The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [106]
“There, Marcus Gunderson, although the address he had is that of an hotel.”
I looked over the paper. “You didn't ask for any personal recommendations?”
“He said his employer was from overseas, and didn't want to wait for an exchange of letters. But the bank draught he gave me for the first year's hire cleared with no problem, and the house had stood empty far too long, the furnishings were suffering. So I let him have it.”
“It was furnished, then?”
“Completely. Well, such as it was. The old lady who owned it died and there's a question about inheritance, so I was ordered to find a tenant until they can settle things legally.”
I wrote down the names and the details of hotel and bank, but there was little to go on.
Not expecting anything more, I said, “Can you tell me anything about the man you think might be behind this Gunderson chap? For Lady R-P's friends, that is—perhaps they'll know what he's up to.”
“As I said, I never met him properly, but I've seen him driving through the village once or twice with Mr Gunderson. He's a tidy-looking gentleman of perhaps forty, dark hair, clean shaven.”
“Well, thank—”
“Oh, and he may have a scar on his face.”
I looked at him, then raised my left hand and drew a line down from the outer corner of my eye. “Here?”
“That's right—so you do know him?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“But you know of him—so tell me, is there anything—”
“Absolutely not,” I said. The last thing I needed was for this earnest estate agent to thrust his nose into things. “He's absolutely straight, but as you know, very private, extremely shy, in fact. He's a—an inventor, and you can imagine how they are—he's been known to move out of a house overnight if strangers poke into his business.”
The relieved estate agent, not questioning that my aristocratic employer should know a reclusive inventor, hastened to assure me that he wouldn't dream of disturbing the gentleman.
I thanked him and said that, if he wanted to put together a list of appropriate residences, I should be by in a day or two to look at them. I retrieved my bag of burglary tools, and left.
It was just after six; the brick wall around the house was too exposed for me to risk lurking there by daylight, with bare fields on three sides and a house with brutally manicured hedges across the way.
I walked up the high street to a likely-looking inn, where I ate a surprisingly interesting meal while staring out of the tiny leaded windows facing the street. Four cars entered the gates through the brick wall, just before eight o'clock, followed by a group of three women on foot who disembarked at the bus stop. I paid and asked the way to the inn's facilities, where I changed into the dark clothing I had brought.
When dusk was drawing in, I walked through the field alongside the wall. When I was certain no eyes followed, I clambered over it, to drop down silently into the garden beyond.
As I let go, I was struck by the oddest feeling, that Holmes, somewhere, was doing precisely the same thing.
The Gods (2): The Power of a story lies in the extremes:
Hero Odysseus can be cruel and low-handed; the cowardly
cheat Loki is brother to Woden and brings Thor the great
hammer The lessons of myths are not on the surface, but
there for those willing to sit at the Gods' feet and learn.
Thus this Testimony of one man's voyage to Power.
Testimony, III:3
THE GARDEN WAS AS UNTENDED AS IT HAD APPEARED from without, an unremitting tangle of decades-old rhododendrons against the near-dark sky. I listened, for guards or dogs, then cautiously pressed forward: As I did so, I recalled the eyes of the Green Man glittering from Damian's canvas, and had to push away the sensation that crept down the back of my neck.
Eventually, the wall of branches parted, opening onto what had once been the lawns. Still no dogs or protesting shouts, so I walked in the direction of the lights.
The walls might have described an idiosyncratic shape across the countryside, but the house they contained was one of those sturdy boxes beloved of