The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [145]
“I believe,” she said slowly, and again she had fluctuated into that slightly “off” manner that made me feel as if I did not know her in the least. “I believe that I shall call you Sherlock. An awkward name, that. What was your father thinking? Nonetheless, we have had such an in-timate relationship—admittedly one-sided up to now—for so many years, I believe it is time to make it reciprocal. You will address me please by my Christian name.”
Before she reached the end of this bizarre little speech I knew what the strong sense of wrongness was that I had sensed in her. When I had known her at Oxford, she had struck me as a person whose frus-trations with the demands of University life would cause her, before too long, to make a break with the University and go elsewhere to ex-ercise her considerable abilities. Indeed, that is what I had half as-sumed had taken place when she did not return for Hilary term. It was now clear that the break had taken place, but internally: The tightly controlled impatience she had always exhibited had broken free, and the knowledge of her superiority had progressed to a sense of su-premacy. Eccentricity had flowered into madness.
It was an almost textbook illustration of dementia, but I needed no book to tell me what my crawling skin knew: The woman was more dangerous than her gun, as volatile as petrol fumes and malignant as a poisonous spider. My frantic thoughts could find no option to grab hold of, could conceive of no way to calm her, or even distract her. I could only sit, still and unimportant, to one side, and leave the field to Holmes’ vast experience.
“Madam, I can hardly think that—”
“You ought to think very carefully, Sherlock, before you choose.”
I had heard that tone of voice before, on occasions when her reit-erated query as to whether I was satisfied with my solution had sent me scrambling for my error before she came down on me like a barbed whip. Holmes either did not perceive the threat or chose to ignore it.
“Miss Donleavy, I—”
The gunshot exploded into the closed room at the same instant that something tugged gently at my upper arm and a piece of equip-ment disintegrated noisily on a shelf next to the door, and I just had time to hope fervently that Mrs. Hudson would not be brought in by the noise when the pain flared. Holmes heard my gasp and turned to me as I clamped my left hand over the wound.
“Russell, are you—”
“She is fine, my dear Sherlock, and I suggest that you sit quietly or soon she will not be at all fine. Thank you. I assure you that I hit pre-cisely what I intend to hit with this gun. I do nothing by halves, and that includes target practise. And incidentally, you need not worry that your guard will interrupt us this evening; he and Mrs. Hudson are both sleeping very soundly. Now, take your hand away, my dear, and let us see how much you are bleeding. You see? Barely a nick. A pretty shot, I think you’ll agree. You know,” she said in another voice en-tirely, that of a woman of reason and compassion, “I am really terribly sorry that I had to do that to you, Miss Russell. I hope you realise that I am not in the habit of shooting my pupils.” Her voice tried to coax a smile from me, and the terrible thing was, despite the looming panic and shock, I wanted to give it to her. Wanted to trust her.
“Now, Sherlock, my dear, to return to the topic. What was it you were about to call me?” she said in mock coquetry.
Her voice set my skin to crawling. The surface was light mischief, but just below lay threat and contemptuous laughter and another thing that took