A Letter of Mary - Laurie R. King [107]
"Of course we see that, Lestrade. Never mind, you'll get them eventually. Patience is a necessary virtue. Keep us informed, would you?"
We collected our possessions from Mycroft, and we slunk home.
PART SIX
Wednesday, 5 September 1923-
Saturday, 8 September 1923
The letter kills, but the spirit gives life.
— The First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians 3:6
TWENTY-THREE
psi
It was a sorry pair of detectives who rode the train south towards Eastbourne. I felt dreary and drained and utterly without interest in matters criminal or academic. Holmes, controlled as ever, looked merely determined, but there lay about him the distinct odour of brutally quenched campfire.
With an effort, I pulled myself out of this stupor. Oh goodness, Russell, I expostulated, it's hardly the end of the world, or even the end of the case. A temporary check in the hunt, no more. Lestrade will surely ...
I had not realised I was speaking aloud until Holmes shot me a frigid glance.
"Yes, Russell? Lestrade will surely what? Oh yes, he will surely keep his ear to the ground, but he will also certainly be caught up in these other cases of his, and time will pass, and if he does lay hands on the link of evidence he so desires, it will be only through sheer luck."
"For heaven's sake, Holmes, she's just an old granny, not a Napoléon of crime."
I should have known that the phrase would tip him over the edge into an icy rage.
"It's a damned good thing for Lestrade's lot that she's too much a middle-class English woman to turn her hands to crime. Napoléon went to war, but she's satisfied herself with one brief, self-righteous campaign, and now she's captured her goal— whatever the deuces it might have been— she's entrenched. The police will never prise her out on their own. No, I ought never to have listened to you and Mycroft. If we'd kept Scotland Yard out of it, I might have got to her without giving warning, but now it's going to mean weeks, months of delicate, painstaking, cold, and uncomfortable work, and I tell you honestly, Russell, I'm feeling too old and tired to relish the thought very much."
His last bleak phrase deflated any reciprocal anger I might have summoned. I sat while he fished a crumpled packet of Gold Flakes from his pocket and lit one. He looked out the window; I looked at the cigarette.
"Since when have you taken to gaspers again?" I asked mildly, more mildly than I felt, seeing the sucks and puffs of nervous anger.
"Since I first laid eyes upon Erica Rogers. She's not the only one with premonitions." That cut it. I took a deep breath.
"Holmes, look. We will get her. Give me a week to tie things up in Oxford, and then we can go after them. Or to Paris, or Palestine, if you think there's anything there."
He snatched the cigarette from his lips and dashed it to the floor, ground it under his heel, and immediately took out the packet again.
"No, Russell, I'll do this myself. I can hardly expect you to sacrifice your firstborn for the cause."
I was furious and crushed and obviously superfluous in the compartment, so rather than making matters worse, I left and walked up the train to stand staring out the window at the gathering clouds and sea drizzle.
This was by no means the first failure Holmes had had, but it rankled to be defeated by a woman of no great wits, her lumpish grandson, and a small-time crook. Holmes, too, had been touched by Dorothy Ruskin, and it was hard not to feel that we had let her down. The dead have a claim on us even heavier than that of the living, for they cannot hear our explanations, and we cannot ask their forgiveness.
I knew, however, that what disturbed him most was the thought that he had failed me. He knew the affection and respect I had had for Dorothy Ruskin, and it could only have