Beekeeping for Beginners.

by Laurie R. King.

1.

Any reasonable man may reach a point in his life where self-destruction becomes a door worthy of consideration. A point at which it seems that the least a walking anachronism can do for the world is to remove himself from cluttering the landscape.

It was a cool, sunny day in April, 1915. I had set out at dawn from the silent villa to which I had retreated out of the London fogs some years before, carrying with me both the impedimenta of my avocation, and the means to end my life.

Do not imagine that I was unaware of the multiple ironies: My beekeeping task required a clear, warm day, while the other was more suited to a bleak and inhospitable sky; my acts were concerned with the populous community of a hive, while my thoughts were at their most solitary; my rucksack carried both restoration, and death.

My mind was not entirely made up. However, a lifetime dedicated to the science of thought has taught me that focusing the mind's eye on one matter encourages greater clarity of vision along the periphery of the mental gaze. I should proceed with my surface task, while permitting the deeper machinery of my mind to turn.

In any event, off I walked onto the Downs that morning with a trio of bottles. Two contained paint, red and blue: With these I might track a wild-or rather, feral-colony for one of my empty Langstroth hives, to restore the apiary to full strength. (In a curious parallel, the designer of those hives had himself felt the grim attraction of a voluntary end.) The third vial held a small amount of nearly clear liquid: It would transform me into a mere problem of disposal and a pang of sorrow for those few individuals who held me in affection.

That it might also bring a sense of rejoicing to those who wished the world ill was one of the main reasons I had not made use of the bottle before that day.

I was in my fifty-fifth year on this earth. For nearly forty of those years, my life had been my work. Even during the dozen years of my ostensible retirement to Suss.e.x, I had remained active-indeed, eight months previous, a lengthy case had led to the destruction of a major spy-ring, my contribution to the nation's security. Then during the autumn, while the guns of France drew into place and plans were made for what the deluded imagined would be a brief war, I managed to keep myself in a position of usefulness.

But in January, one of my little victories, and its accompanying minor injury, had come to the attention of the powers-that-be. Rather than grat.i.tude, their response had been one of alarm, that a person of my eminence might have been snuffed out by a stray bullet-or worse, taken captive and used as a hostage. One might have thought I was the young Prince of Wales.

My head had been patted, my protests ignored, I had been sent home to Suss.e.x. To my bees, my studies, and the services of my long-time housekeeper, Mrs Hudson. To a soul-grinding boredom and a pervading sense of uselessness.

All my life I have battled grey tedium. The challenges of mental work and physical exertion, the escape of music and the occasional dose of drugs have aided me, but always I could rea.s.sure myself that the ennui was temporary, that it would not be long before some criminal laid his scent before me, and I would be off.

Now my so-called friends had conspired against me, coddling me for my own good.

Fifty-four is not old.

I found tedium mentally trying, but physically agonising. As winter turned to spring, it became apparent that the world had finished with me; the only thing required of me was a decision to agree.

So: that absurdly sunshiny April day, with the throb of distant guns an ominous ba.s.so beneath the rhythm of waves against chalk cliffs, and a small, clear bottle in the old rucksack at my feet as my hands used the fine camel-hair brush to daub paint on individual honeybees, and my colour-a.s.sisted eyes tracked their subsequent flight, and my mind circled ever closer to a decision.

To be interrupted by slow footsteps, approaching across open ground.

After twelve years in Suss.e.x, I was well accustomed to busybodies. Everyone in the county knew who I was, and although they took care to protect me from the intrusion of outsiders, they felt no compunction to offer the same protection from their own attentions. Stepping into the village shop for Mrs Hudson would bring a knowing wink and a heavy-handed jest about investigating the choices of soap powder. If I paused to examine an unfamiliar variety of shoe-print on the ground, a short time later I would look back to find a knot of villagers gazing down to see what had drawn my attention. One time, a casual remark to a pa.s.sing farmer about the sky-that a storm would arrive by midnight-led to a near-panic throughout the Downland community, until the farmer's wife had the sense to ring Mrs Hudson and ask if I'd actually intended to warn him that the Kaiser's troops were lying offsh.o.r.e, waiting for dark.

Only the pub had proved safe ground: When an Englishman orders a pint, his privacy is sacrosanct.

Every so often, perhaps once a year, I would become aware of what is known as a "fan." These were generally village lads with too much time on their hands and too many penny-dreadful novels on their shelves. Trial and error had shown that a terse lecture on personal rights coupled with a threat to speak to their fathers would send them on their way.

