The Mary Russell Series Books 1-4

by Laurie R. King

  “Not an infatuated gentleman admirer?”

  Extraordinary, how sensitive I was to the nuances of his suggestion. Or was he laying it on heavily for some reason?

  “If so, he’s very retiring. I’ve heard no rumours of her love life, aside from a gentleman in France.”

  “Yet she does not sound exactly aescetic.”

  “Hardly.”

  “Do you wish me to set Mycroft on the lady?”

  “I think not yet,” I decided after a moment of reflection. “Perhaps later, after the twenty-eighth.”

  “Ah yes, your great presentation. How does it progress?”

  “Stunningly. Though poor Duncan is having cats because it seems a—what’s the collective noun for a group of academics—a gaggle? an argument?—of American theologians are sweeping through on their way to a conference in Berlin and have announced that they will attend and have asked him to find them accommodation.”

  “It sounds as though you’re being taken seriously.” As usual, Holmes unerringly picked out the central issue.

  “It’s tremendously gratifying, and a great honour personally. I only hope that I feel the same when the sun comes up on the twenty-ninth.”

  “What about your plans until then? Are you finished with your coffee, by the way? Shall we walk? Along the Embankment? Or do you need to be back?”

  “No, a walk would be lovely.” After the business of putting on coats and the rest, we resumed outside, where the mist was creating cones beneath the streetlights.

  “I can’t very well go to Sussex; I’d freeze to death and either fret about how little the builders are doing or find I could not work because of their unending racket. No, the Vicissitude has a quiet reading room with three seldom-used desks. Not as good as Oxford, but I promised Duncan I’d go up every few days to placate him.”

  “Why stay in London? Margery Childe?”

  “Well, yes, I shall see something of her. Why the interest in my plans, Holmes?”

  “I fear I shall not be available as a consultant for a few days as you wished. I had a second telegram this afternoon in addition to yours. Mycroft wants me to go to Paris for a day or two and then Marseilles. Winkling out information from some none-too-willing witnesses in a large dope-smuggling case. Have you ever noticed,” he added, “how Mycroft’s metaphors tend to concern themselves with food?”

  “You wanted me to go?” I was immensely pleased, although tentative about rebuffing his offer.

  “I had thought you might enjoy it.”

  “I would, very much. But I can’t. I’m not going farther from Oxford than London until after the twenty-eighth. If there’s a blizzard or a rail strike, I can still walk there in time. It couldn’t wait, I suppose?”

  “I fear not. Another time, then,” he said. He seemed untroubled, but was, I thought, disappointed.

  “Another time, and soon. How long did you say you were to be away?”

  “I shall leave Wednesday and return the following Thursday, possibly later if it gets complicated.”

  “Ah,” I said, aware of a feeling of disappointment myself. “Well, perhaps I shall have something interesting for you upon your return.”

  He walked me to the door of the Vicissitude, and I wondered if I had imagined the faintly wistful turn of his wrist as he tipped his hat in farewell.

  THE NEXT DAYS went according to the schedule I had given Holmes: Tuesday in London, the morning at the British Museum with an expert in Palestinian and Babylonian antiquities, the afternoon with Margery, the evening at my club; Wednesday in Oxford; Thursday morning at the Bodleian, then back to London for an early-afternoon appointment with Mr Arbuthnot, my solicitor, followed by a fitting with the elves, from which I came away laden with dressmakers’ boxes. I took them to the Vicissitude, where I found a parcel waiting for me, three books I had ordered for Margery. That I carried with me to Veronica’s house, where we had, in her words, a “late tea or early supper” combined with a discussion about how best to arrange her lending library. We decided to leave early for the Temple, so as to examine Veronica’s facilities there before the Thursday-night service. Another “love” night, and I admit I felt a degree of apprehension within the anticipation.

  On the street outside the hall, I held up the parcel and told Veronica, “I’d like to give this to Margery before the . . . before her talk, or at least leave it with Marie. Is the main door locked?”

