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

by Laurie R. King

  20

  SATURDAY, 5 FEBRUARY–SUNDAY, 6 FEBRUARY

  I, Fire, the Acceptor of sacrifices, ravishing

  away from them their darkness, give the light.

  —SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA (c. 1347–1380)

  THE SMALL BRASS plaque beside the door read:

  NEW TEMPLE IN GOD

  WOMEN AND INFANT TEMPORARY REFUGE

  I mounted the steps and rang the bell.

  There was as yet little activity in the shelter, as the pubs had closed and the drunks had yet to reach the arms of their loving families. The woman in front of whom I eventually stood saw only a luckless prostitute in need of doctoring and reforming; she did not see the young heiress who had stood with her outside Parliament to distribute pamphlets and returned afterwards to dine in Margery’s rooms. Ruby Hepplewhite looked up at me, polite, condescending, unseeing.

  I twisted the tin ring around and around, tongued my nicely swollen lip, and tried to imagine myself into my rôle.

  “Now, miss . . .”

  “LaGrand, miss. Amie LaGrand.”

  “Miss . . . LaGrand. Is that actually your name?” she asked doubtfully. I twisted the ring furiously.

  “Er, well, no, miss. It’s Mudd. Annie Mudd. My—it was given to me ’cause it sounded better, like.”

  “I see. Well, Miss Mudd—Annie. You understand that this is a temporary shelter for women and their children who find themselves without a home. It is not an hotel.”

  “I do know that, miss. I ’eard about you, on the street, the work you do. And when this . . . when I . . . I thought of comin’ ’ere,” I ended weakly. She took in the state of my face and clothes for the first time.

  “I see. Sit down, Annie. How old are you?”

  “Twenty-one, miss.”

  “The Refuge is run by the New Temple in God, Annie. One of the things we require is the truth.”

  “Sorry, miss. Eighteen, miss—on my next birthday. Come April.”

  “So you are seventeen. Where is your home?”

  “Don’t ’ave one. Not no more, I don’t. I’m never goin’ back there, miss. You can’t make me. I’ll throw meself into the river afore that, I swear before God.”

  “Calm yourself, Annie. No one wants to force you to do anything. Perhaps you’d better tell me everything. Why can’t you go home? Did someone there hit you?”

  “It was ’cause I said I wouldn’t do it no more. He wanted me to go with that—” I searched for an unspeakable word, then, finding none, continued. “I said I wouldn’t. Wouldn’t never again. And so ’e, ’e slapped me round a bit and locked me in my room and I went out the window and down the pipe an’ . . . and ’ere I am.”

  “You are speaking of your . . . procurer?”

  “My wha’?” I was enjoying this.

  “Your pimp?” she persisted gamely, thinking, no doubt, of how her mother would react if she were to hear the word spoken aloud.

  “Oh. Yes, I s’pose.”

  “Where is your family, Annie? Do you have one?”

  “Oh yair. Well, in a way. Mum’s dead, but me sister, she lives in Bristol. That’s where I thought I’d go, when I can get the money together.”

  “And your father? Is he dead?”

  “By Gawd, I wish. Beg pardon, miss, but it was ’im what done this.” I touched my distended lip cautiously.

  She blinked and sat back slowly.

  “Your father. Oh dear,” she said in a weak voice. However, English breeding triumphed, and her forces rallied visibly. She stood up, told me to wait, and clacked off down the hallway. In rapid succession, I was given a brief medical examination (in which they were chiefly interested in wildlife and injuries, and not expecting a sophisticated form of drug abuse, so that by sleight of hand and an element of luck, I managed to keep the arm out of the nurse’s sight), a bath, a change of clothing, a hot meal, and a bed in a curtained cubicle. By then, the evening’s business was fully under way, and no one noticed as I purloined an assortment of pillows and blankets, which I pushed far back beneath the metal bed. I loitered about in the corridor outside the clothing dispensary until it was momentarily abandoned and then helped myself to a random frock and hat. They, too, went under the bed. The lights were still on—electrical lights, not gas—and the building was noisy with children and women, but I took off my shoes and lay on the thin mattress and closed my eyes. I did not think I would sleep, as my mind was taken up with unpleasant thoughts about the morality of what I was doing here and with the charged feeling one gets before embarking on a dangerous or illegal action. There are some means which no end, and no beginning, will fully justify; however, the dirty job of spying on Margery’s privacy had to be done, and I was the best person to do it.

