The Marriage of Mary Russell Read Online Free

newspapers were filled with faraway events and two-dimensional problems.
    Another day, I might have taken the train to London, but London was filled with Margery Childe and all the uncomfortable elements of that case, that life. Or Oxford, where normally I would have happily fled at an instant’s notice—but its beloved spires seemed awfully…far away.
    At midday, I found myself staring out of the window wishing I smoked.
    With a sound of irritation, I went to find my warm clothes and set off for the sea.
    The Downs were thick with gravid ewes, head-down to the close-cropped grass, scarcely bothering to move out of my way. I wandered along the cliffs, watching all manner of ships ply up and down the grey Channel waters. The new owners of the old Belle Tout lighthouse—the one atop the cliff—were out in their wind-swept garden, hands on hips as they surveyed the exterior. They invited me inside, ushering me up the defunct tower to admire its predictably magnificent view of the new lighthouse, standing with its feet in the water (where it might actually be of some use when the sea mists rose) five hundred feet below and well out from the cliffs. Once we had exhausted the conversational possibilities (the view, the weather, and the sheep), I continued on, greeting shepherds, ramblers, and lighthouse-men as I went, to where the track turned north below the old smugglers’ path. The Tiger Inn, perhaps?
    No.
    Mrs Hudson had the windows snugly shut again. Smoke trickled from the main chimney, but lights burned in the kitchen, so I circled the house, rapped loudly at the back door, and let myself in.
    When I saw her face, I realised that I had been hoping Holmes had told her, so I would have someone to talk to about…it. But her face betrayed no sign of excitement, no shared knowledge—not even a faint reproof from her brown eyes, that I had said nothing…
    She didn’t know.
    Of course, there were all kinds of things this good woman did not know, even when it came down to the events of one previous week: that Holmes and I had nearly died; that both of us had done violence to the other; that there had been drugs and death and kisses and a startling revelation of Holmes’ warbling soprano voice.
    Not all weeks were quite that eventful. Still, as with Sherlock Holmes long before I came on the scene, I had grown accustomed to hiding things from Mrs Hudson, lest she be shocked or, worse, disappointed in me. My face gave nothing away now as I greeted her and exclaimed at the aroma from her oven.
    She had not seen Holmes since the previous afternoon. As she reached for the flowered teapot, giving a little arthritic wince, she said, “He was here, though. The house was still cold after I’d finished in the kitchen, so I took to my rooms early, but I heard him come in about eight o’clock—no-one else slams the door quite like he does. He was on the telephone for a time, then I heard him crashing about upstairs. And this morning I found half the clothes from his cupboards strewn all about.”
    I knew without asking that she’d have put everything away, grumbling all the while. “Was anything in particular missing?” I asked casually.
    She was not fooled, and fixed me with a sharp gaze. “Mary, what is going on?”
    “I don’t know,” I told her. “He was at my house yesterday evening, then put on his hat and said he’d see me in a few days.” It was, strictly, the truth, though hardly the whole of it.
    “Well, from what I could see, he either went to Town, or to a cricket match.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “That’s right. His silk hat, good suit, and ebony cane are missing. I thought that was it until I got down to the lower levels and found that his cricket whites were gone as well.”
    “He owns cricket clothes? I didn’t know he played.”
    “Near as I can tell, Mr Holmes tries everything at least once,” she pointed out, a voice of long experience. “Though this being winter, it’s more likely to be