The Murder of Mary Russell

by Laurie R. King

  “They weren’t my constables,” Lestrade protested.

  “Were my photographs any help?” she asked, switching on the electrical light over the table.

  “Photographs? No.” He snatched the envelope from Lestrade, ripping off the end and tipping the contents onto the wood. Someone had wrapped a piece of card stock around its blade.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m a terrible photographer.”

  “Yes.” He reached for the magnifying glass, then paused. “Not your fault. I should buy a decent camera.”

  A reassuring lie—from the mouth of Sherlock Holmes? “What did I do wrong?”

  He bent over the knife. “Your hands. They seem to have been somewhat…uncertain.”

  She had been trembling all over, after calling Billy and before the police arrived. She’d never stopped to consider the effect on photographic film.

  He examined the knife minutely: the direction of the stains, the smeared tip, the side of the blade less marked with blood. He then raised his head to look through the doorway, his eyes tracking invisible motions.

  After a time, Mrs Hudson ventured, “It does look like hers.” Mary generally wore a slim little throwing knife, either strapped to her ankle or in the top of her boot.

  “It is,” Holmes said. “But how was the knife in two places?”

  “What do you mean?” Lestrade asked.

  “The blood, man. Look at that blood.”

  Mary Russell’s knife lay across her husband’s palm, no longer than his hand and wickedly sharp. A thick bead of dried blood marked one side. When he flipped it over, the line was considerably thinner. The last inch of its point showed a smear where it had hit the plaster.

  “I agree it’s odd,” Lestrade told him, “but there’s any number of blood vessels right under the surface.”

  “With no spray?”

  “It could have got wiped off on clothing,” he said.

  “It was.”

  “I don’t understand,” Mrs Hudson said.

  Impatiently, Holmes dropped the thing and snatched up the table knife, stabbing it into the butter pot with a suddenness that made Mrs Hudson jump and the little pot crack in two. He pulled out the smeared knife and wiped both sides on the tray’s linen napkin. Paying no attention to her protests, he then took the sandwich from Lestrade’s plate, parted its halves, and slapped it butter-side down on the table, peeling the bread away and tossing it back at the plate. He then scraped the table knife along the buttery deposit, and held it out for them to see: overall, the blade had an oily sheen, as the throwing knife was dull. One edge now had a thick bead of butter; its backside had but a trace. He made another fist around the knife’s handle, but Mrs Hudson caught his wrist before he could conclude his demonstration by burying the point in her table.

  “You think the knife was used, cleaned, then scraped through the blood on the floor?” Lestrade asked.

  “Evidently.”

  “Why do that?”

  “Chief Inspector, I try to form my hypotheses upon data, rather than shape the data to match my wishes.”

  And with that, he picked up his wife’s throwing knife and walked out.

  Lestrade made to follow, but Mrs Hudson stopped him. “There’s little point in our watching him do his dribbles and drops, and he’s cross enough as it is. Finish your tea and I’ll do you a fresh sandwich, then we can go up and see what he has discovered.”

  The Chief Inspector knew Holmes well enough to see the sense in the suggestion. He watched the older woman move through her kitchen, her face giving away none of the distress she had to be feeling.

  “How is he holding up?” he asked.

  “How do you think?”

  “Yes. Dr Watson is away, you said?”

  “In America. I’d rather not try to contact him, until…” Until we know, one way or the other.

  “What about his brother? Has he talked to Mycroft yet?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “You might want to telephone to him.”

  She gave Lestrade a glance. “You imagine Mycroft Holmes would be a source of comfort?”

  “Not what you or I would think of as comfort, but…”

  She considered what he had said, then nodded. “I’ll suggest it to him.”

  “Well, he’s sure to throw me out before too long. Let me know if you want me here. Anytime. Even if you just need someone to knock him unconscious for a while.”

  The similar path of their thoughts gave Mrs Hudson the first trace of a smile since she’d returned home from Eastbourne: both had worked with Sherlock Holmes long enough to know how relentless the man would be, unless an intervention was forced upon him.

  Lestrade finished his tea. “Shall we go up now, and see what he’s found?”

  “Yes. And, Chief Inspector? Thank you.”

