Laurie King - The Beekeeper's Apprentice

"An interesting statement, from a man who bases his investigations on minutiae," she commented, with some justification. "But we'll let it pass. Yes, it was my father's hair, from the days when he wore it down to his collar. My mother kept it in a locket. This locket I wear, in fact. And yes, my friend with the accurate rifle was indeed in the warehouse, although I understand that Scotland Yard is still looking for the launch. How they can imagine that anyone could aim from a boat en water and achieve any degree of accuracy — And as for Dickson, he knew the risks when he signed on. I was angry with him, for making such a mess of the bomb that incapacitated you, and it made him clumsy. I was generous with his family's compensation, you will give me that."

"What price a man's life, Miss Donleavy? How many guineas is recompense to a widow, three fatherless children?"

His voice hardened. "You killed him, Miss Donleavy, yourself or one of your hired thugs, who heard your anger and took it as command. You intended him dead when you opened the New York bank account from which he was paid, last November. And he is now dead."

We sat in utter silence, and my heart beat ten, eleven times before she responded, with grudging admiration and a touch of amusement, and sounding again like herself.

"Mr. Holmes, how generous is the urge to Christian forgiveness in your soul, to perceive the man who nearly killed you and your two closest associates as a poor fellow whose widow and children weep for him."

"John Dickson was a professional, Madam, an artist with fuse and explosive. He never killed, and only once injured, in his entire career, until you brought him out of retirement. I can only assume you held something over him, some threat to his family, I imagine, to force him to engage in wholesale slaughter. Do not play games with me, Madam, with your accidents and your shows of pique; my patience has its limits."

The room's silence was so heavy I was sure she would hear my heart rate accelerate when I saw the end of the gun sag slightly away from me. He had her complete attention now. In a minute her voice came from the dark corner, flavoured with what sounded like respect.

"I can see that with someone like you about a person would never become complacent. You are quite correct: I suppose I did want him dead and tidied out of the way.

His affection for those poisonous children of his was a weakness, and he would have exposed me when he had the chance. Ah well; introspection has never been one of my strong points. I have an unfortunate tendency to overlook side issues when I have a goal before me. As Miss Russell could tell you, I think."

The silver muzzle was again aimed directly at me, and I willed my muscles to relax, cursing inwardly. We were all silent for a long minute, two, and when she started again I knew that Holmes had miscalculated, that his successful gambit had, instead of distracting her, only driven her more strongly into asserting her domination over him. I could have told him, but he could not have known. Her counter move was vicious and calculated to take him at his weakest point, where pride met aloof independence. "I believe," she said slowly, and again she had flue-tuated into that slightly "off" manner that made me feel as if I did not know her in the least. "I believe that I shall call you Sherlock. An awkward name, that. What was your father thinking? Nonetheless, we have had such an intimate relationship — admittedly one-sided up to now — for so many years, I believe it is time to make it reciprocal. You will address me please by my Christian name."

Before she reached the end of this bizarre little speech I knew what the strong sense of wrongness was that I had sensed in her. When I had known her at Oxford, she had struck me as a person whose frustrations with the demands of University life would cause her, before too long, to make a break with the University and go elsewhere to exercise her considerable abilities. Indeed, that is what I had half assumed had taken place when she did not return for Hilary term. It was now clear that the break had taken place, but internally: The tightly controlled impatience she had always exhibited had broken free, and the knowledge of her superiority had progressed to a sense of supremacy.

Eccentricity had flowered into madness.

It was an almost textbook illustration of dementia, but I needed no book to tell me what my crawling skin knew: The woman was more dangerous than her gun, as volatile as petrol fumes and malignant as a poisonous spider.

My frantic thoughts could find no option to grab hold of, could conceive of no way to calm her, or even distract her. I could only sit, still and unimportant to one side, and leave the field to Holmes' vast experience.

"Madam, I can hardly think that — "

"You ought to think very carefully, Sherlock, before you choose."

I had heard that tone of voice before, on occasions when her reiterated query as to whether I was satisfied with my solution had sent me scrambling for my error before she came down on me like a barbed whip. Holmes either did not perceive the threat or chose to ignore it. "Miss Donleavy, I — "

The gunshot exploded into the closed room at the same instant that something tugged gently at my upper arm and a piece of equipment disintegrated noisily on a shelf next to the door, and I just had time to hope fervently that

Mrs. Hudson would not be brought in by the noise when the pain flared. Holmes heard my gasp and turned to me as I clamped my left hand over the wound.

"Russell, are you — "

"She is fine, my dear Sherlock, and I suggest that you sit quietly or soon she will not be at all fine. Thank you.

I assure you that I hit precisely what I intend to hit with this gun. I do nothing by halves, and that includes target practice. And incidentally, you need not worry that your guard will interrupt us this evening; he and Mrs. Hudson are both sleeping very soundly. Now, take your hand away, my dear, and let us see how much you are bleeding. You see? Barely a nick. A pretty shot, I think you'll agree. You know," she said in another voice entirely, that of a woman of reason and compassion, "I am really terribly sorry that I had to do that to you, Miss Russell. I hope you realise that I am not in the habit of shooting my pupils." Her voice tried to coax a smile from me, and the terrible thing was, despite the looming panic and shock, I wanted to give it to her. Wanted to trust her.

"Now, Sherlock, my dear, to return to the topic.

What was it you were about to call me?" she said in mock coquetry.

Her voice set my skin to crawling. The surface was light mischief, but just below lay threat and contemptuous laughter and another thing that took me a minute to recognise: a coarse, sly tone of intimacy and seduction from a female completely sure of her power. It made me want to vomit, and then it began to make me angry. With the anger grew control. "I am waiting, Sherlock." The gun jiggled slightly on her knee.

Holmes' response landed in the room like a glob of spit.

"Patricia."

"That's better. We need to work on the intonation, but that will come. As I was saying, I feel that I know you very, very well by now. Do you realise that you have been my hobby since I was eighteen? Yes, quite some time now.

I was in New York. My mother was dying, and in the newsstand outside the hospital I saw a copy of a journal with your picture on the front, and inside a story of how you had not died, but how instead you had murdered my father.

It took my mother a long time to die, and I had many hours to think about how I should meet you one day. I inherited my father's business, you know, though I was really more interested in pure mathematics than the organisation.

It ran itself, really, while I went to school. My managers were very loyal. Still are, for that matter. Most of them. They occasionally consulted me at University, but for the most part I would tell them what to do, and they would work out the how. Sometimes I made requests, which they carried out most efficiently."