by A S Croyle
His gaze met my eyes. Something sprang forth but quickly disappeared again into the darkness, the vacuum that remained where emotions may have once stirred. “Disappointed in expectations of you? Quite impossible.”
“I mean simply that I would not be the kind of wife he seeks. One who is submissive, rather foggy minded. There to adore him and give him children and look the other way should his eyes and passions wander.”
“There are others like him out there. You must be cautious. It would do you good to burden your memory with what you saw transpire between Jonathan and that woman. People are not to be trusted.”
“Not even me. You have never really trusted me.”
With a dry chuckle, he said, “Not even you? No, Poppy, of all the people I’ve known, you are the most trustworthy. And, as I said, one of the most trusting. Do guard your emotions.”
A quarter of an hour later, we heard someone playing with the doorknob. Sherlock sprang to his feet, took up his gun and motioned for me to get out of sight. I grabbed a rolling pin that was within reach. Then he blew out the candle and we were left in darkness, waiting for the door to open. When it did, Sherlock sprang from behind the door and lifted his gun to throttle the man he thought was Hopgood.
But I struck a match and saw a shadow; it was then I knew that it could not be the skinny man that Inspector Hopkins had described. “Wait! Sherlock! It’s not-”
Sherlock realized at the last moment. He was staring not at Professor Hopgood but at his brother Mycroft.
“What are you doing here, Mycroft?” Sherlock shouted.
“I’m doing a dear friend a favor.” He turned to me. “Your uncle, Poppy. And,” he added, as he held out his hand for the rolling pin, “two weapons are better than one. As are two Holmes brothers.”
I looked over Mycroft’s shoulder and saw a man with a ruddy face and dark, passionless eyes. Sherlock pushed Mycroft aside and pointed his gun at the intruder’s chest.
He quietly said, “Professor Hopgood, I presume.”
Chapter 26
Staring intensely at Hopgood, Sherlock said, “It is immensely satisfying to encounter a criminal whose wit is a challenge and whose ingenuity and innovation make him a worthy opponent. Sadly, sir, you fit neither category.”
“Who are you?” Hopgood demanded, his voice hissing like a snake.
“My name is Sherlock Holmes and everything is now in order.”
Hopgood blinked at us and looked as dazed as one who witnesses an explosion.
“Are you a police officer? Did someone from Oxford send you here?”
“Neither,” Sherlock laughed.
I saw Hopgood glance around, clearly seeking escape, but Sherlock pounded on him and knocked him to the floor.
“Professor Hopgood, in the name of Her Majesty, I arrest you for the murder of Sir Cecil Gray. We have an eye witness.”
“You said you are not a police officer,” Hopgood hissed.
“Did I?”
Hopgood tried to struggle and Mycroft hovered over him with the rolling pin. “I, on the other hand,” he said, a smug smile crossing his lips, “am here with Her Majesty’s authority.”
“I assure you, Professor Hopgood,” Sherlock said, “it will go much easier for you if you do not resist.”
Resist he did, and Sherlock landed several well placed blows to his face and chest. They struggled for a moment and Hopgood attempted to seize the gun but instead he received a crashing blow to his temple from its butt.
As I so often did, I stared at Sherlock in amazement. “What shall I do, Sherlock?”
“Go back to the Inn and ask them to fetch the local constable.”
“Yes, run along, Dr. Stamford,” Mycroft said. “The constable is expecting you.”
Chapter 27
That night, after the local authorities were convinced to cart off Hopgood for further questioning by Inspector Lestrade, who had accompanied Mycroft from London, Mycroft, Sherlock and I had a glass of wine at the pub. Mycroft told us that my uncle had sent a page to fetch him and that he and Lestrade had hopped the next train to Chippy.
“I have told you, brother, to stay out of Her Majesty’s business. How many times must I-”
“Oh, do be quiet, Mycroft,” Sherlock scoffed. “I... we solved the case, didn’t we?”
“Once again putting yourself and this young woman in danger. But now, do tell me the details.”
Sherlock explained, with great flourish, I might add, the information we’d received from Kate Dew. He made no mention whatsoever of swans. Later, he said, “I tell Mycroft only what he needs to know.”
As I listened to Sherlock’s account of the case to his brother Mycroft, I thought to myself that despite everything, I was lucky to know him. He had changed my life in many ways, some good, some bad, but definitely in a powerful way. He had engaged me in my life’s most exciting adventures.
When Sherlock had finished, Mycroft turned to me. “Dr. Stamford, I must see what Lestrade is up to now, but I gave your uncle my word that I would see you home safely.”
“There are no trains until morning, Mycroft,” I said.