  It seems, though, that I must have dozed off, a sure sign of the state I was in, because I heard the approach of footsteps and suddenly I was back in the cellar on my straw-filled sacks. I jerked upright and looked into Ruby Hepplewhite’s startled face at the cubicle’s curtain.

  “Annie, what is it? What’s wrong?” I pushed the hair out of my face.

  “Nothing, miss. I was just dreamin’.”

  “Not a very pleasant dream, it would seem. I don’t suppose you’ll wish to swear out a complaint against your father, or the other man?”

  “Go to the rozzers? Oh, miss, don’t make me do that; ’e’d kill me for sure—”

  “I told you, Annie, no one here is going to force you to do anything against your will. However, we will take you to the station tomorrow and put you on the train to Bristol, if you are certain your sister is in a position to take you in.”

  “Oh, miss, would you really? Oh, God bless you, miss. Yes, she wants me—she wrote to tell me to come when ’er baby was born, but ’e wouldn’t let me. I’ll save the money and send it back, miss. Honest I will.”

  “That isn’t necessary. I will also give you the name of a woman in Bristol to go to, if your father appears or you have any problems. Now, I came to tell you that there is cocoa and bread-and-dripping in the dining room, if you’d like.”

  “Very much, miss,” I said over the lurch of my stomach. “I’ll just lace on me boots.”

  “I have other things to attend to, but I shall see you in the morning, Annie. I hope you sleep well.”

  “Thank you, miss.” She left and I bent to put on my boots. As usually happened, the first fun had left the playacting, and I just wanted to finish my business here. I went down to the disgusting food, which I doubt I could have eaten even if I had been feeling strong, sat down near some children with large eyes, and shared my portion with them. After we had sung some cheery hymns, we were excused. In my cubicle, I wrote on a scrap of paper taken from a desk in passing, then turned off the light and lay on my bed until lights-out was called.

  Eventually, feet ceased to pass up and down, voices were lowered, the last baby stopped grizzling, and a few women began to snore. I laced my boots on again (they had a new kind of sole, made of crêpe rubber, but no one had noticed that the waif walked the streets in silent shoes) and retrieved the pillows and blankets to arrange in a sleeping shape beneath the blanket. The frock, which was flowered and intended for a figure six inches shorter and four stone heavier, I hung on the hook over my coat to emphasize that the room was occupied, and I put the hat on the table. From the belt against my skin, a strip of flannel that I had succeeded in retaining throughout the bath and examination process, I took the two pieces of equipment necessary for the night’s foray: my spectacles and a ring of picklocks. Holmes had advised a torch and jemmy in addition to the revolver, but I knew I would not be able to keep them from discovery. Taking care not to rattle the picklocks, I put them into the pocket that held such harmless objects as a small purse, cheap handkerchief, pencil stub, cigarettes, and a box of vestas, and took out the sop for my conscience: the note, written in a careful, half-literate scrawl:

  Dear Miss Ruby Hebelwite, thank you for your help, I will go to Bristoll with a friend who I remember is
going, I will writ you from ther. Yours truly Annie Mudd PS this ring is for you its like your first name.

  I wrapped it around the ring I had bought from Buttercup Holmes, tucked it under the hat, then cautiously pulled back the curtain and stepped into the corridor.

