The Mary Russell Series Books 1-4

by Laurie R. King

  She looked back instantly at the page, removed her finger from the line, and, seizing the book in both hands, spoke in a single, flowing sentence.

  “The boy has a cup of tea for his mother,” she read, and repeated it, then looked up again and laughed, her eyes shining with the suddenly comprehended magic of the written word. Her teeth were mostly gums, she smelt of unwashed wool, her hair lay lank, and her skin wanted milk and fruit, but for the moment, she was beautiful. Veronica Beaconsfield knows what she is about here, I thought to myself, and took the work-roughened hand and squeezed it hard.

  At 4:30, I went downstairs to the tearoom and drank a cup with two of the circle who were waiting for their ride to a weekend in the country. They were exclaiming in irritation about the fog that had begun to close in and its inevitable delays, and I realized that I had been peripherally aware of the heaviness in the air. When I passed through the Temple offices on my way to Margery’s tutorial, I glanced out of the window and saw the streamers that presaged an onslaught. Not bad yet, but I decided to miss the service that night rather than stumble across London to my flat. It would be thick later.

  I went a few minutes early to Margery and told her about my happy experience with my beginning reader. She was genuinely pleased and interested, and again, as so often, I wondered what had actually happened that night two weeks before.

  The topic I had set for the evening was the diatribe in Jeremiah against “baking cakes for the Queen of Heaven.” We were twenty minutes into the session, deeply engrossed, when it came to an end with a brisk knock at the door and Marie’s entrance. She held out a piece of paper to her mistress.

  “Telephone call, madame. I thought you would wish that I bring this quickly.” She ignored me completely, other than a scornful glance at the books on the table between us. Margery scanned the message, and it made her smooth forehead pucker slightly in consternation.

  “Yes, thank you, Marie, you were quite right. Would you bring my things, please, and ask Thomas to get out the car?”

  The maid nodded, and as she turned to go, she shot me a look of satisfaction and open dislike. Margery saw nothing, but I reflected on the woman’s retreating back, thinking that if she was that jealous of her mistress’s attentions, she must spend most of her time in a state of seething resentment. Unless, of course, it was merely me whom she disliked—or feared.

  “I’m sorry, Mary,” Margery was saying, “I’m going to have to excuse myself. That was an urgent message—but here, see for yourself.”

  I took the note and read, in Marie’s French schoolgirl script, the following:

  Mlle Goddart has telephoned to say that she is embroiled in a severely unpleasant family affair and wishes most intently for your personal presence at your earliest convenience. The house is at 16, Norwood Place, number 3.

  Marie returned with an armful of clothing and an uneasy expression on her face. “Madame, I regret to inform you that we are without an automobile. Mademoiselle Archer has not returned from her trip to Cambridge Shire, although she specifically informed me that she was to return by four o’clock. I have telephoned for a taxi, but they said it would take some time. There is a fog.”

  “Norwood Place is only a twenty-minute walk from here,” I interrupted. “Probably faster than a car, given the fog.”

  Marie looked more sour than ever, but Margery seemed pleased.

  “You know where it is?”

  “I go right past it,” I said, exaggerating slightly.

  “Just give me the directions; there’s no reason for you to go. Stay and have some dinner, or at least a drink.”

  “No, I’ll go.” Norwood Place was not in one of the more desirable neighbourhoods, hardly suitable after dark for a small woman in an expensive coat. The least I could do was to escort her safely to the door. “Could you find my coat, Marie?”

  Caught between the desire to prise me away from Margery and her awareness that Margery would be safer with me than alone, Marie hesitated, then turned to Margery and began to protest vehemently. Margery held her ground.

  “No, I won’t let you go. Miss Russell is going that way in any case, and we’ll be perfectly safe. It’s not even five-thirty yet; I’m sure to be back by seven-thirty. . . . Very well, Marie, I promise not to walk back alone. When the taxi arrives pay him and, if Thomas is not back yet, have the driver continue to Norwood Place; he can fetch me back. . . . Yes, I shall ring if he’s not there when I wish to leave. . . . No, there’s sure to be a telephone nearby; Miss Goddart used one to ring here. . . . Well, whoever it was then. Marie, stop fussing me and get Miss Russell’s coat. Sorry,” she said to me under her breath. “She gets very like a mother hen sometimes. Hates it when I go out at night.

