The police would surely have caught Sylvester before long, and truly, thirty guineas and four hams, even in those days of chronic food shortages, were hardly the stuff of Times headlines.
Nonetheless, across all the tumultuous events of the intervening years that one case stands out in my mind, for the simple reason that it marked the first time Holmes had granted me free rein to make decisions and take action. Of course, even then I realised that, had the case been of any earthly significance whatsoever, I should have been kept firmly in my auxiliary role. Despite that, the glow of secret satisfaction it gave me lasted with a curious tenacity. A small thing, perhaps, but mine own.
Five weeks later, however, a case came upon us that put the Monk’s Tun affair into its proper, childish perspective. The kidnapping of the American senator’s daughter was no lark, but a matter of international import, dramatic, intense, a classic Holmes case such as I had not yet observed, much less been involved with, and certainly not as a central protagonist. The case brought into sharp focus the purpose surrounding my years of desultory training, brought forcibly home the entire raison d’être of the person Sherlock Holmes had created of himself, and moreover, brought me up against the dark side of the life Holmes led.
That single case bound us together in ways my apprenticeship never had, rather as the survivors of a natural disaster find themselves inextricably linked for the rest of their days. It made me both more certain of myself and, paradoxically, more cautious now that I had witnessed at first hand the potentially calamitous results of my unconsidered acts. It changed Holmes, too, to see before him the living result of his years of half-frivolous, half-deliberate training. I believe it brought him up sharply, to be confronted with the fact that he had created a not inconsiderable force, that what had begun as a chance meeting had given birth to me. His reappraisal of what I had become, his judgement of my abilities under fire, as it were, profoundly influenced the decisions he was to make four months later when the heavens opened on our heads.
And yet, I very nearly missed the case altogether. Even today my spine crawls cold at the thought of December without the mutual knowledge of the preceding August, for the groundwork of trust laid down during our time in Wales made December’s partnership possible. Had I missed the Simpson case, had Holmes simply disappeared into the thin summer air (as he had done with numerous other cases) and not allowed me to participate, God alone knows what we would have done when December’s cold hit us, unprepared and unsupported.
TOWARD NOON ON a blistering hot day in the middle of August our haying crew reached the end of the last field and dispersed, in heavy-footed exhaustion, for our homes. This year the easy camaraderie and rude high spirits of the Land Girls had been cooled by the presence of a man amongst the crew, a silent, rigid, shell-shocked young man—a boy, really, but for the trenches—who did no great work himself and who started at every sudden noise, but who served to keep us at our work by his mere distressing presence. Thanks to him we finished early, just before midday on the eighteenth. I trudged home, silently inhaled a vast meal in Patrick’s kitchen, and, wanting only to collapse between my clean sheets for twenty hours, instead took myself to the bathroom and stripped off my filthy Land Girl’s smock, sluiced off my skin’s crust of dust and chaff cemented there by sweat, and, feeling physically tired but glowing with strength and well-being and marvelling in the sense of freedom following a hard job well done, I mounted my bicycle and, hair streaming damply behind me, rode off to see Holmes.
Cycling slowly up the lane to the cottage, my ears were caught by a remarkable sound, distorted by the stone walls on either side. Music, but no music I had before heard, emanating from Holmes’ house, a gay, dancing tune, instantly invigorating and utterly unexpected. I stood more firmly on the pedals, rode around the house to the kitchen door, and let myself in, and when I followed the sound through to the sitting room, for an instant I failed to recognise the dark-skinned, black-haired man with the violin tucked under a chin scruffy with two days of stubble. The briefest flash of apprehension passed across the familiar face, followed rapidly by a gleam of gold from his left incisor as this exotic ruffian gave me a rakish grin. I was not fooled. I had seen his original reaction to my unexpected appearance in his doorway, and my guard went instantly up.
“Holmes,” I said. “Don’t tell me, the rector needs a gipsy fiddler for the village fête.”
