The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [64]
Alice asked if Ronnie had picked up the eggs and bread she'd asked him to get, and he declared that it wasn't his job, causing her to retort that she was hungry, and they fell to wrangling about whose responsibility it had been to stock the pantry. Since I had no intention of putting any morsel of this household's food into my mouth, I idly nudged the wad of crust to one side, the better to see what event in the nation's placid southland had caught the attention of the afternoon paper. I read:
MYSTERIOUS DEATH IN SUSSEX
The body of a young Oriental woman in city dress has been found at the feet of the Wilmington Giant on the South Downs, near the busy seaside resort of Eastbourne.
Although the Giant is a popular landmark for country ramblers, Police say that the woman was wearing a summer frock and light shoes, inadequate for the footpaths that lead into the prehistoric si
This is the second death to
following the suicide at Cerne A
The rest of the article was glued to obscurity by brown gravy.
I ripped the page from the table and held it out to my companions. They fell silent.
“I must go,” I said. “May I have this?”
Alice looked at the torn, grease-spotted sheet in my hand and made a gesture to indicate I should help myself.
I turned for the door, felt as much as heard the beams creak from below, and hastily veered back to the walls. At the doorway I paused to look at the two, staring after me in bewilderment and, perhaps, disappointment.
“You really mustn't put any more weight onto those floorboards,” I urged them. “It's an awfully long way to the ground.”
Silence followed me all the way down the stairs.
The Spark (1): The ancients spoke of a divine spark
within every individual, no matter how mean, a spark
that might be nurtured, fed, and coaxed into open flame.
Testimony, II:3
BY DINT OF PLANTING MYSELF IN FRONT OF A PASSING taxicab with another of Holmes' guinea coins gleaming in my outstretched palm, I reached Victoria and was sprinting across the platform—folding up the sagging waist of Holmes' trousers as I ran—just as the last southbound train of the night was gathering itself for departure. The conductor glared in disapproval, but I was hardly the first dishevelled latecomer to crash through his doors on a Saturday night, and since my lip colour had long since worn off, he no doubt thought I was just another young man in fancy dress.
I subsided into my seat, plucking sadly at my costume, and remembered the parcel of nondescript ladies' wear in which I had begun this extraordinarily long day. Would I ever see it again, I wondered, or would it be buried under a mountain of rubble and brick? Or become nesting material for the mice?
And with that profound thought, I fell asleep. However, twenty minutes later, I was wide awake again, staring out of the window as I considered the implications of this southward flight.
I was being absurd. I had no reason to think what I was thinking. On Friday night I had been visited by an irrational, groundless fear born of solitude and dark thoughts and—yes, admit it—envy. My husband's son, that handsome, magnetic, hugely talented, and utterly fascinating young man, had walked into our lives and effortlessly spirited Holmes away. I had read his dossier and pictured him as a killer; my mind was too ready to build a gallows out of smoke.
But this was Holmes, after all. Sherlock Holmes did not fall for the easy patter of a confidence man. He did not mistake plausibility for truth, loyalty for moral rectitude, or need for necessity. He would see that we had to question Damian, and we would do so, and when we had established that he had an acceptable alibi, we would proceed with the investigation.
Assuming, that is, that this dead woman at the Wilmington Giant proved to be Yolanda. Which no doubt it would not.
I stared at the passing countryside as the train covered the slow miles south, pausing at every small town before jerking back into life. I thought about getting off in Polegate, the station nearest the Giant, but there would