The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [146]
“I am waiting, Sherlock.” The gun jiggled slightly on her knee.
Holmes’ response landed in the room like a glob of spit.
“Patricia.”
“That’s better. We need to work on the intonation, but that will come. As I was saying, I feel that I know you very, very well by now. Do you realise that you have been my hobby since I was eighteen? Yes, quite some time now. I was in New York. My mother was dying, and in the newsstand outside the hospital I saw a copy of a journal with your picture on the front, and inside a story of how you had not died, but how instead you had murdered my father. It took my mother a long time to die, and I had many hours to think about how I should meet you one day. I inherited my father’s business, you know, though I was really more interested in pure mathematics than the organisation. It ran itself, really, while I went to school. My managers were very loyal. Still are, for that matter. Most of them. They occasionally consulted me at University, but for the most part I would tell them what to do, and they would work out the how. Sometimes I made requests, which they carried out most efficiently.”
“Such as the unfortunate accidents that befell two of the other tu-tors shortly before you were hired?” I blurted out, unthinkingly letting loose a snatch of remembered conversation. I felt Holmes tighten dis-approvingly beside me, and kicked myself mentally for drawing her at-tention.
“So you heard about that, Miss Russell? Yes, unlucky, weren’t they? Still, I had the job I wanted, the job my father had been cheated out of, and I could get on with my hobby. I collected every word written by or about you. I even have an autographed copy of your monograph on bicycle tyres, one that you presented to the police commissioner. I assure you, I value it more highly than he did. Over the years I have learnt everything about you. I located three of your London hide-aways, though I suspect there’s at least one other. The one with the Vernet is quite nice,” she said casually, “though the carpet leaves something to be desired.” She waited for a reaction and, getting none, went on in irritation. “Billy was too easy to find, and following him that night you went to the opera was child’s play. I had thought of us-ing him against you, blackmailing him concerning certain incidents in his sister’s past, but it seemed cheating somehow.” Again the pause, again no response.
“Yes, there is very little I do not know about you, Sherlock. I know about why Mrs. Hudson’s son emigrated so hastily to Australia, about you and the Adler woman after my father’s death, about the scar on your backside and how you came to have it. I even have a rather fetch-ing photograph of you emerging from the steam rooms at the Turkish Bathhouse on— Ha! That reached you, didn’t it?” she crowed at Holmes’ faint exclamation and drove it home. “I even bought the farm up the hill from you several years ago, through an employee, of course, so I might look down upon you, even through your bedroom window.” However, Holmes had recovered from his lapse, and she abandoned the attempt to goad him.
“It took me five years to bring seven of my employees into the area, but I enjoyed every move. And then—oh, the delicious irony of it!— your Miss Russell came to me for tutoring. I could not have asked for a more perfect gift: my own intimate link with the mind of my father’s murderer. Had I taken up residence in the corner of your sitting room I could not have learnt more about you than I did from Miss Russell. It was truly delicious.
“During the summer holidays I generally spend time with the busi-ness, just to keep my hand in. This last summer we decided to follow up a rumour that an important American senator was about to place himself in a remote area, so we borrowed his daughter. As you know, we were not entirely successful, but imagine my