Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [23]
There was no trace of Mahmoud’s heavy accent, no accent at all apart from that of his class and education. His movements evoked no swirl of ghostly robes; nothing in his demeanour indicated that this duke had ever held something as crass as a handgun, far less a killing blade; his eyes betrayed no hint of the watchful authority that had been the very essence of the man. His voice was lighter, his eyes seemed a lesser shade of brown, his stance was that of an amiable if distracted English nobleman. Had it not been for his scar, and for that brief flash of command when I was about to speak his Arab name, I should have thought him a different man. He even held his cigarette differently.
“And you, sir,” Holmes replied, always ready to turn conventionality to his own purposes. “You are looking somewhat . . . changed.”
“They say change is inevitable.” The duke raised his gaze to face Holmes squarely.
“I find folk wisdom to be a somewhat overrated commodity,” Holmes retorted. “It generally fails to take into account the workings of cause and effect.”
Rather than bristle, or retreat, at this confrontation, Marsh Hughenfort seemed to relax, just a fraction, and opened his mouth, but before he could respond some distant sound reached him. He paused in an attitude of listening; Alistair too cocked his head; then, as one, the two men slumped into gloom. Alistair even muttered a mild oath. Marsh retreated until his back was to the fireplace, and waited.
Children’s voices, of all things. Two high-pitched excited chatterers, growing and then fading as they turned into another part of the house, giving way to the sound of a woman in monologue. The library door opened; Holmes and Alistair rose automatically to their feet.
“—just pop my head in to see if he’s in here, p’raps you’d better inform Mrs Butter that we’ll be here for luncheon after all, just too terribly tiresome of them, truly it is. Oh, hello. I didn’t know you had company, Marsh. Good morning, Alistair.”
She was a small, elegant, expensive woman in her early thirties, plucked, pencilled, and pampered, working a pair of silver-grey gloves from her thin hands as she came through the door. In her case, the ebony Hughenfort curls had been tamed, by nature or art, into a sleek shingle, but the chin and eyebrow were instantly recognisable. She radiated a natural superiority; her clothing was too perfect to be anything but Paris; I felt instantly a frump.
“My sister,” said Marsh. “Phillida Darling.”
For a startling moment, I thought he was using a term of endearment in detached irony, but I realised it had to be the surname of the teeth-on-edge Sidney. “Phillida, this is Mr Holmes and his wife, Miss Russell. They are friends.”
Her eyes lit up. She glided across the room, dropping the gloves and her cloche hat on an exquisite marquetry end-table in passing, and held out her hand to Holmes. “What a splendid surprise, to encounter not just one, but two of my brother’s friends in a single day. Any relation to the Duke of Bedford, Miss Russell? No? Well, to think one might have missed you, if the Garritsons’ two brats hadn’t broke out in horrid spots this morning. We thought we’d lunch with them,” she explained, settling onto the divan beside me and taking out a cigarette case and ivory holder, “and we’d already set out before their nanny came down to tell them about the spots, stupid girl, and although usually I’d just have let my two in—children have to get these things some time, don’t they?—it’s really not a terribly convenient time. Thank you,” she told Holmes, who had applied a light to her cigarette. “I mean, one has a party here this week-end, and a ball in a month’s time, wouldn’t it be tiresome if half the house-maids came down in spots, too? It happened to a dear friend of mine, had to cancel the evening, the food all delivered and all. So tell me,” she said, having softened us up with the flow of trivia,