The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [76]
“Where are we going?” I asked with considerable patience, I thought, considering the havoc I could see this was going to wreak on my plans for a lovely holiday.
“To the great cesspool, of course.”
“Why London?”
“Mycroft, my dear child, my brother Mycroft. He possesses the knowledge of Scotland Yard without the obsessional reticence of that good body, which tends to hoard information like a dragon its gold. Mycroft can, with a single telephone call, tell me the precise locations of our three possibilities, and who is the most likely author of your mechanism here. Assuming my attempted murderer still believes me to be in hospital, he would not connect you with Mycroft, as the two of you have never so much as met. We will be safe with him for a day or two, and we shall see what trail turns up. The scent in Sussex is, I fear, very cold. I did come up here as quickly as I could, but I was not in time to catch him at his work. I am sorry about that. You see before you a distinctly inferior version of Sherlock Holmes, old, rusty, and easily laid out.”
“By a bomb that nearly killed you.” His long, expressive fingers waved away my proffered excuse. “Do we go now?”
“I think not. He already knows the bomb did not go off. He will no doubt assume that you will be on full guard tonight—that you have not called the police already tells him that. He will bide his time to-night, and tomorrow either lay another bomb for you, or if, as I sus-pect, he is intelligent and flexible enough, he will be creative and use a sniper’s rifle or a runaway motorcar, should you be so foolish as to provide a target. However, you will not. We will be on the streets be-fore light, but not earlier. You may rest until then.”
“Thank you.” I tore my eyes from the bomb. “First, your back. How much gauze will I need?”
“A considerable quantity, I should think. Do you have it?”
“One of the girls down the hall is a hypochondriac with a nurse mother. If you can do your lock trick on her door as well as you did on that of my other neighbour we should be well supplied.”
“Ah, that reminds me, Russell. An early birthday present.”
Holmes held out a small, narrow package wrapped in shiny paper. “Open it now.”
I undid the wrappings with great curiosity, for Holmes did not nor-mally give gifts. I opened the dark velvet jeweller’s box and found in-side a shiny new set of picklocks, a younger version of his own.
“Holmes, ever the romantic. Mrs. Hudson would be pleased.” He chuckled and stood up cautiously. “Shall we try them out?”
Some time later we were back in front of my fire, richer by several square yards of gauze, a huge roll of sticking plaster, and a quart bottle of antiseptic. I poured him a large brandy, and when he took off his shirt I could see that I was going to need most of that gauze. I refilled his glass and stood assessing the job.
“We ought to let Watson do this.”
“If he were standing here I would. Get on with it.” He swallowed this second brandy neat, so I poured him a third, picked up the scissors, and paused.
“Personally I have found that the mind handles pain best if it is given a counterirritant to distract it. Aha, I have just the thing. Holmes, tell me about the case of the King of Bohemia, and Irene Adler.” Holmes was seldom beaten, but that woman had done it, with an ease and a flair that I knew still rankled. Her photograph stood on his book-shelf, as a reminder of his failure, and telling me about it would very pos-sibly distract him from his back.
At first he refused, but as I continued snipping and pulling off bits of sticking