Locked Rooms by King Laurie R

Author:King, Laurie R. [King, Laurie R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Historical, Age Range 2 Older Audience, Crime, Adult
ISBN: 9780553901597
Amazon: 0553901591
Goodreads: 7037762
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2005-06-21T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

The fog had ceased its teasing around the street-lamps and taken possession of the streets. However, the fog here was a very different thing from that stinking, inert yellow blanket that settled over London every winter. This seemed a living thing, shifting and breathing across the city, and it sheltered their walk, wrapping these two wayfaring strangers in anonymity. No shots rang out, no gaunt figures with tubercular coughs dogged their heels, and they walked arm in arm in mutually distracted silence, physically linked but mentally miles apart, through the Chinese district and downtown to the welcoming lights of the St Francis.

Between the excess of drink and the shock of two complete meals that day, Russell succumbed quickly to the warmth of the bed and did not wake until Holmes placed a cup of coffee on her bed-side table. She opened one eye, winced back from the brightness as the curtains went back, then threaded out a hand to fumble with the alarm-clock, holding its face up before her own. When she had focussed, she slammed it back down and made to throw off the bed-clothes.

“Nearly nine o’clock! Holmes, why didn’t you wake me earlier? I told you that Flo wanted to get an early start, and I haven’t finished packing my things.”

“Your friend telephoned five minutes ago to say that she was only now putting her things into a bag, that she would be here in an hour. The word ‘early’ appears to have a different meaning in Californian English.”

“Only in the dialect spoken by a certain sub-genus of nocturnal Californians,” Russell said, pawing the bed-clothes back into place and reaching for spectacles, then coffee. With lenses and the beverage, her vision improved, and she looked more closely at her husband’s attire and his purposeful movement through the rooms.

“Are you going somewhere, Holmes?”

By this time he had his coat and hat in hand, and it was apparent that he was indeed on his way out of the door. “Yes, if you don’t mind I shan’t wait for your friend to arrive. There’s a gentleman with a collection of manuscript papers across the Bay in Oakland, and a ferry that leaves at ten-thirty. If that’s all right with you?”

“Of course it is,” she answered with just the faintest edge of too much protest in her voice. “I’m glad you have something to keep you busy, so I won’t worry that you’re going to be bored silly in my absence.”

“No danger of that,” Holmes replied lightly. “Do you wish me to mention at the desk that we won’t be leaving San Francisco on the Wednesday as you had intended?”

“Oh! I forgot to do that. Yes, would you? I have a few more days’ business with Norbert, so perhaps another week?”

“The fourteenth,” he said, pulling on his gloves, and carefully not bringing up the topic of cross-country aeronautical pioneering.

“Or maybe the next day; that ought to give Norbert sufficient time to finish things off.”

“Thursday the fifteenth it is. Have a pleasant time, Russell.

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