The Murder of Mary Russell (18 page)

“Oh, he was, and I told him what I needed. I gave him the warning, and then I went away—had to sleep rough, damn the man. Anyway, next day I went back to tighten the screws, but the bloody butler wouldn't let me in, can you believe it? That riled me mighty, as you can imagine. So I trotted around the house to where Beddoes had his library and shouted through the window that I'd told all, that the coppers were coming to get him, that he was ruined.”

“Why on earth did you do that?” The most important rule of all when it came to Marks was not to push a man to the brink.

“Ah, Clarrie girl, I was angry. And hungry and my bones ached.”

“But—”

“I wasn't being completely stupid, not your old Pa! I figured I'd give him the next day to get himself into a righteous stew over it, and then I'd go back at night and say, ‘Just fooling, I didn't tell anyone, but now you see how you'd feel if it was for real. So unless you get out your wallet…' ”

“What happened?”

“Guess the old bugger had more to be scared of than I thought. See, I hid out, then went back after dark, but instead of sitting there drinking himself into a funk, be damned if he hadn't cleared out his safe and vanished.”

It sounded to Clarissa a remarkably sensible thing to do, although she wasn't about to say so to her father. “So why call me in? I honestly do not have that kind of money.”

“I don't need your money, girlie. I need you.”

“Pa, I told you, I can't go back to the Act, not till you're square with The Bishop.”

“I'm not looking to do a Job with you, Clarrie. No: Beddoes only went far as Portsmouth. Seems to be as quick in his head as he is on his feet, because from what his servants were saying the other night—they leave the window open, you can hear them easy—Beddoes left orders with the butler to send a telegram if he caught word of any scandal. None of 'em know what
kind
of scandal, mind, just that they're to listen for it.”

“So Mr Beddoes knows you may have been lying about telling the police, and is waiting to see.”

“ 'S right. And then I found out where he is. The post still comes regular to the house, and the butler's been sending it on. Took me a week of sneaking around before I could get a hold of it, but I knew sooner or later the post bag would go unguarded. He's in Portsmouth, ready to jump on the first ship out when word comes. And Portsmouth is just a quick run from here on the train.”

“Good. I can give you that much fare if you promise to leave me be after that.”

“I told you, girl, it's
you
I need. As an escort, like. Seems the butler told the police I'd threatened Beddoes or something idiotic, and they're looking for me.
Me,
get it? A single man. But a man with a daughter—and even better, his sweet little grandson—why, he'd be safe as houses. All I need's for you to go with me to Portsmouth. You'd be back in London by bedtime, I'd be off to Sydney first ship. And if things go like I think they will, I'll send you money for the best berth to Sydney that cash can buy. We could set up in comfort, Clarrie. You, me, and the little one. Get a house near to Allie.”

Clarissa's dismissal of her father's perennial dreams and schemes gave way to a wave of revulsion at the idea of life together. But as the wave retreated, it left behind two pieces of knowledge: first, that her father would like nothing better than to have the boy to raise, and second, she could not let that happen.

She bent over Samuel, thoughts racing. It was not possible to slip away tonight, but tomorrow—get away from him at the station? Or she could appear to go along with his plan and accompany him as far as the crowds of Portsmouth, then disappear? She had the skills to vanish into any crowded station, step onto a boat for anywhere. America, even.

Except: Billy. To abandon Billy would be to leave a part of herself behind. Plus, the lad would be the only target left for The Bishop's rage—and that of the man's son.

No. She would have to run a Cheat on her father, though he knew her every trick and gesture. Manipulate him as she did any other Mark: agree with him, flatter his pride, appear to support him, and then…

She looked up. “I'll not have my son's grandfather gaoled, or hanged. I'll go with you to Portsmouth, but when you go after Beddoes, you're on your own. If you're caught while I'm with you, it's Samuel who will pay. I'll go back to London.”
And then slip away—far, far away,
she did not add. “When you're ready, let me know and we'll join you. But if you're caught, I expect you to say nothing about me, ever.”

“Fair enough.”

“You swear?”

“On your mother's sacred memory.”

“All right. You'll need to bathe, and I hope you brought a razor. As for that shirt, I'll see if—”

She broke off at a sound from behind her. Hudson had leapt to his feet and was staring at the door.
“You?”
he said. “What the devil…”

She spun around—and saw the very last thing she'd have expected: Billy. At his back, hat in hand, was the young man with the funny name.

Sherlock Holmes.

T
he father and son at the station—they hurried off the other way—so I couldn't see them—
but the tumble of thoughts broke off as her father's words registered. Papa
knew
this fellow? Puzzled, she looked back—then she was on her feet, too. “Papa—no!”

He was standing by the long table. Its drawer stood open; the massive pistol in his hand looked suitable for battering down doors. Her mind threw out another wayward thought—
a gamekeeper's revolver if ever I saw one
—then her body was in motion, swinging Samuel down to the chair behind her, snatching at the ties of her beaded bag.