  “I’m sure it will be, but I’ll take you through the hall,” she said. She led me through the back of the hall along the same route we’d followed ten days previously, although this time the final door was locked. She opened it with her key, and as I followed her up the stairs, she spoke over her shoulder at me.

  “Margery is probably meditating, but we’ll give it to Marie or else leave it in the common room with a note, where she’s sure to—Marie! Whatever is the matter?”

  I looked past her back, and there at the end of the corridor stood the phlegmatic maidservant, looking utterly distraught and wringing her hands as she stared at a door to our left. She did not respond until we were practically on top of her, when she whirled around and threw out her right hand at the door, more in supplication than in indicating the source of a problem. In the extremity of her emotion, both languages had abandoned her, and she just stood with her mouth working and her hand held out to the door.

  “Margery? Is it Margery?” Veronica demanded. It had to be—nothing else would have this effect on her.

  She nodded jerkily, found a few words.

  “Madame . . . An intruder . . .”

  “Marie,” I said forcibly in English, to force her to think. “Is Margery in here?”

  “Oui.”

  “Is someone with her?”

  “Non. Elle est seule. Alone, but . . . hurt.”

  “Margery’s hurt? How?”

  “Il y avait du sang dans la figure.”

  “Blood on her face? But she walked in here by herself? And locked herself in?”

  “Locked, yes, before I reach her. Pas de réponse.”

  I lowered my head and spoke loudly at the door.

  “Margery, if you’re awake, please answer. You’re worrying Marie and Veronica. If you don’t answer, we’re going to have to break down the door or call the police.”

  Nearly ten seconds passed before an answer came, her voice slow and low, but clear.

  “No. Leave me.”

  I knelt down and put my eye to the keyhole, which, to my surprise, had no key in it. I looked, and stared straight into one of the most peculiar, dramatic, and inexplicable episodes I have ever witnessed.

  What I saw and did next might easily have been rewritten by memory over the years. However, I have before me as I write these memoirs the letter I sent to Holmes the following day describing the events. So, in order to preserve the stark facts of what may or may not have happened, I shall copy directly from that letter:

  I saw the back of her head at the end of the room, before an altar. The rest of her was hidden by chairs, and her hair was in complete disarray, but its colour was clear and distinctive.

  “What room is this?” I asked Veronica.

  “The small chapel. Is she there?”

  “Yes.” I stood up. “Stay here with Marie. I’ll see if I can get in that other door, and if so, I’ll come and unlock this one.” I gave her no time to argue, but turned to the two doors that form the end of the corridor. The right one was unlocked, and when I looked in, I saw a connecting door. It, too, was unlocked, but when it came to the door into the chapel, I had to use my picklocks. I shot the bolt behind me, made my way around the edges of the chapel to the hallway door, and dropped my hat onto the doorknob so as to obscure the view from outside. There was an exclamation from the other side, which I ignored, and went up to Margery where she knelt on the floor.

  Holmes, she looked as if she’d been run down by a motor lorry. Her left eye was swollen nearly shut and the skin over the cheekbone had split, smearing blood down into h
er neck and back into her hair. Her mouth on that same side was thick and there were traces of blood on the lip, probably cut on the inside against a tooth. The rest of her was hidden beneath a woolen overcoat. She did not respond to my voice in any way, just stared unblinking at the Celtic-style cross on the altar.

  I thought it best to determine the extent of her injuries before deciding what to do, and when I began to ease the coat from her shoulders, she made no more objection than a sleeping child. The coat was undamaged and clean but for some blood at the collar, but beneath it, her dress, in addition to the bloodstains from her face, was torn slightly at the neck and the right sleeve, and a line of lace along the front had been ripped free of its stitching. I unbuttoned the front of her dress—still no response—and found beneath it great red welts surrounded by areas of lesser bruising. From the shallowness of her breathing and the way she held her torso, I judged that her ribs were at least cracked.