“Hello, Russell,” he said with studied casualness. “This is an unanticipated pleasure. I am so glad you happened to stop by, it saves me from having to write. I wanted to ask you to keep track of the plant experiment. Just for a few days, and there’s nothing terribly—”
“Holmes, what is going on?” He was entirely too innocent.
“‘Going on’? Nothing is ‘going on.’ I find I must be away for a few days, is all.”
“You have a case.”
“Oh, come now, Russell—”
“Why don’t you want me to know about it? And don’t give me some nonsense about governmental secrets.”
“It is secret. I cannot tell you about it. Later, perhaps. But I truly do need you to—”
“Jigger the plants, Holmes,” I said angrily. “The experiment is of no importance whatsoever.”
“Russell!” he said, offended. “I only leave them because I have been asked by someone I cannot refuse.”
“Holmes,” I said warningly, “this is Russell you’re talking to, not Watson, not Mrs. Hudson. I’m not in the least bit intimidated by you. I want to know why you were planning to sneak out without telling me.”
“‘Sneak out’! Russell, I said I was glad you happened by.”
“Holmes, I’m not blind. You’re in full disguise except for your shoes, and there’s a packed bag in the corner. I repeat: What is going on?”
“Russell, I am very sorry, but I cannot include you in this case.”
“Why not, Holmes?” I was becoming really very angry. So was he.
“Because, damn it, it may be dangerous!”
I stood staring across the room at him, and my voice when it came was, I was pleased to note, very quiet and even.
“My dear Holmes, I am going to pretend you did not say that. I am going to walk in your garden and admire the flowers for approximately ten minutes. When I come back in we will begin this conversation anew, and unless you wish to divorce yourself from me entirely, the idea of protecting little Mary Russell will never enter your head.” I walked out, closing the door gently, and went to talk with Will and the two cats. I pulled some weeds, heard the violin start up again, this time a more classical melody, and in ten minutes I went back through the door.
“Good afternoon, Holmes. That’s a natty outfit you’re wearing. I should not have thought to wear an orange tie with a shirt that particular shade of red, but it is certainly distinctive. So, where are we going?”
Holmes looked at me through half-shut eyes. I stood blandly in the doorway, arms folded. Finally he snorted and thrust his violin into its disreputable case.
“Very well, Russell. I may be mad, but we shall give
it a try. Have you been following the papers, the Simpson kidnapping case?”
“I saw something a few days ago. I’ve been helping Patrick with the hay.”
“Obviously. Take a look at these while I put your persona together.”
He handed me a pile of back issues of The Times, then disappeared upstairs into the laboratory.
I sorted them by date. The first, dated the tenth of August, was a small item from a back page, circled by Holmes. It concerned the American Senator Jonathan Simpson, leaving to go on holiday with his family, a wife and their six-year-old daughter, to Wales.
The next article was three days later, the central headline on the first page of the news. It read:
SENATOR’S DAUGHTER KIDNAPPED
HUGE RANSOM SOUGHT
A carefully typed ransom note had been received by the Simpsons, saying simply that she was being held, that Simpson had one week to raise £20,000, and that if he went to the police the child would die. The article did not explain how the newspaper had received the information, or how Simpson was to keep the police out after it had been on the front page. The newsworthiness of the case gradually dwindled, and today’s paper, five days after the heavily leaded kidnap headlines, held a grainy photograph of two haggard-looking people on a back page: the parents.
I went and perched my shoulder against the door of the laboratory as Holmes measured and poured and stirred.
“Who called you in?”
“Apparently Mrs. Simpson insisted.”
“You don’t sound pleased.”
He slammed down a pipette, which of course shattered.
“How could I be pleased? Half of Wales has trudged the hillside into mud, the trail is a week old, there are no prints, nobody saw anyone, the parents are hysterical, and since nobody has any idea of what to do, they decide to humour the woman and bring in old Holmes. Old Holmes the miracle worker.” He stared sourly at his finger as I fastened a plaster to it.
The Mary Russell Series Books 1-4: The Beekeeper's Apprentice; A Monstrous Regiment of Women; A Letter of Mary; The Moor Page 10