Now, it seemed, I had another one.

I turned to watch the owner of the slow footsteps approach. The lad was wearing an old and too-large suit, a jersey in place of shirt and waistcoat (it had been cold that morning when I-and, it appeared, he-had set out) and a badly knit scarf, with a cloth cap pulled down to his ears and shoes that, despite being new, pinched his toes. His nose was buried in a book, as if to demonstrate his n.o.ble oblivion to any world-famous detectives who might be hunkered on the ground.

But he had misjudged either his path or his speed, because he was aimed right at me. I waited, but when he neither shifted course nor launched into a performance of astonishment, I cleared my throat.

The astonishment that resulted was, I had to admit, no act. The child was furious-embarra.s.sment has that effect on the young, I have noticed-both at my throat-clearing and at the involuntary epithet it had startled out of him.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed up his dropped Virgil-the Georgics, as one might expect-and demanded, "What on earth are you doing? Lying in wait for someone?"

It being, I presumed, the eternal task of a detective, to be lying in wait at all times and in all places.

"I should think that I can hardly be accused of 'lying' anywhere, as I am seated openly, on an uncluttered hillside, minding my own business. When, that is, I am not required to fend off those who propose to crush me underfoot." And I turned back to my task of bee-watching, unaware that my mild (if condescending) remark had triggered off an inexplicable response of fury in the young person.

He planted those ill-fitting shoes into the turf and snarled, "You have not answered my question, sir."

I sighed to myself. Be gone, child, I thought; I'm trying to commit a nice dignified suicide. "What am I doing here, do you mean?"

"Exactly."

"I am watching bees. Now, go away."

To my relief, I heard him move off-then ten feet away he dropped to his heels to perform the gaggle-of-villagers-solemnly-examining-the-ground routine. Demonstrating that he, too, could be a detective.

I tipped back my head, closed my eyes, clenched my jaws, and stifled the urge to leap to my feet and physically drive away this boorish child with my rucksack. Patience, Holmes; you've out-waited better men than this displaced London adolescent in ill-fitting garments.

And so it proved: Within three or four minutes, the subtle clues and demands of surveillance proved too much for my "fan," and he got to his feet and walked away.

The footsteps retreated. In a moment, I heard the patter of startled sheep moving across the spring turf. The rumours of the sea a mile away and the cannon 200 miles farther off crept back into consciousness, counterpoint to the soothing hum of working bees. I looked down at the rucksack. Should I wait, until dark perhaps, lest some busybody rescue me? Or would it be better- But the sound of returning footsteps intruded. My hand tightened on the canvas straps: I could just imagine the newspaper article: Last known act of Sherlock Holmes In a vicious attack on a visiting lad, whom he beat about the head and shoulders with a rucksack, the retired detective- "I'd say the blue spots are a better bet," came a voice, "if you're trying for another hive. The ones you've only marked with red are probably from Mr Warner's orchard. The blue spots are further away, but they're almost sure to be wild ones."

As this speech unfolded from the child's lips, I turned to look at him. More than that, I rose, that I might see more closely the expression on this unlikely intruder's face. Hairless cheeks confirmed his youth; blue eyes behind wire-rimmed spectacles displayed alarm, but no triumph; the voice was more complex than I had noticed at first, a mixture of London and America (both coasts). The child even looked vaguely intelligent-though that last was probably an effect of the spectacles. One could only wonder who had wound him up and set him upon me.

"What did you say?"

"I beg your pardon, are you hard of hearing? I said, if you want a new hive of bees, you should follow the blue spots, because the reds are sure to be Tom Warner's."

"I am not hard of hearing, although I am short of credulity. How do you know what I am after?"

"Is it not obvious?" I came perilously close to catching up the rucksack and pummelling him, at this mockery of my speech patterns-rather, of the speech patterns that Watson and Doyle between them inflicted upon me: In truth, I rarely descend to open rudeness. However, the lad was still speaking: "I see paint on your pocket-handkerchief, and traces on your fingers where you wiped it away. The only reason for marking bees that I can think of is to follow them to their hive." He went on, his words delineating an actual thought process: that I marked bees to follow them; I wished to follow them either to harvest the honey or to claim their queen; since it was not harvest time but it had been a cold winter in which wildlife suffered, I must be in need of another colony. Simple, clean, and utterly unexpected logic.

