A Monstrous Regiment of Women (20 page)

When we were thrown out for the afternoon closing, we stood blinking on the street, somewhat at a loss. The fourth member of the party, the one whose hand had so imperiously halted my progress, was a gangling young baronet, still an undergraduate, with a passion for both Einstein and a sweet-smelling blend of pipe tobacco, and an unexpected talent for brilliant puns and obscene limericks. I had known and liked him, as a friend, for eighteen months. This young man took a pipe from a tweed pocket, eyed it with mistrust, and put it back unlit.

“So, chaps. Back to the House to continue this mad debauchery, or some fresh air?”

We decided on both, a wide circle up through the Parks and down Mesopotamia, across the High and along the Cherwell, bleak and denuded of its summer wildlife of punters and ducklings, and down to the Isis, where darkness and a shower of sleet caught up with us almost simultaneously and sent us racing up the meadow to the shelter of the stairway. We burst into the warm rooms with an explosion of good spirits, coats and scarfs grew into a mountain on the floor, the baronet sent his scout off for hot drinks and poured us each a glass of cold fire, and we were all four of us brimming with an immense and inexpressible well-being.

It was Phoebe, inevitably, who gave voice to it.

“God, I’m so sick of work! I want to walk and walk until my fingers freeze and my feet blister and I fall into a room with a fire as if it were Paradise.” Then, after hearing what she had said, she asked, “Why not? Why don’t we?”

“Because it’s raining out there, my dearest Phoebe,” drawled the baronet. “And I want my tea.”

“Not tonight; I don’t mean tonight. But soon. Tomorrow? Why not tomorrow? Before term sets in again. Mary, shake away dull sloth, set an icy broom to the mental cobwebs. Just what you need.”

Phoebe’s irresponsible, imprudent, preposterous suggestion dropped into a ripe medium and bloomed brilliantly in my mind. With a flavour of throwing over traces and the logic of alcohol behind it, I agreed immediately, and the two genial men fell in. It was decided: A lengthy cross-country ramble was just the thing, for the four of us, as soon as possible. Tomorrow, in fact. We would meet at St. Sepulchre’s cemetery, to set a cheery tone on our departure, at eight o’clock, walk up the river as far as our feet should take us, and stop the night at an inn or house, then walk back on Friday. If it rained, well, we should just get wet.

The next morning, I woke knowing I’d been a fool and knowing it was far too late to withdraw. I made haste to throw everything warm I owned into my worn rucksack and set off at a run to the cemetery.

We did get wet, but not disgustingly so. We followed the loops of the Isis upriver as it wound through the fields. In the afternoon, we came to a promising inn, ate a surprisingly good dinner, and drank too much. Phoebe and I tossed for the narrow bed, and I lost, but there were comforters enough to soften the floor. I fell asleep, beautifully tired and slightly drunk, and was awakened at three in the morning by a pounding on our door. I staggered across, wrapped still in a feather comforter, and peered out. My glasses were behind me in my boot, but I could make out the face of our host, irate and disheveled in the light of his lamp.

“Is one of you lot named Mary something?” he demanded. My heart tried to sink at the same time as it began to accelerate.

“I’m Mary Russell.”

“That’s it. There’s a person outside, knocked me up at this gawdforsaken hour sayin’ as how he absolutely had to talk to you, though why ’e can’t wait for a decent hour I’m sure I—” I shut the door on his complaints and scrambled for clothing. Heavy jersey over my head, I stubbed my toe on my boots and rescued my spectacles, began to put on my woollen trousers and got them started back to front, but by that time, Phoebe, calm and efficient, had the candles lit and I could see.

“What is it, Mary?”

“Some kind of emergency for me. I’m going to see.”

“Shall I come?”

“Good heavens no. No reason for all of us to climb into wet clothes in the middle of the night. I’ll be back in a tick.”

“Take your walking stick,” she ordered. “A strange man, at this hour.”

It was easier to obey than explain.

Mine host led me down the narrow stairs to the door—he had actually left my messenger standing on the step. It was raining again, but despite the garments, I did not think I knew the figure huddled there.

“Holmes?” I said doubtfully.

The man turned, and I did know him, but only just.

“It’s Billy, isn’t it?” Once an Irregular, then Holmes’ long-ago messenger boy from the Baker Street days, and even now in middle age an enthusiastic assistant in London adventures. He looked completely out of place here.