  “Good, thanks Marie, see you later. . . . No, I’ll not take time for a cup of tea. . . . Yes, yes, I’ll telephone if I’m going to be late, but I won’t be.”

  Marie held my coat for me, and even her disapproving hands could not take away the pleasure I felt in the luscious soft grey-blue vicuña with black sealskin collar and lining, new that very afternoon. It set off the richer blue of my dress, as if it had been made for it, as indeed it had. Margery looked at it closely.

  “That’s lovely, Mary. It’s not a Chanel?”

  I assured her it was not, then told her briefly about the elves.

  “Ask them if they would consider doing some things for me, could you please? That hat is perfect on you, too, just the right shape for your face. My,” she noted as we walked up the corridor to the front windows of the building, “it is rather thick, isn’t it?”

  It was full dark, but the lights from overhead and from the slow-moving vehicles illuminated the swirling yellow mist like a scene from a Wilkie Collins novel. Actually, it was not yet too bad, as London fogs went, and when our eyes had adjusted, we found we could see a good ten feet before the curtain thickened. At least we did not need to worry about tripping over kerbstones or walking into walls.

  We walked slowly. The streets, as always in London, seemed to alternate between bustling thoroughfares and narrow pavements empty but for the occasional bobby; with the fog, the main streets were quieter than normal, and the mews and alleys echoed their desolation. Margery’s heels clacked on the paving stones and my softer soles scrunched imperceptibly. The occasional horse and cart passed; cars and lorries eased by, their drivers leaning out over their doors and squinting through the windscreens. I consulted my inner map, turned us in the right direction, and decided it couldn’t hurt to reveal my curiosity about Marie.

  “You said Marie doesn’t like you to go out at night. Is there any reason for that?”

  “Not really. Just being protective. You’re wondering why I put up with being bullied by my maid.”

  I laughed. “Well . . .”

  “She has a good heart, underneath the prickles. She’s a distant cousin; she came to me six years ago when the rest of her family was killed and her village taken by the Germans. It’s important to her, feeling that I need her to care for me, and there’s no doubt she makes life easier at times.”

  “Except when you wish to go out at night.”

  “As you say.” She laughed.

  “Do you get called out very often?”

  “Not really, not anymore, although the Circle knows it can call on me whenever it needs to consult, like tonight. With so many others to—”

  I never heard the end of her answer. As we walked, I had taken automatic note of our surroundings, more perhaps than usual because of the potential hazards contained in the all-concealing fog. When the quiet footsteps behind us broke into a run in the middle of a deserted patch of residences, I did not pause to think, just reacted. I shoved Margery hard from me and pivoted to meet the owner of these footsteps, who proved to be a slick young man with a narrow black moustache, dark eyes, and the gleam of a wicked sliver of steel in his bare right hand.

  My unexpected response stopped him dead, and he eyed me uncertainly for signs of a weapon. When none appea
red, he relaxed and took a step to one side, looking for Margery. She began to scramble to her feet.

  “Don’t move, Margery,” I ordered. “Stay right where you are.”

  His eyes snapped back to me, and even in that light, I could see the evil smile of warm anticipation that crawled onto his face. For an instant, I froze, but when the knife came for me, my body moved of its own accord. The knife slid past my ribs, but he was fast, too, and recovered his balance in an instant, bouncing back out of my reach to reconsider while the tip of his blade flickered back and forth like the tongue of a serpent.

  Had I been alone, it would have been simple, merely a matter of dodging out of his reach and not tripping over my shoes until I encountered something I could use as a weapon. However, I had no handbag, could not risk the temporary encumbrance of unbuttoning my coat, and I dared not move from my place while Margery was behind me. I reached up and pulled the hat from my head, to use as a shield for my hand at least, but when the knife flashed out again, I could not dodge far enough to avoid it entirely, and it sliced through vicuña and sealskin, wool and silk, and into the arm beneath.

