The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [149]
“And if I do sign it?”
“If you do sign it, I shall allow you to give yourself one final injec-tion, one that will prove fatal even for a man of your inclinations. Miss Russell will be taken away and released after the newspapers have found your letter. She has no proof, you see, none at all, and I shall be far away.”
“You would give me your word that no harm should come to Miss Russell?”
He was quite serious, even I could see that.
“Holmes, no!” I cried, appalled.
“You will give me your word?” he repeated.
“You have my word: No harm will come to Miss Russell while she is in my care.”
“No, for God’s sake, Holmes.” My attempt at lying invisibly in wait was shattered. “Why on earth would you believe her? She’d shoot me as soon as you were gone.”
“Miss Russell,” she protested, affronted, “my word is my honour. I paid Mr. Dickson his fee posthumously, did I not? And I support that other worthless family while my employee is in prison. I even sent that messenger lad who delivered the clothing his second sovereign. My word is good, Miss Russell.”
“I believe you, Patricia. Why, I don’t know, but I do. I am going to take my pen from my inner pocket,” he said and, with slow and delib-erate movements, did so. I watched in horror as he uncapped it, turned to the last page of the sheaf of papers, and put the pen to the paper. Anticlimactically, the thing refused to write. He shook it, without success, and looked up.
“I’m afraid the pen is dry, Patricia. There is a bottle of ink in the cupboard above the sink.”
There was a moment’s hesitation as she looked for a trick, but he sat patiently with the pen in his hand.
“Miss Russell, you get the ink.”
“Holmes, I—”
“Now! Stop snivelling, child, and get the ink, or I shall be tempted to put another hole in you.”
I stared at Holmes, who looked back at me calmly, one eyebrow raised slightly.
“The ink, please, Russell. Your tutrix appears to have us in a position of checkmate.”
I pushed my chair back abruptly to hide my surge of hope and went to fetch the bottle. I put it on the table in front of Holmes and took my seat. He pushed the paper away, unscrewed the top of the squat ink bottle, drew the ink up into his pen, and cleared the nib of excess ink by pulling it, first one side and then the other, against the glass rim of the bottle. He then laid the pen on the table, screwed down the lid, put the bottle to one side, picked up the pen again, pulled the final sheet of typescript back in front of him, held the pen over the paper, and paused.
“You know, of course, that your father also committed suicide?”
“What!”
“Suicide,” he repeated. He capped the pen absently and laid it on the table in front of him, picked up the ink bottle and fiddled with it for a moment, deep in thought, laid it aside, and leant forward on his elbows.
“Oh, yes, his death was suicide. He followed me to Switzerland af-ter I destroyed his organisation, arranged a meeting at the most soli-tary spot he could find, and came to meet me. He knew he was no match for me physically, yet he did not bring a gun. Odd, don’t you think? Furthermore, he arranged for a confederate to fling rocks at me afterwards, because he suspected that he would not take me with him into death. No, it was suicide, Patricia, quite clearly suicide.” In the course of this speech his voice had grown harder, colder, and his lips curled over her name as if he were pronouncing an obscenity. The re-lentless cadence of his words went on, and on.
“You say you have come to know me, Patricia Donleavy.” He spat out her name and wrapped it in scorn, facing her across the table. “I know you too, Madam. I know you for your father’s daughter. Your fa-ther had a superb mind, as do you, and as you did he left the world of honest thought and turned to the creation of filth and evil. Your fa-ther created a network of horror and depravity that exceeded anything these islands had ever