“Papa,” she warned. “If you shoot, it'll be your last act.”

Hudson's gaze flicked sideways—then fixed on the little ivory-handled revolver in his daughter's hand.

“You wouldn't shoot your old man, Clarrie.”

“Do not try me.”

She watched him wrestle with the possibility that his own daughter might in fact pull the trigger. The heavy weapon sagged a fraction. She took a quick glance at the doorway—then wondered for an instant what she was seeing. An amorphous black shape, where two people had been standing, but no: it was the back of an overcoat. The tall young man was bent over Billy, hiding him completely. After a long moment, his ill-shaven face appeared, those remarkable grey eyes analysing the room over his shoulder. “Go!” he said, and the ridiculous cuffs flashed as he pushed Billy in her direction. He continued with the turn, slowly, hands empty and outstretched. When he was upright, he tore his eyes from the big pistol, to face James Hudson.

Billy hit Clarissa's skirts like an infant monkey thrown at a tree. Her free hand pulled him close but her gaze lingered on the figure in the doorway, that white, composed face.

Most men,
she thought,
facing a gun, would snatch any available shield: this young toff turned his back to protect Billy.

When Holmes spoke, his voice was no higher than its usual pitch. “Good evening, Mr Hudson.”

“I know you,” Hudson said. “You were in Norfolk, at old Trevor's place.”

“We met in Donnithorpe, yes. When you arrived to blackmail my friend's father.” His voice was calm—except for the word “blackmail,” which he mouthed as if tasting something foul.

“Him and me, we were old friends,” Hudson protested. “I was on hard times, knew he'd want to help out.”

“You hounded him to death with your threats.”

“Man with a heart so weak he can't take a little pressure, he'd have died of something anyway.”

“It was murder. And now you aim to do the same with Mr Beddoes.”

“I never!”

“You will come with me to the police.”

Is he mad?
Clarissa wondered.
Giving an order like that, armed with nothing more than a cut-glass accent.

Hudson, predictably, laughed.

“Papa,” she warned again, edging Billy behind her—and only when she'd done so did she realise what the gesture meant.
Just what I used to do with Allie—but this is a gun, not a fist. Papa wouldn't shoot towards a child. Would he?

Although he might shoot at me…

The thought staggered her, more than anything else that had happened that night.
Papa?

She tightened her hand on the ivory handle and spoke over her shoulder. “You need to go, Mr Holmes. Take Billy with you. There's nothing more you can do here.”

“I will not leave without James Hudson.”

“Then you won't leave at all,” snapped Hudson, and with no more warning than that, the room exploded.

Two gunshots, nearly simultaneous; two high shouts of protest; two harsh cries of pain.

Smoke whirled through a silent room for a count of two, until Samuel's indrawn breath gave way to full-lunged screams of terror. Clarissa dropped the little gun to scramble towards her father, leaving Billy to snatch up the infant, holding him close to chant wordless reassurances over Hudson's gasps and Clarissa's desperate voice.

Then with an appalling, wet convulsion, the old man went limp. As Clarissa bent over her father, infant wails mingled with the keening sounds of her own abandonment.

A
date with the executioner—Mrs
Hudson
? Absurd. Obscene.

So why did I not dismiss it as the ravings of a madman? Samuel Hudson was clearly unhinged, this oily salesman who had slithered his way into my home, held a gun on me, and threatened all I held dear. Nonetheless, I could not doubt the ring of truth in what he said—what he clearly believed. Impossible, to dismiss it out of hand.

I drew in one deliberate breath, let it out slowly, then drew another. On the third breath, all my confusion and ambiguity drifted away.

They say that when a soldier flings himself onto a grenade, when a mother drowns in rescuing her child, a greater need has overridden the urge to self-preservation. Until that moment, I would have said those were moments of insanity, when impulse overcame rationality. Accidents, almost, of self-deception.

They are not.

Those are moments of grace. Uncertainty is removed. Mind, heart, and body fuse together, and decisions are made without pause for reflection.

In that moment, standing with the sunlight refracting off the artificial facets in his hand, my past and my future became a simple thing.

This creature could not be permitted to touch Mrs Hudson.

The world slowed. I watched his pale eyelashes blink closed, and part again; saw him remember the brooch in his palm. His torso prepared to shift, his left hand to rise, that it might toss away the piece of jewellery. He was speaking again—something about having to see if I'd do—but I was no longer listening. His left shoulder shifted a millimetre forward. I began to move.

Some minutes earlier, as I squatted before the storage cupboards, my left hand had rested suggestively on a nice heavy book—but my right hand had not been idle. The tips of my fingers had nudged the knife from its sheath on my ankle, holding it out of sight, then slipped it up my left sleeve as I stretched to pick up the crate.

Still, there had been a cost to holding a scalpel-sharp blade next to my skin. Any moment now, Samuel Hudson would notice the blood dripping off my fingertips. I was out of time, out of hope, out of any options but to move.

He would
not
touch Mrs Hudson.

With my final act, I chose death.