The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [75]
“Who? Holmes, what is going on? Don’t tell me you suggest we go out again into that.” I waved my hand at the window, where the damp, splashing drops told of rain halfway to being snow. “I’m not even dry from the first time. And what is that thing you’ve brought—is it really a bomb? Why did you bring it here? Talk to me, Holmes!”
“Very well, to be succinct: We shall go out, but not yet; the bomb was here, attached to your door when I arrived; and ‘what’s going on’ is nothing less than attempted murder.”
I stared at him aghast. The tangled object on the desk seemed to writhe gently in the edges of my vision, and I felt cold fingers running up my spine. When I had my breath back I spoke again and was pleased to find that my voice was almost firm.
“Who wishes to kill me? And how did you know about it?” I did not think it necessary to ask why.
“Well done, Russell. A quick mind is worthless unless you can con-trol the emotions with it as well. Tell me first, why did you come up the ivy, rather than through the door? You did not have your revolver and could hardly have expected to leap in the window and overpower your intruder.” His dry voice was marginally too casual, but I could not see why this was so important to him.
“Information. I needed to know what awaited me before making a decision. Had I found an armed reception party I’d have gone down and had Mr. Thomas telephone for the police. Am I correct in as-suming that you left the black smudge on the doorknob for me to find?”
“I did.”
“And the mud and leaves on the opposite window ledge?”
“The mud was there before I came. One leaf I added, as assurance that you should notice.”
“Why the charade, Holmes? Why risk my bones coming up the wall?”
He looked straight at me and his voice was dead, flat serious.
“Because, my dear child, I needed to be absolutely certain that de-spite being tired, cold, and hungry, you would pick up the small hints and act correctly.”
“The business of the note in my pigeonhole was hardly a ‘small hint.’ A bit heavy-handed for you. Why didn’t you ask Mrs. Hudson which room I was in? She has been to my rooms before.” There was something here I was just not seeing.
“I have not seen Mrs. Hudson for some days.”
“But—the food?”
“Old Will brought it to me. You may have seen that he’s more than just the gardener,” he added with apparent irrelevance.
“I surmised that some time ago, yes. But why have you been away—?” I stopped, and my eyes narrowed as various facts merged and his stiffness came back to me. “My God, you’re hurt. They tried to kill you first, didn’t they? Where are you injured? How badly?”
“Some distinctly uncomfortable abrasions along my back, is all. I’m afraid I may have to ask you to change the dressings at some point, but not immediately. The person who set the bomb thinks I’m dying, for-tunately. Some poor tramp was run over just after they took me to the hospital, and he’s there still, with bandages about his head and my name on his chart. And, I might add, a constable at his side at all times.”
“Was anyone else hurt? Mrs. Hudson?”
“Mrs. Hudson is fine, although half the glass in the south wall is out. The house is miserable in this weather so she’s off to that friend of hers in Lewes until repairs are made. No, the bomb was not actually in the house; they set it in one of the beehives, of all places. He, or they, must have laid it the night before, expecting it to catch me on my morning rounds. Perhaps he used a radio transmitter to trigger it, or else motion at the adjoining hives was enough. In any case, I can only be grateful that it did not go up in my face.”
“Who, Holmes? Who?”
“There are three names that come to mind, although the hu-mourous touch of using the hive is of a level I should not have cred-ited to any of the three. There are four bombers I have put away in the past. One is dead. One has been out for five years, though I had heard that he had settled down and become a strong family man. The second was let out eighteen