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By Root 406 0

’ He examined his glasses, then slipped them back on his nose. Sherlock tried to sort through what the Professor had told him, but realized that the man was speaking again. ‘In the case of bees, they collect pollen from flowers and carry it back to the hive in ball-like masses on their hind legs. The benefit to the plant, of course, is that as the bee travels from flower to flower it drops some of the pollen from the stamen of one flower on to the pistils of another, thus assisting the reproduction. Now, on the bees’ upper hind legs they have minute hairs that act as a basket where the bee rolls up the pollen dust grains and mixes it with nectar to form a ball. And that is what we call “bee pollen”.’

‘And it’s safe?’

‘For most people, yes, although a few unfortunates do have a physical aversion to it.’ He leaned back and thought for a moment. ‘Could that have caused the boil-like swellings that Mr Crowe described in his letter? Hmm, I doubt it. Reactions to pollen tend to be more like rashes than boils, and to find two men chosen presumably at random who have such a sensitivity would be unlikely.’ Suddenly he hit the desk with his hand. Sherlock jumped. ‘Of course! I’m ignoring the obvious answer!’

‘Obvious?’ Sherlock racked his brains. What was the obvious explanation for boil-like swellings when bees were involved? And then the realization burst on him like a flash of lightning. ‘Stings!’ he cried out.

‘Well done, my boy. Yes, bee stings. Very virulent stings, at that. Most bees in this country, at least, have stings that cause pain and a slight raised spot, but nothing like the boils that Mr Crowe described.’ He glanced at Sherlock. ‘You must have seen them too. How large were they?’

Sherlock held up his right hand. ‘About the size of the end of my thumb,’ he replied.

‘Indicating a very virulent strain of venom, and perhaps a very aggressive form of bee.’

‘How do you know so much about bees?’ Sherlock asked.

The Professor smiled. ‘I told you that I spent some years in China. The Chinese have been keeping bees for several thousand years, and I discovered that honey is highly prized by them for its medicinal benefits. According to the records in the great medical work Bencao Gangmu, or The Compendium of Materia Medica, which was written by a man named Li Shizhen three hundred years ago, honey has the ability to tone the spleen, alleviate pain, remove toxic substances, reduce vexation, brighten the eye and prolong life.’ He looked away from Sherlock, towards the wall, and Sherlock got the impression that he was remembering things that had happened many years before. ‘Here in Great Britain we are used to the rather docile European honey bee, Apis mellifera. The Asian rock bee, Apis dorsata, is considerably more aggressive and has a much more painful sting, and yet still the Chinese keep them and harvest honey from their hives. Unlike our hives, which are shaped like bells, the Chinese use hollowed-out logs or woven cylindrical baskets to keep the bees in. Sometimes you could see the Chinese peasants carrying their beehives up into the mountains, two at a time, slung on the end of bamboo poles which they balanced on their shoulders. I remember watching them climb, with the bees buzzing around them like a cloud of smoke.’

A cloud of smoke. The words hit Sherlock like a blow between the eyes.

‘That’s what it was,’ he breathed.

‘What?’

‘I saw a shadow moving away from one of the bodies, and my friend saw the same thing coming out of a window where the other body was discovered. It must have been the bees!’

The Professor nodded. ‘They would have had to be pretty small for you to mistake them for a shadow, and probably dark in colour, rather than the bright yellow and black of your typical bumblebee. I believe there are African bees that are small and virtually black. They too are very aggressive.’

‘Would you do something for me?’ Sherlock asked.

‘Of course.’

‘Would you write a letter to Amyus Crowe, telling him what you believe caused the deaths of those two men? I’ll take it back to Farnham and give it to him.