  The shelter had only two connexions with the rest of the Temple: the main door on the ground floor and a lesser one on the second storey, used by cleaning personnel during the day and kept locked at night. The sleeping quarters occupied by the women and children were on the first floor, between the ground floor, which had offices, a kitchen, and a small surgery, and where there was almost always some activity, and the second floor, which was used mostly for storage and to house a few staff members. At one o’clock in the morning, the upper floor ought to be quite dead.

  My crêpe-rubber soles whispered on the bare boards of the stairway, more noise than stockings would have made but less difficult to explain if I were discovered. Although how I should explain what a youthful prostitute was doing out of the dormitory with spectacles on her nose, the latest in patent shoes on her feet, and a set of picklocks in her hands, I did not care to meditate upon. Best not to be caught, Russell.

  The upstairs door had a solid lock, but its security was nullified by the key hanging on a hook just out of sight inside the adjoining storeroom. I unlocked the door and put the key back in place, let myself into the Temple building, closed the door with exquisite care, and stood in the blackness, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the light that I knew must be there. In a moment, a rectangle swam into view, the end of this corridor as it was illuminated from the light below. I stayed where I was for another two minutes, then moved slowly forward, my left fingernails brushing the wallpaper.

  In six steps, I had found my confidence. After ten, I stopped abruptly. Something? I put out my hands, felt only air, squatted, and my fingers came into contact with cold metal: a large tin bucket and a mop beside it, waiting for me to put my foot in it like some vaudeville turn. I exhaled, edged around them, and scuffled more cautiously towards the light.

  A full-sized safe is not an easy thing to conceal. Freestanding, it tends to buckle floorboards, and hidden, it reveals its presence by the unnatural thickness of the wall. I was looking for something smaller, for personal items such as jewellery or, I hoped, deeds, contracts, or correspondence. I thought Margery would not have it in the ground floor, the public rooms; however, I hoped it would not be in her bedroom. Although I had once had a tutorial from a bona fide (and never caught) cat burglar who claimed, I think truthfully, that he had once varnished a sleeping man’s fingernails, I did not relish the idea of examining a room with a sleeping occupant.

  This house in which Margery lived and where downstairs the business of the Temple went on was a deep brick structure wedged in between the corner house next door, now the Refuge, and the Hall, originally built as a theatre. As with the Refuge, the top storey was used mostly for storage. Margery’s quarters took up the first floor, and the ground floor and basement were given over to the Temple’s offices, meeting rooms, and soon-to-be library. The stairs were at the back of the building; a wide corridor connected them with Margery’s bedroom and dressing room, at the street end, and the other rooms: on the left side, the meeting room where the Circle gathered and then Margery’s chapel; on the right side, first a small lumber room, then Margery’s study, where she and I met for our tutorials, and finally the gorgon Marie’s room, just before Margery’s pair of doors at the end of the corridor.

  I thought Margery would want her private safe in one of two places: the study or her dressing room. I considered the dressing room somewhat more likely, and although in cowardice I wanted to investigate the study first, I should have to go past that door and pray that neither Margery nor Marie were insomniac tonight. A light burnt directly over Margery’s two doors, and the only escape, if someone came into the corridor from the stairs, would be through Margery’s dressing-room window onto the street below.

  The building was silent, but nothing in London is ever entirely still. There was movement, but not close, perhaps even on the street outside. I eased down a few stairs and peered into the still, bright corridor, with its apricot wool carpet on the floor, the watercolour landscapes on the walls. The paint gleamed quietly in the brightness spilling from the pieced-glass lamp shade, colours of apricot and orange in a twining pattern that reminded me vaguely of Margery’s wineglasses. I walked down a few more steps and around the newel post, then stood for a long moment with my heart in my throat and fifty feet of waiting corridor stretched out in front of me, looking like the maw of a carnivorous plant, waiting for me, its insect prey.

  My soles scrunched immediately on the deep pile, and as the doors of Margery’s rooms approached, I was made aware of how very bad my nerves were: I was convinced that both Margery and her Marie stood waiting, to leap on me the moment I turned my back.

