A Letter of Mary by Laurie R. King Read Free Book Online Page B

this afternoon, madam."

    "The room will be needed until Sunday," I said firmly, and took a bank note from my bag. "Will that cover it?"

    "Yes, indeed it will, madam, but—"

    "Good, then I'd like the room left as it is until then, please. No one is to enter it."

    "Very good, madam," he said dubiously. "May I ask, did madam find her aunt?"

    "Oh yes, I found her, I'm afraid. Now there's the problem of what to do about her."

    "I beg your pardon?"

    "Nothing. Good day."

    I ignored his uncertain protests and questions, turned, and walked quickly out onto the street. As I approached the corner where Dorothy Ruskin had died, I saw the spare figure of Holmes, leaning against the ugly yellow wall from which he had extracted the wool fibres. He was reading a newspaper, the Morning Post by the look of it. At the sight of his shoulders, my heart lifted— he, too, had been successful. I waited for a gap in the traffic and stepped briskly down from the pavement.

    Halfway across, my momentum faltered. Within the space of two steps, I came to a frozen halt, mesmerised by the sight before my eyes. The vertical edge of the approaching kerb was splattered by what looked like a glaze of reddish brown paint but which I knew with utter certainty most horribly was not. The street and the paving stones had been scrubbed down, but the edge had been overlooked, and the sun caught with nauseating clarity the thick blobs of colour, broken in the middle by lines where the sluicing water had made runnels, fading after a few feet to smears and splashes and drips. The strip of stained paving loomed up huge across my vision, and for a brief instant I seemed to glimpse white hair falling in a circle of streetlight, starting to rise, a flare of headlamps and a dimly seen figure crouched against the wall, heard a roar of sudden acceleration and the squeal of tires and the heavy wet sound of metal meeting flesh, and the roar built into a dizzying, pounding noise in my ears that took over all sight, thought, awareness.

    I have never fainted in my life, but I would have done so on that street corner had it not been for the abrupt pain of an iron grasp on my arm and Holmes speaking fiercely in my ear.

    "Good Lord, Russell, are you trying to reenact the accident? Come, you need to sit down. There's a café down the street."

    Movement, faces peering, a deep and shaky breath and the roaring sound fading, Holmes' grip on my upper arm.

    "Now sit down. I'll return in a minute."

    Seated. Seeing the intricacy of white threads, interwoven, over, under, over in the cloth; two small perfect crumbs; the distorted face of an immensely pale blond woman in spectacles from the bowl of a spoon. I closed my eyes.

    The gentle iron fingers returned, on my shoulder; a rattle of china came from in front of me. "Drink this." A hot cup was between my inexplicably cold fingers; scalding rich coffee and the fumes of brandy hit my throat and head in a rush of life. I sat for some minutes, eyes closed and two strong fingers steady on the back of my wrist. The urge to tremble lessened, then passed. I took a deep breath, glanced over at my companion, and reached for the coffee spoon to give my hands something to do.

    "Did you have any of your breakfast this morning, Russell?" I shook my head briefly. "I thought not. Here, eat. Then we can talk."

    Plates began to appear, and I forced some warm bread and oniony soup into my throat, and after a few swallows it was easier. Over the cheese, I looked up with a crooked smile.

    "I'm sorry, Holmes. I saw ... there was blood on the kerbstone."

    "Yes, I noticed. There is no need to apologise."

    "I feel extremely foolish."

    "The violent death of a good person is a severely disturbing thing, Russell," he said calmly. "Now, what did you find?"

    In a moment, with an effort, I matched his tone.

    "Her room. A maid, who told me without telling me that the room had been searched, carefully, between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning.