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“She's dead, Holmes.”

He went still, surveying the possible meanings of the pronoun: The death of one of the Greenfield women would explain the shock, but not the despair beneath it. That left one likely candidate. “Your doctor friend?”

“Murdered in her office by someone looking for money, the police say.”

“I am sorry,” he offered, and he was, although it was habit more than anything that caused him to mouth the phrase—generally meaningless, yet its recitation often prompted valuable reminiscence.

“She's the end. There's no-one left now. All these years—I never wrote to her, you know? I always thought I would see her one day, stand in front of her and tell her that it had all worked out. And all these years she's been gone.”

Holmes stifled his impatience at this unhelpful production of data, and said merely, “She died some time ago, then?”

“Even before I met you. Just weeks after I left here. Gone, all this time.”

“How did you find out?”

At last, Russell's eyes came to his. She blinked, spotted her glasses, and put them on; under their influence she pulled together some degree of rational thought. It was a considerable relief.

The story of her afternoon's search for information had more gaps in it than substance, but it did provide a place to begin. As she arrived at the portion of the tale that took her to the hospital, she seemed to become aware of her surroundings and, without pausing in her narrative, stood up from the bath and wrapped herself in a towelling bath-robe. He followed her into the sitting room and turned up the radiators to keep her warm.

“She'd left everything to the hospital for their mental patients, you see,” Russell said, absently running one bath-robe sleeve across her wet, lamentably butchered hair. She looked like a child when her hand came away, hair tousled, pink-faced, and wrapped in an oversized robe—again Holmes was struck by how thin she was looking, and pushed away the urge to retrieve the tea tray with its sticky sweets.

“You believe the hospital administrator knew nothing other than what he told you?”

“I don't think he did. His secretary was going to find the name of the investigator for me. And something else as well, what was it? Oh, yes, the precise date of her death. I wonder why she hasn't 'phoned yet? Maybe I ought to—”

“Sit, Russell. Have another cup of tea and one of those cream cakes.”

“Holmes, I'm fine. What time is it, anyway? Good heavens, I've slept the day away, what a ridiculous thing to do.”

“Russell, the only reason for you to be on your feet is to accompany me to the restaurant for a meal.”

“Holmes, I've just consumed half a pound of butter-cream. I'll wait until dinner-time, if you don't mind.”

“I do mind. Russell, you have lost nearly a stone in recent weeks, and haven't eaten a proper meal since we left Japan. If you don't feed yourself, I swear on Mrs Hudson's rolling-pin that I shall call for a doctor.”

It was something of a turn-around, to have Holmes encouraging someone else to take nourishment—for most of the past forty-some years it had been Dr Watson or Mrs Hudson cajoling, bribing, or berating Holmes not to starve himself. In fact, so extraordinary was this approach that Russell subsided without protest, and if she did not take a large meal, it was nonetheless meat and bread—or in any case, an omelette and toast. Her colour was better at the end of it, and Holmes' features had relaxed a fraction.

After the meal, they took a turn through Union Square, settling onto a bench in the far corner that caught a stray late ray of sunlight. Holmes pulled out his tobacco pouch; Russell closed her eyes and raised her face. A nanny hurried past with her charge in a pram; two boot-boys sauntered through, glancing with professional disdain at the toes of passers-by; a pair of police constables strode the other way, their gazes probing faces, watching for signs of shiftiness.

Finally, Russell stirred. “So, what have you been doing today, Holmes?”

“I have been conducting my own research.”

“Into what?”