The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [139]
Once, when we slipped by inches through a gap between a hay wagon and a stone wall, losing considerable paint to the latter, Holmes was really quite uncharacteristically silent. After some minutes I asked him if he was feeling well.
“Russell, if you decide to take up Grand Prix racing, do ask Watson to do your navigating. This is just his métier.”
“Why, Holmes, do you have doubts about my driving?”
“No, Russell, I freely admit that when it comes to your driving abili-ties, I have no doubts whatsoever. The doubts I have are concerned with the other end of our journey. The question of our arrival, for one thing.”
“And what we shall find when we get there?”
“That too, but it is perhaps not of such immediate concern. Rus-sell, did you see that tree back there?”
“Yes, a fine old oak, wasn’t it?”
“I hope it still is,” he muttered. I laughed merrily. He winced.
e succeeded in working our way across all the major ar-teries coming from London on our cross-country flight. Fi-nally we shook them off and straightened out for the last clear run at home. I glanced at Holmes in the pale moonlight.
“Are you going to tell me how you came to be in Oxford? And what your plans are for the next few hours?”
“Russell, I really think you ought to slow this machine down. We cannot know when we will come across our opponent’s minions, and we do not wish to attract their attention. They believe you are in Ox-ford and I am in bed.”
I allowed the speedometer to show a more sedate speed, which seemed to satisfy him. Hedgerows and farm gates flew past in our head-lamps, but it was still too early for the farmers themselves.
“I came to Oxford by train, a commonplace method of transport considerably more comfortable than your racing car.”
“Holmes, it’s only a Morris.”
“After tonight I doubt the factory would recognise it. At any rate, I regret to inform you that your friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes has taken a definite turn for the worse. It seems that last week he foolishly al-lowed himself to take a chill and was soon in bed with pneumonia. He refused to go into hospital; nurses were in attendance around the clock. The doctor came regularly and looked grim when he left. Rus-sell, have you any idea how difficult it is to find a specialist who can both lie and act? Thank God for Mycroft’s connexions.”
“How have you kept Watson away?”
“He did come to see me once, last week. It took me two hours to apply the make-up to convince him, and even then I had to refuse to let him examine me. If he had come bouncing out of my cottage like a cat hiding the feathers, can you imagine what that would have done with the trap? The man never could prevaricate. Mycroft had to con-vince him that if anything were to happen to my dear friend Watson it truly would do me in, so he is back in hiding.”
“Poor Uncle John. We shall have a lot of explaining to do when this is over.”
“He has always been most forgiving. But, to continue. I had thought that my grave illness might increase the pressure on the woman and force a move out of her. I was going to speak to you about it when you came down this week, as I knew you should when you got Mrs. Hud-son’s weekly letter tomorrow—or, rather, today—but it began to move faster than I had anticipated, so I came to Oxford to consult. Only to find that you in turn were coming here.”
“What happened to make you come?”
“You know my hillside watchers? They’ve really become most care-less, glints of light from their glasses and lighting cigarettes in the dark. One of Mycroft’s little gifts last month was a high-powered tele-scope, so I’ve spent a great deal of time behind my bedroom curtains, watching the watchers. Their routine is quite predictable, always the same people at the same times. Then suddenly yesterday, or rather the day before yesterday—Sunday evening it was—as I was watching them watch me, they all disappeared. A man whom I hadn’t seen be-fore came