Laurie King - The Language of Bees

I pointed it out to Holmes. “Ink?”

He took her hand, splaying her child-like fingers so as to see more clearly. “Yes,” he said. He returned her arm to her side, but his own hand lingered on hers. He studied her, this woman his son had loved. “I wonder what manner of voice she had?” he murmured.

Then he twitched the sheet up to cover her.

“When will you do the autopsy?” he asked Huxtable.

“I was scheduled to do it this afternoon, although-”

“I would appreciate it if you would send me a copy of your results. You have my address?”

“Yes, but-”

“Who is the officer in charge of the investigation?”

“Well, it would have been Detective Inspector Weller, but I understand it's been given to Scotland Yard because of the… unusual aspects of the case. Which is why, as I was about to say, the poor girl might be taken up to London for the autopsy. I was told I should hear one way or the other before Sunday dinner.”

“I see. I shall ring you later today, then, and see where it stands. Good day, Dr Huxtable.”

Our hasty departure took us as far as the doorway before Huxtable remembered why we had come in the first place.

“Er, sorry,” he called, “the message said you might be able to identify-”

“No!” Holmes snapped. “We don't know who she is.”

I stared at him, but he swept out of the door, leaving the doctor spluttering his confusion as to why we had shown such interest in a stranger.

At the car, I got behind the wheel and turned to ask Holmes why he had claimed ignorance, but one glance at the side of his face had me reaching for the starter and getting the motor-car on the road.

The expression that hardened his features and turned his eyes to flame was one I had rarely seen there.

Rage, pure and hot.

HALFWAY TO POLEGATE, HOLMES FINALLY STIRRED, and reached for the cigarette case in his pocket. When the tobacco was going, he rubbed the match out between his fingers and let the breeze take it, then seemed to notice for the first time that we were on the move.

“Where are you going?”

“Home. If I pass through a second time without greeting Mrs Hudson, she might just go back to Surrey permanently. Apart from which, with that expression on your face, I figured you'd be wanting your revolver.”

“This was my son's wife.” His voice was like ice. “A young woman who had lifted herself from the gutter on the strength of her own wits. A person whose acquaintance I was looking forward to making. Instead of which, I find her laid out like a slaughtered farm-animal.”

“Did you see anything under her finger-nails?”

“If she struggled, it did not include digging her fingers into the ground or scratching at an assailant.”

I thought this as good a time as any to tell him what I had seen. “Those shoes were very new and not inexpensive, but a woman would never have bought that ill-fitting a pair for herself. They gave her blisters. And the stockings she wore were far too long for her. She'd had to hook the garters down into the stocking itself-one of them had already worn through.”

“One might add the general unlikelihood of a Bohemian choosing to dress in silk stockings and a flowered summer frock. I saw no such garments in her wardrobe at home.”

I thought of my conversation with the neighbour's child. “Perhaps she dressed that way to make a more staid impression on someone.”

“But if, as you suggest, she chose neither the shoes nor the clothing herself, then either she assembled the garments from another woman's wardrobe, or she was given them to wear.”

“By someone who didn't know her size very well,” I said without thinking. To my consternation, Holmes did not react, even though my statement clearly suggested that Damian's knowledge of his wife's dress size was a factor to be taken into consideration. He simply smoked and looked daggers at the passing view, while I bent over the wheel and concentrated on not driving over any distracted churchgoers or Sunday ramblers.

Greetings with Mrs Hudson cost me an hour, which Holmes spent shouting down the telephone and crashing about in his laboratory. I was saved from the enumeration of her Surrey friend's ills by Holmes' bellow from above that he wished to leave in a quarter hour. I tore myself away and hammered up the stairs, throwing an assortment of things into a bag and conversing with him as we went in and out of various rooms.

“-need to speak with the station masters in Eastbourne, Polegate, and Seaford, and show them her photograph.”

“Do you have her photograph, then?”

“How else should I intend to show them it?”

“Sorry. Do you wish me to bring weapons?”

“Your knife might be wise.”

I shuddered at the brief vision of a blade crossing the ivory throat of Yolanda Adler, but added my slim throwing knife and its scabbard to the heap on the bed. “I should like to see the Adler house for myself, Holmes. Might we spend the night there, so I can look at that book by light of day?”

“I would have stolen it for you, had I known you were interested.” His voice was muffled by the door to the lumber room down the hallway, and I heard thumps and a crash.

I raised my voice, a trifle more than mere volume required. “I'm interested because she was. Both of them, come to that-Damian's art is infused with mystic symbols and traditions.”

Holmes' voice answered two inches away from my ear, making me jerk and spray a handful of maps across the floor. “Religion can be a dangerous thing, it is true,” he remarked darkly, and went out again.

I got down on my knees to fish the maps out from under the bed. “Did you find out who is in charge of her case, at Scotland Yard?”

“Your old friend and admirer, Lestrade.”

“Really? I'd have thought him too high-ranking for an unidentified woman in a rural setting.”

“I haven't spoken with the good Chief Inspector himself, but I am led to understand the newspapers are summoning outrage at the ‘desecration of Britain's ancient holy places,’ and to have this following a death in Cerne Abbas and an assault at Stonehenge means that Scotland Yard will be doing all it can to deter a cause célèbre.”

I found myself smiling. “I can just imagine what Lestrade has to say about having to investigate suicidal Druids.”

In a moment, his head appeared around the door frame. “Was the woman who killed herself at Cerne Abbas a Druid?”

“She was an unemployed secretary, according to the papers. It was a farmer's letter to the editor that mentioned Druids.”

“Disappointing,” he said, looking both at me and through me. “I don't know that I have ever before encountered Druidical suicides.”

“It would be an original means of marking your return.”

“The lunatics rejoice,” he said, and nearly chuckled. Then he caught himself, and his eyes came into focus. “Are you ready Russell?”

But now it was my turn to look through him, as a thin idea stirred in the back of my mind. Lunatics and linked deaths; Holmes sitting in the moonlit window; a startling eclipse; full moons doubled above a cat's-fur hillside; a conversation: Madness is linked to the moon.

“Er, Holmes, I'm going to be a bit longer. Would you mind awfully taking a look at the orchard hives before we leave? It seemed to me that a couple of them were wanting the addition of a super, and it would be a pity if it drove them to swarm while we were away.” I could see that he was torn between the urgency of the case and the call of his long-time charges, so I added, “Holmes, it's Sunday. How much do you imagine we'll be able to accomplish in London anyway?”