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"It is not necessary to apologise," I said. "It was a stupid thing to say, and I deserved your response. I am relieved that you aren't angry with me," I added.

"My dear child, it was not stupid. The question of human responsibility is one that every adolescent must ask, or grow up never knowing the answer. The problem is that I forgot you are only sixteen. I often do, you know. It was a valid question, and I treated it as if it were a moral flaw. Please forgive me, and I beg you, do not let it stop you from asking questions in the future. You say what you like, and I shall attempt to avoid acting like an old lion with a toothache. Agreed?"

Embarrassed and relieved, I grinned and stuck out my hand. He stood up and took it.

"Agreed."

"I'll be off, then, before Mrs Hudson sends out the hounds for me. There may be something in your macabre joke after all— this will be the third time in a week I have made her serve me a cold supper. Ah well. Until tomorrow, Russell."

He reached down and pulled up the noiseless window, then threaded his long body out into the darkness.

"Holmes," I called. His head reappeared.

"Yes, Russell."

"Don't come here again," I said, then realised how it must sound. "I mean, while my aunt lives here, I can't— I don't—" I stopped, confused.

He studied me for a moment, and then his hard face was transformed by a smile of such unexpected gentleness that I clamped my jaws hard to block the prickle in my eyes.

"I understand," was all he said, and was gone.

But I never forgot his words on the cliff.

* * *

What had Miss Ruskin possessed that could turn two, perhaps three, human beings into killers? What of hers, what piece of paper or small, flat item could have driven someone to the extremity of running her down with an automobile? If I knew what it was, I would know who. If I knew who, I could deduce what it was. I knew neither.

So I went to bed.

PART FOUR

Sunday, 2 September 1923

[In Nature there are] no arts, no letters, no society, and worst of all continual fear and danger of violent death.

— Thomas Hobbes

SEVENTEEN

rho

Sunday morning began with the richly evocative sound of changes being rung on the bells and the sun streaming through a gap in the curtains, and deteriorated rapidly. For ten whole minutes, I lay happily contemplating the floating dust motes and deciding how best to use a beautiful, warm, free, late-summer Sunday in London. I luxuriously considered the riches available to me. Were I in Oxford there would be no doubt but that I should take to the river with boat, book, and sandwich, but where in London might I find a combination of strenuous work and pointlessness? Perhaps I could take a boat downriver to—

My blissful self-indulgence was broken by a sharp rap on the door, followed by Isabella's equally sharp voice.

"Miss Small? Gennleman downstairs to see you."

"A gentleman? But—" No, surely not Holmes. Who, then? Lestrade? Could something have happened to— Oh God. "Did he give his name?"

"A Colonel something, miss. Come to take you to church."

"To church!" I was absolutely flabbergasted.

"Yes, miss, it bein' Sunday and you new to the area and all, he says. What do you want me to tell him?"

"Tell him—" Dear God, of all the things I did not want to spend the morning doing, sitting in a stuffy building and singing muscular Christian hymns was fairly high up on the list. "Tell him I'll be down in ten minutes, would you please? No, better make it fifteen."

Make no mistake— I have nothing against Christian worship. Although I am a Jew, I am hardly a fanatically observant one, and at university I regularly attended church for the sheer beauty of the liturgy and the aesthetic pleasure of a lovely building being used for its intended purpose. However, I had a fairly good idea of where and how the colonel worshipped his God, and it was bound to be worlds removed from evensong at Christ Church. Nonetheless, a job was a job. And, I could always develop a headache or the vapours and return