“Yes, yes, unfortunately. Have you arranged for lodging?”
Simultaneously, Sherlock and I replied, “We have a room.”
Mycroft’s eyebrows shot up. “Young lady, your uncle-”
“What I meant, what we meant, Mycroft, is that Sherlock and I already made arrangements at the inn. We have rooms. Both of us.”
Again, Mycroft eyed us suspiciously but finally shrugged and said, “I’ll see you in the morning then. Eight sharp.” As he bid us goodnight, he said, “I shall expect a written report from you in the morning, Sherlock.”
As Mycroft stepped away from the table, we both laughed and then Sherlock muttered, “In the morning, indeed.” Then he said, “Now we must turn our attention to the rest of Hopgood’s sordid business. Who knows who else he may have received funding from?”
“Not tonight, Sherlock. Not tonight. Can’t we talk about something else?”
So then he turned his monologue to his bees. And I thought how akin he was to the bees he studied. They knew exactly what they were to do and did it in the most efficient way possible.
The iconic pattern, the hexagonal cells that form a honeycomb is well known. Like Sherlock’s cases, each individual cell has a story to tell. The concise and orderly pattern of the comb is a symbol for structure, order, utility and strength and none of this is by accident. Bees long ago discovered a way to build their homes, their lives, which serves them well.
Worker bees have 8 pairs of wax glands under their abdomen, which produce small, flat scales and when a worker creates a comb, she scrapes off a wax scale from her abdomen using the spines on her pollen basket and passes them to her front legs. Holding the scale in place, she will mix it with saliva by chewing with her mandibles. This adjusts the wax, making it more suitable as a building material from which each individual cell is built. This is repeated tens of thousands of times, Sherlock told me, and they form the beehive. This establishes their home, their lives. Their choice is a simple approach, a logical approach that works well for them. It is a place to store honey and essential for them to survive the winter.
Each type of cell in the hive has a distinct purpose. Worker cells are to raise worker bees. Drone cells are larger and this is where the drones live. Queen cells are a different shape and size.
“So,” Sherlock said, “there is efficiency of space and cell building and there are no gaps whatsoever. It is airtight. Compared to other shapes like triangles and squares, the hexagon creates a comb with the least amount of material and with the greatest of strength. A honeycomb of just 100 grams supports weight up to 4 kilograms.”
I smiled. He had in essence described himself. Efficient, strong, shaping his life pe
rfectly with no allowance for gaps, with no possibility for vulnerability or anything that might diminish his strength and logical progression.
Sherlock was like a bee. He knew exactly and perfectly what he must do to keep his logical life on a strict and efficient course.
We had arranged for a double-bedded room at the inn. Sherlock tossed his coat and jacket over a chair, kicked off his boots, and plopped down on the bed on the right. He slept in his trousers and shirt. I, of course, wore my dress to bed. As I lay down by myself on the other bed, just inches away from Sherlock, I stared up at the ceiling. How unseemly my mother and father would have thought of this arrangement, I thought. Yet how innocent this was compared to the time we’d shared at Home-Next-the-Sea. I had never spoken to anyone, least of all my parents, of the romantic tryst Sherlock and I had shared long ago... that one time that we shared and enjoyed our bodies and gave way to our true feelings. It seemed like another lifetime.
As he slept, moonlight shone through the window. I stared at him in the darkness of the room, his face peaceful now, so content he was that another case was solved. He was on the blazing threshold of an illustrious career but one I could not share with him. For him there could be no expression of emotion. No passion. Certainly no marriage. He could only be whipped into a storm, into the zeal he exhibited, by a full and complex case to solve. He entirely abandoned himself to the exclusion of everything else, his gaze always fastened upon the Game. For all the innuendo, all the mysteries and complexities we exchanged, for all the times that love passed close to us, and the declarations of it that I’d so often hastened to share with him, I was usually invisible to him, my not-so-secret love-smitten languor met by a wall of ice.
The imprint of his persistence and the craving and yearning he’d awakened in me, in my mind and in my heart, the devotion I felt for him, could never be sated.
The curtains billowed in the breeze and they oscillated to the left and right. Fastened on his face, I fell into a profound reverie, a kaleidoscope of memories of every moment we’d spent together, memories with which I would forever be burdened. I woke at dawn and tip-toed to the window. There was only sunlight, not a smidgen of fog. Finally it was lifting.
I turned and watched Sherlock sleeping for a long time. His eyelids twitched, his face relaxed, as if he were meandering through serene surroundings. His countenance illuminated for me alone at that moment the odd grace and joy that he had found in a life wherein the heart is silenced.
He smiled in his sleep, enraptured in some sort of dream about which I could only guess.
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