'Never mind. Tomorrow is another day.'
'Are you returning to Cambridgeshire tomorrow?'
'No. The work there is finished.' He did not mean the wallpaper.
'Good.'
'Go to sleep now. I shall finish this pipe, I think.'
'Stay here.'
'I won't disturb you?'
'To the contrary.'
'Ah. I have felt your absence as well, Russell. Sleep well.'
I drifted away into confused thoughts of indomitable old ladies and monocled young aristocrats, and the heavy pipe smoke seemed to tingle on the inside of my right wrist. In the muzziness that comes just before sleep, the incongruous statement Holmes had made earlier came back to mind, and I knew where I had heard it.
'Good Lord, Holmes!' I exclaimed, brought up out of sleep.
'Yes, Russell?'
'Since when do you go in for Gilbert and Sullivan?'
'Of all the unpleasant acts I have been forced to perform in the course of an investigation, trailing a suspect who was addicted to light opera and vaudeville was one of the most depraved. I might ask the same of you, Russell.'
'The girl who lived down the hall had a beau in a D'Oyley Carte production of the
'Was that the hypochondriac whose bandages we stole?'
'No, the one with the brandy that tasted of petrol.'
'That explains it, then.'
'Good night, Holmes.'
'Mmm.'
TWENTY
The following morning, I woke at first light, to find Holmes still curled up in the chair, his eyes far away. The only signs that he had moved during the night were the saucer on the arm of his chair (heaped with burnt matches and pipe dottles), the faint stir of the curtains (where he had thoughtfully cracked open the window to prevent our suffocation), and the small notebook of writing samples on the bedside table (which I had left in the chest of drawers). I could almost see the thin film of greasy smoke on the walls, and I shuddered as I pulled the blankets back over my head in protest.
'You look like a vulture sitting there, Holmes,' I growled. Four hours' sleep makes me irritable. The last of the objects I had noticed galvanised a faint activity in my brain cells.
'What is your judgement on the writing?' I asked with eyes firmly closed.
'Your papyrus is definitely from a woman's hand.'
'Good. Wake me at seven.'
There was no answer, but a minute or so later, a horrible, cold, bristly male person insinuated itself into my cozy nest, stinking faintly of cheap gin and strongly of stale tobacco.
'My dear, sweet wife,' it murmured into my tightly blanketed ear.
'No!'
'Russell, my dear.'
'Absolutely not.'
'Wife of my age, I am going to give you another opportunity to solve this case of yours.'
'At this very moment?'
'This afternoon.'
I pulled the bedclothes down a fraction and eyed him.
'How?'
'You will go to see Miss Sarah Chessman.'
'The witness?' The blankets fell away. 'But she's been questioned a number of times. She can't remember a thing.'
'She couldn't remember for the police, no.' His voice was curiously, ominously gentle. 'Perhaps she needs to be asked by someone who knows how best to release answers that lie buried deep in the mind.'
I knew instantly what he was talking about, and a cold finger trickled up my spine.
'Oh no, Holmes,' I whispered. 'Really, no. I couldn't. Don't ask that of me. Please.'
'I am not asking anything of you, Russell.' His voice was steady and soft, and he knew precisely what he was doing. 'I simply thought that if it helped her remember what happened that night, you might think it worthwhile. It is your decision.'
'You— Holmes, you utter bastard. Goddamn it, why don't you do it? All you do is play dress-up and prune roses and root around nice tidy automobile salvage yards while I vamp that man and dodge his son's slimy hands, all for nothing, and then you tell me to go mucking around in someone else's nightmare and— oh God.' I sat back against the head of the bed and took a deep breath. 'Sorry. I am sorry, Holmes. You're right. You're always right, damn you.' I turned to him, and lay listening to the steady rhythm of his heart and lungs. 'We're down to very little else, aren't we?'
'I honestly do not know. I ought to have kept the evidence I gave Lestrade and worked on it myself. I am seized by the idea that they will make some terrible missteps. Police laboratories can be either as inexorable as doomsday or as flighty as a cage of butterflies, and one never knows. We can wait and see what they produce with those bits of chromium and enamel. Juries do so like motives, though. I cannot escape that thought. But you are right, Russell, there is no reason to rush into the interview with Miss Chessman. No reason at all. And even if the laboratory finds nothing concrete enough to convict on, there is still a choice. Always we have the choice of turning back. The woman is already dead, and I cannot see anyone else being killed if her murderer isn't caught.'
I raised up and looked at him, and I saw myself reflected in his grey eyes.
'I can't believe I heard that,' I said. 'You must believe me fragile indeed to have even thought of it. Of course we go on. We have no choice. The choice was made weeks ago, when we invited her to Sussex. That doesn't mean I have to like it, though.'
'No, it does not mean that. You'll think about seeing Miss Chessman?'
'I'll go this evening, when she gets home from work.'
He said nothing, just warmed me until it was time for me to leave for work. Why I was returning to the Edwards house, I was not certain, as it was fairly obvious now that the trail led elsewhere. Partly, it was that I had said I would be there, and explanations on the telephone might prove difficult. There was also the fact that I did not wish to waste the work I had done in Oxford the day before, and I felt some responsibility to the book. Mostly, though, it gave me something to do to take my mind off of the cold pit in my stomach. I dreaded my own past and the pain that could well be dredged up while helping Miss Chessman recover her memories of Dorothy Ruskin's death. Coping with Edwards and son would keep the cold sweats at bay.
I determinedly kept the colonel to the book all morning, and by the time Alex rang for lunch, I had given him the outline, two sample chapters, and the name of an editor whom a friend in my college had recommended for the purpose. Over lunch, I told the colonel that I was being called back home and would have to leave London by the end of the week, most terribly sorry. I was glad that young Gerald was not around.
'Mary, look, is it because—'
'No, Colonel, it is not because of anything you have or have not done. Or your son, for that matter. I have enjoyed working here, and I hoped more would come of it. In fact, I think we could have become friends.' A statement, I realised, that gave a half truth, an emphatic truth, and, to my own surprise, a further truth. 'I did not realise that my prior commitments would return to claim me quite so soon, and I'm sorry about it all.'
'No apologies necessary, Mary. You are a most mysterious lady, though. I wish I had come to know you better. Would that be possible, do you think?'
'Colonel, I doubt that you'd like what you learnt. But, yes, perhaps I shall reappear, mysteriously, if you like. Now, I wanted to talk to you about that fifth chapter. I really do think you should consider a few pages on family structure and the subtler powers of the woman in Egyptian society....'
