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By Root 262 0

it just doesn't seem right. They were my children, you see, and a mother should never have to outlive her babies.' She was quiet for a minute, and then she sort of chuckled and said, 'Well, that's what I get for being too stubborn to die, I suppose,' and she returned to the manuscript. I asked her several questions, on the chance that Miss Ruskin had told her something, but so far as I could tell, they had just talked about archaeology and mutual friends. Sorry there wasn't more to the missing afternoon."

"At least it fills in a distressingly large hole in her schedule. I assume that her departure from Oxford and her ten o'clock return to the hotel match up?"

"They do, I'm afraid."

"Never mind. Tomorrow is another day."

"Are you returning to Cambridgeshire tomorrow?"

"No. The work there is finished." He did not mean the wallpaper.

"Good."

"Go to sleep now. I shall finish this pipe, I think."

"Stay here."

"I won't disturb you?"

"To the contrary."

"Ah. I have felt your absence as well, Russell. Sleep well."

I drifted away into confused thoughts of indomitable old ladies and monocled young aristocrats, and the heavy pipe smoke seemed to tingle on the inside of my right wrist. In the muzziness that comes just before sleep, the incongruous statement Holmes had made earlier came back to mind, and I knew where I had heard it.

"Good Lord, Holmes!" I exclaimed, brought up out of sleep.

"Yes, Russell?"

"Since when do you go in for Gilbert and Sullivan?"

"Of all the unpleasant acts I have been forced to perform in the course of an investigation, trailing a suspect who was addicted to light opera and vaudeville was one of the most depraved. I might ask the same of you, Russell."

"The girl who lived down the hall had a beau in a D'Oyley Carte production of the Mikado when it came to Oxford, and she dragged me along."

"Was that the hypochondriac whose bandages we stole?"

"No, the one with the brandy that tasted of petrol."

"That explains it, then."

"Good night, Holmes."

"Mmm."

TWENTY

upsilon

The following morning, I woke at first light, to find Holmes still curled up in the chair, his eyes far away. The only signs that he had moved during the night were the saucer on the arm of his chair (heaped with burnt matches and pipe dottles), the faint stir of the curtains (where he had thoughtfully cracked open the window to prevent our suffocation), and the small notebook of writing samples on the bedside table (which I had left in the chest of drawers). I could almost see the thin film of greasy smoke on the walls, and I shuddered as I pulled the blankets back over my head in protest.

"You look like a vulture sitting there, Holmes," I growled. Four hours' sleep makes me irritable. The last of the objects I had noticed galvanised a faint activity in my brain cells.

"What is your judgement on the writing?" I asked with eyes firmly closed.

"Your papyrus is definitely from a woman's hand."

"Good. Wake me at seven."

There was no answer, but a minute or so later, a horrible, cold, bristly male person insinuated itself into my cozy nest, stinking faintly of cheap gin and strongly of stale tobacco.

"My dear, sweet wife," it murmured into my tightly blanketed ear.

"No!"

"Russell, my dear."

"Absolutely not."

"Wife of my age, I am going to give you another opportunity to solve this case of yours."

"At this very moment?"

"This afternoon."

I pulled the bedclothes down a fraction and eyed him.

"How?"

"You will go to see Miss Sarah Chessman."

"The witness?" The blankets fell away. "But she's been questioned a number of times. She can't remember a thing."

"She couldn't remember for the police, no." His voice was curiously, ominously gentle. "Perhaps she needs to be asked by someone who knows how best to release answers that lie buried deep in the mind."

I knew instantly what he was talking about, and a cold finger trickled up my spine.

"Oh no, Holmes," I whispered. "Really, no. I couldn't. Don't ask that of me. Please."

"I am