The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [94]
My formal training, the field in which I had spent much of the past seven years, was in the analysis of theological texts. Thus I approached Testimony the way I would any unfamiliar manuscript: a quick skim followed by a closer read, making note of themes, idiosyncrasies, and references I wished to hunt down.
Six hours and a whole lot of words later, I closed the cover and my attempt at scholarly detachment faltered. I looked at the symbol on the book's cover, and saw a tattoo on a dead woman's belly. I went to make myself a cup of tea, and thought I heard something move in the back of the apartment. When I looked into Mycroft's study to see, I then thought I heard the front door open and close. I checked that it was locked, and started to go through the entire flat. When I caught myself stooping to look under a bed, I loudly said a rude word and left, taking with me nothing but the key.
I marched along Pall Mall and through Cleveland Row to Green Park, turning up the Queen's Walk and continuing down the other two sides. Then it dawned on me that I had just described a triangle, the shape that figured so prominently in everything to do with the Children of Lights. Impatiently, I crossed over to St James's, making myself slow down and pay attention to my surroundings: up the Mall, down Horse Guards Road, then back along the Birdcage Walk—where it struck me that not only was St James's Park laid out as a sort of triangle itself, it even had a circle—the Victoria memorial—at its peak.
I abandoned the parks entirely, and made for the Embankment.
Testimony was nonsensical, even silly in places—I had found myself chuckling aloud at the thought of Millicent Dunworthy declaiming some of its fairly blatant sexual imagery, all about energies bursting forth and enveloping. Much of the writing employed tired heresies and re-worked exotica, leavened by the occasional flash of imagination and insight, and I had found the author overly fond of ornate language and self-aggrandisement.
So why had it left me feeling as if I had read someone's pornographic journal?
As soon as I asked myself the question, my inner eye provided the answer: Yolanda Adler, dressed in new clothing, sacrificed at the foot of an ancient monument, probably with the weapon the author called the Tool.
I walked, and walked. Eventually, I burnt off the worst of the crawling sensation along my spine, and made my way to a nearby reading library to track down some of the Norse and Hindu references. At half past five, I walked back to Pall Mall and let myself into Mycroft's flat. He came in as I was pouring myself a cup of tea.
“Good afternoon, Mary.”
“Hello, Mycroft. Do you know if Holmes planned to return to night?”
“I believe he anticipated having to stay the night in Poole.”
“He's going to talk to Fiona Cartwright's employment agency?”
“Depending on what he found in Cerne Abbas. He borrowed my small camera, although I do not know what he expects to record with it.”
“He doubts it was suicide?”
“My brother accepts nothing he has not judged with his own eyes.”
True: An unexplained cut on the hand of a gun-death was enough to make him question the official verdict. “Was it you who took the list of names from the table?”
“I put a man on it. He should have a complete report tomorrow.”
“What about Shanghai; anything from there?”
“It is not yet a week since I wired,” he protested gently.
“It's been a busy week,” I said, by way of apology, although I was thinking, How long does it take someone to hunt down a few records anyway? “Here, have a cup of tea, Mrs Cowper's made plenty.”
“I was thinking to change for my afternoon