vehicle of some kind and drove away.'
'And you needed to see the prints by daylight to be certain that the set running down the middle was indeed backwards?'
'Precisely. You have seen my monograph on footprints, Forty-Seven Methods of Concealing One's Trail? No?
In it I mention that I have used various means of reversing footprints and, as you saw Tuesday morning, hiding one inside another, but there seem to be flaws detectable to the careful eye. Another article I am working on is concerned with the innate differences between the male and female footprint. Have I shown that to you? No, of course, you've been away. I have found that no matter what kind of shoe is on the foot, the lie of the toes and the way the heel hits the ground differ between the sexes. I took the idea from a conversation we once had. At night, I suspected. After your find, and after I had seen the footprints by day, I knew. This is a woman, five and a half feet tall, and slim — less than eight stone. She may be blonde — '
'Just may be?'
'Just may be,' he repeated. 'She is intelligent, well-read, and has a particularly grotesque and creative sense of humour.'
'The note, you mean?'
'I was aware of it before that arrived. You know my monograph on London soils?'
'Notes on Some Distinctive Characteristics — ' I began.
'That one, yes. I have not demanded of you an expertise in the study of London, but as you know, I spent most of my life there before I retired. I breathed her air, I trod her ground, and I knew her like — as a husband knows his wife.' I did not react to the simile, despite the Hebraic overtones to the verb 'know.'
'Some of her soils I can identify by eye, others need a microscope. The soil I found in the cab and on the washbasin was a not-uncommon variety. My own lodgings in Baker Street were built on top of such a soil, but it crops up in several places, each distinguishable one from the other only by very close examination under a strong lens.'
'And the mud on Small Boots came from Baker Street.'
'How did you know?' he said with a smile.
'Lucky guess,' I answered drily. He raised an eyebrow.
'Low jokes do not suit you, Russell.'
'Sorry. But what does the fact that she chose to walk through Baker Street before going to the park have to do with it?'
'You tell me,' he demanded, in a thin echo from a spring day long, long ago.
Obediently I set to reviewing the entire episode, running my mind over the facts like a tongue over teeth, searching for a gap in the smooth, hard surfaces. The mud, which was on the path, in the cab, on the seats (On the seats? my mind whispered.), down the path (Is that not a great deal of mud?), and in the Ladies' (grotesque and creative sense of humour) on the floor, in the washbasin (the basin? That means —)
'It was on her hand, the mud. Her left hand, and the right boot.' I stopped, disbelieving, and looked at Holmes. His grey eyes were positively dancing. 'She replenished the mud, to keep the path obvious. This whole episode — it was deliberately staged. She wants you to know that she was there, and she put the Baker Street mud on her shoe to thumb her nose at you. She even washed her hands of it in the Ladies' to leave you that datum, if you hadn't already worked out that he was a she. I can't believe it — no one could be mad enough to mock you like that.
What kind of game is she playing?'
'A decidedly unpleasant sort of a game, with three bombs and a death thus far, but I agree, the style of humour is a match with the clothing parcel and the exploding beehive.
One is forced to wonder — ' he mused, and his voice drifted away. 'Yes?' I encouraged.
'Nothing, Russell. Merely speculation without data, a fruitless exercise at the best of times. I was reflecting that the only truly superior mind I have encountered among the criminal classes was Moriarty, which ill equips me for the possibility of subtlety in our current foe. Were I quite certain of, for example, the intent of the marksman who shot at us in Lestrade's office, or of Dickson's efforts, or even — Yes, I suppose — ' He drifted off again.
'Holmes, do I understand you aright? That the actions against us were not actually intended to be deadly?'
'Oh, deadly, certainly, though perhaps not merely deadly. But yes, you understand me. I mistrust a series of failures when the author otherwise gives signs of great competence.
Accidents are not unknown, but I dislike coincidences, and I deny out of hand the existence of a guardian angel. Yes,' he said thoughtfully, and I winced as I heard his next phrase coming, 'it is quite a pretty problem.'
'Quite a three-piper, eh Holmes?' I said in hearty jocularity. He could be the most irritating individual.
'No, no, not yet. Nicotinic meditation serves to clarify the known facts, not pull them out of thin air. I do not feel we have all the facts.'
'Very well, but surely you can speculate in generalities.
If she didn't wish to kill us, what are her intentions?'
'I did not say she does not intend to kill us, just possibly not yet. If for the sake of hypothesis we assume that what has occurred over the course of the last few days is more or less what she had in mind, then we are left with three possible inferences: one, that she does not want us all actually dead at this moment; two, that she wishes us to be fully aware of an intelligent, dedicated, resourceful, and implacable enemy breathing almost literally down our collars; and three, that she wants us either to go to ground or leave England.' 'And isn't that what we're doing?'
'Indeed,' he said complacently.
'I — ' I stopped, shut my mouth, waited.
'Her actions tell me that it is what she wants me to do. She knows me well enough to assume that I will perceive her intent and refuse to cooperate. Therefore I shall do what she wants.'
I decided finally that the brandy was to blame for the dullness of my logical faculties, for though I was certain that there was a basic fallacy in his reasoning, I could not put my finger on precisely the juncture. I shook my head and plunged on.
'Why not just disappear for a few days? It is really necessary to — '
'Take flight?' he supplied. 'Beat a hasty retreat? Run away? You're quite right. This morning I should have agreed that a few days' retreat to Mycroft's flat or one of my bolt-holes was sufficient for regrouping.' (I shuddered here at the thought of being confined with Holmes in the Storage Room for any length of time.) 'But today's events have proven me wrong. Not the clothing parcel — that was a clever joke. Even the shoes, though sinister, could be got around. But — that bullet. It nearly hit you. I believe it was meant to,' he said, and although he did not look at me, the control in his voice and the small twitch in the right side of his mouth spoke volumes of the rage and apprehension this threat set off in him. To cover his gaffe he rose in a jerk and began to stride up and down, his hands behind him as if tucked beneath the tails of a frock coat, the smouldering pipe he still gripped endangering his clothing.
Words tumbled out of him as he paced, spoken in his high voice as if berating himself.
'I begin to feel like a piece of driftwood tumbling about between waves and sand, snatched up and tossed ftom one place to anothet. It is a most disconcerting feeling.
Were I alone I might almost be tempted to let myself be tumbled, just to see where I washed up. That, however, is not an option. 'What then are the options? Offensive — an all-out attack? On what? Beating at mist with a cricket bat. Defense?
How does one defend against a mirror-image? She has read Watson's tales, and my bee book, the monographs on soil and footprints — not available to the general public — and God knows what else. A woman! She has turned my own words against me, caused me considerable mental and physical distress, kept me off my balance for five whole days, chased and harried me across my home territory until I am forced to go to ground — to sea. Do you know — ' he broke off, and whirled around to shake an outraged pipe stem at me, 'this — person has even penetrated into one of my bolt-holes! Yes, today, there were signs — I still cannot believe that a woman can have done this, deducing my deductions, plotting my moves for me, and all the time giving the impression that to her it is a deadly but effortless and highly amusing game. Even Moriarty did not go so far, and he was a master
