Chapter Four

The sun rose the next morning insufferably bright and cheerful, shining into my eyes where I had forgotten to shut the curtain the night before. Groaning, I reached for my glasses and stared at the clock on the wall. In the midst of attempting to ascertain what time it was, I heard the thump of the back door closing where the cook was collecting the fresh bottles of milk set there by the delivery boy.

My aunt would not be awake yet, most fortunately. By the time she usually rose, the sun was already high in the sky and luncheon was being served. Her newfound wealth had made her extremely lazy these past months, which actually made mornings the nicest time of the day.

Dragging myself from my narrow bed in the attic room, I chose some comfortable clothes from the closet and prepared myself for a day to be spent in the great outdoors. On the way out, my only stop was to grab a fresh pastry while the cook's back was turned. Sometimes, I wondered if she turned her back on purpose whenever I walked through her realm.

A long morning spent upon the green fields of the Downs mellowed my stormy emotions. I was ercked by the presence of the Donleavys last night. It was not that I disliked them, in fact, they were very personable people, but something about their arrival bothered me. The difficulty was that I could not pin point why I felt that way. Patricia in particular had paid me a lot of attention. She asked me about my schooling, my family, and things I showed interest in, namely theology.

Perhaps what I found troubling was that she had told me little of herself, while I had told her nearly everything, except tha accident, of course. Of that no one knew what really happened except for me. Not only was the incident too difficult to speak of, but the horrors of it still haunted me and masking the bitter truth was for my own protection and well-being.

My walk had led me to the cliff's edge, where I could see the waters of the channel spreading for miles and miles. They reminded me of the Pacific Ocean, which was darker and stormier, but still conveyed that feeling of freedom and space. Two things that England had not yet offered to me.

How desperately I missed San Fransisco! At least there I could be myself and do as I had wished. The strict rules of English society held me back from schol, from independence, and from the life I had known. A life that Patricia Donleavy represented. As long as I lived under my aunt's control, such a life could never be mine.

But there was something else about Patricia that startled me. I had sat beside her on the sofa at her beckoning. It seemed only natural since we were nearly the same age. However, I noticed that she had moved closer to me the entire time we spoke, until her skirts were brushing against mine. By that point, I could feel my nerves tingling with nervousness, an emotion I rarely felt. Even after moving away from her to the furthest corner of the sofa, I was still uncomfortable with her presence. Her intense attention on my person disturbed me. It was not the same intensity that Mr. Holmes had in his eyes that day I had seen him; he was curious, Patricia seemed more vicious and prefatorial in her interest. What was it that she wanted?

It was this and other questions that I pondered upon while walking the Downs. Standing by the edge of the stark white cliffs, the wind in my face, I took a deep breath. Too much had occurred in my life since the deaths of my parents and brother. Never again could I be the carefree adolescent I had been in California. The past few months had greatly changed who I was. I only hoped that my situation could only go upwards from here.

I only hoped Mr. Holmes could find something, anything, that would help me get away from my aunt. There was a college for women in Cambridge that I could attend and in Oxford I would be able to attend lectures, but obtain no degree. Society was not yet open to the thoughts of women scholars, unfortunately. There were but two paths for an Englishwoman to travel: wife and mother, or governess and companion. There were women nurses and doctors, but that route was not for me. If I could just escape my aunt's heavy hand, I would be a happier person.

The ocean breeze blew stray hairs into my eyes as I looked out over the channel, lost in thought. What would Mr. Holmes find in London? It had been only a day since I had seen him and yet I was wishing that he had already come up with something. How foolish of me. He was a busy man and would not entirely occupy his time with the problems of an adolescent girl. No man, and no person for that matter, would do that.

But the look I had seen in Mr. Holmes' eyes as I left suddenly came back to me, and I knew that this man - this detective - would help me, no matter what the cost. I didn't know why I felt that way, I couldn't explain it at all. Why should he care about me? Why should anyone? Yet here I was, with two people who had taken an interest in my well being. Mr. Holmes I could understand, not only had I hired him, but I had also heard stories about his great mind and his compassion for others. However, Patricia Donleavy's interest in me I could not fathom. She had no real reason to ask me so many questions and worm her way into my life. Never before had I allowed anyone to do so, nor would I be starting now.

Droplets of rain startled me from my brown study, forcing me to look up at the sky. Dark, stormy clouds were floating past high above and the wind had picked up, causing the waves to splash up against the rocks.

Just like the day They died...

No! I would not think of that, I would not think of that day. I must not think of it.

It was just like today...

Indeed it had been. The clouds were the same, as was the cliff and the water below. The only difference was the place. There was not a road by the cliffs, nor as many rocks as there were on that road south of San Francisco. This place in Sussex was not the same as the place where They had died.

That would keep me from the madness that had nearly consumed me.

I had to show a brave face to the world. The face that my parents would have wanted me to show. The face of an American Heiress living in England. The face of the woman I would one day become. A person I did not relish becoming. Too much of my youth had vanished in a matter of seconds; the rest deteriorating in the months afterwards. Every morning when I looked in the mirror, I saw someone I no longer recognized. The Mary Russell of old had long disappeared.

When the rain began pouring down, I turned and headed back towards what had been my home for the past four months. The water poured down my cloth cap and onto my shoulders, but I did not care. The rest of the world was already leaning upon me, what did more weight matter?


The entirety of the next day I spent scouring any banking institution I could think of which may have served Miss Russell's aunt. It was not until the ninth when I found exactly what I had been looking for. In the guise of an auditor, I was able to gain access to the records of one Ester Klein, sister to the late Judith Klein Russell. It is wondrous how simple it is to delve into the books of another, especially when the bank manager is one's cousin (a second cousin one removed, I believe. I shall have to ask Mycroft to be entirely sure).