  It was like being cut with a razor, and I did not feel the pain at first, only the shock of violation. Without taking my eyes from his, I flexed the hand tentatively to reassure myself that it was still working, felt the burn of the wound mixed with a wash of cold air where none should be, and suddenly all I knew was fury. Yes, I was bleeding freely; yes, Margery and I were both in mortal danger, but just then the pain and the fear were nothing compared with the rage I felt at this wanton ruination of my beautiful coat and the sleeve beneath. I was damned if I would lose one more article of clothing to the knife, whether I was inside it or not. No slick-faced creature with a sharp blade was going to destroy my wardrobe again.

  “You bloody bastard!” I shouted, and I don’t know which of the three of us was the most astonished at the sheer fury in my voice. He hesitated, then came at me again, only this time, instead of dodging, I stepped inside his rush and turned, and at the cost of another nick (the sleeve would have to be replaced, anyway), I got both hands on his wrist. When he struggled, I reared back hard and felt more than heard the satisfying sound his nose made as it broke against the back of my head. The knife went skipping across the paving stones, and while he was distracted, I spun him around and locked his arm high against his back. I growled in his ear.

  “If you move, something will break.”

  He did not listen (his kind never do), but wrenched his body violently away from me, and his elbow simply came apart. He shrieked, and when I dropped his wrist roughly, his screams doubled. I went to help Margery up. She had scraped one knee and would have bruises tomorrow, but for the most part she was only shaken, and that primarily due to the loud agony of the figure clutching his right arm with such exquisite care.

  “My God, Mary, what did you do to him?”

  “I didn’t do a thing. I just let him do it.”

  “But he’s hurt!” In a minute, she would be kneeling, with his head on her lap. I went over to the kerb and picked up the knife by its needle-sharp tip. Her eyes went wide, and I realized that she had not seen it before, as I had blocked her view as well as her body. She looked further and saw the rapidly spreading dark patch on my left arm and her eyes got even wider.

  “He cut you,” she said stupidly.

  “He was trying to kill you, Margery,” I said, more mildly than I felt. Had she been alone . . . I thought suddenly of Iris, and turned to look at the young assailant, so that I nearly missed the extraordinary expression that flitted across her face. It was momentary, preceeded by shock and followed quickly by fear, but for a brief instant there was something else.

  It looked like speculation—not at her attacker, but at something seen by an inner eye. She rapidly squelched it, and then there was only fear and the aftermath of shock, and by the time the bobby pounded into view, she was huddled, trembling, on a doorstep. I wondered just what it was I had seen.

  Explanations took no little time, both there on the street and inside the police station. I accepted sticking plasters and ointment, refused a doctor (the cut was not deep, just long), and, after the leaks had been stopped, I spoke some private words with the inspector on duty. Telephone calls were made, and the general air of suspicious disbelief faded, replaced by one of respectful disbelief. My recommendation that the young knife wielder be arrested after his hospital visit sent one PC out the door to cling to him lest he disappear prematurely. My mention of number sixteen, Norwood Place sent another bobby scurrying out, though when he came back to confirm that there was no number sixteen, no families on either side, and no one who had heard of a Miss Cynthia Goddart, I was not greatly surprised. Margery was sent home under police escort, only a few minutes late for her dinner, and I was left alone in a cluttered police office before a stout, red-face chief inspector with a jolly demeanor but flintlike eyes. I smiled weakly, and he took me through each step of the evening yet again.

  “So, Miss Russell,” he said finally. “People in high places tell me you’re to be trusted. Do you think I ought to trust you?”

  I reflected, shrugged, and winced. I couldn’t remember pulling my shoulder, but apparently I had.

  “I don’t know at this point whether it matters or not,” I answered. He poked a stubby finger into the mound of paraphernalia on the desk blotter, things that had been politely but authoritatively removed from my person by a police matron. He chose one item—a set of picklocks—and examined it with expert fingers.

  “Were there any injuries other than the scratch on your arm?” he asked politely.

