The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [84]
“I know that, Uncle John. I should have thought it out more care-fully. But you—how did you get here? And when did you shave off your moustache?” Very recently, from the looks of the skin.
Holmes spoke from his position by the curtains, sounding for all the world like a parent both proud and exasperated at a child’s clever but inconvenient new trick.
“Put on your alter ego, Watson,” he ordered.
Watson obligingly put down his spoon and went to the door, where he struggled into a much-repaired great-coat cut for a man consider-ably taller than he, a warped bowler, knit wool gloves out at the fingers in three places, and a knit scarf with a distinctly loving-hands-at-home air about it.
“They belong to the doorman at the hotel,” he explained proudly. “It was just like old times, Holmes, really it was. I left the hotel by the kitchen entrance, through three restaurants and Victoria Station, took two trams, a horse bus, and a cab. It took me half an hour to walk the last quarter mile, watching for loiterers from every doorway. I do not think even Holmes himself could have followed me without my seeing,” he winked at me.
“But, why, Uncle John? I told you that I’d ring you.”
The old man drew himself up proudly. “I am a doctor, and I have a friend who is injured. It was my duty to come.”
Holmes muttered something from the window, where one of his long fingers pulled back one edge of the thick draperies. Watson did not hear it, but to me it sounded like, “Goodness and mercy shall plague me all the days of my life.” I had once thought him to be nearly illiterate when it came to Scripture, but he was ever full of surprises, although he did tend to change quotes to suit the circumstances.
“Watson, why should I let you do further damage to my epidermis, what little Russell has left for me? It has already entertained two doc-tors and a number of nurses at my local hospital. Are you so needy of patients?”
“You will allow me to examine your injuries because I will not leave until I have done so,” Watson said with asperity. Holmes glared at him furiously, and at Mycroft and myself as we began to laugh. He jerked his hand from the drapes.
“Very well, Watson, let us get it over with. I have work to do.” Watson went with Mycroft to wash his hands, taking with him the black doctor’s bag he had openly carried through the streets. I looked at Holmes despairingly. He closed his eyes and nodded, then gestured to the window. “At the end of the street,” he said and went off after Watson.
I put one eye to the edge of the fabric and looked cautiously out. The snow had melted into yellow-grey drifts along the walls, and far down the street there sat a blind man selling pencils. Business was al-most nonexistent at that hour, but I watched for several minutes, half hearing the raised voices in the next room. I was just about to turn away when a child came up to the well-swaddled figure and dropped something into the cup, receiving a pencil in return. I watched thoughtfully as the child ran off. A very ragged schoolboy, that one. The black figure reached into the cup, as if to feel the coin, but it had looked to me like a folded square of paper. We were dis-covered.
Mycroft came into the room then and poured himself a cup of tea dregs. There was a rustle outside the door, and I tensed, but he calmly said, “The morning news.” He went to bring it in from his mat. Just then Watson’s voice came from the next room asking for something, so he handed me the paper and went off. I unfolded it, and my breath stopped. A headline on the front page read:
bomber killed by own device watson, holmes targets?
A large bomb exploded shortly after midnight this morning at the home of Dr. John Watson, famous biographer of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, apparently killing the man who was in the act of setting it. Dr. Watson was evidently not at home, and his whereabouts are currently un-known. The house was badly damaged. The resultant fire was quickly brought under control, and there