The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [39]
I directed the driver first to the road that led north and had him let us out to wander the roads. Justinian sniffed industriously but gave no response to the hammy tea towel. After a while we got back into the car and drove on to the mill road, beyond which lived Tony Sylvester. Again Holmes and I walked the verge while Justinian snuffled in the weeds and anointed them. We walked on, and on, a parade of dog, hu-mans, and automobile, and I had quite enough time to regret bitterly that I had ever involved myself in this farce. Holmes said nothing. He did not have to.
“Another half mile,” I said between clenched teeth, “and we as-sume either that the man was not on foot, or that the imperial nose is not what it was. Come on, Justinian.” I took the cloth and waved it under his nose. “Find! Find!”
He paused in his delicate examination of a flattened toad at the side of the road to savour the hammy cloth, his eyes lowered pensively. He stood for a moment, thinking deep thoughts inside his unkempt head, sat down to scratch a flea in his left ear, stood up, sneezed vigor-ously, and set off firmly down the road. We followed, more quickly now, and in a few minutes he dove off onto a thin track, under a fence, and into a field. Holmes signaled the car to wait where it was, and we clambered over in Justinian’s wake.
“I hope this is not the field with the bull in it,” I muttered.
“There is a path, so it is doubtful. Hello, what is this?”
It was a ten-shilling note, crushed into a patch of soft soil by a bovine hoof. Holmes carefully extricated it and placed it in my hand.
“Not the most professional job in the world, would you say, Russell? He couldn’t even wait to get home to gloat over his booty.”
“I did not take up this investigation for its intense mental stimula-tion,” I snapped. “I only wished to help out a friend.”
“One cannot be too demanding, I suppose. Still, I may be home in time to resume the haemoglobin experiment. Ah yes, I believe we—I believe you have found Mr. Sylvester’s house.”
The faint path went through another fence and dwindled away at a small stone farmhouse that had a faintly desolate air. There was no sign of life, no answers to our calls. Justinian tugged us along to a little smokehouse that stood apart, gently emitting curls of fragrant smoke. He went up to it and stood, nose to the crack, whining irritably. I opened the door, and in the dark, smoke-filled interior saw three whole hams and part of a fourth. I took my knife from my pocket and cut off a large piece, tossing it to the ground in front of Justinian.
“Clever dog.” I patted him and snatched my hand back when he snarled at me. “Stupid dog, I’m not about to give it to you and then take it away.”
“Where will you look for the cash box, Russell?”
“It’s bound to be someplace inconvenient, such as in the rafters of this smokehouse or down the pit in the privy. Nothing that requires a great deal of imagination or intellect: I admit it was a nice touch to hide the hams in an active smokehouse, but I’d have thought that an indication of sound criminal instinct rather than brains; even an ur-ban investigator might think it odd to find the remains of a pig blessed with two pairs of hams but neither trotters nor bacon.”
“Yes,” he sighed. “My life has been plagued by criminals with in-stinct and no sense; I shall leave this one to you. You search, while I walk back and bring the driver. Shall I open the house for you before I go?” he asked politely, holding out his ring of picklocks.
“Yes, please.”
The inn’s box was not in the smokehouse rafters, nor down the odoriferous pit. Nor did I find it dangling in the well or, moving inside, under the man’s bed or on the attic rafters or even under a loose floor-board. The driver outside was deeply entrenched in a cheap novel, happy enough to wait, but it was getting late. Holmes and I met in the tiny kitchen over