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Her world, not his: He had no place here. But because of a child with a certain shape to her eyes, he must try to see the life in the machine, to see the sweetness in what they produced. He must do what he could to make it a place worthy of her.

He wished he’d had time to talk to Mary Russell’s man about bees. The books in his bolt-hole suggested an interest in the creatures, yet this was a man who’d spent his life with the darkest side of the human race. Would he look between his feet at a city landscape and see a hive, or a machine? Would he behold the labours of his fellow man and see the sweetness of intellectual honey, or yet more machines in which they would enmesh themselves? The man’s eagerness to support his brother’s preoccupation with Intelligence—what a misnomer!—suggested the latter. Nonetheless, he was Estelle’s grandfather, and therefore worthy of assistance.

Are you afraid of anything, Mr Robert?

Oh, dear child, I most certainly am. I am afraid of fear, so afraid. I am terrified of the bonds that tie a man down, the weight of other lives on his shoulders, the responsibility for stopping unnatural acts.

He was grateful to have made the acquaintance of Mary Russell: A perfect woman, nobly planned / To warn, to comfort, and command.

Command me, dear lady, he thought. Warn me and comfort me and give me orders, for I am in need of a clear-cut task. I have long cast off my officer’s class. I need to know that someone else is in charge.

Still, the music to the funeral had gone well, and that was all his own doing. Perhaps he needed to venture his own contribution to the current problem.

What could he bring to this next act in the play?

He got to his feet and stretched out one arm in a gesture unseen by those on the street below. “Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens,” he shouted at them, then laughed aloud.

Having thus granted London his god-like permission to continue its scurrying life, he put on his hat and turned for the stairway.

He had, he recalled, promised a pint of milk. And his pockets were capacious, his coat large enough to conceal a beltful of sustenance—cheese and biscuits from the shop on the ground floor of this very building, apples from the man on the corner, a packet of coffee, a small loaf of bread. That Mycroft fellow looked as if he’d appreciate a slab of bacon.

Oh, he thought, and a newspaper. Mary’s husband seemed particularly taken by the things.

Chapter 65

Bensbridge’ I assume to be Westminster Bridge, and he wants a reply in the Evening Standard, but what the devil does he mean by ‘the object of your affection’?” I demanded. Goodman, newspaper delivered, had washed his hands of the matter and retired to the kitchen. He was humming to himself and exploring the cupboards.

“I do not know. Although addressing himself to Sherlock suggests that he believes me dead.”

Holmes and I rose at the same instant.

“There’s a public telephone down the street. Do you want to go, or shall I?” I asked.

“Take a taxicab to the offices of the Evening Standard,” Mycroft said. “There will be a telephone near there.”

“You’re not thinking of agreeing to his demands?” I protested.

Holmes’ face was a study in storm clouds. He made a circle of the room, then snatched up Mycroft’s gold pen and a piece of paper. “If we do not place a reply—by noon—we remove the option of choice. One of us needs to stay here, and … you are the less immediately visible.” He held out the page, on which he had written three words:

The beekeeper agrees.

I hesitated, but the revelations of the night before, which I had pushed from my mind under the urgent need for rationality, washed back with a vengeance. Suddenly, the thought of being locked up with my brother-in-law filled me with revulsion. Without further argument, I thrust the page into a pocket and made for the kitchen. As I climbed through the dumbwaiter hole, I heard Holmes say to Mycroft that he needed some things from downstairs.

I went fast down the