The God of the Hive - Laurie R. King [53]
I nearly danced in relief: They were safe, Holmes and Damian both, somewhere far from London or Sussex, and he would post our meeting-place in Saturday’s column.
Things were moving, at last! Tomorrow I would make my way to a train, and be in London when the Saturday papers hit the streets. The only question was whether I should remove Javitz and Estelle from this rustic establishment, or return for them once Holmes and I had joined up. And that decision, I knew, would have to wait until I could speak to Goodman without being overheard.
At the moment, he was instructing the child on the art of the plum crumble, she standing atop a stool at the sink measuring sugar into a bowl, her tiny form enveloped in one of his shirts as a stand-in apron, he beside her, buttering an oven bowl. I helped myself to a second cup of the stewed tea he’d made when he came in, and took it into the afternoon sunlight for a leisurely perusal of the rest of the day’s news, which had rather begun to resemble distant drum-beats heard from a jungle fastness.
I read about the status of the German economy and the doings of the Royal Family, followed by an article concerning a film actor and a scientific report on a new radio device. I casually turned over a page, read a follow-up on the earthquake in Japan, and turned the next. With one swallow of bitter tea yet in the cup and the light fading from the sky, the page with the obituaries came into sight.
A name leapt off the page at me, electrifying my brain and driving the breath straight out of my chest:
Mycroft Holmes, OBE
Chapter 29
Tuesday night, the wind that had shoved against the European coast-line for the past week finally died away. Before Wednesday’s sun cleared the eastern horizon, Gordon cast off from the private dock and slipped into the North Sea, a generous bank draught tucked into his pocket.
To Holmes’ surprise, Dr Henning had declined to accompany Gordon. She claimed that she’d scarcely got the smell of fish out of her hair, and said that she would wait for a nice large steamer for the return trip. She seemed in no hurry to be home, or to abandon her patient.
Following a luncheon brought over from the house, Holmes resumed the French clothing that he had bought the day before and arranged to have the VanderLowe driver take him to a different, more southerly train station. There he bought a packet of Gitanes and a day-old Paris newspaper, was greeted by the ticket-seller in French, and inhabited the stance and accents of his French persona as he rode the train to Amsterdam, arriving shortly before three in the afternoon. Holmes made his way to the same news stand; this time, the day’s Times had arrived. He sought a café in the opposite direction from the one he had patronised the day before, spread out the pages with a snap of impatience, and felt a great burden lift:
BEEKEEPING is enjoyed by thousands, a reliable and safe hobby, practiced on week-ends alone from Oxford Street to Regent’s Park.
“Safe”: Russell and the child were well, and she proposed a rendezvous on the week-end in the bolt-hole that lay between Oxford Street and Regent’s Park—more precisely, in the back of a building that opened onto Baker Street. She would no doubt see his own message in the agony column, possibly tomorrow, or for certain on Friday; when no contradictory message followed, she would read that as an agreement.
He folded the paper, saw by his pocket-watch that he had half an hour before the return train set off, and used that time to buy the good doctor another change of clothing. This time he had a closer idea of her taste, and the frock he paid for was considerably less dowdy than the brown skirt and white shirt he’d taken her the day before.
The following day, Thursday, Holmes made his third trip to Amsterdam, and found them waiting for him.
Had he gone earlier in the day when the two men were fresh, they might have had him. Had he relented from his obsessive and life-long habits of vigilance, had he been less rested or more preoccupied with