  What Holmes had found on the blade was more type B blood. Mrs Hudson’s long experience allowed her to interpret the prodigious frown with which he was regarding the little weapon: there was as much confusion there as fury. He was feeling betrayed by science, and running out of things to grasp: if he didn’t uncover some new facts, and soon, the man would turn upon himself. She broke into Lestrade’s attempts at reassurance with a question for her employer.

  “What does it mean?”

  He gave an irritable shake of the head and pushed away from the laboratory bench. “There’s some message in it, but the devil only knows what. Lestrade, I shall need—” He went rigid: a motorcar’s tyres on the drive. He was the first at the window, and headed instantly for the stairs. The others looked out.

  “It’s Billy!” Mrs Hudson exclaimed.

  “Who?” Lestrade asked.

  “William Mudd. An old friend of Mr Holmes. He has an enquiry agency in London.”

  “Ah, that one,” he said, with considerably less enthusiasm than she had shown, and followed her downstairs.

  Holmes and Billy were already deep in conversation, an unlikely pair of confederates even without eleven years of difference in their ages: the tall, thin, grey-haired English gentleman, and the short, stout, dark-skinned Cockney with the first traces of salt in his tight black curls.

  That skinny lad of The Bishop’s is fifty-three, Mrs Hudson thought. I must be truly ancient.

  “Billy, it’s good to see you,” she said, somewhat repressively. “I think you know Chief Inspector Lestrade? Chief Inspector, William Mudd.”

  The men’s hand-clasp was brief, the air distinctly cool. “We’ve met,” said Lestrade. Billy nodded, then turned to Holmes.

  “I’ll wait till you’re finished here.”

  “I think we are through, yes, Chief Inspector? Your wife no doubt expects you at home.”

  It was as brusque a dismissal as Lestrade had ever received from the man, which was saying a lot. Still, he couldn’t very well insist on remaining, not unless he was ready to declare Sherlock Holmes a suspect in his own wife’s death. (And God help me if that day ever comes, he thought.) The policeman shook hands with the old detective, lifted his hat to Mrs Hudson, and climbed into the waiting motorcar. The motor began to move away, then jerked to a halt when Holmes stepped in front of it.

  Holmes did not wait for Lestrade to lower his window. “I’ll need the photographs your man took.”

  “Oh, you will, eh?” But by the time Lestrade had the window open, he was speaking to Holmes’ retreating back, leaving only the driver to absorb his irritation. “Get on, man, I’ll miss my train!”

  Mr William Mudd, petty criminal turned respectable businessman, put his arms around his former partner. She clung to him. “Oh, Billy, Billy,” she breathed.

  “We’ll get her back safe, Mrs H,” he murmured against her hair. “This is Miss Russell we’re talking about, never you worry. You should’ve let me come earlier. Oh, but that is a drive and a half, down here from London. I don’t suppose there’s any chance you have the kettle on?”

  “Of course I do! Just give me two minutes.”

&
nbsp; The two men watched her hurry away. “How is She holding up, sir?” In Billy’s mouth, Mrs Hudson’s pronoun always bore a capital letter.

  “Mrs Hudson is tough as nails,” Holmes said automatically. “Billy, we need to find Russell, and fast. What have you for me that you couldn’t give me over the telephone?”

  “You think they’ve put a tap on the lines?”

  “Police these days will do anything to interfere. Come inside, let’s talk.”

  “Actually, sir…”

  Holmes stopped. “Something you don’t want Mrs Hudson to hear?”

  “I think you’ll want to hear it first. We can decide how much to tell her.”

  “Let’s walk. I need to check my hives anyway.”

  But Mrs Hudson spotted them from the kitchen window, and came marching through the walled orchard with a laden tray. “You two want your privacy, I can see that, but Billy’s had a long journey. Dinner’s in the oven.”

  She set the tray onto the chopping block with a clatter, and gave her employer a close look. His jaw was not quite as clenched as it had been, his eyes not so haunted: Billy had always been reassuring, she thought. Mr Holmes might always find his culprit, but Billy had a way of making a person feel that the culprit was sure to be found. She gave Billy a look that, if not a smile, was at least warm. Then she turned and marched back to the house.

