The Beekeeper's Apprentice (32 page)

I had just come up to the window when a sound like a meaty palm slapping a table came from just outside the wall, followed a second later by a more familiar report. Holmes reacted instantly and dove across the room at me just as the window imploded in a shower of fly-ing razor-sharp glass and a second slap came from the opposite wall. We both came up in a crouch, and Holmes seized my shoulder.

“Are you hit?”

“My God, was that—”

“Russell, are you all right?” he demanded furiously.

“Yes, I think so. Do you—” but he was sprinting low towards the door as it opened and an inspector in mufti looked in open-mouthed. Holmes gathered him up, and they pounded off down the stairs in pur-suit. I steeled myself to creep around to the broken window and edge one eye over the lower corner. A steam launch was making its rapid way downriver, but there was also a mother with a pram stopped on the bridge, turned to look at a retreating taxi-cab, her shoulders in an attitude of surprise. Inside of a minute Holmes and the others had swept up to her, and she was soon surrounded by gesticulating men pointing east over the river and south across the bridge. I saw Holmes look unerringly up to where I stood in the window, turn to say some-thing to the tweedy inspector, and then set his shoulders resolutely and walk, hatless and head down, back to the Yard.

With typical police efficiency and priorities, Lestrade’s office was filled with people measuring angles and retrieving bullets from the brickwork, none of whom had a dustpan or a means of blocking the icy air from the window. I retreated into the next office but one, a room with no window. As soon as Holmes appeared I knew there would be no arguing with him, although I intended to try. “I think you’d best change that order to clothing for several days, Russell,” were his first words. “Stay away from windows, don’t eat or drink anything you’re not absolutely certain is safe, and keep your revolver with you.”

“Don’t take sweets from strangers, you mean?” I said sarcastically, but he would not anger.

“Precisely. I shall return in two or three hours. Be ready to leave when I get back.”

“Holmes, you must at least—”

“Russell,” he interrupted, and came over to grasp my shoulders, “I am very sorry, but time is of the utmost urgency. You were going to say that I must tell you what is happening, and I shall. You wish to be con-sulted; I intend to do so. In fact, I intend to place a fair percentage of the decisions to be made into your increasingly competent hands. But not just at this moment, Russell. Please, be satisfied with that.” And he shifted his hands to both sides of my head, bent forward, and brushed his lips gently across my brow. I sat down abruptly, felled by this thunderbolt, until long after he had gone ...which, I realized be-latedly, was precisely why he had done it.

olmes’ air of illicit excitement told me that he was ex-tremely unlikely to be back from his haunts in two or three hours. Irritated, I scribbled the lists for the young policewoman, gave her the last of my money, and turned my back on the windowless of-fice. I was jumpy at every window I passed, but I wanted to take a closer look at the parcel of clothing that had arrived for me that morning, which I had only seen from a distance. I made my way to the laboratories, where I disturbed a gentleman in an unnecessarily profes-sional white coat standing at a bench with a shoe in one hand. He turned at my entrance, and when I saw what he held, I was stunned speechless. The shoe was my own.

This pair of shoes now inhabiting the laboratory bench had disap-peared from my rooms some time during the autumn, in one of those puzzling incidents that happen and are finally dismissed with a shrug. I had worn them the second week of October, and two weeks later when I went to look for them, they were not there. It troubled me, but frankly more because I took it as a sign of severe absentmindedness than anything sinister. I had obviously left them somewhere. And here they were.

I was relieved to see that the clothes were not familiar to me, al-though very much to my taste. They were all new, ready-made from a large shop in Liverpool, unremarkable, though not inexpensive. Thus far the examiners had found nothing but clothing—not so much as a stray shirt pin.

The note that had accompanied the parcel lay in a steel tray across the bench, and I walked around to take a look at it. It was grey with fingerprint powder, but even if the sender had been careless, the paper was too rough to retain prints. I picked it up, read it with grudging amusement, noted casually the characteristics of the type, and started to lay it back down, and then I froze in disbelief. Yes, that’s one too many shocks in the last few days, my brain commented analytically. I fumbled for a stool and after some time became aware of the techni-cian’s alarm. I told him what I had seen. I told Lestrade the same thing when he appeared. Some time later I found myself in the windowless room with the policewoman who had returned from shopping saying how she’d been careful to watch each item taken down and wrapped, and I made polite noises of (I suppose) gratitude and then sat there for a long while with my brain steaming furiously away.

By the time Holmes blew in, hair awry and a wild light in his eyes, I had recovered enough to be examining the woman’s purchases. I drew back sharply as he entered and dropped a boot.

“Good God, Holmes, where have you been to pick up such a stench? Down on the docks, obviously, and from your feet I should venture to say you’d been in the sewers, but what is that horrid sweet smell?”

“Opium, my dear protected child. It clawed its way into my hair and clothes, though I was not partaking. I had to be certain I was not being followed.”

“Holmes, we must talk, but I cannot breathe in your presence.

There is a fine, if austere, set of shower baths in the prisoners’ section.

Take these clothes, but don’t let them touch the thing you have on.”

“No time, Russell. We must fly.”

“Absolutely not.” My news was vital, but it would wait, and this would not.

“What did you say?” he said dangerously. Sherlock Holmes was not accustomed to outright refusals, not even from me.

“I know you well enough, Holmes, to suspect that we are about to embark on a long and arduous journey. If it is a choice between expir-ing slowly from your fumes or being blown to pieces, I choose the lat-ter. Gladly.”

