The Mary Russell Series Books 1-4

by Laurie R. King

  “How incongruous the ball and the tea set looked—”

  “Before that.”

  “How she saw your hands as an extension of your mind when—” I stopped. The barest beginnings of a smile lurked in the grey eyes opposite me, and I continued slowly, “when you opened the ball.”

  “Yes.”

  “Dear God in heaven. Master of the Universe, how could I have been so unutterably dense?”

  “Bring the box, will you please, Russell?”

  I flew up the stairs to the heap of bags I had thrown in a corner and returned with the gleaming little depiction of paradise that was the Italian box. I held it out to Holmes. He took up his heavy magnifying glass, and after a minute he shook his head in self-disgust and handed both objects to me. Once I knew to look, I could easily see that the decorative carved line forming the lower border was not just a surface design, but a crack, no wider than a hair. The box had a secret base, but there was not the remotest hint of a latch or keyhole.

  “I’m not going to tear this box apart, Holmes,” I said, though we both knew that it might come to that, and the realisation brought a sharp, almost physical pain.

  “I shall endeavour to prevent that from becoming necessary,” Holmes said absently, absorbed in the box.

  “Do you think you can open it?”

  “Dorothy Ruskin thought I could. She may have been impressed by my parlour trick, but I doubt that it led her to endow me with godlike abilities. I don’t suppose she made offhand mention of any of the box’s attributes, as a help?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “Then it should not be terribly difficult. Ah, here. May I borrow a hairpin, Russell?”

  He found the tiny pressure points fairly quickly—two of the giraffe’s jet spots and one of the monkey’s eyes had infinitesimal and unnoticed dents in the adjoining wood—but beyond that he was wrong, it was difficult, extraordinarily so considering the age of the thing. After two hours, he had found that by pressing in a certain sequence with varying pressures, he could loosen the bottom, but it would not come free. I went to make coffee, and when I brought it in, he was looking as frustrated as I have ever seen him.

  “Leave it for a while,” I suggested, pouring.

  “I shall have to. The nearness of it is maddening.” He stood up, stretched the kinks from his back, placed his right hand gently on the box, and leant forward to take his cup. We both heard the click, and we looked down at the thing, every bit as astonished as if it had addressed us. He gingerly spread his fingers around it and lifted the top and sides away from the base. A clockwork intricacy of brass latches and gears lay revealed and, pushed down between the works and the wooden side, a tight roll of paper resembling a long, thin cigarette, tied in the middle with a length of black thread. Holmes picked it out with a fingernail and held it out to me. I rubbed my suddenly sweaty palms on my trousers, then took it.

  It was a letter, tiny, crowded words on half a dozen small sheets of nearly transparent onionskin paper, and I had a sudden image of Dorothy Ruskin bent over her hotel table with the magnifying glass. I read her words aloud to Holmes.

  “Dear Miss Russell,

  Were I not blessed with the ability to appreciate the humour in any trying situation, this one would verge on the macabre. I sit here at my shaky desk in a distinctly third-rate Parisian hotel, writing to a young woman whom I met but once—and that several years previously—in the hopes that she and her husband will choose to make enquiries should I die a suspicious death whilst in my homeland, despite the fact that I will have given them no hints, no clues, no reason to believe that someone wants my death. Indeed, I am not at all sure that I do have reason to believe it.

  A peculiarly amusing situation.

  I have spent several days trying to imagine the circumstances under which you will read this, if indeed you ever do. Are you investigating my death? What a queer sensation comes with writing those words! And if your answer is in the affirmative, how might I respond? ‘I’m pleased to hear that’ seems inappropriate, somehow. And yet, if that is what you are doing, if that has led you to this letter, it would give me the—surely satisfaction is not the right word?—of knowing that my inchoate, illogical fears were entirely justified.

  Again, a most peculiar situation.

  But, enough meandering. I intend to visit you in your Sussex home and leave with you this box, the manuscript, and, incidentally, these contents of the secret compartment. I shall have to find a means of planting in your mind the possibility that the box can be opened and do so casually enough to be natural, yet firmly enough that you remember it later if the need should arise. If I have failed in the first instance, and your curiosity has led you to open the box while I am still alive, then I beg you, please, to replace the following document in the box and have a good laugh over the imagination of an old woman. If I fail in the second instance and you do not remember my dropped hints, well, then, I am writing this for the chance, future amusement of a total stranger, and my precautions have been for naught.

