Too late.
‘It is honey,’ he said in amazement. ‘I thought it was. Why is everything covered in honey?’
I turned slowly. He was right. We had honey everywhere. And we had a Professor Rapson who was high in every sense of the word. I had one of those foreboding things. I turned to Peterson who obviously was having similar thoughts.
‘Xenophon,’ I said.
‘Pompey,’ he replied.
Guthrie tried to wipe his hands on his tunic. You can’t shift honey that easily. ‘What are you two talking about? What’s going on here?’
Peterson sighed. ‘Toxic honey.’
Guthrie stared at his fingers in horror. ‘What the hell is toxic honey?’
‘It’s all right, Major. It’s just a touch of mad honey disease. It’s not fatal. Usually. You’ll feel a bit wobbly for a bit, maybe see a few things, but you’ll be fine.’
‘I only tasted a tiny bit.’
‘That’s all it takes, sadly.’
‘But what is toxic honey? And since I’m talking to the history department, tell me in less than one hundred words.’
I marshalled a few facts. ‘Toxic honey. Made by bees using pollen from rhododendrons growing by the Black Sea. Causes disorientation, uncoordinated movements, nausea, and hallucinations. Both Pompey and Xenophon’s armies were infected with the stuff and were defeated. Not fatal. Wears off in a couple of hours. You’ll get a bit giggly. And high. High as a kite, actually. Although not as high as the professor, here. We need to get him down before anyone sees him.’
‘There’s a ladder somewhere,’ said Peterson and disappeared into the gloom.
I turned to Dr Dowson. ‘How did he manage this? In the absence of rhododendrons, bees, hives, and even the Black Sea, how the hell has he managed this?’
‘He was looking for modern equivalents. I understand ragwort can sometimes –?
‘I can hear my hair grow. Oh, wow, I can actually hear my own hair growing.’
‘Yes, you might want to sit down for a bit, Major.’
Doctor Dowson grabbed my arm. ‘Max, we really need to persuade him to come down. Delusions of flying are very common in cases of this sort. Imagine if he tries … We must get him down.’
‘Why would he do this?’
‘Well, who knows, Max? Who knows why the old fool does anything? I used to think that so long as we kept him away from matches we had a reasonable chance of getting him through the working day intact, and now it turns out he can’t even be trusted with a jar of honey.’
He was distraught. Given that he and the professor existed in a state of almost perpetual warfare, an observer might have been surprised at his distress. But I’d seen the two of them standing back to back at Alexandria, facing their enemies together. With nothing more than a converted vacuum cleaner and a milk churn, they’d sprayed flames and defiance, shouting ancient war cries, their sparse hair standing on end, covered in soot, and far more formidable than anything Clive Ronan had been able to throw at us that day. They’d been together, in one capacity or another, nearly all their working lives. I suspected that each would be astonished at the affection he really felt for the other.
And not only that. While Dr Bairstow was able to take a moderately relaxed view regarding St Mary’s joie de vivre, especially after a major assignment, he had zero tolerance for drugs and the use of drugs. Any drugs. At any time. By any one.
And it wasn’t just the professor soaring into the stratosphere. Major Guthrie was leaning against the stacks, singing gently to himself. I thought that was one of the scariest things I’d ever seen. Until a white coat drifted gently down from above. Followed by a tie.
‘Oh, God! Put your clothes back on, you old fool. There are ladies present.’
‘Don’t worry, Doctor, we’ll get him down.’
‘How?’
‘Ian!’ I shook his arm. ‘Concentrate. Do we have some sort of cherry-picker?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Some sort of cherry-picker? How does Mr Strong change the lights? Paint ceilings? Prune trees?’
‘Tree fellers.’
I let my arm fall, mystified.
‘Tree fellers?’
‘Yes. Well, four sometimes, but usually only two,’ and collapsed, giggling, against the shelves.
I stared at him coldly. ‘Not helping.’
His face changed. ‘Elspeth? I looked for you.’
‘Major …?’
‘I looked everywhere for you.’
‘Don’t give in to the dark side, Major.’
‘What’s going on here?’ demanded Helen, turning up to make things worse.
Above our head, a voice rose in song again.
‘Well I can fly.
‘High as a kite if I want to.
‘Faster than light if I want to.’
‘Don’t touch anything, Helen,’ said Peterson, returning at last, wheeling the library ladder.
‘Why not? What is this stuff?’
‘No!’ we shouted in unison.
Too late.