The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [87]
“Why didn’t you just telephone from the hospital? Or send a telegram?”
“I did send a telegram, to Thomas, from a station so small I doubt more than six trains stop there in a year. And when I finally made Oxford I telephoned to him and told him not to mention anything to you, that the little problem had been taken care of.”
“But, Holmes, what made you come? Did you have any cause to think I was in danger? Or was it just your generally suspicious mind?” He was looking very uncomfortable, and not because of his back. “Did you have any reason—?”
“No!” My last word made him shout, made us all aware of the glar-ing inconsistency of his actions. “No, it was a fixation visited upon an abused brain. Reason demanded I stay on the scene of the crime, with perhaps a telephone call to put you on your guard, but I...to tell you the truth, I found it impossible to retain a logical train of thought. It was the most peculiar side-effect of concussion I’ve ever experienced. At dawn on Tuesday all I could think of was reaching your door by dusk, and when I found I was able to walk—I walked.”
“How odd,” I said, and meant it. I would not have thought his af-fection for me would be allowed to interfere with the investigation of a case, shaken brain or no. And as for his obvious reluctance to trust me with the necessary actions—lying in wait for an attack, using my gun if necessary—that hurt. Particularly as he had not been altogether successful himself. I opened my mouth to confront him with it but managed to hold my tongue in time. Besides, in all honesty I had to admit that he was right.
“Very odd,” I repeated, “but I am glad of it. Had you not interfered, I should almost certainly have walked in the door, as the only indica-tions of tampering were two tiny scratches on the keyhole and one small leaf and a spot of mud on a window that was across a dim pas-sageway from where I would stand to insert my key.”
He let slip a brief flash of relief before an impassive reply. “You’d have noticed it.”
“I might have. But would I have thought enough of it to climb up the outside ivy, on a night like that? I doubt it. At any rate, you came, you saw, you disconnected. Incidentally, did you come up the ivy too, with your back like that? Or did you manage to disarm the bomb from outside the door?”
Holmes met his brother’s eyes and shook his head pityingly. “Her much learning hath made her mad,” he said, and turned back to me. “Russell, you must remember the alternatives. Alternatives, Russell.”
I puzzled for a minute, then admitted defeat.
“The ladder, Russell. There was a ladder on the other side of the courtyard. You must have seen it every day for the last few weeks.”
Both Holmes and his brother started laughing at the chagrin on my face.
“All right, I missed that one entirely. You came up the ladder, dis-connected the bomb, put the ladder away, and came back through the hall, leaving one leaf and an unidentifiable greasy thumbprint. But Holmes, you couldn’t have missed Dickson by much. It must have been a near thing.”
“I imagine we passed each other in the street, but the only faces I saw were hunched up against the rain.”
“It shows that Dickson, or his boss, was well acquainted with my circumstances. He knew which were my rooms. He knew that Mrs. Thomas would be in the rooms and waited until she left, which I sup-pose he could see from the street below. He went up the outside ivy in the dark, carrying the bomb, went in the window, picked my lock, set the thing . . .” I thought of something to ask Mycroft. “Could he have left through the door after the bomb was set?”
“Certainly.