The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [77]
The narrative wound on as I doused and snipped and peeled, paus-ing often as his jaws clamped down and beads of sweat came to his brow. I finished before his account had ended, but he continued as I took his bloodstained shirt to the basin in the corner. With the end of the story, the final description of how she saw through Holmes’ dis-guises and with her new husband eluded both detective and monarch, he swallowed the last of the brandy and sat staring into the fire, breathing heavily.
I arranged the shirt in front of the coals to dry and turned to the exhausted man next to me.
“You need to lie down and sleep. Take my bed—no, I’ll not hear protest. You need to be on your stomach for a while, and you cannot sleep in a chair in that position. No, I refuse to accept gallant stupidity in place of rational necessity. Go.”
“Defeated again. I surrender.” With a wan imitation of his sardonic smile he stood and followed me. I pulled aside the bedclothes, and he slowly lowered himself forward into my bed. I gently pulled the blan-kets up over his naked shoulders.
“Sleep well.”
“You will need to wear a young man’s clothing tomorrow. I trust you have some,” he said around the pillow.
“Of course.”
“Take a small knapsack with a few things in it. We will buy cloth-ing if we are to be gone very long.”
“I will pack it tonight.”
“And write a note to Mr. Thomas, telling him you’ve been called away for a few days, that you understand Mr. Holmes has been in an accident. He is in my employ; he’ll understand.”
“In your—You are a devious man. Go to sleep.”
I wrote the note, including a request to ring Veronica Beaconsfield, telling her not to meet my train, and sat before the fire to braid my hair, which was dry at last. (The one drawback to long hair is washing it in the winter.) I studied the flickering coals as my hands slowly bound one-half of the fluffy cloud into a long plait that reached past my waist and tied a cord around the end. I had started on the other side when his voice came again from the dark corner, low and slurred with drink and sleep.
“I asked Mrs. Hudson once why she thought you wore your hair so long. She said it was a vestige of femininity.”
My hands went still. This was the first time in our acquaintance that he had commented on my appearance, other than to disparage it. Watson would never have believed it possible. I smiled down at the fire and continued the plait.
“Yes, she would think that, I suppose.”
“Is it true?”
“I think not. I find short hair too much fuss, always needing comb-ing and cutting. Long hair is much easier, oddly enough.”
There was no answer, but soon a gentle snore reached my ears. I took a spare blanket from the shelf and pulled it around me on the chair. My spectacles I laid on the little table next to me, the room re-treated into fuzziness, and I slept.
I awoke once, some hours later, stiff and uncertain of my surround-ings. The fire had burnt down, but I could see a figure seated at the window, wrapped in a blanket looking out at the night. I sat up and reached for my spectacles.
“Holmes? Is it—?”
The figure turned quickly toward me and held up a finger.
“No, hush, child, go back to sleep. I’m only thinking, as best I can without lighting my pipe. Go back to sleep for a while. I’ll wake you when it’s time.”
I laid my spectacles back onto the table, reached over to throw more coal on the fire, and settled myself again into the chair. As I drifted