“Yes, mum.”

I reached out and hauled him into the inn, ignoring the splutters of the innkeeper. Billy peeled off his hat and woollen scarf, looked around for a place to put them and then dropped them on the floor, and began to unbutton his overcoat with blue fingers. I dug into my pocket and thrust a bill of some denomination or other into the innkeeper’s hand. His protests cut off sharply.

“A fire, if you please. And hot drink, and food.”

“Yes, miss. Right away, miss.”

“Miss Russell, I have orders to take you to Town, immediately I find you.”

“Speed will not be improved by your turning to ice,” I pointed out, “and I have no boots on. Are you alone?”

“My brother’s outside,” he muttered, and finally succeeded in opening his coat. He groped into an upper pocket and came out with an envelope. I took it but did not open it.

“How did you find me?”

“They told me at your house you’d set off on a walking tour, planned on putting in for the night along the way. There were twenty-eight other places I asked before this one.” The memory of twenty-nine sets of furious landlords was not, it seemed, a pretty one, and I was struck by the vision of two Cockneys hunting through the wilds of Oxfordshire in a London taxi, pounding on door after enraged door.

“Why didn’t—oh, never mind. Here’s something hot. I’ll call your brother in. No, you dry out a bit.” The envelope in my hand, I put my head out into the rain and gave a low whistle, and the driver of the cab was soon huddled beside his brother in front of the fire, drinking a horrid mixture of tea and brandy while their coats steamed. Only then did I put my thumb into the envelope and tear open the flap. I read, in Holmes’ cramped and hurried hand:

Veronica Beaconsfield had a nearly fatal accident on the Underground today (Thursday) at four o’clock. Her doctor says she will recover. She’s in Guys, room 356. I’ve dug Watson out to stick to her.

So much for my walking tour. So much for the resumption of my real life. I went up for my kit and followed Billy and his brother out to the incongruous, mud-spattered black taxi.

My friend Ronnie lay in her private room, bandage and plaster and a few inches of skin. The grizzled figure beside her bed looked up as the door opened, and I knew that under the coat lying across his knees there was an old Army revolver pointing at me. His face lightened immediately and he got to his feet, leaving the coat on the chair. I stepped back into the corridor so as not to disturb Veronica.

“Mary! I was beginning to wonder if the lad had fallen into the Irish Sea.”

“The lad,” Billy, being old enough to be my father.

“Hello, Uncle John. It was good of you to turn out at this hour.” I kissed his smooth cheek. He’d taken time to shave, which indicated that Holmes had stayed with Veronica himself for some time before asking Watson to report for guard duty. “Where is he?”

“Holmes? Don’t know. Around somewhere. He’ll probably look in towards morning. Any time now. How have you been, Mary? Did you have a good Christmas? And I missed your birthday, but I have a little something for you, brought it back from Philadelphia. Lovely town, that.”

“Oh, yes? Er, thanks, and Christmas was fine.” I couldn’t remember Christmas just at that moment. “How is Veronica? Do you know what happened?”

“Seems to have fallen in front of a train coming into an Underground station. Elephant and Castle, was it? Or Borough? No, the Elephant and Castle station. Concussion, broken arm, lots of scrapes and bruises. Nothing bad, lucky girl. Shockingly easy to happen. Still, Holmes seemed to think it mightn’t have been an accident, so I’m playing nursemaid for a few hours. Her people were here, and a young man with Holmes, but no one else, just the nurses. Until you, of course.”

“Look, Uncle John, he was right. We can’t take chances. Even… even the hospital staff. Keep a close eye, and if anything doesn’t seem right—an unnecessary procedure, an injection—don’t let them do it until you check.”

“You and Holmes.” He shook his head. “The two of you think I’m new to the game. I’m not about to let a stranger inject her with a lethal dose just because he’s wearing a white coat. Me, of all people! Your Miss Beaconsfield is safe. Now run along and get yourself cleaned up before they catch sight of those boots and throw you out of here.”

I decided that Holmes was right to trust Watson and that there was nothing I could do for Veronica here. I turned to go, but Watson made that noise beloved of Army colonels— which can best be transcribed as “harrumph”—so I paused.

“By the way, er, Mary, has Holmes brought up… That is, did he say anything to you about, aharrumph, well… fairies?”

“
Fairies
?” Holmes had many arcane interests, but nursery tales were a new one to me.