Holmes glowered at me for some seconds, saw that I was on this is-sue inflexible, and with a curse worthy of the docks snatched the prof-fered clothes and hurled himself out the door, furiously demanding directions from the poor constable stationed outside.

When he burst in again I was ready for travel, a booted young man. No doubt, I thought, the newness of the clothes would quickly fade in Holmes’ company.

“Very well, Russell, I am clean. Come.”

“There’s a cup of tea and a sandwich for you while I look to your back.”

“For God’s sake, woman, we must be on the docks in thirty-five minutes! We’ve no time for a tea party.”

I sat calmly, my hands in my lap. I noticed with interest that his cheekbones became slightly purple when he was severely perturbed, and his eyes bulged slightly. He was positively quivering when he threw off his coat, and one button of his misused shirt skittered across the floor. I put it into a pocket and picked up the gauze while he gulped his tea. I worked quickly on the nearly healed wound, and we were on the street within five minutes.

We dove into the back of a sleek automobile that idled at the kerb and squealed away. The driver looked more like a ruffian than he did the owner of such a machine, but I had no say in the matter. I waited for Holmes to stop his silent fuming, which was not until we were south of Tower Bridge.

“Look here, Russell,” he began, “I won’t have you—” but I cut him off immediately by the simple expedient of thrusting a finger into his face. (Looking back I am deeply embarrassed at the effrontery of a girl not yet nineteen pointing her finger at a man nearly three times her age, and her teacher to boot, but at the time it seemed appropriate.)

“
You
look here, Holmes. I cannot force you to confide in me, but I will not be bullied. You are not my nanny, I am not your charge to be protected and coddled. You have not given me any cause to believe that you were dissatisfied with my ability at deduction and reasoning. You ad-mit that I am an adult—you called me ‘woman’ not ten minutes ago— and as a thinking adult partner I have the right to make my own decisions. I saw you come in filthy and tired, having not eaten, I was sure, since last evening, and I exercised my right to protect the partner-ship by putting a halt to your stupidity. Yes, stupidity. You believe your-self to be without the limitations of mere mortals, I know, but the mind, even your mind, my dear Holmes, is subject to the body’s weakness. No food or drink and filth on an open wound puts the partnership—puts me!—at an unnecessary risk. And
that
is something
I
won’t have.”

I had forgotten the driver, who proved an appreciative audience to this dramatic declaration. He burst into laughter and pounded on the wheel as he slid through the narrow street, dodging horses, walls, and vehicles. “Right good job, Miss,” he guffawed, “make him wash his socks at night, too, whyn’t ya?” At last here I had the grace to blush.

The driver was still grinning, and even Holmes had softened when we reached our destination, a dank and filthy wharf somewhere down near Greenwich. The river was greasy and black in the early twilight, high and very cold looking, its calmer reaches one undulating mat of flotsam. The swollen body of a dog rocked gently against a pier. The area was deserted, though voices and machinery noises drifted from the next row of buildings.

“Thank you, young man,” said Holmes quietly, and “Come, Rus-sell.” We walked carefully down the planks to a gate of peeling corru-gated iron, which slid open with an eerie silence and closed again after us. The man on the gate followed us down to the end of the wharf, where lay a nondescript small ship, a boat, really. A man standing on the deck hailed us in a low voice and came down the gangway to take our valises.

“Good day, Mr. Holmes. Welcome aboard, sir.”

“I am very glad to be aboard, captain, very glad indeed. This is my”—He cocked an eyebrow at me—“my partner, Miss Russell. Rus-sell, Captain Jones here runs one of the fastest boats on the river and has agreed to take us out to sea for a while.”

“To sea? Oh, Holmes, I don’t think—”

“Russell, we will talk shortly. Jones, shall we be away?”

“Aye, sir, the sooner the better. If you’d like to go below, my boy Brian will be with you in a minute to show you your quarters.” The child appeared as we made our way down the narrow passage, opened a door, ducked his head shyly, and went to help his father cast off.

A narrow set of stairs led down to a surprisingly spacious cabin, a lounge of sorts with a tiny kitchen/galley at one side and soft chairs and a sofa bolted to the floor. A corridor opened off the forward side, and doors led to two small bedrooms with a lavatory and bath, be-tween them. Those are not the proper technical terms, I am aware, but the whole area so obviously was intended for the comfort of non-sailors, the lay terms are perhaps more accurate. We settled ourselves on two chairs as the engine noise deepened, and watched London slip by outside the windows. I leant forward.

“Now, Holmes, there is something I must tell you—”

“First some brandy.”

“Your plying me with that stuff becomes tedious,” I said crossly.

“Prevents seasickness, Russell.”

“I don’t get seasick.”

“Miss Russell, I believe you are becoming quite dissolute with the shady associations of the last few days. That, if my ears do not deceive me, was an untruth. You were about to tell me on deck that you did not wish to go to sea because it made you feel ill, were you not?”

“Oh, very well, I admit I don’t like going to sea. Give me the brandy.” I took two large and explosive mouthfuls, to Holmes’ disap-proving grimace, and banged the glass on the table. “Now, Holmes—”

“Yes, Russell, you wish to hear the results of today’s opium dens and—”

“Holmes,” I nearly shouted. “Would you listen to me?”

“Of course, Russell. I am happy to listen to you, I merely thought—”

“The shoes, Holmes, those shoes that arrived in the parcel? They were mine, my own shoes, taken from my rooms at Oxford. They disappeared some time between the twelfth and the thirtieth of October.”

A half minute of silence fell between us.