TWENTY-EIGHT
The weather had resorted to bullying once more. Low, ominous clouds rolled across the entire region, blotting out the moon and the stars, and a cutting east wind sprang up. It drove before it a slanting, icy rain that suddenly gave way to hailstones the size of boiled sweets, which battered Watson as he staggered up the hill to his billet in the Big House. He was drained of all energy. His breathing was shallow and his old wounds throbbed mercilessly. The lumps of ice were like blows of recrimination, and he cried out as they drummed on his exposed knuckles as he raised his hands to protect his face.
By the time he reached the monastery, the marbles of ice had reverted to sleet. Breathless, sodden and miserable, he trudged up to his room, lit the lantern and then the circular radiator lamp on the floor, and collapsed onto the bed fully dressed, tempted to sleep where he lay. Some nagging feeling, though, made him uneasy. Despite his hasty entrance, he was aware that the room was not entirely as he had left it. Colder, yes, but there was something else. The picture had changed. He levered himself up onto his elbows. The first of the alterations was easily located, as his head had flopped down on it. The post corporal had been, leaving a foolscap package on his pillow. It took him a moment to spot the second: there was a mahogany box on the chair that sat beneath the tiny window.
He pushed off the bed and went over to this. He undid the two brass catches and lifted the lid. Inside was a gleaming, seemingly unused pistol. A Colt .45 1911, an automatic pistol, of the sort much coveted by young officers, being deemed more modern than a mere revolver. Watson had heard that complexity was its Achilles heel; that, in the gritty mud currently filling the trenches outside, such a lovely weapon might malfunction. But, as an old soldier who appreciated such things, he had to agree it was a sleek, handsome weapon.
There was a folded note with it, which he read.
You won’t need wheels for this. And I cannot foresee me having much use for it. But just in case you ever run into any more gigantic hounds.
Apologies for my crassness earlier.
Caspar Myles
He couldn’t accept it, of course. Not now, not after the way the American had spoken to him and his own petulant responses. Not that he bore Myles a grudge. Who could blame him for being suspicious of the blood? He wasn’t certain that, had positions been reversed, he might have made similar accusations. Although he would have behaved with more temperance. Still, the pistol was a nice gesture.
Then it struck him. This over-generous gift predated the confrontation about Shipobottom. The American had left this after the exchange over Staff Nurse Jennings. Well, he was certain Myles would accept it back now; he clearly thought Watson a bungler at best, a murderer at worst. But then Myles didn’t know the two crucial pieces of information the night had given him. One was the markings revealed by his magnifying glass, scores that had been inflicted post mortem. And Myles did not know that Shipobottom was not the first to die like this. Mrs Gregson was adamant she had seen that grin and the blue skin before.
So the question to be answered was, superficially, simple: were there any similarities in the two deaths, Shipobottom’s and the one seen by Mrs Gregson? Had the first victim had a blood transfusion? Was it possible that something in the environment of the trenches somehow reacted with elements in the blood to create a toxic condition that could not be duplicated in a laboratory or in the heat and dust of Egypt? After all, gas gangrene was a disease seemingly unique to Flanders and France, a product of fighting on and, perhaps more to the point, in heavily cultivated soils, rich in manure.
But the marks on the body? How to explain away those? The scoring he had found was definitely man-made.
Or woman-inflicted. Yes, or woman. Don’t make the mistake of leaving out fifty per cent of suspects due to their sex.
Plus there was a third factor he had kept to himself. Shipobottom’s eye had shown signs of blue flecking when he examined him at the Big House. Before the transfusion. Whatever had killed him had begun its work before he had received his fresh blood. If only he had mentioned the blue spots at the time; now it would seem like a retrospective revision, an attempt to shift the blame away from the blood.
Just for a second Watson felt his head spin.
This had been a pivotal skill for Holmes. The ability to hold a half-dozen scenarios in his mind at once, examining each one in detail, while maintaining a questioning overview of the whole case. It was akin to the ability that great chess players were believed to possess, the mental flexibility and acuity to analyse the strategic and tactical outcome of a great many potential moves. And Watson had always been a middling chess player. Cards were more his forte – nap, loo, piquet, poker. Games that relied on a hefty dose of chance, he reminded himself.
He closed the gun box and flipped down the catches. He would return it to Myles in the morning.
Next, he crossed over and, using his penknife, carefully slit open the packet, pulled out the magazine within and dropped it on the bed. What he saw looking back at him from the rough blankets made him reach for his cigarettes.
He smoked for some minutes before he finally flipped open the pages. The table of contents of the British Bee Keepers’ Journal told him that on page 43, he should find the article trailed on the front: ‘Towards an Understanding of the Worker Bee’s Dance’. The article in question was credited – as had been proclaimed on the cover – to Mr Sherlock Holmes. However, in the more comprehensive listings within, it was noted that there was a co-author (the name in smaller type), a Thomas Patrick.
A co-author?
For a second Watson thought this might have been sent by some old adversary, taunting him, exulting in the broken partnership. He looked at the postmark. A Lewes stamp. And the envelope was San Remo, linen lined, which he knew was a favourite. And the gum? A scent of strong tobacco. No, it was no tease. It was from the retired detective himself.
He gaped the end of the envelope and peered in, then took the journal by the spine and shook it. No note or card fluttered out. He flicked the pages, searching for an inscription or notation. Nothing.
Thomas Patrick? Obviously some fellow apiarist. Reluctantly he turned to page 43, which was adorned with a large photograph of a crowded comb, over which white directional arrows had been super-imposed to represent the movements of one of the inhabitants of the hive. To the layman this was gobbledegook, like those beginners’ guides to dancing that purported to show the foot movements. He read the first line of the article.
‘My years of investigation as the world’s only consulting detective . . .’
His years of investigating?
‘. . . revealed nothing in the criminal annals that has been quite so baffling or exciting as trying to decipher the code of the humble honeybee.’
Hah. He could name a dozen cases that were intellectually the equal of . . .
‘Yet during the past three years, my colleague and companion, Thomas Patrick . . .’
Well, really. That was just too much. Unforgivable. Colleague and companion? The man had set out to wound. And had done so.
‘Despite the best efforts in the last century of august apiarists such as Leon Alberti and Auguste Kerckhoffs, the mechanism by which . . .’
Watson scanned the following pages, picking out words and phrases and sighing. Holmes had always been admirably succinct in speech; he could analyse and solve a conundrum and present the solution not only quickly but eloquently. But here, he was rambling and imprecise. Did this bee-lovers’ rag not have an editor?
Watson took a deep breath. He was tired, emotional and, he had to accept, not a little jealous of the new collaborator. Who on earth was he? He could think of no intimate of that name and Holmes had never mentioned any enthusiasts he admired. Patrick? he said to himself, rolling the name around, like a kitten batting at a ball of yarn. Thomas Patrick? Holmes and Watson had always had a good, solid ring about it. But Holmes and Patrick? They sounded like bankers or a small-town firm solicitors of oaths. Perhaps even pawnbrokers. Anarchists.
He picked up the magazine, stuffed it carelessly back in the envelope and tossed it towards the chair, hardly caring when it missed and slid to the stone floor. He began to unbutton his tunic, eager for a wash and for sleep to come quickly without, he hoped, too many dreams of poor Shipobottom’s distorted death mask. Or, for that matter, Apis bloody mellifera.