  It is ridiculous. It is foolish of me, and I am not accustomed to doing foolish things. I have no evidence that I will die, no signs or portents or threatening letters in the post. And yet…I am filled with a strange dread when I think of crossing the Channel, and I want to turn for home, to Palestine. I cannot do that, of course, but I also cannot ignore this odd, compelling feeling of menace and finality. It is not death that I fear, Miss Russell. Death is a person with whom I have some passing acquaintance, and if anything, it is a motherly figure who holds out forgiving, welcoming arms. I do, however, dread the thought that my work, my life, will die with me. If I return to Palestine, I intend to work out more fully the details of how my estate, minor as it may be, might best be put to support the archaeological effort there. This letter is merely insurance. I have no time to have a proper will drawn up, so I have written and signed a holograph will, witnessed by two of my fellow guests in this hotel. It clearly states my wishes and intentions regarding the disbursement of my estate. You will please take it to the appropriate authorities, whom, no doubt, you know better than I.

  As I said, I have no evidence whatsoever that anyone seeks my death, other than this persistent, irrational hunch. It may be that I will succumb to illness or an accident. It is also quite possible that I may survive England to return home, have my solicitor in Jerusalem draw up a new and complete will, and write to tell you of the box’s hidden opening, feeling foolish when I do so. In any case, I will not accuse anyone from beyond the grave, as it were, and even the enclosed will can hardly be used to indict a person who otherwise appears blameless. If it points a surreptitious finger, so be it.

  You will no doubt ask yourself why, if I intend to change my will, I do not do so openly. I have asked myself the same question, and although there are several valid reasons for it, they boil down to two: First, I need to witness the state of my family’s affairs before I can make any final decisions; second, I am quite honestly torn between the absurdity of my premonitions and the urge to action. This is a compromise, and puts it into the hands of God. That I say this would certainly amaze some of my acquaintances, but I think that you, Miss Russell, will understand when I say that faith in a divine force and the ability to think intellectually are not necessarily incompatible. I am tired, I am uncertain, and therefore I will arrange this all so that God can make the final decision.

  I should dearly love to see your reaction to that, and I admit to a sense of frustration and regret when I realise that I will not witness the machinations by which this letter again sees the light of day. However, the pleasures of imagination will fill the spare moments of my next days.

  Thank you, Miss Russell, Mr Holmes, for your faithfulness to me, a near stranger. The box and the manuscript are not to be regarded as payment, for I would have given them to you in any case, and I know that payment would be neither required nor accepted. I hope that

  Mary’s graceful hand brings you as much pleasure as it h
as me.

  Yours in friendship,

  Dorothy Ruskin”

  The will began: “I, Dorothy Elizabeth Ruskin, being of sound mind and body,” then went on to state simply that the entirety of her estate was to go to support the archaeological effort in Palestine, with specific names and locations given.

  WHEN A COPY of the will was shown to Erica Rogers, she said nothing, but that night she suffered a massive seizure and spent the remaining months of her life in a nursing home, next to her mother. When agents from Scotland Yard went to arrest the grandson and his accomplice, Jason Rogers escaped. His body was found the following day by two hikers, in the wreckage of a very expensive car that did not belong to him. The problem of Erica Rogers’s apparent alibi was solved during the subsequent interview with Jason’s wife, when she confessed tearfully that she had taken Erica’s place in the home for the two nights Mrs Rogers was away, caring for old Mrs Ruskin and turning the lights on and off at the appropriate times. She, however, was not charged with participation in the actual murder, as it became obvious that she had been accustomed to do just as her husband ordered.

  The other partner in the killing, whose name was Thomas Rand, never confessed his part in the murder, but he was eventually brought to trial, convicted, and hanged.

  Lestrade came down from London himself to tell us about Rand’s arrest, wishing, I think, to remove the aftertaste of failure from his mouth in front of the headmaster. He came for tea, looking more dishevelled than ever and yet oddly more competent for it, and he recited each detail of the evidence against Rand, up to and including the man’s possession of my camera, my odds and ends of manuscripts, and Mrs Hudson’s jewellery.

