The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [73]
This time I was successful. Even without my spectacles I could see the old woman Mr. Thomas had described, sitting before the fire, bent over a book, her stockinged feet propped upon the rail. I fumbled with the sensationless protuberances on my hand and managed to pop the button from my shirt pocket, lay hands on my spectacles, nearly drop-ping them to destruction twice, and finally draped them crookedly across my nose. Even from the side she was extraordinarily ugly, with a black mole that resembled a large insect crawling across her chin. I pulled back, trying to think. I should have to do something quickly, as my hands were on the verge of becoming completely useless.
A stream of liquid ice was running down the back of my shirt and streaming off my bare foot. My brain was sluggish with the penetrating cold, but something stuck in my mind about this old woman. What was it? I rested one foot on the mossy stone sill, leant precariously for-ward, and studied the figure. The ear, was it? And then suddenly it all fell together in a neat pattern. I wedged my poor frozen fingers under the edge of the window and pulled. The old woman looked up from her book, then rose and came to open the window more fully. I looked up at “her” bitterly.
“Damn you, Holmes, what the hell are you doing here? And for God’s sake help me in this window before you have to scrape me up off the pavement.”
Soon I stood shivering and dripping on my carpet, and awkwardly dried my spectacles on the curtain so I wouldn’t have to squint to see Holmes. He stood there in his dingy old lady’s dress, that horrid mole on his face, looking not in the least apologetic for the trouble he had put me to.
“Damn it, Holmes, your flair for the dramatic entrance could have broken my neck, and if I avoid pneumonia it’ll be no thanks to the last few minutes. Turn your back; I must get out of these clothes.” He obe-diently turned a chair to a blank wall, one with no reflecting object, I noticed, and I peeled off my clothes clumsily in front of the hot little fire, put on the long grey robe I had left folded over the stool that morning, and got a towel for my hair.
“All right, you may turn around now.” I pushed the sodden cloth-ing into a corner until I could deal with them later. Holmes and I were close, but I didn’t care to wave my underclothing about in front of his nose. There are limits to friendship.
I went to the night table for my comb and, pulling a stool in front of the fire, I began to undo my wet braids to steam in the heat. My fin-gers, toes, and nose were fiery with returning sensation. The shivering had subsided somewhat, but I could not suppress the occasional hard shudder. Holmes frowned.
“Have you any brandy?” he asked in a low voice.
“You know I don’t drink the stuff.”
“That is not what I asked,” he said, all patience and condescen-sion. “I asked if you had any. I want some brandy.”
“Then you’ll have to ask my neighbour for some.”
“I doubt that the young lady would appreciate a figure like myself at her door, somehow.”
“It doesn’t matter, she’s home in Kent for the holidays anyway.”
“Then I shall just have to assume that she gave her permission.” He let himself out into the hallway, then put his head back in the door. “By the way, don’t touch that machine on the desk. It’s a bomb.”
I sat eyeing the tangle of wires with the black box in its centre un-til he returned with my neighbour’s bottle and two of her magnificent glasses. He poured generously and handed me a glass, and poured a smaller amount for himself.
“Not a very nice