  Not a protest, nary a question, just the tea. “Amazing woman, that,” Billy said.

  “She has been for years,” the older man pointed out. “Fill your plate and tell me.”

  Obediently, Billy carried his refreshment over to the ancient weathered bench against the high garden wall. He balanced cup and plate on the arm, but before sitting, he fished an envelope from his breast pocket and handed it to Holmes.

  “When I got her call, yesterday noon, asking me to put notices in all the papers, I was all set to come down here that very moment, but she said no, because the police were sure to be…underfoot. I would’ve come anyway—I’ve never heard her sound like that—but it seemed to me she was right, that if I held off, I might be able to help. Such as this.”

  The telegram read:

  SAMUEL ALISTAIR MCKENNA LAST SEEN SYDNEY MARCH FIFTEEN THIS YEAR STOP SOLD MOTHERS HOUSE SOLD FURNITURE PUT CAR ETCETERA IN STORAGE STOP MARCH NINETEEN PASSENGER NAME SAMUEL HUDSON BOARDED RMS NEFERTITI DESTINATION LONDON STOP FINGERPRINTS OBTAINED AND SENDING VIA MAIL STOP YOU OWE ME BIG COMMA MUDD BUT WATCH YOUR BACK CHUM STOP WESLEY WARDER

  “Warder’s a bloke I met during the War, runs an agency in Sydney. We do each other favours, time to time. I told him this one was urgent.”

  “Hence you being in his debt.”

  “It’s nothing. He’s sure to find more on McKenna, but I thought you should see that. And actually, I’ve had Warder keeping his eye on Samuel McKenna for a long time now. Just from a distance, nothing pushy, wandering by to check on him every few months. If it’d been closer up, Wes might’ve noticed he was gone sooner. She doesn’t know, of course. And she hasn’t seen this, from a while ago. Not that it’s worth much.”

  A photograph, taken in a non-English city, its target on the opposite side of the street. The man’s face was both indistinct and half-shaded by a hat brim. Still, one could see that he had light-coloured hair, and that his body was compact, but muscular.

  Plenty strong enough to lift a tall young woman into the back of a motorcar.

  Holmes sat back on the bench, eyes on the bees but his mind clearly elsewhere. “Samuel Hudson,” he said, his voice troubled. “So: Mrs Hudson’s sister, Alicia McKenna, dies in August. In March, her son Samuel closes up the house and sails to England. In May, someone comes here and has a bloody fight with Russell, leaving behind an object with personal meaning to Mrs Hudson alone.” He described the necklace. Billy nodded, remembering it. “We need to find Samuel McKenna.”

  “He’s been staying at a third-rate hotel around the corner from Paddington, although he hasn’t been there since Tuesday.”

  Holmes withdrew his gaze from the bees, eyebrows raised.

  “I haven’t been there,” Billy told him. “I only found it this afternoon. But he’s calling himself Samuel Hudson.”

  “Interesting.”

  “ ’Fraid the rest of it’s more interesting yet.”

  “Tell me.”

  Billy folded the last of the bread-and-butter into his mouth. “Sorry, that was breakfast. I have a file-folder in the motor, left it there since I didn’t want her to see it. The gist of it is, Sam McKenna runs some clubs in Sydney with what you might call ‘dubious ties.’ The sorts of clubs that have layers of ownership papers and back rooms for men who don’t want to be seen together in public. McKenna’s only spent one stretch of a few months behind bars, for selling liquor without a license, but he’s been arrested a dozen or more times. Mostly for assault. Two of those involved guns.”

  The fragrant garden seemed to go still. The beekeeper stirred. “Hence your friend’s warning to ‘watch your back.’ ”

  “Yes, our Samuel has a temper,” Billy agreed. “There’s also reports on the Mum, Alicia Hudson as was. Squeaky clean lady, nothing against her but being hard on her servants—none of ’em ever lasted more than a few months before she fired them. Lots of acquaintances, no close friends to speak of. No other children. Mrs McKenna was big on her position in the city—her husband died when Sam was four or five—and liked to put on an English accent. Took the English papers, bundled up, and shipped out weeks late.”

