with the things he had witnessed, longed to collapse into sleep for a day and a night, yet equally clearly he was only here temporarily, for his shoulders were braced against the labours to come.
Speaking over his shoulder, Holmes said, “I should like to borrow one of these photographs, if I may? I shall take care to return it undamaged.”
“Certainly,” the old woman replied.
Only then did Holmes stand upright, taking the album back to the table to allow her to turn the remaining pages, none of which proved of any interest to him. He turned back to the picture showing Judith Russell, eased it out of its mounts, and laid it before the old woman.
“That is Judith Russell. What can you tell me about her?”
“A very fine young woman, full of spirit. English, she was—you'd have expected her to be one of those who found the conditions trying, who burst into tears and wrung their hands uselessly at the merest nothing. I remember, one silly young thing found lice in her son's hair a few days after the fire, and collapsed into utter hysterics. And it was Mrs Russell with her fancy accent who put the girl back together again, getting her calm, sending for the barber, helping her boil the child's bedding. Most of the families left fairly quickly, as soon as they could find other arrangements and store their valuables. Others moved in as soon as the tents went vacant, of course—persons whose homes were in areas less prosperous than Pacific Heights.” She laughed suddenly, her eyes sparkling. “I remember when a bevy of ladies of the evening from the Tenderloin arrived and began to set up . . . Well, they were not made welcome by the local residents, and were sent on their way. A pity, really, they were much more cheerful than my neighbours by that point.”
“Miss Adderley, do you recall any incident in particular, involving a strange man coming to the Russell tent?”
“There may have been any number—my tent was in a different area of the park, and after the first days I spent most of my time down in neighbourhoods that needed help, serving soup and distributing bread.”
“I understand,” he said, taking care not to show disappointment. However, she was not finished.
“There was a thing I heard about, walking one morning with some of the women down to where the bread was distributed. I am not absolutely certain that it concerned the Russells, you understand, but I believe it may have. It had happened the previous evening, three or four days after the earthquake itself, because the fire was out and the rain had just started. Might that have been the Sunday? Yes, I believe so. At first, the rains were welcome—we gathered it in buckets, the children ran about wildly, all we ladies washed our hair. But that evening, very early, everyone retreated inside their tents—what with the huge relief of knowing that the fires were at an end, and the blessedness of having shelter, and general exhaustion, this visitor came and found most everyone inside, so that he'd had to ask his way. He stopped at one tent, and the woman's children were asleep so she stepped outside to answer him quietly. She said he was dressed like a tramp, all dirt and mismatched garments. However, that would have described most of us by that time, and underneath everything he seemed polite and nicely spoken, so when he asked where Charles Russell might be found, she directed him to the Russells' tent and stood in her door-way to see that he found the right one.
“As soon as she heard the little girl scream, she knew what had happened, and she felt just terrible. Not to have warned the man first, you see. He'd very clearly been caught in a fire, possibly some sort of explosion—you know how a puff of burning gasoline can singe off eyelashes? Well, that's what had happened to this poor fellow. Swollen eyes, raw-looking skin, and no hair at all, lashes, brows, and even the front part of his head that his hat didn't cover. And he'd smeared some sort of white ointment on it as well—he startled this lady, so he must have scared the little Russell girl half to death. I can't think . . . Why are you smiling?”
“My . . . client remembered what she called a ‘faceless man.' I think you've just found him for me.”
“An apt description, I should think. We depend largely on hair for facial definition, do we not?”
“What about his beard?”
“I don't know that she mentioned a beard. But then, lack of a beard is not as startling as a lack of eyebrows, is it?”
No, thought Holmes, but it would take severe burns indeed to prevent a man's beard from growing in, and a man “all dirt and mismatched garments” would be unlikely to have visited a barber for a shave—to say nothing of submitting his burns to that degree of discomfort. Which would suggest that either the burns were recently acquired (and this was twenty-four hours after the fires were quenched), or that Russell's “faceless man” was a person without much of a beard in the first place.
Miss Adderley had begun to flag. Her back was as straight as ever, but the creases beside her mouth were growing pronounced and she had interlaced her fingers as if to keep them from trembling. Any moment the maid would burst in and send him packing.
Best to be found already preparing to leave.
He slid the photograph carefully into his breast pocket. “I shall bring this back as soon as I've had it copied.”
“Take your time, Mr Holmes. And feel free to come back anytime. You will generally find me at home.”
“May I also ask, Miss Adderley, do you know of any other persons from the tent village who might still live in the city?”
“Off-hand, I can't think of any,” she said, her voice quivering faintly with tiredness.
“Perhaps you'll think of someone. If you do, a note to the St Francis will reach me.”
He rose and bent over her hand like a courtier, then walked across the quiet room to the door. It opened before he could lay his hand on the knob, but his departure was interrupted by the thin voice from behind him.
“She's not your client, is she? Is she your wife, or your . . . ‘friend'?”
“Both,” Holmes told her.
The old eyes closed, and the withered lips curved up at the corners.
“Good,” she said.
Chapter Fourteen
Holmes strode fast along the streets, the houses around him growing obscure with dusk and incoming mist. A fog-horn had begun its periodic moan from the north and the passing motorcars had lit their head-lamps. He turned the corner, his eyes seeking out the jungle-shrouded house, expecting to see the windows dark and to find the doors locked tight: He'd been longer with Miss Adderley than he had intended.
However, the narrow window set into the front door glowed dully, and when he stood before it he could see the light coming from the back of the house. He tried the knob, and gave an approving grunt: At least she'd had the sense to lock it.
He rapped one knuckle onto the door and waited, long enough to be visited by a brief pulse of alarm. His hand was going out for the raucous bell when the light dimmed as Russell stepped into the door-way of her father's library. She had, inevitably, a book in her hand, closed over one finger as she walked down the hall-way to work the bolts on the door.
“Hullo, Holmes. I thought you'd gone back to the hotel.”
“I rather hoped you might be interested in a meal.”
“Oh. Goodness,” she said, peering over his shoulder at the gathering darkness. “It's later than I realised. Yes, I suppose I'm more or less finished here. Let me just get a couple of things.”
Holmes ran an analytic eye over the signs of her passage through her parents' home: The drawer in the small inlaid table near the front door was ajar; the various decorative jars and boxes inhabiting the shelves in the morning room had all been disturbed, as well as the cubby-holes and drawers of her mother's writing desk in the front window. The blotting-paper there had even been turned over, although the stack of glass plates containing the
