A Letter of Mary - Laurie R. King [78]
The clever hands jerked in discord, and he whirled around and off the bench to face me, but before I could feel remorse, the tense control in his shoulders and the taut line of his jaw had relaxed into pleased recognition.
"Good Lord, it's Mrs Sherlock!" The foolish, slightly lopsided face with the too-bland eyes registered amazement at seeing me in this setting.
"No, it is not," I corrected him severely. "It's Miss Mary Small, whom you've never set eyes on in your life."
His grey eyes flared with interest and amusement even as his face and posture lapsed instantaneously into the silly-ass act he did so well. "Miss Small, of course, so pleased to make your 'quaintance. Reminded me for a tick of someone I know— don't know her well, of course, only met her— a party somewhere, I s'pose. Come to think of it, you don't look the least like her. Maybe something around the eyes? No, must be the shape of the spectacles, and as I remember, she had brown hair. A short little thing, too. Nothing like you. Mary Small, you say? How d'you do, Miss Small?"
His high voice burbled to a close, and he held out a deprecating hand, which I took with pleasure and a laugh. "How are you, Peter? You're looking well." Despite his violent reaction to being startled, he did appear less strained and not so thin as when I had last seen him, some months before. He had had a bad war indeed, and he was only now beginning to crawl out of the trenches.
"Not so bad," he said, and then, probing politely, asked, "Is there anything I might do to assist, Miss Small?"
"Thank you, Peter, but ..." I paused, struck by a thought. "I might, actually, ask a small favour."
"But of course— gallant is one of my overabundant middle names. What dragon does milady wish slain, what chasm spanned? A star pluck't from the heavens, a cherry that hath no stone? Some shag for your pipe, perhaps?"
"Nothing so simple as dragons or bridges, I fear. I need two young ladies removed so that I might get at the groaning board, where they stand waiting to recognise me for whom I am not and address me loudly by a name I had rather not have heard."
"You wish me to murder two women so you can eat lunch?" he asked with one politely raised eyebrow. "It seems just a bit excessive when there are servants willin' and able to bring you a tray, but I dare say, any friend of Sherlock Holmes—"
"No, you idiot," I said over the giggles he always managed to draw from me. "Just remove them for twenty minutes. Take them to view the peacocks, or see the etchings, or bring them in to hear you play something horrid and dissonant on this machine."
"Please, don't insult the poor thing. It can't help how it looks, and its inner parts deserve better than the twentieth century." He patted the encrusted inlay of the top reassuringly.
"Play them Bach or Satie, I don't care, just so I have time to eat and escape into the grounds. In those dresses, they can't plan to venture far from the house."
"Deep waters, Holmes, and no small danger, from the peacocks if nothin' else. But your faithful Watson is ready as always to plunge into the fray, all enthusiasm and no wits. Who are these two delectable creatures awaitin' my seductive wiles, and if I may be so bold, on whose ears is not to fall the name of Holmes?" He held the door for me, and we entered the dark corridor.
"The ladies are silly but sweet, and you won't have to think of topics of conversation. The ears belong to a Colonel Dennis Edwards, who currently employs Miss Mary Small as his secretary."
"Edwards, you say?