  She had been beaten, Holmes, by a man (or a powerfully built woman accustomed to using her fists) several inches taller than she, right-handed, wearing a heavy ring on his right hand. And no stranger, either, unless she had been walking down the street in January wearing only a thin woollen dress.

  “Who did this to you, Margery?” I asked, but she was far away. I refastened the buttons, then took off my own coat and carried it over to drape across the second keyhole. I walked back to Margery and dropped to my knees directly in front of her.

  “Margery,” I said loudly, and repeated it several times. “Margery, you must answer me. You must see a doctor. I think you can walk, but if you don’t respond, I’ll have to carry you to your bed.” The eyes in the ravaged face began slowly to return, and when they had focused on mine, I was relieved to see that the pupils were of an equal and normal size.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Margery, you’ve been injured. If you don’t have your ribs strapped, every breath will continue to hurt you, and without stitches, that cut on your face will leave a scar. I’m going to open the door and let Marie help you to bed, and Veronica will have someone put out a notice cancelling tonight’s service.”

  “No,” she said again, more clearly but from a great distance, and it suddenly occurred to me that she sounded like someone speaking though the blanket of a hypnotic trance. I continued to look into her eyes, thinking. Unless her head injuries concealed deeper damage, the hurts she suffered were debilitating, but not life-threatening. (You will admit that I know something of injuries, personally and through my work at the hospital during the War.) No blows had landed lower than her rib cage, and the lack of cuts or swelling on her skull agreed with the evidence of her clear eyes. The hypnotic state, or whatever you wish to call it, was blocking the pain, and she wished strongly to be left alone. I nodded.

  “I’ll just have Veronica arrange to cancel the service, then. The doctor can wait until you feel ready.”

  “No doctor. No Veronica.”

  “You don’t want the talk cancelled? Oh, come now, Margery. You’re certainly in no condition to—”

  “Go away, Mary,” she said clearly. “Take them with you.”

  There seemed nothing to say to that. She was rational, an adult woman, and in no immediate danger. More than that, there was an urgency and command in her eyes that I did not care to go against.

  While I was with her, the voices of Marie and Veronica had moved from the door where I had left them and followed my route through Margery’s bedroom and dressing room, and Marie’s key had rattled briefly but ineffectually in the lock. With a final glance at the woman’s injuries, I left her, let myself out the hallway door—not a real lock, just a slim bolt on the inside—and called to the others. When I told them that Margery was not seriously hurt and that she wished to be alone, Marie immediately made to get past me to open the door. I stopped her, repeated her mistress’s words, and shepherded them both down to the adjoining sitting room.

  I gave Veronica a drink, offered Marie a glass of something and received a look of blistering hate, and set to wait.

  At 7:30, I asked Veronica if there was anyone competent to take the service, were Margery to prove not up to it. (I did not tell them that I doubted that Margery should be able to creep onto the stage, even in heavy makeup, much less draw in enough breath to make herself heard even in the front rows, particularly without the services of a doctor’s wraps and pain medications.)

  “Ivy led it several times when Margery was away in December. Not preaching, of course, but hymns and readings.” That did not advance us much, as Ivy was quite beyond the reach of mortal hymns. I asked her if there was anyone else.

  “Rachel Mallory might do it.” I sent her off to alert Rachel or whomever she might find of the possibility that her services might be called upon, then turned my warning gaze back on Marie, who subsided, muttering French curses that I wish I could have overheard more clearly, for the sake of my education.

  The hall clock downstairs sounded the three-quarter hour.

  “She will need me to dress her,” Marie burst out.

  “If she has not appeared by eight, you and I will go and see to her.” The fury of her protests would have shrivelled a toad, but I cut them off with the curt remark to the effect that if Margery were to prove incapable of walking, Marie could hardly carry her without help.

