The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [104]
“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.
“Good Lord,” he said at last. “How extraordinary. I am most grate-ful to you, Russell, I should have missed that entirely.” He was so obvi-ously disturbed that any faint malicious glee I might have had at my second piece of news withered away.
“There is more. I think, in fact, that you might like to finish that drink first, Holmes, because that note, that was in the shoes? I exam-ined it very, very closely, Holmes, and I believe it was typed on the same machine as the notes concerning Jessica Simpson’s ransom.”
There was no softening the blow. The bare facts were awful enough, but the implications inherent in my having to tell him were, for him, truly terrible: twice now in little more than two days I had res-cued him from a major error. The first might have been excused, though it nearly cost Watson his life; this one had been in his hands, under his nose, at the very time he had been searching for just such a clue. It changed the investigation, and he had missed it. He stood up abruptly and turned his back to me at the window.
“Holmes, I—”
One warning finger was raised, and I bit back the words that would only have made matters worse: Holmes, four days ago you were con-cussed and bleeding. Holmes, you’ve had less than a dozen hours’ sleep in the last eighty. Holmes, you were exhausted and furious when you saw the note, and you would have called to mind the characteristic missing serif on the a and the off-centre, tipsy l and the high M, you’d have consciously remembered seeing them, if not today, then tomor-row, or the next day, Holmes. However, I said nothing, because he would hear only: Holmes, you’re slipping.
We were well clear of London’s fringes by the time I saw the back of his neck relax into an attitude of straightforward contemplation of data. I heaved a silent sigh of relief and settled myself to a study of the opposite windows.
Ten minutes later he came back and sat down with his pipe. He paused with the match alight in his hand.
“You are quite certain, I take it?”
“Yes.” I began to recite the characteristics I had noted, but he cut me off.
“That is not necessary, Russell. I have great faith in your eyes.” He puffed up a small cloud and shook out the match. “And your brain,” he added. “Well done. It does mean we now have something resembling a motive.”
“Revenge for thwarting Jessica’s kidnapping?”
“That, and the knowledge that we are waiting to pounce on any sim-ilar attempt in the future. Anyone familiar with Watson’s literary fabri-cations will be certain that Sherlock Holmes always gets his man. Or, in this case, woman.” I was pleased to hear the customary ironic humour, and no more, in his voice. “It is, however, intriguing that I could find no indication of an up-and-coming gang of criminals with a female head.”
I gratefully shelved the uncomfortable topic and asked for the re-sults of the last eighteen hours. He looked mildly surprised.
“Eighteen hours? Surely I kept you abreast of my thoughts last night?”
“Your mutterings in the park were completely unintelligible, and if you spoke to me in the laboratory before dawn, I did not hear it.”
“Odd, I thought I was quite garrulous. Well then, to the park, or rather to the remnants of a once-noble four-wheeler, which at first glance appears to be the least interesting of the night’s works. There were two large men there, and one, so I thought, smaller, lighter man wearing boots with distinctive square heels. The two large men came