The God of the Hive - Laurie R. King [100]
“He didn’t tell me,” I said. “Mr Javitz, do you need a hand?”
By way of answer he threw his bag and crutch inside and hopped against the door frame to manoeuvre himself within.
“I want to see him,” Estelle persisted.
“But sir,” the housekeeper was saying.
“I’ll do what I can,” I said to Estelle. “Here, let’s pull the seat down for you.”
“Terribly good of you to put up with us,” Javitz was saying to the woman. “We have to be away, see you around.”
And then both his legs were inside and he was shutting the door in her face.
The driver slid down the window to ask where we wanted to go, and I merely told him to head back towards London while we decided. He slid up the window. I turned to Javitz.
“What on earth was all that about?”
He cast an eloquent look at Estelle, who blinked her limpid eyes at me and said, “That means he doesn’t want to talk in front of me. Papa looks like that sometimes.”
“I imagine he does,” I said. “Does your Papa also tell you that you’re too bright for your own good?”
“Sometimes. I don’t think a person can be too bright, do you?”
“Certainly too bright for the convenience of others,” I said, then told Javitz, “I’m not sure where to take you. They could be watching my friends’ houses. For sure they’ll be keeping an eye on the local hotels. I even tried to reach Mr Lofte, who struck me as a valuable ally in any circumstances, but he’s gone back to Shanghai.”
“Do you know yet who this mysterious ‘they’ is?” he asked.
It was my turn to cast a significant “not in front of the children” glance at the small person on the seat across from us. She rolled her eyes in disgust and looked out of the window.
“What about a park?” Javitz suggested in desperation.
A park it would have to be. It had the advantage of being one of the last places any enemy of Mary Russell’s would expect to find her on a Sunday morning.
I paid the driver, unloaded my crew, and we set off slowly across the manicured paths on what was surely one of the last sunny week-ends of this lingering summer. Estelle tipped her head up at us and asked in a long-suffering voice, “You probably want me to go away, don’t you?”
“Not too far,” I agreed.
She turned away with a soft sigh, but I dropped the carpet-bag and said, “Estelle?”
She turned, and I knelt down and, cautiously, put my arms around her.
She flung hers around me and held on for a long time, the only sign she’d given of being frightened or lonely. I murmured in her little ear, telling her that I hoped we’d see her Papa soon, and that she’d meet her Grandpapa. That she was a very brave and clever girl, and her parents would be as proud of her as I was. That she’d have to be patient, but I was working hard to straighten everything out. When she finally let go of me, there was a bounce in her step.
Javitz had settled gingerly onto a bench.
“How is the leg?” I asked him, sitting down beside him.
He stretched it out with a grimace, which he denied by saying, “Not too bad,” then modified by adding, “Getting better, anyway.”
“I am so sorry about all of this.”
“Hey, not to worry. The War didn’t stop altogether with Armistice.”
“Yes, but you were hired for a piloting job, not as nurse-maid to a small child.”
“Yeah, well, you did hire me to help you save the kid and her father,” he pointed out cheerfully. “That’s more or less what I’m doing.” Why was he sounding so hearty, I wondered? Over the telephone he’d been in a state of agitation.
“This whole thing is taking rather longer than I’d anticipated.”
“I have nothing else on at the moment. Couldn’t fly for a while, now, anyway.”
“Again, sorry.”
“You didn’t crash the crate, I did.”
“After someone took a shot—” I stopped; this was getting us nowhere. “What did you need to tell me about Robert Goodman?”
“That’s not his name.”
“I never imagined it was.”
“Then you know who he is?”
I shook my head, since the family whose house we had motored away from was one I did not know personally and Holmes had neither investigated, nor investigated for. “I’d have to look him up in Debrett