  “Only one thing I can’t figure,” he said finally. Holmes shot me a sardonic glance.

  “Glad you’ve left me with something to explain, Lestrade,” he growled, which remark alone put half an inch on Lestrade’s stature.

  “It’s Mrs Ho—Miss Russell’s papers. If they weren’t looking for the manuscript, the pie—what’d’ya call it?”

  “Papyrus,” I said.

  “Right. If they weren’t looking for that, why cart about all the things written in a foreign alphabet and steal half of them? You can’t imagine Jason Rogers or his friend would know Greek, or know about the value of that letter, and I wouldn’t have thought it was the old lady’s style, either.”

  “Ah,” said Holmes, “but there you would be wrong. What Erica Rogers was looking for was very much in her, as you say, ‘style.’ The day Miss Ruskin was here, she happened to mention that in their childhood she and her sister—the daughters of a minister, remember—used to play a game of hiding coded messages in a place they called ‘Apocalypse,’ because the top came off. The verb apocalyptein, I believe Russell could tell you, is Greek for ‘uncover,’” he added helpfully. “It’s very likely that the ‘code’ was simple English written in the Greek alphabet. I recall doing just that myself, with Mycroft. Did you play that game with your brother, Russell?”

  “Yes, though we used Hebrew, which was a bit trickier.”

  “Remember, too, that Erica Rogers was an enthusiast of Watson’s thrilling nonsense. When she heard that her sister was coming to see me, her suspicions must have positively erupted. It was indeed very much in her ‘style’ to believe that her sister would write an encoded will, or a will written in one of the several foreign languages she spoke, and then lodge it with the Great Detective for safekeeping.”

  “But that’s absurd—beg pardon, Mr Holmes.”

  “Elaborate and ridiculous and utterly unlike something Dorothy Ruskin might do,” he agreed. “But very much in Erica Rogers’s style. A woman who would arrange an elaborate murder involving a beggar disguise and an automobile, who would anticipate the possibility that the death might not be accepted as a road accident and move to cloud any investigation by arranging to make it appear that she had remained at home, and then even think to plant a letter to her sister implicating an imaginary but plausible group of Arabs named Mud—a woman with a mind like that would not hesitate to believe that her sister could write a will in Serbo-Croatian and lodge it on the top of Nelson’s Column. Real penny-dreadful stuff, and not, I think, completely sane. Scotland Yard is going to have to look into the influence art has on true crime one of these days, Lestrade, mark my words.”

  Lestrade wavered, decided to take the remark as a joke, and laughed politely.

  “Inspector,” I asked, “have you an idea of the value of the Ruskin estate yet?”

  He told us, and Holmes and I glanced at each other.

  “Yes,” said Lestrade, “more than you’d have thought, and taken as a whole, an amount worth fighting for. When Dorothy Ruskin came back here from Palestine, she must have told her sister, either directly or by something she said, that she had decided to make a new will and put the money into her archaeological projects. Erica Rogers might have put up with seeing the third part of their father’s money that had already been divided up poured into a lot of holes in the ground, but she drew the line at having half of old Mrs Ruskin’s money follow it. If the old lady died first, Dorothy Ruskin would inherit her share and it would be gone. Therefore Dorothy Ruskin had to die before their mother. I imagine Mrs Rogers said something to that effect to her grandson Jason, and he then brought in a friend who was experienced at this sort of thing. And,” he added thoughtfully, “they then decided to retrieve the money Dorothy Ruskin already had, by finding and destroying the new will. If they’d been satisfied with just the old lady’s money, we’d never have got on to them.”

  “Greed feeds on itself,” commented Holmes.

  “I’m not sure, though, why the three of them thought the will was here.”

  “Miss Ruskin probably hinted that it would be,” I said. “According to her hidden letter, that is what she planned to do to us, bring us the box and drop hints that it had a secret. I expect she did the same thing to her sister, trailing her garment to tempt her and point her at Sussex. Had Erica Rogers been honest, she’d have ignored it completely.”

  “Miss Ruskin laid a trap.”

