The Language of Bees (28 page)

I couldn’t be certain he would return upstairs, but I moved onto the lawn, just in case. Sure enough, seconds later I saw a brown figure move past the doorway in the direction of the stairs—two and a half minutes were all Holmes was getting.

I trotted across the lawn, took aim, and heaved the rock through the exact centre of the sitting room window; an instant later, the brick punched a hole in the narrow window beside the garden door. Breaking glass makes a most satisfying noise, exploding through the night; the constables in the sitting room ducked down and I ran, out of the gate and down the service alley to the street beyond, where I dropped to a quick walk. I maintained the pace to the corner, then slowed to an amble until I was safely among the crowd in Burton Place.

When five minutes went by and Holmes was not dragged out in handcuffs, I rubbed my damp and shaking palms down the front of my skirt, and walked innocently away.

Had it not been a Sunday, I would have gone straight into the nearest public house and had a drink. Or two.

It being a Sunday, I had to wait until I reached Mycroft’s flat. I went on foot, past the meeting hall where the Children of Lights had met (dark and locked up tonight) then up Knightsbridge and around the Palace to Pall Mall. I half expected Holmes to catch me up; he did not.

Mycroft made haste to provide both the drink and an explanation of Holmes’ sudden appearance in Burton Place: He had been here when Lestrade telephoned.

“The Chief Inspector asked if I had seen my brother. I naturally said no.”

“Naturally.” Why should one co-operate with the police, after all?

“When Sherlock is working, I volunteer no information until I can see the ramifications. Lestrade had heard that Sherlock was at
Scotland Yard this afternoon, asking about the body of an Oriental woman found in Sussex, and he wanted to say that if Sherlock was endeavouring to discover the young woman’s identity, not to worry, Scotland Yard had not only her name, but her address. Apparently one of the neighbours reported an entire family missing, among whom was a young Oriental woman. When Lestrade sent one of his men over with a morgue photograph, the neighbour confirmed that it was she. The Chief Inspector offered to let Sherlock see the files in the morning, if he was still interested.”

“And instead, Holmes flew out of here as if the house were on fire.”

“Faster than that, I should say.”

I took a swallow from my glass, which emptied it. Without comment, Mycroft refilled it. I told him, “Holmes was there, behind Damian’s house. He came running up, asked me to make a diversion, and went inside to get something. That’s what he said, anyway.”

“You doubt it was so?”

“Mycroft, I don’t know what to think. He said he’d meet me here and explain it all. I left Chelsea a good hour ago. I expected him back before me.”

“When did you last eat?”

“Eat? I don’t know. I’m not hungry.”

“Nonetheless.” He got up—easily, without the grunt of effort he’d have given a year ago—and crossed the room to the telephone, to debate the options available with the invisible staff somewhere in the depths of the building.

While he was doing that, I decided to draw a bath—with Holmes, it was always best to be prepared for an instantaneous departure, and I felt grubby. I closeted myself in Mycroft’s enormous bath-tub with a lot of hot, fragrant water; when I emerged, the food had come. Holmes had not.

I ate largely in silence. I wanted to dive into my brother-in-law and prise out every scrap of information he had regarding Damian, Irene Adler, Holmes’ past—everything. But pressing Mycroft would put him in an awkward position: If Holmes wanted me to know these things, Holmes would tell me. It wasn’t fair to Mycroft to ask.

Apart from which, as he’d said, he tended to volunteer no information—to the police, and perhaps to me. And I did not want his refusal to stand between us.

Better to fume in silence.

An hour later, Mycroft had retired for the night and I had reached that stage where concern and irritation were piling atop one another to create a volatile mix. However, when Holmes finally walked in, one look at him and my anger deflated.

He dropped a roughly-bound parcel on the table beside the door, tossed his hat in the direction of a chair, draped his overcoat on the nearest sofa-back, and sat. Silently, I handed him a large brandy. When he had drunk that, I exchanged it for a plate of cold meat and tired salad. I thought he would refuse it, as I had, but he forced himself to take one bite, and soon was head down over the plate, tearing at the stale rolls with his teeth.

I retreated into Mycroft’s kitchen to make coffee, which took no little time since he’d got a new and highly elaborate machine for the purpose, a thing of glass and silver that looked as if it belonged in a laboratory. But I managed, without blowing anything up, and when I carried the tray out, Holmes looked less grey around the edges.

I gave him coffee, with brandy in it, and sat down with my own.

“When I was searching the house early Saturday,” he told me, “I noticed a package addressed to me, on a shelf in Damian’s dressing room. At the time, I had no reason to remove it: Damian could give it to me when he chose. However, if Lestrade had come across it—and he would have, within minutes—the link between Damian and me would have made things exceedingly complicated. Without it, Lestrade will have to follow his usual channels of enquiry.”

“But he’ll trace Damian Adler to Irene Adler eventually.”

“Not if Mycroft interferes.”

“Oh, Holmes. A formal intervention will be a red flag to a bull. If Lestrade finds out you blocked his investigation, he’ll never speak with you again.”

“If Lestrade finds that I have a personal interest in this case, he will
not only cut me off, he will actively harass me and dog my every step. Worse, he will pour all his efforts into Damian, and dismiss outright any information or suspects we may uncover. An invisible intervention means that the name Adler may catch his eye, but what does that matter? Irene’s married name was Norton, and Adler is a common enough surname. If Lestrade sees no link, then I appear to be merely looking into the death of a woman, and he will see no reason to hamper my investigation. No, it’s best if the information simply ceases to exist.”

