In the morning, the ambrosia of bacon frying heralded Mrs Hudson's return. By the time I dressed (in the day's clothes rather than a dressing gown, in deference to our guest's sensibilities), Lestrade was up, deep in conversation with Holmes outside on the flagstone patio. It was a magnificent morning, with the heat of late summer already in the sun. Somewhere I could hear the sound of farm machinery.
'Good morning, Russell. Coffee or tea?'
'As the coffee's here, I'll have that. I hope you slept well, Inspector, despite the lack of such luxuries as a bed and clean blankets?'
'I could've slept on the bare boards in my car rug last night, but I was most comfortable on the mattress, thank you.'
'Russell, you will be pleased to know that your labours yesterday had the desired effect: The Chief Inspector is convinced. The marks on post and pillar box, plus the marks on Miss Ruskin's boots, equal justification for an investigation. Bacon and eggs are in the chafing dishes. I'll fetch more toast.'
'I'd like to see the box she gave you before I go, though, Mr Holmes,' called Lestrade at his host's disappearing back.
'So you shall, Lestrade,' said Holmes as he took a rack of fresh toast from the hand of Mrs Hudson. 'So you shall. I need to check the hives today anyway.' He did not explain this apparent non sequitur to Lestrade, and I had my mouth full.
After breakfast, Holmes went down to the hives with his tin smoker and a bag of equipment. Lestrade stayed with me at the table, finishing his coffee, and we watched Holmes make his methodical way up the row of hives, stunning each community into apathy with the smoke and reaching gloveless inside. At one hive, he paused to fix another frame for the honeycombs onto the existing ones. He did the same to the hive in which he had secreted the box, then spent some time bent over its innards with his pocketknife. Lestrade shook his head.
'The best detective England has produced, and he spends his time with bees.'
I smiled, having heard this a number of times before.
'He finds that the society of bees helps him understand the society of human beings. I think it's also a bit like the violin— it keeps one level of his mind occupied while freeing up other levels. More coffee?'
I left him to his contemplation of life's oddities and took the plates inside to help Mrs Hudson with the washing up. Soon the men reappeared at the door, a small bulge in the pocket of Holmes' coat and a bee clinging dopily to his hair.
'Kindly leave your lady friend outside, Holmes. She's next to your left ear.'
He brushed her off and came inside.
'Let's take it into the laboratory, away from the windows. Lestrade,' he said over his shoulder, 'are you aware of the presence of three classes of bees in a hive? There are the workers, the females, who, appropriately enough, do all the work. The drones are the lowly males, who keep house and stand about gossiping and occasionally wait upon the queen. And finally, there is the queen herself, a sort of superfemale who is the mother of the entire hive. She spends her life laying eggs and killing any other queen who might hatch out, until she weakens and is herself killed, either by a new queen or by being smothered by a huge clot of her daughters when they see her growing old. If she dies accidentally, and if there are no unhatched queen cells, a worker can lay eggs, but she cannot make a new queen. A very educational society, Lestrade, if a bit daunting for a mere male. By the way, Russell, that new queen we got from your friend in Marston is doing very well. I may weed out a couple of the other hives and try replacing their queen cells with hers. Well, here is Miss Ruskin's little present, Lestrade, for what it's worth.'
He drew the lump from his pocket and removed the piece of oiled paper with which he had wrapped the box. Traces of wax showed where the industrious creatures had begun to incorporate this foreign object into their hive, but the box itself was untouched. He gave it to Lestrade, who turned it around in his hands, following with delight the parade of animals, birds, and exotic vegetation. I let him enjoy it for a while before I reached over to pull up the top and show him the papyrus.
'I'll work on finishing the translation and then see if I can find any sort of a code or marks on it. It's very unlikely, but I'll try.'
Lestrade reached out and ran a thumb over the inviting surfaces, then glanced at the papyrus curiously.
'I can see why you said it wouldn't fit easily into a book. Good luck with it, Miss Russell. Glad it's you and not me. I'd like a photograph of it and a couple of the box as well, if you would.'
'Did the camera appear, Holmes?'
'It did, but in rather too many pieces to be of any use. Patrick's should be good enough for the purpose, though.'
'That reminds me, Mr Holmes, can you give me a list of everything they took? We can send it around to the stolen-goods people, have the shops look out for the things. Probably hopeless, but still.'
'Quite. I made a list last night, Lestrade. It's on the table by the door. Be careful not to bump the table,' he added. 'One leg is loose.'
'Right.' Lestrade handed me the box and glanced at his watch. 'Good Lord, I must run. I'm meeting someone at one o'clock. I'll be in touch tomorrow.'
'I'll be interested to know what you uncover about Mrs Rogers's background. And I want to see if your print man finds anything in the hotel room.'
'In this case, Mr Holmes, it's a print lady,' he said primly, and with a tip of his hat to me, he closed the door.
Holmes and I regarded each other, and the noise and the tumult of the last two days gradually settled into the quiet house like dust from a shaken rug.
'So, Holmes.'
'So, Russell.'
He nodded once, as if in agreement, and we returned to our dreary task, in this case the laboratory, where, by great good fortune, none of the broken beakers and jars had combined to form explosives, corrosives, or poisons. We used heavy gloves, but we still had blood on our hands when the afternoon came and Holmes tipped the last dustpan load into the bin. We pulled off our gloves, inspected the damage, and threw gloves, brush, and the pan itself into the bin and slammed down the lid.
'Lunch al fresco, Russell, is definitely called for. Fresh air and sensible conversation in a place free of broken test tubes, white-haired eccentric ladies, and Scotland Yard inspectors.'
We removed ourselves from the cottage to a spot notable only for its lack of scenery and difficulty of approach, then applied ourselves to my thick sandwiches (Mrs Hudson had despaired of teaching me to slice bread and meat thinly) and glasses of honey wine. The summer had been a good one, warm enough to dry hay, wet enough to water the fields. In a month, I should return to Oxford for half of each week. We hadn't much time.
I lay back and watched one thin cloud hang unmoving in the firmament while Holmes put the things back into his rucksack. Dorothy Ruskin, a strong woman who would find it easy to make enemies. Her sister, a widow, left to care for an old woman in a decrepit house. A retired colonel, his absent son, and whomever else she may have met in London. Then there were the two Arabs and their driver in the black saloon car, and whoever had searched our house. I shifted to avoid the sharp edges of a rock beneath my shoulder blade and was jabbed by one corner of the box, which I had thrust into a capacious trouser pocket. I stretched out my leg and fished for the box. I am not an acquisitive person; indeed, some people would say that the fortune I controlled was wasted on me. However, this artefact captivated me in ways I could not begin to explain. I held it up before my eyes. The peacock's tail was lapis lazuli and some green stone. Jade? Turquoise? I rested it on my stomach with my hands over it and closed my eyes to the hot sun.
I must have drifted off, because I was startled when Holmes spoke.
'Shall I abandon you here, Russell, in the arms of Nature's soft nurse?'
I smiled and stretched deliciously on the rocky ground. Holmes caught the box and handed it back to me when I sat up.
'William Shakespeare must have been an insomniac,' I declared. 'He has an overly affectionate fixation on sleep that borders on obsession. It can only have stemmed from privation.'
'A hungry man dreaming of food? You sound like the jargon-spouting neighbour of Sarah Chessman, with her traumatic experiences and neuroses.'
