The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [127]
By now, Holmes did not even blink.
“The first arrest was for being so drunk the wagon that picked him up thought he was dead.”
“Well,” I murmured, “he only claimed that he was free from drugs use.”
Holmes paid my comment no mind. “And the second?”
“Ah, well, that was a month later, and more serious. Mr Adler was in a brawl in November 1920, and beat a man up. He was arrested, but when the man came out of hospital three days later, he refused to press charges. Adler was let go with a warning.”
Lofte was watching Holmes in a manner that suggested anticipation. Holmes studied him, then obediently asked, “Do we know who the victim was?”
A tiny smile flickered over the Swiss man's mouth, and he went back to his envelope. This time the document was two pieces of paper pinned together in the corner; it took Mycroft a full minute to read and pass on this one, a police report recording the injuries of one John Haycock: Concussion, broken collar bone, cracked humerus, contusions, broken tooth—fairly standard stuff for a bar brawl. Holmes flipped over to the second page, and there was a photograph of our human punching bag, his features so swollen and bruised, his mother would not have known him.
“John Haycock, eh?” Holmes mused.
“The address he gave the hospital was false,” Lofte said.
The man's hair was dark, but there was no telling if he had a scar beside his eye.
Holmes was studying the photograph, then shook his head. “It's a pity—”
He stopped, his eyes darting to Lofte's fingers on the near-flat envelope. “You don't?”
In answer, the man in the worn suit drew out a glossy photograph and half-stood to lay it with great deliberation on the table before Holmes. He sat back, on his face a look of tired contentment. “This was put into my hands by a reporter of one of the Shanghai dailies, ninety-five minutes before—” He shot a glance at Mycroft. “Shall we say, I happened to know that a military 'plane was about to leave, and I thought that might be my best chance to get this photograph to London.”
“What day was this?” I asked. Mycroft had wired his request for information ten days earlier; Lofte must have assembled all this information in a matter of hours.
“Sunday.”
Two of us frankly stared at him; Mycroft studied his glass, but one side of his mouth had a small curl of satisfaction.
“Six days to cross two entire continents?” I marvelled. “Impossible!”
“Not if one is given carte blanche with requisitioning aeroplanes and rescheduling trains. I employed nine aeroplanes, three trains, eighteen motor-cars, two motor-cycles, one bicycle, and a rickshaw.”
Mycroft spoke up. “My department has an ongoing interest in what one might call practical experiments in rapid travel. Mr Lofte now holds the record.”
“Won a tenner, too,” our Twentieth-Century Mercury murmured. “Harrison bet me I couldn't do it in under eight days. My partner in Shanghai,” he explained.
Holmes resumed the photograph, tilting it for me when I looked over his arm.
“My reporter friend became interested in Hayden a year ago when he heard a rumour that the good Reverend was quietly selling up church holdings—several buildings, in good parts of town, a lot of stocks and valuables that members had donated for charitable works which somehow didn't come to fruition. There were also rumours of darker doings, several deaths among his congregation. The photo was taken the tenth of September last year; the next day, the Reverend was on a boat for England. The reporter reckons various officials were paid off, not to notice. Hayden won't be prosecuted, but on the other hand, he won't be welcomed back.”
Hayden's image was quite clear, despite having been taken across a busy street. The man, strong in body and