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"Patrick, for God's sake, man, the barns could burn
and you'd sleep on."
"What? Barns? Fire? I'm coming! Who's that? Tillie?"
"No, no, Patrick, no fire, don't get up, it's I, Mary."
"Miss Mary? What's wrong? Let me get a light."
"No light, Patrick. Don't get up." I could see by
moonlight that the top half of his body was unclothed, and
I had no wish to find out about the other. "I just had to
tell you that I've hidden my car in the lower barn. Don't
let it be seen: It's very important that nobody knows I'm
here. Even my aunt. Will you do that, Patrick?"
"Certainly, but where are you, here?"
"I'll be at Holmes' cottage."
"There's trouble, Miss Mary, isn't there? Can I help?"
"If you can, I'll get a message to you. Just don't let
anyone see my car. Go back to sleep now, Patrick. Sorry
to wake you."
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"Good luck, Miss."
"Thank you, Patrick." Holmes was waiting for me
outside the house. We set off in silence across the dark
downs, empty but for the foxes and owls.
It was not the first time I had walked that way at
night, though the setting moon lit the first couple of miles.
I was concerned at first that his confinement might have
lessened Holmes' normally iron constitution, but I needn't
have worried. It was I who breathed heavily at the tops of
hills from the hours spent in the library, not he.
Sounds carry at night, so our conversation was low
and terse, dwindling to a few muttered words as the miles
passed and his cottage neared. The moon had set, and it
was the darkest time of night before the stars faded. We
stood on the edge of the orchard that backed the cottage,
and Holmes leant close to breathe words into my ear.
"We'll circle around and go in through the end door,
then straight up to the laboratory. We can have a light in
there; it won't be seen. Keep to the shadows and remember
there's a guard about somewhere."
He felt my nod and slipped away. Five minutes later
the door clicked lightly to his key, and I stood inside the
dark cottage breathing in the mingled smells of pipe
tobacco, toxic chemicals, and meat pies, the fragrance of
home and happiness.
"Come, Russell, are you lost?" His low voice came
from above me. I pushed away the feelings of reunion and
followed him up the worn steps and around the corner, not
needing a light, until my hand touched the air of an open
doorway and I stepped inside. The air moved as Holmes
swung the door closed.
"Stay there until I make a light, Russell. I've moved
some things about since you were here last." A match
flared and illuminated his profile, bent over an old lamp.
"I have a cloth to tack up over the door edges," he said,
and adjusted the flame to give the greatest light, then
turned to set it on a worktable.
"My nose tells me that Mrs. Hudson produced meat
pies yesterday," I said shrugging off my coat and hanging
it on the peg on the door. "I'm glad she is convinced of
your approaching recovery." I turned back to Holmes, and
I saw his face. He was looking across the lamp to the dark
corner, and whatever it was he saw there bathed his face
in dread and despair and the finality of defeat, and he was
utterly still, slightly bent from depositing the lamp on the
table. I took two quick steps forward so I could see around
the bookshelf, and there, dominating my vision, was the
round reflected end of a gun, moving to point directly at
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me. I looked at Holmes and saw then the first fear I had
ever witnessed in his eyes.
"Good morning, Mr. Holmes," said a familiar voice.
"Miss Russell."
Holmes straightened his long body slowly, looking
terribly, utterly exhausted, and when he replied his voice
was as flat as death.
"Miss Donleavy."
EIGHTEEN
battle royal
. . there being not room for many
emotions in her narrow, barbarous,
practical brain.
"What, Mr. Holmes, no bon
mots? I perceive you have been in Afghanistan,' or New
York? Well, not every utterance a gem, perhaps. And you,
Miss Russell. No greeting for your tutrix, not even an apology
for the inadequacy of your final essay, which was not
only sodden but hurried as well?"
At the sound of her precise, slightly hoarse voice I
was overcome, pierced to the core of my being. Her voice,
sweeping me into memories of her dim and opulent study,
the coal fire, the tea she served me, the two occasions when
she had given me a glass of rare dry sherry to accompany
her rare, dry words of praise: I had thought... I had
thought I knew what her feelings towards me were, and I
stood before her like a child whose beloved godmother has
just stabbed her.
"You do look like a pair of donkeys," she said in
irritation, and if her first words had left me stunned, her
quick ill humour jolted me back into life, an automatic
response learnt early by all of her students: When Miss
Donleavy snaps, one gathered one's wits with alacrity. I
had seen her reduce a strong man to tears.
"Sit down, Miss Russell. Mr. Holmes, while I have
this gun pointed at Miss Russell, would you be so good as
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to switch on the electrical lights I see over our heads?
Move very carefully; the gun is already cocked, and it takes
very little pressure to set the trigger off. Thank you. Mr.
Holmes, you look considerably further from Death's door
than I was led to believe. Now, if you would please bring
that other chair and place it at the table to the left of Miss
Russell. A bit farther apart. Good. And the lamp, extinguish
it and place it on the shelf. Yes, there. Now, sit down.
You will please leave your hands on top of the table at all
times, both of you. Good."
I sat at arm's length from Holmes and looked past
the gun's maw at my mathematics tutor. She was sitting
in the very corner of the room behind a rank of shelves,
so that the shadow cast by the shelves cut directly across
her. The overhead glare illuminated her tweed-and
silk- covered
legs from the knee down, and occasionally the very
end of the heavy military pistol. All else was dim: an occasional
flash of teeth and eyes, a dull glint from the gold
chain and locket she wore at her throat; all else was
shadow.
"Mr. Holmes, we meet at last. I have been looking
forward to this meeting for quite some time."
"Twenty-five years or more, isn't it Miss Donleavy?
Or, do you prefer to be addressed by your father's name?"
Silence filled the laboratory, and I sat bewildered.
Did Holmes know where the woman came from? Her father
... ?
"Touché, Mr. Holmes. I take back my earlier criticism;
you still do a nice line in bon mots. Perhaps you
might explain to Miss Russell."
"It was her own name that Miss Donleavy signed on
the seats of the four-wheeler, Russell. This is the daughter
of Professor Moriarty."
"Surprise, surprise, Miss Russell. You did tell me what
a very superior sort of mind your friend has. What a pity
he was born trapped in a man's body."
With a wrenching effort I took control of my thoughts
and sent them, useless as it might now seem, in the direction
of the last plan that Holmes and I had laid. I swallowed and
studied my hands on the tabletop.
"I cannot agree, Miss Donleavy," I said. "Mr. Holmes'
mind and his body seem to me well suited to each other."
"Miss Russell," she said delightedly, "sharp as always.
I must admit I had forgotten how I always enjoyed your
mind. And, as you intimate, I had also forgotten that the
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two of you have become . . . alienated. I must say I often
wondered what you saw in him. I could have done a great
deal with you had it not been for your irrational fondness
for Mr. Holmes."
I pointedly said nothing, just studied my hands. I did
wonder why they weren't shaking.
"But now the fondness has turned, has it?" she said,
in a voice that was soft and tinged with sadness. "So very
sad, when old friends part and become enemies."
My heart leapt with hope, but I kept all expression
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