The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [114]
“You'd think he would know, after all these years, how to listen to a Holmes.”
“Oh, you may find he does. In any case, I don't think the Chief Inspector entirely believed me.” He tipped his head at the window; I took a swig of the coffee Mrs Cowper had poured for me, and took up a position behind the curtains to study the street: In thirty seconds, I had him. “Damn. He's already got a man down there. I'll have to borrow Mrs Cowper's dress to get out of here.”
“Disguise will not be necessary,” Mycroft said. “After the last time, I thought it expedient to arrange a back door. I now have not one, but two concealed exits—one onto St James's Square, the other into Angel Court.”
“Don't tell me—the entrance is behind a moving bookshelf in the study?”
“I admit, I could not resist.”
I laughed, but at his next remark, my amusement died.
“I'm afraid Lestrade has also loosed the dogs on Damian.” Mycroft pushed the morning paper over to me: front and centre, Damian's face. The article that went with the photograph made quite clear that The Addler was wanted for arrest, not just questioning, and should be considered dangerous.
“Dangerous?” I exclaimed. “Didn't Lestrade see the walled house last night? Didn't he question Gunderson?”
“The police saw that Damian had been there, but was no longer. And they haven't been able to question Gunderson yet; he keeps falling asleep.”
“Hell,” I said. The only faint hope was that the newspaper's image of Damian showed a man with freshly cut hair and a beard, trimmed back to the jaw-line; when I'd seen him last night, his hair was to the collar and his beard full.
“Am I to understand that you now entertain the possibility of Damian's innocence?” Mycroft asked.
“There were no newspapers,” I blurted. He raised an eyebrow, and I realised that I needed to be methodical about this. I began by retrieving the things I'd taken from the walled house; when I returned, Mrs Cowper laid my breakfast in front of me. When she was in the kitchen again, I went on.
“Last night was indeed a meeting of the Children of Lights' inner circle. Hmm,” I said, distracted by a thought: Circle. Was that in some manner related to that shape they used? I shook my head and set before Mycroft a sturdy capped glass jar filled with a bilious green liquid in which floated an assortment of objects that looked a bit like shoe-leather. “This is what the Circle were drinking. I found several of these bottles in the pantry—whatever those things are, the liquid they're steeping in is honey wine, despite the colour. Judging by their reaction, it's considerably stronger than mead. Can you have the contents analysed?”
He eased off the cork and held the bottle under his nose. “An unconventional choice of beverage.”
“Yes, but I don't know that it has any relationship with Holmes.”
He set it aside; I went on.
“The man they call The Master was there—and yes, Gunderson and the estate agent agreed that he has a scar beside his eye, and yes, Gunderson was under the impression that this is the author of Testimony. He even helped transport the copies of Testimony from the printers. Unfortunately, I only caught glimpses of The Master, mostly from the back. Brothers, or whatever his name is, talked to them for a few minutes, but before he could start their services, a dog belonging to one of the Circle found me.” No need to tell him that the creature would have fit into the pocket of his overcoat.
“I managed to get away from the animal, but the Circle left, and then Gunderson, Brothers, and Damian got into a car and drove away—that was the number plate I gave you. Damian was carrying a child with black hair.”
“Ah, that is a relief.”
“Yes. I went into the house and saw where they had been staying, but then Gunderson came back and I had to deal with him.
“But three things happened to … not ‘change my mind,’ because my mind was not made up, but let us say, shift my point of view. First, when Damian came out of the house with the child, he deliberately stood with his face to the light, as if he