The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [39]
I laid my outer garments and spectacles on my folded bath-towel, then picked my way through the exposed low-tide pools to the water beyond. I paused, as I invariably did, to peer short-sightedly around me at the surface of the water. Years before I knew him, Holmes had encountered a poisonous jelly-fish in these waters, strayed here after unusual weather. Ever since he'd told me the story, I had been in the habit of watching out for another one—as if the creature might reveal itself by a fin above the water. Perhaps I should ask Dr Watson to write one of his tales about the event, I thought: It might reduce the crowds on this particular beach, if not the whole of Sussex.
Today I saw no tell-tale fin or translucent bubble, and I dived deep into the frigid water.
I swam along the cliffs until my skin was rubbery with cold and my fingers puckered, dragging myself out onto a beach all but deserted of umbrellas and children. I amused myself for a time by tossing pebbles into an abandoned tin mug from ever-greater distances, then dressed and climbed the cliff to wobble my bicycle back to the silent house. There I drew a hot bath and stepped into the water with a glass of wine to hand—after all, alcohol aids muscular relaxation. I may have fallen asleep for a few minutes, because the water seemed to cool abruptly. I got out and put on a thick towelling robe, then hurried downstairs to fill the ravenous gap within.
I was pleased to find a portion of meat pie in the back of the icebox, stale but still smelling good, and ripe tomatoes from the garden outside the door, into which I chopped some onions and cheese. A bottle of cider from the pantry, a slice of stale bread and fresh butter, and I was content in my small and no doubt temporary island of tranquillity. I ate at the scrubbed wood table in the kitchen, and left my dishes in the sink until morning.
Not bored, not lonely: content.
Although I will admit that several times during the day, I had pushed back the suspicion that my labour was an attempt to exorcise the spirit of the empty hive, to turn its unnatural emptiness into a more normal thing. And that several times during the day, I had found myself wondering where Holmes was.
I decided to read outside until the light failed, and went to fetch Strachey's Victorians from the table beside my bed upstairs. As I went past the library, my eye caught on Damian's painting of the bee teapot, which Holmes had left leaning against the low shelves near the door (being, no doubt, unwilling to chance waking me by returning it to the laboratory—and, where was Holmes, anyway?). I picked it up to take it upstairs.
Such a peculiar image, I reflected when the painting was back on its wall in the laboratory: The scrupulous rendering of an impossibly bizarre creation. On the surface, it appeared an intellectual jest, yet there was no denying the disturbing currents down below. An English tea-pot with a nasty sting. Was this the only one of its sort that he had done? Or was this his general style?
Odd, that Holmes had been satisfied with just the one piece.
No, not odd: impossible.
Finding Holmes' collection of Damian's art was easy, once I thought to look for it—although in a Purloined Letter sort of way that took me the better part of an hour, since it was right under my nose. I went through both safes, the shelves in Holmes' study, his records in the laboratory. I was on my knees, about to take out the drawers in his bedroom chest, when I thought about where I had found the painting: He had left it against a shelf that contained art-related titles, from monographs such as “Lead Poisoning in the Age of Rembrandt” and “Death-Masks of the Pharaohs” to The Great Italian Forgers and Sotheby's Guide to the Renaissance.
Sure enough, on the far side of that bottom shelf,