  It seemed a very long time, but was less than half a minute, before I was beneath the light. Without turning my back to the opposite doors, I reached down for the knob to the chapel door and found it open. The eternal candle burnt over the altar, lighting my way to the connecting door into the dressing room. This one was locked.

  It was not, however, a very good lock, and it gave way to my probes in a short time. That alone warned me what further scrutiny confirmed: The room contained nothing more valuable than the clothing in the wardrobes (admittedly expensive enough, mostly Worth and Poiret, with a few Chanels adding a modern note). The prices of these clothes would make the elves’ place look like a pawnshop.

  A slow, intense circuit of the room revealed nothing, except that Margery’s taste in underclothing was remarkably exotic and that she snored. I let myself out through the chapel, locking the dressing room door behind me, and went back out into the light.

  The study door was locked, and this lock was a good one. By the time it opened, I was blinking sweat from my eyes and muttering silent but emphatic imprecations against all the locksmiths I knew and Mr Yale in particular. It took me twelve minutes to conquer it, and for every one of those 720-odd seconds, I fully expected Marie’s door to fly open and send me sprinting for my life. The damned thing finally clicked, the wire pick rattled slightly against the brass, and the knob in my greasy palm squeaked minutely when I turned it. I slipped inside, closed the door, eased the knob to and flipped the simple latch I had remembered from this side, and waited, breathless, counting off three long minutes before I relaxed into an irritating shakiness. The gorgon slept.

  When my eyes had adjusted to the light easing in from under the door and the low glow from the fire, I could see that nothing much had been moved since my last tutorial with Margery. I reached out to the back of the sofa, picked up the thick cashmere shawl kept there, and went back three steps to lay it along the bottom of the door. The shawl would block any light from inside the room, and I then stuffed the end of my handkerchief into the keyhole. It was now safe to turn on the electric lights.

  The familiar room came into view. There were three good possibilities for hiding a safe, as I remembered, and I found it at the second one: a block of the decorative supporting cornice at the fireplace. It slid away, revealing a solid eight-inch-square slab of iron with a handle on one side and a combination dial in the centre—a combination dial, not a key.

  I sat down on the arm of the sofa and stared at it bleakly. I was a fool not to have let Holmes do it. This safe was of the best quality; it would not fall for any of the clever tricks taught me by Holmes’ pet safecracker (not the one who had opened a restaurant on his release). Despite the popular image of a burglar with a stethoscope, safes are broken not by hearing, but by touch. Steady nerves, infinite patience, and slow, painstaking, concentrated labour results in what our Eton-and-Balliol cracksman had called “that moment of indescribable giddiness” when the tumbler falls into place. However, steady nerves and slow concentration were precisely the qualities I lacked most just at the moment. Five days before, I had been loc
ked in a cave, half-starved and stupefied with drugs: I could not do this. The safe was not going to open for me, not in the time I had.

  Tell it to Holmes, nagged a voice. Watch his brief flare of irritation give way to sympathy, understanding. Live with that, will you? If you don’t get it open tonight, there’s tomorrow, isn’t there?

  I carried a chair over, flapped my hands about vigorously to wake them up, rubbed my fingertips firmly against the brickwork to increase their sensitivity, and then bent my entire body and mind to the problem of opening that safe.

  I was soon dripping wet, more from tension than from the coals at my knees. In half an hour, the quivering of my back muscles had spread to my hands, and I had to break off and do a series of noiseless calisthenics.

  An hour crept past, then two, and still I bent with my cheek against the fireplace, my eyes shut, my whole being concentrated on the square inch of skin that caressed the dial. By this time, I could work only for ten minutes before the trembling of my muscles made it impossible to continue, and for two minutes I would stand, stretch, lie limp on the sofa, exercise violently, and then return to my work. The thought of Holmes’ sympathy drove me back at first, but later it was simply mindless determination, and I suppose I should have still been sitting there when Margery walked in, but that at 5:20, three hours and six minutes after I had begun, the giddy sweetness seized the dial and the mechanism opened itself to my shaking hands.