  “Why are you telling me all this? Even if her death was falsely reported, no woman in her sixties could have—”

  “Hold on, I’m telling you because of the papers. You haven’t caught up with yours yet, have you? From being away?”

  “Only the last three months.”

  “This was earlier, around Christmas. It started…” He looked down at his hands, somewhat at a loss. “Well, we know when it started. You may not be aware, but I remember that night, in Hampshire. I was only—what, six? Seven? She thinks I forgot, and maybe you did, too, but I didn’t. I don’t know that I actually saw it, him getting shot, that is. I think I was standing behind her. But I remember the gun going off, and this old man lying there, all still and bleeding, and Sam wailing and she…Anyway, you sent me upstairs with Samuel. When I came down the next morning there was nothing but a carpet where he’d been, and blisters on your hands—both of you. I never told anyone about it—not even my wife. But I never forgot.”

  “I see.”

  “I owe Her everything. And I owe you all the rest. One of the first things I did when I started up my business—twelve years now, thanks to you—was set up a service that sends me clippings from a whole lot of regional papers. I gave ’em a list of names and places—most of them meaningless, just covers. But the ones that mattered were those I remembered from that night: Beddoes. Evans. Trevor. Fordingham. I had a few articles about Victor Trevor—your friend, that would be. He went to India to raise tea, and died a few years back.”

  “Yes.”

  “The name ‘Beddoes’ came up from time to time, but just as a place, not a person. The man himself seems to have left England about then, but his name stayed behind, and every so often there’d be a mention of the Beddoes Estate, near Fordingham. He didn’t have family, so when he vanished, it took forever to sort out who owned it. Some third cousin or something. Anyway, a few months ago—October, I think it was—the land around the house was finally sold. A month after that, there was a small piece saying some builders would be putting in a lot of suburban villas—a couple factories had set up in Fordingham, which is on a nice convenient line to Southampton.

  “When they were clearing ground, just after the first of the year, they turned up a skeleton.”

  “Oh.”

  “ ‘Skeleton Found in Beddoes Estate, Near Gamekeeper’s Cottage.’ It made for a minor sensation, since estimate put the body as being buried more or less when Beddoes himself vanished, forty-five years ago. Though on
ce they decided this wasn’t him but some pauper with bad teeth, the papers lost interest.”

  “You kept well clear of it, I imagine?”

  “You bet. Wouldn’t want the police wondering why Billy Mudd was sniffin’ around.”

  “Very good. And, Mr Mudd: was there a reason you came in your motor instead of the train? You’d have left approximately the same time, and got here slightly earlier.”

  Billy smiled a bit at this apparent non sequitur. “Not much gets past you, Mr Holmes. Yes, it did occur to me that you might want to do a little sniffing yourself. And that might be easier behind the wind-screens of my motorcar.”

  Holmes closed his eyes. He sat back against the bench.

  “If a ransom call comes…”

  The odour of hawthorn blossom drifted over the wall; sheep blatted at each other from down the lane. After a time, Billy asked, “If the call came, would you trust Mrs Hudson to handle it?”

  “Yes.” Not a speck of hesitation, Billy noticed. He waited some more, then said, “I can pop down to Fordingham, if you like. Ask around about the skeleton.”

  Holmes stayed motionless, legs outstretched and hands linked over his shirt-front, the late afternoon sun against his closed eyelids. A person might have thought him relaxed were it not for the raised tendons along the backs of his hands and the faint, rhythmic quiver of his right foot. There was an almost audible hum of tension from the man.

  He broke the silence with a question. “Do you know the very worst kind of crime? The one that families never get over?”

  Billy knew many such, but he replied obediently, “Which is that?”

  “The unsolved disappearance. Murder is foul, but a loss with no answer is a wound that remains forever raw and bleeding.”

  Billy gaped, open-mouthed, at his mentor’s devastating confession. Holmes sat forward, tugging his shirt cuff down over the gauze beneath. “Patrick Mason and Lestrade’s man should be able to keep Mrs Hudson from harm. And if I sit and wait for a telephone call, I may in fact slit my wrists before it comes.”

  “Do we tell her about Samuel?”