  “You could say that. A trap that could only be sprung by the presence of criminal intent.”

  “Not very nice of her, neglecting to mention your part in the arrangements.”

  “The woman had an incredible faith in us, I agree. And not an entirely warranted faith, at least when it came to me. Her sister’s ears were much sharper than mine at hearing nuances.”

  “The search of our cottage did catch our attention, though,” said Holmes benignly.

  Lestrade shook his head.

  “So elaborate. And almost suicidal. Why not come to us in the first place, or even to you, bring it out in the open? As mad as her sister, in a way.”

  “I think it began simply—in a conviction—and grew. And yes, immensely single-minded, practical people do seem mad. But, you may be right about one thing: I don’t think she much cared for the chance she had of living blind.”

  A short time later, Lestrade’s local police driver arrived to take him to the train. Before he left, Holmes congratulated him, so that going down the drive to the waiting car, his shoe leather was floating several inches above the gravel. Holmes shook his head sourly as we watched the driver negotiate the ruts and stones and peace began to settle again onto our patch of hillside.

  “What is wrong, Holmes? I’d have thought you would be as cock-a-hoop as Lestrade, snatching a solution from the jaws of befuddlement as you did.”

  “Ah, Russell, I had such hopes for this case,” he said mournfully. “But in the end, it all came down to greed. So commonplace, it’s hardly worthy of any attention. Do you know, for a few days I allowed myself to hope that we had a prime specimen among cases, a murder with the pure and unadorned motive of the hatred of emancipated women. Now, that would have been one for the books: murder by misogyny,” he drawled with relish, and then his face twisted. “Money. Bah!”

  TWO DAYS LATER, I took the train to London
to see Colonel Edwards. I dressed carefully for that meeting, including my soft laced-up boots, which brought me to well over six feet in height. I arrived back late in the afternoon, and while Mrs Hudson went to heat more water for the teapot, I walked over to stand at the big south window that framed the Downs as they rolled towards the sea, to watch the light fade into purples and indigo and a blue in the heights the colour of Dorothy Ruskin’s eyes. Small noises behind me told of Holmes filling and lighting his pipe—a sweetly fragrant tobacco tonight, an indicator of his temper, as well. Mrs Hudson came in with the tea. I accepted a cup and took it back to the window. It was nearly dark.

  “So, Russell.”

  “Yes, Holmes.”

  “What did your colonel have to say?”

  I took a contemplative sip of the steaming-hot tea and thought back to the man’s reaction as he saw his gentle, hesitant, stoop-shouldered secretary climb out of the taxi as Mary Russell Holmes. I could feel a smile of pure devilment come onto my lips.

  “He said, and I quote, ‘I always felt there was more to you, Mary, but I must say I hadn’t realised just how much more.’”

  I grinned as I heard the sounds behind me, then turned, finally, to take in the sight of Sherlock Holmes collapsed in helpless laughter, his head thrown back on the chair, pipe forgotten, uncertainty forgotten, all forgotten but the beauty and absurdity of the colonel’s elegy.

  PART SEVEN

  A woman seldom writes her mind but in her postscript.

  —RICHARD STEELE

  Postscript

  omega

  THE LETTER THAT lay at the heart of our investigation, the little strip of stained papyrus that was written in a hurried moment some eighteen and a half centuries before I first laid eyes upon it, preserved by simple peasants in a vague awareness of its importance, passed within its clay amulet during the formative years of Islam into a branch of the family that followed the Prophet, kept in the heart of generations of believers over centuries of war and wandering until a simple act of generosity on the part of an Englishwoman brought it to light, is still in my possession. In the decades since it came to me, the scientific study of documents has made huge strides, from the chemical analysis of writing materials to radiocarbon dating to the grammatical analyses of the words themselves. Not one of these tests has taken me substantially further than Holmes’ graphological conclusion or my own intuitive conviction that the thing was real. Certainly none of the tests that I have thus far been able to conduct or oversee has cast any degree of doubt on Mary’s letter. As yet, I have found no indication that it is other than what it seems: a hasty, affectionate letter written by a woman of considerable wisdom and strength to a bewildered but much-loved sister, at a moment when the writer realised that her world was coming to a violent, catastrophic end.