The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [75]
And the other deaths? Were Fiona Cartwright and Yolanda Adler merely coincidences? I mistrusted coincidences as much as Holmes did, but in fact, they did occur. And Fiona Cartwright's death was a suicide. Wasn't it?
“Ready, Russell?”
The voice up the stairs startled me. I threw the clothes-brush onto the bed and began to stuff the waiting valise.
I would say nothing of my … I couldn't even call them suspicions. Morbid thoughts. This was Holmes' son. If there was evidence, Holmes would follow it, and Holmes would acknowledge it. I would say nothing, although the awareness of those dates was already eating into me like a drop of acid.
I caught up my bag and walked down the stairs.
“Here I am, Holmes. Let me just see if there's anything Mrs Hudson wishes from Town.”
Study (2): With Despair and hunger at his heels,
he followed the faint paths of those who had gone before.
After long years, he found the first keys:
the Elements and Sacrifice.
Testimony, II:5
AS I SETTLED IN BEHIND THE WHEEL OF THE MOTORCAR, I noticed the red welts on my companion's hands, testimony to the disinclination of bees to be disturbed. “Are the hives well?” I asked him.
“All five needed an additional super,” he replied.
“It'll make Mr Miranker happy that you've paid them attention.”
“He has looked after them well, in my absence.”
“I like him.”
“You've met?”
“We met Wednesday, at the abandoned hive. I told you I solved that mystery—I should have said, he and I together did so.” As I negotiated the light Sunday traffic into Eastbourne, I described my investigation of the missing colony of Apis mellifera. We broke off so I could park the motor at the station while he bought tickets and showed the staff Yolanda Adler's photograph, then met again in an empty compartment (the week-end flow of travellers back towards London still being occupied with eking out their final hours of sun).
“None of the men working today was on duty Friday,” he grumbled, so I finished telling him about the bees, touching lightly upon my own suggestion concerning the remoteness of the hive and quickly going on to Mr Miranker's conclusion. The story went on for some time, since I thought he would like to know every small detail of the matter. At last I came to an end, and presented my conclusion. “The hive died because the queen was too soft-hearted, Holmes.”
He snorted at my interpretation of the hive's failure; belatedly, I heard the echo of wistfulness in my voice, and glanced sideways at him.
It had been not a snort, but a snore: Following one night spent staring out at the moon over the Downs, and the night before prowling the city in search of a son, Holmes had fallen asleep.
An hour later, his voice broke into my thoughts. “I trust you did not tell Mr Miranker that you believed the hive succumbed to loneliness?”
“Not in so many words, no. Although he did agree that it was possible the lack of proximity to another hive might have contributed to its extinction.”
“Loneliness alone does not drive a creature mad, Russell. However, I freely admit that an excess of royal benevolence is not a diagnosis that would have occurred to me. One can hope that Miranker's replacement queen proves sufficiently ruthless. Do you suppose Lestrade will be at the Yard today, or ought we to hunt him down at his home?”
“He might be at work, although you'd have to conceal your identity to have him admit it over the telephone.”
“True, the cases which have brought me into his purview have tended to demand much of his time. The same, now that I think of it, might be said of his father before him.”
The younger Lestrade had followed his father into the police, then New Scotland Yard, and thus