After looking through the books, it was rather easy to see that the woman had an extraneous source of income, two of them actually. The only difficulty was in tracing where - or who - they were coming from.

Could it be that she had a pension from some sort of work? Nursing, perhaps? Or even an inheritance from a relative? A darker idea came to my mind, that of blackmail. From Miss Russell's description, the aunt was a shady character indeed. More like a character from a fairy tale than a real person.

I continued my pursuit of the elusive funds through a complex and delicate search through the accounts of many financial institutions and records offices throughout the City. It was a gruelling search, but far better on my health than any romp through Whitechapel or Dartmoor. Watson would be proud of my improving welfare; I had not touched my cocaine for months.

Finally, I found what I was looking for, deep in the records of an obscure bank. There had been no other sign of an account for one Ester Klein in no other bank but the first I had visited, which was popular amongst many well-to-do citizens of the Empire. Now, however, there was something that could very well complete this case and set Miss Mary Russell into the life she blatantly desired and deserved.

Finding myself thinking about the young heiress once again, I buried myself once more in the mysterious accounts of her aunt. The girl was an interesting one, but a girl nonetheless. Since Irene Adler had passed through my life, no other woman seemed to challenge me, distract my mind from its workings. Yet Miss Russell was proving to do this. Through her youth and anger I could see a fierce intelligence and a mind that could, if trained properly, rival if not exceed my own. But against her was society's view of her sex - women were supposed to be weak and obedience, and though I had known some who were all but, society always triumphed, forcing these strong females into exile and scandal.

Nothing could ever change the common thoughts of human beings, not time nor desperation. As an observer of the human race, I could see all this.

Suddenly, as my thoughts were running off in directions I would rather they not, my eyes caught something in the bank record I held. Various deposits from an institution in New York had been made since year had begun, each of the same amount, and appearing at equal intervals - always on the 15th of every month. There was no information as to the source of this money, but a telegram to some acquaintances I had in New York would perhaps yield some assistance as to the sender's identity.

Before I could allow myself to delve into the challenge this identity would give me, I sat back and wondered how on earth someone from New York could be sending Miss Russell's money to her aunt in England. From what I knew of the Russell fortune, all of the monetary inheritance was being held in London, in trust until the occasion of Miss Russell's twenty-first birthday. There could be no possible way that the money would first travel to New York from London, then back again. I would not put it past Ester Klein to do such a clever act; from what Miss Russell had told me of her aunt, Miss Klein was greedy, but not extraordinarily intelligent.

That left only one answer: that this second source had nothing to do with my present investigation. It was money coming from someone else, and not Miss Russell.

For the moment, I would leave this thread of the case undisturbed unless something else came up that would lead me once again to it. There was likely a perfectly acceptable answer for this second source. It was probably unimportant. What I needed to know - what Miss Russell needed to know - was whether or not her aunt was stealing from her.

That is what I would have to discover and prove.

After thanking the clerk for his assistance, I strode off into the thick fog that had laid over the City that morning and had not let up, even with the middle of the day. The street was crowded with carriages, carts, and people of all sorts. I watched them absently, noticing how the young street Arab across the street was carefully picking the pockets of a gentleman who should have been more watchful, and how a fast moving carriage nearly drove over a young woman, who was barely saved by the quick action of her companion. But I saw them without seeing, for my mind was elsewhere.

I went back to my lodgings on Baker Street, needing some time to think and read the material on the Russell family that I had asked Mycroft to obtain for me. It was a rather thick pile of papers including telegraphs from America, scribbled notes copied from government records, and a meticulously written will and testament - most likely copied from an original by an overly self-conscious clerk in Mycroft's offices.

There was nothing really of interest in the will, which left the companies, houses, and the bulk of the money to the Russell children - Mary and Levi (her brother, I supposed) - and with small amounts left to servants and friends of the family. None of the names meant anything to me, but for future reference, I wrote them down on the back of an old telegram.

However, there were a number of other articles in the folder that proved to be of much more interest to me. In particular was a listing of withdrawals from the Russell account over the past five years, suddenly discontinuing the month before the "accident" which killed three-quarters of the family.

It was too damned convenient, the carriage accident.

I wondered if Miss Russell had ever thought so. Or did she blame herself for the accident because she was the only one left? Or could it be that I was assisting a murderess?

It would not be the first time, if the latter were true. But something in the girl's eyes and in the way she spoke wanted me to think otherwise. Anyway, it would be impossible for a young lady of seventeen to have blackmailed her own father - especially when that blackmail began when she was twelve. Unless, of course, the withdrawals had a completely reasonable explanation for their existence. That was very possible, yet my untrusting mind continued to haggle my conscience, not allowing the data to slip away from the attic of my knowledge.

Why did it seem that every way I approached this case turned up a new and startling piece of information that would not allow itself to be explained away? The original case that Miss Russell had presented me with was simple: to prove that her aunt was embezzling money from the girl's inheritance. However, there seemed to be a strange depth to this case; evidence of something more than just the aunt's dishonesty.

Leaning back in my chair, I lit my pipe. This was certainly a three pipe problem.


Author's Note: Once again, apologies for the terribly slow updates, but this story has been giving me a bit of trouble, especially after "Locked Rooms" came out. A few changes were made to the plot that will hopefully make this a far more interesting and suspenceful story than I originally had planned. Many thanks to all my reviewers - you're all wonderfully inspiring and it's you whom I write this for.