  The minutes ticked past. (Forgive the drama, Holmes, but I wish the account to be complete.) At six minutes before eight, I heard a door open and voices came to us, Veronica and another. Then they were at the door, both looking worried, and the other woman, Rachel, apprehensive and confused, as well. They stood in the doorway and Veronica started to ask me something, when her words were cut off by the sound of another door closing. Rachel turned to look, and she let out a short cry, and then Veronica, and Marie bolted past me, and to my utter confusion, the three of them were babbling a polyglot of relief and curiosity. Moreover, they were answered by Margery in a light, joking voice, and I still stood in the room when she came through the door with my hat and coat in her hands and held them out to me.

  “You left these in the chapel, Mary,” she said. “You’ll need them later; it’s chilly out tonight.” And with that prosaic pronouncement, she turned and left, hurrying and apologising for being late. Before the door shut on them, I heard her laugh.

  Holmes, there was not a mark on her. Her skin was whole and unbruised, the proud flesh subsided; she moved with her customary easy grace and had enough lung expansion to laugh. The only sign of what I had seen was the dampness of her hair on the left side of her face.

  I searched her room, of course, and found no bloodied dress, but the collar of her coat had been scrubbed wet, and pressing the light brown fabric hard with a handkerchief produced a red-brown stain. From the coals in the fireplace, I sifted nine bone buttons and several metal clasps, all that remained of her silk undergarments and the damaged dress.

  Marie found me on my knees before the fire and came close to attacking me physically. She berated me, called me seven kinds of a fool, and was silenced only when I poured the still-hot buttons into her hand and left.

  Margery preached absolutely normally. She moved freely, projected her voice fully, seemed, if anything, more spirited and eloquent than she customarily was. She did not even end the evening any earlier.

  I have seen people in an hypnotic trance ignore pain. I have even witnessed a hypnotised person hold his hand into flame and pass through undamaged, as the fire-walkers of the South Pacific are said to do. I have never heard of hypnosis used actually to remove existing injuries.

  Your basic dictum in an investigation is, if faced by the impossible, choose the merely improbable. However, what does one do when faced with a choice between two impossibilities? I saw her face, Holmes, from a distance of less than a foot; I saw it afterwards up close, when she gave me my coat: There was not so much as a bruise, and she wore no more makeup than she had for previous performances: Furthermore, I am certain it was she, not a twin or double: She has
two tiny flecks in the iris of her right eye, which cannot be duplicated. Either I have been the subject of a subtle, skilful, and powerful mental manipulation or I have been witness to what I should have said to be an impossibility: in short, a miracle.

  I shall wait until tomorrow to post this, when I have seen Margery. Is it possible that she was moving under a deep hypnotic trance (prayer-induced?) which, when it breaks, will leave her with her cracked ribs and sore face? Will she show me a way to hide swollen flesh and cuts with invisible makeup? If so, I shall destroy this and feel exceedingly foolish. Still, I cannot help but wish that someone other than Marie had seen the damage, as well.

  Yours, R

  Postscript, Friday: I saw MC briefly this morning; by the mere fact that you have seen this, she is obviously in perfect health. Holmes, is this possible, or have you seen previous signs of madness in me and not mentioned them?

  —MR

  I was, as the letter reveals, badly shaken. I sent it to Holmes via his brother Mycroft, whose all-seeing eyes and octopus fingers would surely find him more quickly than the post office. Indeed, I received a reply the next day, a telegram that followed me from the Vicissitude to the Temple, where I was helping Veronica lay out shelves for her library. I opened the flimsy envelope with my dirty hands, read the brief note, then gave the boy a coin and told him that there would be no reply.

  “What was it, Mary?”

  I held it out for Veronica to make of it what she could.

  “From Marseilles. ‘Ab esse ad posse.’ ‘From “it is” to “it is possible,”’” she deciphered, sounding none too sure of herself. “What on earth does that mean? Who sent it?”

  “A wandering expert on early Rabbinic Judaism,” I extemporized. “Someone at the British Museum came across a first-century inscription that seems to indicate that a woman was head of a synagogue in Palestine. I wanted to know if it was possible. Not a terribly informative reply, though.”