The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [76]
“Do you suppose they will look into the meaning of her blisters?” I asked him.
“I should doubt it.”
“But you don't wish to tell them who she is?”
“I intend merely to say that this is a Sussex crime I have been asked to investigate by an anonymous party, no more.”
“Holmes, if you—”
“I will not come to their aid in this matter,” he snarled. “There is too much here I do not yet understand.”
“Well,” I said, “if I can find where the shoes came from, I might find who bought them for her.”
“Is that a line of enquiry you can begin today?”
“I can start, but the shops themselves will not be open.”
“Do what you can. In the meantime, I shall hunt down Lestrade and see what I can prise out of him.”
“I'd also like a copy of that photograph you have.”
He slid his hand into his breast pocket and drew out a note-case, handing me a freshly printed reproduction of the photograph Damian had given him. The facial details were not as crisp as the original, but would be sufficient for my purposes.
I studied it, as I hadn't before. Yolanda was not, in fact, as pretty as I had remembered. Her face was a touch too square, the eyes too small, but the face beneath the dowdy hat was alive and sparkling with intelligence, which made her far more attractive than any surface arrangement of features. The child in her arms was blurred and turning to the side, but the corner of her eye suggested an Asian fold, even though the child's glossy hair lacked the thick, straight texture of the mother's.
Beside them, Damian's right hand rested on Yolanda's shoulder, giving that half of his image the air of a Victorian paterfamilias; the other half with its encircling arm suggested a person more relaxed and modern. He looked happy, prosperous, proud, and amused at that incongruous frock suit.
Yolanda's skirt was not, I noted, flowered. Its cut and hem-line seemed out of date to me, although not as archaic as his coat. No doubt one should not expect the latest in fashion from a Bohemian matron—here in London, Bohemians tended to resemble gipsies or pipe-fitters. “I wonder why they chose such conventional dress and setting for a portrait? It's almost as if they were in disguise.”
“Or fancy-dress,” Holmes said.
“Yes. Especially when you look at the expressions on their faces.” Perhaps Yolanda's face was sparkling with humour rather than intelligence. It made her more sympathetic, somehow.
I was about to put the photograph into my pocket, but Holmes took it from me, laid it face-to against the window, and folded the top down at the line of Damian's shoulders. He ran his thumb-nail hard against the fold; when he handed it back, Damian had been reduced to little more than a black back-drop and a hand on the child's torso. “If you're looking for her, his image will only confuse matters,” he told me.
It was true, the eye focused on a lone woman more easily than with a bearded man looming above her. Still, I couldn't help being aware of the symbolic aspect of the fold as well: Holmes wanted Damian left out of this enquiry.
When we reached Victoria, Holmes, impatient to be about his business, set off on foot towards Westminster and Scotland Yard while I took my place in the taxi queue. I frowned at his back until it disappeared around the corner, then took out the photograph and studied it.
Was it conviction, or apprehension, that made him so determined to exclude Damian?
My club, the Vicissitude, was not an ideal beginning for a hunt into the world of fashion—one was more likely to find expertise on Attic Greek or the missions of China than on expensive clothing—but as it happened, I drew a lucky straw, and some time later sat down to tea with a cousin of the sister-in-law of the Vicissitude's manager, a dangerously thin individual wearing a Chanel