A Letter of Mary - Laurie R. King [51]
I dropped my stitching abruptly.
"All right, Holmes, what is it? What did you learn today?"
His eyes flared with gratified amusement, and he wandered over to the fireplace to fill his pipe from the tobacco cache Mycroft kept there.
"Your Miss Ruskin had something of value when she entered the country. Or at any rate, something she valued highly. It took her two hours to negotiate the distance between Victoria Station and her hotel, which could hardly have taken a full hour if she'd walked, dragging her suitcases behind her. Inspector Jack Rafferty, one of Lestrade's unrecognised Irregulars, discovered that the distinctive figure of Miss Dorothy Ruskin had deposited two leather valises with the left-luggage gentleman at Victoria, then reclaimed them nearly two hours later. He furthermore discovered, pursuant to his aforementioned investigation— do you know, Russell, I believe I shall write a monograph on the obfuscating peculiarities of constabulary vocabulary and syntax— that said Miss Ruskin had subsequently paid visits to no fewer than three banking establishments in the immediate vicinity— is it as difficult to listen to as it is to produce?"
"It is certainly tedious," I agreed, my head bent again over the seam.
"Good. Miss Ruskin was looking for a bank that would allow her access to its safety-deposit boxes outside of the normal bankers' hours. The first two seemed to consider her some sort of eccentric, I cannot think why, but the third bank was quite happy to oblige— it is owned by Americans, who are notoriously willing to cater to any behavioural oddity if the customer is willing to pay. She let a box for one week only, and into it she put a small parcel, wrapped in a checked cloth, and a thick manila envelope."
"They revealed all this to Inspector Jack Rafferty, the man with the dead mouse on his lip? I'd have thought even my fellow Americans would have some standards when it came to professional discretion, much less their employees."
"My dear child, what do you take me for? As soon as I realised what she was about, I nipped around the corner to change my persona." To one of his bolt-holes, I interpreted, those scattered and invisible hideaways that served as combined retreats and dressing rooms. I finished the seam and bit off the thread, admired the puckered stitching, and hung up the blouse.
"Holmes, I admit your infinite appeal in that gorgeous suit, but was that sufficient to crack the reserve of a senior bank official?"
"Ah, well, no. It happened that the bank manager is a sort of distant family connection. Second cousin twice removed sort of thing." I looked at him in surprise.
"Good Lord. I'm always forgetting that you have a family. You and Mycroft seem to have sprung full-formed from the brow of London."
"I haven't seen the man in twenty years and probably would not have recognised him had it not been for his nameplate. He certainly did not recognise me, but after a few of these gruesome cocktails everyone's tossing back these days, he became quite the old gossip. I fear I shall have to open an account there and demand the odd service at inconvenient hours to justify the curious slant of my questions."
I wondered if any blood tie had actually existed before that morning but decided not to press the matter.
"I take it that the cloth-wrapped parcel was the box. Was there any indication what the envelope contained?"
"No. But she returned to the bank twice: once early Tuesday, and again just before opening on Wednesday. At which time, unfortunately, she closed out her account and declared she had no further use for the deposit box."
"Oh dear."
"Yes. I had hopes in that box. It might have held documents, or treasure, or at the very least a will. But— nothing."
"So she only used it on Tuesday to fetch whatever was in the envelope and on Wednesday to remove the box and bring