I studied him. I had known Holmes to be unscrupulous, even cold-hearted when it came to manipulating others for the sake of an investigation, but this was personal. Frankly, I hadn’t thought him capable of that.

Except, perhaps, to protect me.

And now, Damian.

I did not like it: Holmes had been known to act as judge, jury, and very nearly executioner, but never had he done so without cost to himself.

He put down his half-empty cup and examined it minutely. “He has nightmares. Damian. Night after night he wakes, drenched in sweat, shivering. He must have the lights on, needs the windows open wide, even in the winter. From his words, and from his art, I believe he dreams of trenches whose walls are crumbling in on him. Of being at the bottom of a well, looking up at a circle of stars. Of being in the hold of a ship and hearing the scrape of collision. Of being buried alive in a casket.

“The key element is enclosure. A horror of being closed in, locked up, kept from the sky. I believe it may be why he so often paints the sky.” He sighed, and dry-scrubbed his face. “Russell, Damian Adler is a damaged man on a solid foundation. His wife’s death will threaten everything he has built. If his daughter is gone as well, I do not know if he will recover. Locking him away would guarantee that he does not. If he is arrested, I fear for his sanity. And they will arrest him, if they find him. I must maintain open communication with Lestrade
so I know what they are doing, and so I can find Yolanda’s murderer for them. Because you know that Scotland Yard will not look beyond Damian.”

I said nothing; he raised his eyes to mine. They were set with unwavering intent.

“Damian did not kill his wife,” he said flatly.

“Holmes, you can’t—”

“I must. He did not kill her. Yes, he is capable of killing—which of us is not?—but not this murder. Not a cold-blooded slaughtering of his wife and his child.”

I looked into his grey eyes, and slowly nodded. “All right.”

The tension seeped out of him, and he got up to retrieve the parcel he had left beside the door. As I watched him cross the room, I reflected that in any other man, the relaxation would have been from relief, that he had talked his wife into agreement.

I knew him too well to think that. Tension in Holmes was not the sign of a disagreement with others—even me—but with himself.
I must
, he’d said. He had to believe that his son did not do this dreadful thing, and I, for the moment, had to go along with that decision.

But that did not mean I had to believe it as well.

He put the flat package on the table in front of me. “I hadn’t time to fetch the book you wanted. We’ll go back, when the police are no longer in possession.”

This, too, was a book, wrapped in brown paper and bound in twine. The twine had been cut and re-tied, the paper inattentively wrapped; faint indentations on the paper suggested that it had sat for weeks, if not months.

It was a beautiful volume, leather-bound and tooled with gilt with the name Damian Adler on the front.

When I opened the book and saw what it contained, I knew why it had taken Holmes so long to return to Mycroft’s this evening.

“Did he tell you about this?” I asked.

“He never mentioned it. I expect he had it made some time ago, intending to send it to me when we returned.”

“And he would hardly bring it with him to Sussex, considering why he came.”

“No.”

It was a book of Damian’s sketches and watercolour paintings, mounted and magnificently bound. None was larger than eight inches by six; some were intricate pen-and-ink drawings, others leisurely pencil outlines. The watercolours had a wistful, autumnal air to them, even those clearly showing spring. None of the pieces had moons or trenches; none of them was done in the style he used now. One watercolour of Irene Adler in a garden chair was stunning.

“What is this cottage he’s done several times, the one with the pond in the garden?”

“His mother’s house, outside of Paris in Ste Chapelle.”

“Where he was born.”

“Yes. I went to see it that day, after we’d seen him in gaol.”

I turned the page, and recognised the ivy-draped face of the Ste Chapelle gaol. A tall, thin, middle-aged Englishman filled the doorway, his face in the shadows.

I reached the end, and turned back to the first page, considering. On the surface, the book was a son’s demonstration to his father of skill and personal history. But there was more to it than that.

Take this first drawing: a portrait of Irene Adler. Holmes’ other album also began with her, as a woman beautiful and filled with life; here, she was still lovely, but it was the ethereal beauty of a woman ground down by troubles. She seemed to be contemplating a deep well of sadness within. Had that particular woman ever borne that expression? Had Irene Adler ever been ethereal?

The next sketch, showing a dark-haired little boy on a deserted beach, had a similar air of loneliness to it.

And, looking more closely, the man in the doorway of the gaol was unnaturally rigid, cold amidst the warmth of old stone and luxurious vines.

No: This was not a collection of work brought together to please a father. The paper was the same, beginning to end: Each piece had been done expressly for the purpose of this book.

For what? So that Damian could come home to lay his accomplishment at the feet of a father he hoped to know? Or so he could shove his hard life and his current success into his father’s face? The overkill of the book, so ornate the binding nearly overshadowed the art within, made one aware of anger in its beauty.

The book had been designed to make Holmes wince.

I closed the cover and looked at Holmes. He was slumped into the chair, outstretched ankles crossed, eyes shut. This was not the moment to address the question of filial affection.

“Do you really—” I started, but he cut me off.

“He did not anticipate liking me,” he said. “It galled him, to ask for my help, but he put his feelings aside because he loved his wife. Three days in my company changed him. I’m not certain he would have given me that book, in the end.”

“Do you think you can keep Lestrade from finding out that Damian is your son?”

“All it requires is inefficiency and misfiled information. Mycroft can arrange that.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Holmes.”

One grey eye came open. “My dear Russell,” he said lightly, “I have been deceiving the official police since before you were born. At that art, I am the expert.”

The Elements (2):
The man learned to manipulate
the Elements. As his Guide had taught him to control the
weak, now his inner Guide led him in turning the
Elements to his divine will
.
Testimony, II:6