The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [8]
Unfortunately, he did not manage to get free of the drugs used to control the pain. Unfortunately, he fell into hard ways, and among evil people. And now, the reason I am forced to write to you in this manner: He has been arrested for murder.
Stark details, and with your current responsibilities, no way to soften this series of blows. I have begun enquiries into the case against him, but as yet do not know the details—as we both know, the evidence may be so grossly inadequate, all he requires is legal support; on the other hand, it may prove so strong that neither of us can help him. I have arranged for one of the better criminal avocats to assume his case, but in any event, it is no longer my place to stand between you.
I hope you will forgive me, and her, for keeping Damian from you. By all accounts he was a promising young man before the War, and before the scourge of drugs befell him. I should mention that, to go by his photograph, there is little reason to deny that he is yours.
Tell me what I can do to assist you. He is being held in the gaol in Ste Chapelle, the town where he was born, thirty miles to the east of Paris.
If you speak to him, please convey an uncle's best wishes.
Mycroft
P.S. I forgot to say: Damian is an artist, a painter. Art in the blood …
First Birth (4): The meteorite was the boy's first
plaything, his constant companion, as it remains to
this day, reshaped and resubmitted to the fires to
better suit his needs.
Testimony, I:1
DISTRACTED. THAT WAS A HELL OF A WORD.
And why had Holmes waited nearly a week before setting off for France? I turned back to where Mycroft had written “with your current responsibilities.” Did this mean me? Was it I that had kept Holmes from flying to the aid of his son?
It took me some time to work up the nerve to cross the hallway. When I did, I found my friend and teacher at the open window, smoking and staring down at the darkening streets. Not a breath stirred. I sat on the hard little chair before his useless, ornate desk, and arranged the letter in the centre of its gilt surface.
“Well,” I said. “That must have made you feel… ”
“Guilt-ridden?” His voice was high, and bitter.
Guilt, yes. But, to be honest, gratitude as well, that she had not forced him to re-shape his life, his career, around a child. And gratitude would have brought shame, and resentment, and righteous indignation, and anger. Then in the days since the news had reached him, no doubt curiosity and sadness, and a mourning of lost opportunities.
“It must have made you feel as if you'd been kicked in the stomach.”
He did not respond. The traffic sounds that had beat at the window when we first arrived were fading, replaced by the voices of pedestrians on their way to theatre or restaurant. It was quiet enough that I heard the faint shift of ice in the silver bucket that had accompanied our arrival.
At the suggestion, I rose and went to fill a glass with ice, covering it with a generous dose of some amber alcohol from the decanter beside it. I carried it over to Holmes, who just looked at it.
“Russell, I've known about this for the better part of a week. The time for a good stiff drink is well past.”
“But I didn't know until now, and I think you can use this better than I.”
He did not argue with my roundabout logic, simply took my offering. I went back to the chair.
“This is Irene Adler's son that Mycroft is talking about?” I asked: facts first.
The ice rattled as he raised the glass against his teeth. I took the gesture as confirmation.
“It… happened during the three years you were away from London?” When all the world except his brother thought Holmes dead, although in fact he had travelled—to Mecca, to Lhasa, and to the south of France.
“After Reichenbach Falls,” he agreed. “When I came down out of Tibet and was sailing for Europe, news reached me that Miss Adler—Mrs Norton—that Irene had been in a terrible accident, which took the life of her husband and caused her to retire from