“Yes, you know, fairies, dancing, with wings and… you know, wings and things.” He waved his hand vaguely and looked uncomfortable.

“I haven’t seen a great deal of him lately, but when I did, he never mentioned them. Why should he?”

“You haven’t seen it, then. It truly was not my fault,” he burst out, “and if I had been consulted, I certainly should have objected. I have already complained strongly to the editors, but they say I have no recourse, since he’s only my agent.”

I seized on the last word.

“Are you talking about Doyle? What has he done?”

He groaned miserably. “I cannot bear to talk about it. Holmes was insufferably rude to me, said I’d ruined his career by getting mixed up with the man, said no one will ever take him seriously again.”

“I’m certain he meant no such thing, Uncle John. You, of all people, ought to know how he is. He’ll have forgotten it in a week.” Whatever ‘it’ was.

“It’s been two weeks; he was barely civil when he asked me to come here. Truly,” he pleaded, “there was not a thing I could have done.”

“I’ll talk to him about it,” I said soothingly, but if anything, his agitation increased.

“No! No, you mustn’t. He’s not rational on the subject, believe me, Mary. Say nothing about fairies, or Doyle, or
The Strand
. Or about me.”

“Fine, Uncle John, I’ll take care. And don’t worry, it will come out right in the end.”

Puzzled, I took my leave, and walked out of the hospital without, I think, any obvious haste. Even Watson, who knew me well, could not have guessed that the very sight of a hospital set my flesh to creeping. Even long days of VAD work during the war hadn’t cured me. Such was my haste that the street sweeper outside the hospital had practically to trip me with his broom to catch my attention, despite the fact that I had known he would be there, in some guise or other.

He did not look at me, but dumped the frayed and much-mended broom into its slot on his trolley and ran a disgusting glove under his nose. I nearly missed his muttered “London Bridge Station, first bench on the right” before he began to cough, great rheumy coughs. I left before the act grew any more graphic.

The morning paper I bought outside the station had a small notice about Veronica’s accident on a back page. I sat reading my way towards the front, noting the reports from the hunting field (the Prince of Wales had been out with the Warwickshire, and they’d taken three foxes. Brought from a zoo and loosed that morning, I thought sourly). A “Jurywomen’s First Murder Trial” would see those good pioneers in the judicial world locked up for the night, alongside the male jurors, in an hotel in Aylesbury. Someone was using a live relic of the Boer War as a doorstop. The drawing of a light frock with an unlikely hat was entitled “Tailor-made for the Riviera.” I had passed on to the ever-cryptic and often sinister messages of the agony column before a heavy and unpleasantly odorous body dropped beside me. I shook the paper in indignation and slid away, burying my face more deeply into its pages.

“You’re back sooner than you thought, Holmes. Why aren’t you in Marseilles?”

“Even I cannot productively interview dead men, Russell. Someone reached the three witnesses before I did.”

I tried to look at him around my newspaper, which was fluttering uncontrollably in the breeze. I shook it upright in irritation.

“Is this subterfuge necessary, Holmes? I feel a fool. Next thing, we’ll be establishing passwords.”

“Perhaps it is not, but earlier there was a watcher at the hospital. He followed Miles Fitzwarren’s taxi—don’t drop the paper, for pity’s sake!—so we shall have to move him, as well.” Holmes’ voice was slurred—from wearing a set of toothcaps, no doubt—and then became more so as he bit into a sandwich (bacon, from the smell of it—how could he chew bacon with false teeth?). “Miss Beaconsfield will be safe for a few days, but Fitzwarren and I shall go to her parents and convince them that she needs to be put into private care. That ought to clear the decks for action.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Go back to the Temple. The answer is there.”

“What about the police?”

“What about them?”

“Shouldn’t they be notified?”

“What an admirable citizen you can be,” remarked the filthy, unshaven man beside me, around a mouthful of sandwich. “By all means, do go visit your friend Inspector Lestrade. He’d be terribly interested.”

“For goodness sake, Holmes, be serious.”

“You may be right,” he said, to my astonishment. “Miss Beaconsfield cannot be moved for at least three or four days, and Watson will be wearing a bit thin by then. May as well put the official force at her bedside. One could only wish the Met weren’t so confoundedly possessive about their crimes. They’ll be very uncooperative when we refuse to divulge where we’ve spirited her away to. Still, it’s no crime to aid a victim or investigate a church, not yet.”