  “Nothing much. I have a bad shoulder.”

  He studied first my left shoulder, then the other, and though his jolly façade gave nothing away, I thought he knew quite well who I was and why my shoulder was bad. I had saved Holmes’ life, and my own, at the cost of a shattered collarbone. Two years later, chips of bone continued to work their way to the surface with depressing regularity. He nodded.

  “Some of these things are illegal,” he continued conversationally.

  “For the common citizen,” I agreed. “And some of them only become illegal when they are used.”

  “Hmm. And you’re not a common citizen.”

  “If I wanted to commit burglary, or even murder, Chief Inspector, I should hardly need to resort to bits of machinery.”

  I met his eyes evenly.

  “It wasn’t an accident, then,” he said after a moment.

  “I told you it was not.”

  “But you didn’t intend to break his arm.”

  “I warned him clearly what would happen if he moved. And he moved. If he hadn’t attacked us with murder so obviously in mind, I might just have knocked him out. As it is, he’ll not be knifing women for some long time. One more thing, and then I will leave. Scotland Yard is looking into the murder of Iris Fitzwarren. You might offer them tonight’s little episode to chew on.”

  I stood up and gathered my belongings.

  “We will need to have you sign your statement, Miss Russell.”

  “Tomorrow, Inspector. I’ll come in in the morning. Just, please, don’t let that man get away from you.”

  “No,” he said simply. I felt a tiny flicker of warmth for the man. “Until tomorrow, then, Miss Russell.”

  “Good evening, Chief Inspector.”

  MY REPUTATION, OR more probably that of Holmes, had followed close on my heels, and the path through the station was lined with curious eyes. At least there were no reporters to battle and outwit, and before I got to the front entrance, I knew there would be none waiting outside, either.

  The fog had closed in. Such a mild monosyllable, fog, for London’s own particular brand of purgatory, this greasy, burning, indescribably thick yellow miasma that seared the nose and fouled the lungs, rotted clothing and blackened buildings, caused hundreds of deaths by mishaps and brought the proud capital of an empire stumbling literally to its knees.

  I
made my way out the door and down the remembered four steps, patted my way down the front of the station a few feet, and allowed my shoulders to slump back against the bricks. God, I was tired, weary to the marrow of my bones. My right shoulder ached with the damp and the wrenching it had received, the two cuts on my left arm throbbed along with it, and my head pounded with the reaction of violence, received and committed, followed by two hours of verbal fencing with Inspector Richmond, with nothing in my stomach but sour Camp coffee. I leant my poor trampled hat back against the wall, aware of a trembling that threatened to surface from deep within my body, and tried to summon the energy to walk one and a half blind miles to my unwelcoming flat.

  I always hated what Londoners called with such wry pride their “particulars,” their “peculiars,” their “pea soupers,” like the beaming parents of some uncontrollable and pathologically destructive brat. Myopia is too close to a permanent state of fog to make for any entertainment in finding one’s self groping through the streets with hands outstretched, with the additional irritant of having to be constantly wiping one’s spectacles and wondering if it would not be simpler to dispense with them entirely until such time as the Thames deigned to melt back into its solid banks and its fluid state. Also, truth to tell, I have always been a bit of a claustrophobe, and the edginess that comes from suppressing an irritating and irrational fear, combined with my current far-from-irrational caution about venturing into a London bristling, for all I knew, with knife-wielding youths all too willing to pick up where their colleague had left off, made me regret that the chief inspector had not decided to keep me locked up overnight. Perhaps I ought to turn myself in, I thought in disgust. Fling my picklocks on the charge desk and myself into the burly hands of the sergeant on duty. I wiped my spectacles with my handkerchief and replaced them on my nose, then moved the white linen square slowly away from my eyes. Standing as I was directly under the entrance light of the station, at arm’s length the handkerchief was only a vaguely lighter streak in the soup. From up the street came a heavy thud and a metallic screech, followed immediately by two frightened shrieks, one female and one equine, and two male voices began to curse each other hugely. Taxi and cart colliding, I diagnosed, and sighed.