thin, glass-fronted beehive. I squatted before it, entranced. The comb was thick and even across the middle portion, trailed off at the edges, and was covered by a thick blanket of orange and black. The whole was vibrating with energy, though the individuals seemed to be simply milling about, without purpose.
I watched closely, trying to make sense of their apparently aimless motion. A tube led in at the bottom, with pollen-laden bees coming in and denuded bees going out; a smaller tube at the top, clouded with condensation, I assumed was for ventilation.
'Do you see the queen?' Mr. Holmes asked.
'She's here? Let me see if I can find her.' I knew that the queen was the largest bee in the hive, and that wherever she went she had a fawning entourage, but it still took me an embarrassingly long time to pick her out from her two hundred or so daughters and sons. Finally I found her, and couldn't imagine why she had not appeared instantly. Twice the size of the others and imbued with dumb, bristling purpose, she seemed a creature of another race from her hive mates. I asked their keeper a few questions — did they object to the light, was the population as steady here as in a larger hive — and then he slid the cover over the living painting and we went outside. I remembered belatedly that I was not interested in bees.
Outside the French doors lay an expanse of flagstones, sheltered from the wind by a glass conservatory that grew off the kitchen wall and by an old stone wall with herbaceous border that curved around the remaining two sides. The terrace gathered in the heat until its air danced, and I was relieved when he continued down to a group of comfortable-looking wooden chairs in the shade of an enormous copper beech. I chose a chair that looked down towards the Channel, over the head of a small orchard that lay in a hollow below us. There were tidy hive boxes arranged among the trees and bees working the early flowers of the border. A bird sang. Two men's voices came and receded along the other side of the wall. Dishes rattled distantly from the kitchen. A small fishing boat appeared on the horizon and gradually worked its way towards us.
I suddenly came to myself with the realisation that I was neglecting my conversational responsibilities as a guest. I moved my cold tea from the arm of my chair to the table and turned to my host.
'Is this your handiwork?' I asked, indicating the garden.
He smiled ironically, though whether at the doubt in my voice or at the social impulse that drove me to break the silence, I was not certain.
'No, it is a collaboration on the part of Mrs. Hudson and old Will Thompson, who used to be head gardener at the manor. I took an interest in gardening when I first came here, but my work tends to distract me for days on end. I would reappear to find whole beds dead of drought or buried in bramble. But Mrs. Hudson enjoys it, and it gives her something to do other than pester me to eat her concoctions. I find it a pleasant spot to sit and think. It also feeds my bees — most of the flowers are chosen because of the quality of honey they produce.'
'It is a very pleasant spot. It reminds me of a garden we once had when I was small.'
'Tell me about yourself, Miss Russell.'
I started to give him the obligatory response, first the demurral and then the reluctant flat autobiography, but some slight air of polite inattention in his manner stopped me. Instead, I found myself grinning at him.
'Why don't you tell me about myself, Mr. Holmes?'
'Aha, a challenge, eh?' There was a flare of interest in his eyes.
'Exactly.'
'Very well, on two conditions. First, that you forgive my old and much-abused brain if it is slow and creaking, for such thought patterns as I once lived by are a habit and become rusty without continual use. Daily life here with Mrs. Hudson and Will is a poor whetting stone for sharp wit.'
'I don't entirely believe that your brain is underused, but I grant the condition. And the other?'
'That you do the same for me when I have finished with you.'
'Oh. All right. I shall try, even if I lay myself open to your ridicule.' Perhaps I had not escaped the edge of his tongue after all.
'Good.' He rubbed his thin dry hands together, and suddenly I was fixed with the probing eye of an entomologist.
'I see before me one Mary Russell, named after her paternal grandmother.'
I was taken aback for a moment, then reached up and fingered the antique locket, engraved MMR, that had slipped out from the buttons of my shirt. I nodded.
'She is, let us see, sixteen? fifteen, I think? Yes, fifteen years of age, and despite her youth and the fact that she is not at school she intends to pass the University entrance examinations.' I touched the book in my pocket and nodded appreciatively. 'She is obviously left-handed, one of her parents was Jewish — her mother, I think? Yes, definitely the mother — and she reads and writes Hebrew. She is at present four inches shorter than her American father — that was his suit? All right so far?' he asked complacently.
I thought furiously. 'The Hebrew?' I asked.
'The ink marks on your fingers could only come with writing right to left.'
'Of course.' I looked at the accumulation of smears near my left thumbnail. 'That is very impressive.'
He waved it aside. 'Parlour games. But the accents are not without interest.' He eyed me again, then sat back with his elbows on the chair's armrests, steepled his fingers, rested them lightly on his lips for a moment, closed his eyes, and spoke.
'The accents. She has come recently from her father's home in the western United States, most likely northern California. Her mother was one generation away from Cockney Jew, and Miss Russell herself grew up in the southwestern edges of London. She moved, as I said, to California, within the last, oh, two years. Say the word 'martyr,' please.' I did so. 'Yes, two years. Sometime between then and December both parents died, very possibly in the same accident in which Miss Russell was involved last September or October, an accident which has left scar tissue on her throat, scalp, and right hand, a residual weakness in that same hand, and a slight stiffness in the left knee.'
The game had suddenly stopped being entertaining. I sat frozen, my heart ceasing to beat while I listened to the cool, dry recitation of his voice.
'After her recovery she was sent back home to her mother's family, to a tight-fisted and unsympathetic relative who feeds her rather less than she needs. This last,' he added parenthetically, 'is I admit largely conjecture, but as a working hypothesis serves to explain her well- nourished frame poorly covered by flesh, and the reason why she appears at a stranger's table to consume somewhat more than she might if ruled strictly by her obvious good manners. I am willing to consider an alternative explanation,' he offered, and opened his eyes, and saw my face.
'Oh, dear.' His voice was an odd mixture of sympathy and irritation. 'I have been warned about this tendency of mine. I do apologise for any distress I have caused you.'
I shook my head and reached for the cold dregs in my teacup. It was difficult to speak through the lump in my throat.
Mr. Holmes stood up and went into the house, where I heard his voice and that of the housekeeper trading a few unintelligible phrases before he returned, carrying two delicate glasses and an open bottle of the palest of wines. He poured it into the glasses and handed me one, identifying it as honey wine — his own, of course. He sat down and we both sipped the fragrant liquor. In a few minutes the lump faded, and I heard the birds again. I took a deep breath and shot him a glance.
'Two hundred years ago you would have been burnt.' I was trying for dry humour but was not entirely successful.
'I have been told that before today,' he said, 'though I cannot say I have ever fancied myself in the rôle of a witch, cackling over my pot.'
'Actually, the book of Leviticus calls not for burning, but for the stoning of a man or a woman who speaks with the spirits — iöb, a necromancer or medium — or who is a yidöni, from the verb 'to know,' a person who achieves knowledge and power other than through the grace of the Lord God of Israel, er, well, a sorcerer.' My voice trailed off as I realised that he was eyeing me with the apprehension normally reserved for mumbling strangers in one's railway compartment or acquaintances with incomprehensible and tiresome passions. My recitation had been an automatic response, triggered by the entry of a theological point into our discussion. I smiled a weak reassurance. He cleared his throat.
'Er, shall I finish?' he asked.
'As you wish,' I said, with trepidation.
