Laurie R. King - The Murder of Mary Russell: A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes

9:15 a.m.

I rony comes in many flavours, sweet to bitter. The harshest irony I ever tasted was this: when I was interrupted that spring morning, I felt only relief.

But then, tyres on wet gravel sound nothing like the crack of doom.

The noise caught me in the midst of an attack on the post overflowing my desk in Sussex. Since dawn, Id been elbow-deep in five months worth of pleas, adverts, requests for information now out of date, proposals of joint ventures similarly belated, legal and scholarly papers in need of review, and a thin handful of actual letters from friends near and far. I wanted nothing more than to haul the lot outside and set a match to it.

When I heard the noise, I assumed it was Mrs Hudson, returning for some forgotten element of her mornings trip to Eastbourne. However, the tyres sounded more tentative than Patricks hand on the wheel (Patrick Mason was my farm manager and our housekeepers occasional driver). Nor did the approaching engine sound familiar. A taxi bringing Holmes, perhaps, finished with his unspecified tasks for his brother, Mycroft? I hadnt seen my husband since hed left Oxford, two weeks before.

But a glance through the library window showed an unfamiliar car with London number plates and a solitary figure considerably smaller than Sherlock Holmes. The driver circled counter-clockwise, coming to a halt before the house.

I headed to the door with a light heart: unarguable proof that Mary Russell had no talent for reading the future.

I stepped from the front door into the roofed portico beyond, stopping as the fickle morning sunshine gave way to another quick shower. The drivers door opened, but he hesitated, seeing not just the rain, but me. Hed expected someone else.

May I help you? I called.

Er, the Holmeses?

This is the place, I confirmed. The shower grew stronger, spattering down the drive, and although the day was warm enough, I had no wish to change out of wet clothes. I turned to rummage through the odd population of canes, sticks, and tools in the corner of the entryway, but before I could locate an umbrella that functioned, the car door slammed and footsteps hurried across the stones. I let go the handle and gave the visitor some room under the shelter.

He was a short, stocky man in his forties, wearing a new black overcoat, an old brown suit, and a cloth driving cap that he now pulled off, snapping it clear of drops before arranging it back over his blond hair. His brief question had been insufficient to betray an accent, but it had to be either Australian or South Africanhis pale blue eyes positively blazed out of sun-darkened skin, and his suit had a distinctly colonial air to it. I had just chosen Australia when his greeting confirmed it.

Gday, Maam. Nice place you got here.

With that greeting, I finally raised a mental eyebrow.

A persons first words can reveal a great deal more than the speakers origins. The closer one sticks to the traditional formsGood day, Madam, terribly sorry to bother you butor a chatty variation such as, Dreadful weather for May, Maam, please dont come any further into it, I justthe smoother the transition into a strangers life. But Nice place you got here, coupled with a blithe spattering of drops across the entry tiles and a grin that showed too many teeth? The man was out to sell me something.

Had I actually been working that morninghad I not been so grateful for any interruption at allI might simply have taken another step back and shut the door in his face. Might not even have gone out at all, for that matter, thus setting events off in a very different direction. But with nothing more compelling than a stack of mail to draw me, that self-assured grin made for a nice little challenge.