The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [49]
“In the next room. I thought you and I might have a word, before.”
“Quite. We shall leave the city immediately we have seen them. I assume that the roadblocks are still up but that your men are away from the area, as I specified.”
“As you asked,” Connor agreed, though the resentment in his voice said clearly that he had been forced to follow direct orders from above and was none too happy about it.
Holmes looked up sharply, then settled back deliberately into his chair, his long fingers laced across his stained waistcoat and a thin smile on his lips. “Perhaps we need clarify this matter, Chief Inspec-tor. I ‘asked’ for nothing. I certainly did not ‘ask’ that this case be wished upon me. You people approached me, and I only accepted after it had been agreed by all parties that my orders take priority in regards to those few square miles of Welsh countryside. Call them requests if you like, but do not treat them as such. Furthermore, I wish to make clear that Miss Russell here is my official representative, that if she ap-pears without me, any message or ‘request’ is to be honoured, immedi-ately and without cavil. Are we quite in agreement, Chief Inspector?”
“Nah, Mr. Holmes,” Connor began to bluster, the Welsh rhythm creeping back into his throat, “I can hardly think—”
“That is eminently clear, young man. Were you to pause for thought you might realise that a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would suffice. If you agree, then we shall speak with the Simpsons and get on with the job. If your answer is ‘no,’ then you may give Miss Russell back her bags, and I in return will hand you back your case. The decision is en-tirely yours. Personally I should be glad to get back to my experiments and sleep in my own bed. Which shall it be?”
Cold grey eyes locked with brilliant blue ones, and after a long minute, blue wavered.
“Have no choice, do I? That woman’d have my head.” He shoved back from the table, and we followed the disgruntled chief inspector through the room’s third door and into his office.
The two people who looked up at our entrance wore catastrophe on their aristocratic faces, that stretched appearance of human beings who have passed the threshold of terror and exhaustion and can feel only a stunned apprehension of what will come next. Both of them were grey, unkempt, and fragile. The man did not stand when we came in, only looked past us at Connor. The tea on the desk was untouched.
“Senator, Mrs. Simpson, may I introduce Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his assistant, Miss Mary Russell.”
The senator reared back like the chief mourner at a funeral con-fronted by a tasteless joke, and Holmes stepped forward quickly.
“I must apologise for my singular appearance,” he said in his most plummy Oxbridgian. “I thought it best for the sake of your daughter’s safety that I not be seen entering the station, and came in, as it were, through the servant’s entrance. I assure you that Miss Russell’s disguise is every bit as sham as the gold tooth I am wearing.” Simpson’s feath-ers went down, and he rose to shake Holmes’ hand. Mrs. Simpson, I noticed, seemed blind to what Holmes and I looked like: From the moment Connor spoke his name her haunted eyes had latched onto Holmes like a drowning woman staring at a floating spar and followed his every move as he shifted a chair around to sit directly in front of them. I sat to one side, and Connor went around to take up his normal chair behind the desk, separated by it from the amateur and uncon-ventional happenings before him.
“Now,” said Holmes briskly, “to business. I have read your state-ments, seen the photographs, reviewed the physical evidence. There is little purpose served in forcing you to go through it all yet again. Per-haps I might merely state the sequence as I understand it, and you will please correct me if I stray.” He then went over the information gained from the file and the newspapers: the decision to strike off into the hills of Wales with only a tent, the train to Cardiff and the car up into the hinterland, two days of peace, and the third day waking