“It'll make Mr Miranker happy that you've paid them attention.”
“He has looked after them well, in my absence.”
“I like him.”
“You've met?”
“We met Wednesday, at the abandoned hive. I told you I solved that mystery-I should have said, he and I together did so.” As I negotiated the light Sunday traffic into Eastbourne, I described my investigation of the missing colony of Apis mellifera. We broke off so I could park the motor at the station while he bought tickets and showed the staff Yolanda Adler's photograph, then met again in an empty compartment (the week-end flow of travellers back towards London still being occupied with eking out their final hours of sun).
“None of the men working today was on duty Friday,” he grumbled, so I finished telling him about the bees, touching lightly upon my own suggestion concerning the remoteness of the hive and quickly going on to Mr Miranker's conclusion. The story went on for some time, since I thought he would like to know every small detail of the matter. At last I came to an end, and presented my conclusion. “The hive died because the queen was too soft-hearted, Holmes.”
He snorted at my interpretation of the hive's failure; belatedly, I heard the echo of wistfulness in my voice, and glanced sideways at him.
It had been not a snort, but a snore: Following one night spent staring out at the moon over the Downs, and the night before prowling the city in search of a son, Holmes had fallen asleep.
An hour later, his voice broke into my thoughts. “I trust you did not tell Mr Miranker that you believed the hive succumbed to loneliness?”
“Not in so many words, no. Although he did agree that it was possible the lack of proximity to another hive might have contributed to its extinction.”
“Loneliness alone does not drive a creature mad, Russell. However, I freely admit that an excess of royal benevolence is not a diagnosis that would have occurred to me. One can hope that Miranker's replacement queen proves sufficiently ruthless. Do you suppose Lestrade will be at the Yard today, or ought we to hunt him down at his home?”
“He might be at work, although you'd have to conceal your identity to have him admit it over the telephone.”
“True, the cases which have brought me into his purview have tended to demand much of his time. The same, now that I think of it, might be said of his father before him.”
The younger Lestrade had followed his father into the police, then New Scotland Yard, and thus inevitably into contact with Sherlock Holmes. I had seen a considerable amount of Lestrade the previous summer, during a complicated and ultimately uncomfortable case involving an ancient manuscript and modern inheritances. I doubted he would relish the opportunity of working with either of us again this soon.
“Do you suppose they will look into the meaning of her blisters?” I asked him.
“I should doubt it.”
“But you don't wish to tell them who she is?”
“I intend merely to say that this is a Sussex crime I have been asked to investigate by an anonymous party, no more.”
“Holmes, if you-”
“I will not come to their aid in this matter,” he snarled. “There is too much here I do not yet understand.”
“Well,” I said, “if I can find where the shoes came from, I might find who bought them for her.”
“Is that a line of enquiry you can begin today?”
“I can start, but the shops themselves will not be open.”
“Do what you can. In the meantime, I shall hunt down Lestrade and see what I can prise out of him.”
“I'd also like a copy of that photograph you have.”
He slid his hand into his breast pocket and drew out a note-case, handing me a freshly printed reproduction of the photograph Damian had given him. The facial details were not as crisp as the original, but would be sufficient for my purposes.
I studied it, as I hadn't before. Yolanda was not, in fact, as pretty as I had remembered. Her face was a touch too square, the eyes too small, but the face beneath the dowdy hat was alive and sparkling with intelligence, which made her far more attractive than any surface arrangement of features. The child in her arms was blurred and turning to the side, but the corner of her eye suggested an Asian fold, even though the child's glossy hair lacked the thick, straight texture of the mother's.
Beside them, Damian's right hand rested on Yolanda's shoulder, giving that half of his image the air of a Victorian paterfamilias; the other half with its encircling arm suggested a person more relaxed and modern. He looked happy, prosperous, proud, and amused at that incongruous frock suit.
Yolanda's skirt was not, I noted, flowered. Its cut and hem-line seemed out of date to me, although not as archaic as his coat. No doubt one should not expect the latest in fashion from a Bohemian matron-here in London, Bohemians tended to resemble gipsies or pipe-fitters. “I wonder why they chose such conventional dress and setting for a portrait? It's almost as if they were in disguise.”
“Or fancy-dress,” Holmes said.
“Yes. Especially when you look at the expressions on their faces.” Perhaps Yolanda's face was sparkling with humour rather than intelligence. It made her more sympathetic, somehow.
I was about to put the photograph into my pocket, but Holmes took it from me, laid it face-to against the window, and folded the top down at the line of Damian's shoulders. He ran his thumb-nail hard against the fold; when he handed it back, Damian had been reduced to little more than a black back-drop and a hand on the child's torso. “If you're looking for her, his image will only confuse matters,” he told me.
It was true, the eye focused on a lone woman more easily than with a bearded man looming above her. Still, I couldn't help being aware of the symbolic aspect of the fold as well: Holmes wanted Damian left out of this enquiry.
When we reached Victoria, Holmes, impatient to be about his business, set off on foot towards Westminster and Scotland Yard while I took my place in the taxi queue. I frowned at his back until it disappeared around the corner, then took out the photograph and studied it.
Was it conviction, or apprehension, that made him so determined to exclude Damian?
My club, the Vicissitude, was not an ideal beginning for a hunt into the world of fashion-one was more likely to find expertise on Attic Greek or the missions of China than on expensive clothing-but as it happened, I drew a lucky straw, and some time later sat down to tea with a cousin of the sister-in-law of the Vicissitude's manager, a dangerously thin individual wearing a Chanel dress that was too large for her. She had, until her recent illness, supervised the millinery section of one of London 's large department stores.
“I am trying to trace a pair of shoes. The woman who wore them is dead,” I added, before she could suggest I ask their owner. I described the shoes closely-the shape, the quality of the leather, the tiny bow on the heel. “They didn't look like ready-made shoes, but if they were bespoke, they were for someone other than the woman wearing them. They didn't fit her.”
The thin face made a moue of disapproval. “You would have mentioned if there were an identifying name in them,” she said. I agreed, I would have. “The bow suggests a recent line of quality footwear out of Cardiff, of all places. Harrods carries them, in several styles and colours, although I believe Selfridges is trying one or two lines as well.”
“The woman's frock was from Selfridges,” I reflected.
“Then perhaps you should begin there.”
“I shall, first thing in the morning.” I took care, in shaking her hand, not to bear down with any enthusiasm, lest I crush the bird-like bones.
I came out onto the street to the sound of bells from nearby Westminster cathedral. To my surprise, considering all that had happened that day, it was not yet half past four. The streets were dead, but then, even Oxford and Regent streets would be echoing and empty. On a Sunday in London, one could walk, worship, or improve oneself.
I chose the last option, making my way down to the Tate to spend an hour meandering among paintings that might have looked modern had I not been recently introduced to the work of one Damian Adler.
When I was thrown out at closing, I found a tiny cafe that offered a meal it called dinner, and dawdled the dusk
