The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [45]
“A cool character, if that’s the case,” I offered, not meaning the child.
“Cool, as you say. And careful: The notes are on cheap, common paper, in common envelopes, typed on the second most common kind of typewriter, three or four years old, and mailed in busy post offices across London. No fingerprints. The spelling, choice of words, and punctuation are consistently atrocious. The layout on the page is pre-cise, the typist indents exactly five spaces at the beginning of each paragraph, and the pressure on the keys indicates some familiarity with typing. Other than the window dressing of illiteracy, the mes-sages are clear and not overly violent, as these things go.”
“Window dressing?”
“Window dressing,” he said firmly. “There is a mind behind this, Russell, not some casual, uneducated lout.” In his face and in his voice a total abhorrence of the crime itself fought a losing battle with his constitutional relish for the chase. I said nothing, and he continued to coat my hands and arms past the elbow with the awful stuff. “That is why we will take no risks, assume no weaknesses on their part. Our disguise is assumed the instant we step outside of that door over there, and not let down for a moment. If you cannot sustain it, you’d best say so now, because one slip could mean the child’s life. To say nothing of the political complications that will result if we allow a valued and somewhat reluctant Ally’s representative to lose his child while on our soil.” His voice was almost mild, but when he looked into my eyes I nearly quailed before him. This was no game of putting on Ratnakar Sanji’s turban and a music-hall accent, where the greatest risk was be-ing sent down; the penalty for failure in this rôle could be a child’s life. Could even be our own lives. It would have been easy, then, to excuse myself from the case, but—if not now, I asked myself, when? If I re-fused now, would I ever find the necessary combination of courage and opportunity again? I swallowed, and nodded. He turned and put the beaker on the table, where it would sit, undisturbed, to greet our weary eyes when we returned.
“There,” he said. “Let us hope it doesn’t stop up the plumbing again. Go have your bath and rinse this through your hair.”
I took the bottle of black, viscous dye across the corridor to the bathroom, and some time later stood looking in the mirror at a raven-haired young woman with skin the colour of milky coffee and a pair of exotic blue eyes, dressed in a multitude of voluminous skirts from Holmes’ trunks, draped with colourful scarves and a hotchpotch of heavy yellow gold and bright, cheap trinkets at my neck and wrists. I put on my spectacles to study my reflection in the glass, decided that my standard ones were too scholarly and exchanged them for a pair with heavier gold rims and lightly tinted lenses. The effect was incon-gruous, but oddly appropriate—a modern variation on the conspicu-ous wealth I already wore. I stepped back to practise a seductive, flashing smile, but only succeeded in making myself giggle.
“Fortunately, it is Mrs. Hudson’s day off,” was all Holmes said when I swirled into the sitting room. “Sit down, and we shall see what you can do with these cards.”
We left after dark to meet the last train going east. I telephoned from the cottage to let my aunt know that I had decided to spend a few days with my friend Lady Veronica in Berkshire, her grandmother had just died and she needed the assistance of her friends, not to expect me back for a week, and I rang off in the midst of her queries and protests. I should have to deal with her anger when I returned, but at least she was not about to complicate matters by calling in the police over her missing niece.
At the station we climbed down from the wheezing omnibus and took our multiple parcels over to the ticket window. I slipped my spec-tacles from my nose