Far too sophisticated for an adolescent boy. Someone had put him up to it.

Very well: I cranked the gun of open rudeness into position and let fly. "My G.o.d," I drawled. "It can think."

A jolt of startlingly adult fury brought the child's smooth chin up, made the blue eyes blaze behind the scratched gla.s.s. "My G.o.d, 'it' can recognise another human being when 'it' is. .h.i.t over the head with one. And to think that I was raised to believe that old people had decent manners."

It was clever. I was almost tempted to respond-on another day, I might have lingered to trace this mild puzzle to its source. But if an enemy had sent the lad, it was an enemy who would soon be beyond my personal concern; if a newspaperman (a.s.suming there was a difference between the two categories), then he would soon have a new and unexpected story for his front page.

I bent to retrieve my rucksack, hearing the bottles trill their delicate siren song as I raised them up. The third bottle would have to come into play somewhere else. Which was rather a pity: This would have been a pleasant site for a last view of the world.

"Young man," I began tiredly- But I was to get no further. Had the child pulled out a revolver and fired it at me, he could have silenced me no more effectively.

"Young man?" he raged. "Young man! It's a d.a.m.ned good thing you did retire, if that's all that remains of the great detective's mind!" And with that he s.n.a.t.c.hed off his oversized cap. A pair of long blonde plaits slithered down the woollen garments, turning him into a her.

Thus, my first meeting with Mary Russell.

2.

"I tell you, Watson, I haven't laughed like that in months. Years, even."

The doctor's hand, wrapped around the gla.s.s, remained suspended in the air for quite a long time before it slowly lowered to the arm of his chair. "A girl?"

Sherlock Holmes gave a wry shake to his head. "I will freely admit, it surprised me no end. I'm getting old and blind and feeble, Watson."

"Well, you sound remarkably cheerful at the prospect."

"I do, don't I? Ah, old friend, you of all people know how I chafe for lack of a puzzle in life. And here's one, ready made."

"She walked up, dressed in her father's old suit, trod on you, insulted you, and made you feel an idiot. And you laugh?"

"Remarkable, isn't it?"

The doctor carefully moved his gla.s.s to the table, and leaned forward. "Er, Holmes. I know you ... That is, we've never discussed ... That is to say ..."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Watson, don't be absurd. I may be old and foolish, but I'm not an old fool. The child has brains, Watson. Do you know how rare that is?"

"So I've been made to understand," the doctor replied, a touch grimly.

Holmes went blithely on. "She's an orphan, under the care-if one can describe it as such-of an aunt, although the house and land belong to Russell, not to the aunt."

"Suss.e.x is far from the centre of things, for a young girl."

"Not altogether a bad thing, considering the vulnerability of London."

"You're not suggesting that the Kaiser will send troops up the Thames?"

"He doesn't have to, with zeppelins at his command."

"Holmes, a schoolboy with a sling could bring down a zeppelin! Southend was caught unprepared; it won't happen again. It's no reason to keep a bright young girl from London."

"May I remind you that I warned the government about U-boats years ago? And the Lusitania won't be the last civilian vessel they go after."

The name was sobering. Dr Watson reflected sadly, "I sailed on her once, you know?"

"Yes." Both men pondered the awful fate of the ship, and twelve hundred of its pa.s.sengers, the previous week. Holmes stirred.

"Still, it isn't London that interests the child. She has her eye on university."

"Girls do that, these days," Watson reflected. It kept the older lecturers occupied, until the boys came back from war.

"Oxford. Which only gives me two or three years to work with her."

"What do you mean, 'work with her'?"

"Before she gets sucked into the grind of pointless examinations and useless tutorials. For some peculiar reason, she's set on theology. Can you imagine?"

"No. But Holmes, what do you mean-"

"By working with her. Yes, I heard you. You'd be amazed at how quickly she picks things up. Her mother's doing, I'd imagine-the mother was a rabbi's daughter, and she applied the same rigorous pedagogy to the child. Discipline and creativity are seldom found in the same mind, Watson."

"Am I to understand that you are teaching this child, Holmes?"

"Of course, Watson. What did you imagine I'd do with her?"

The doctor shot the remainder of his drink down his throat, and got up to refill his gla.s.s. The tray of drinks was under the window, and he paused for a moment to look out across the Downs, going green with the spring. Lovely place, this. Though he still wished Holmes hadn't moved so far away.

When he returned with the decanter, Watson was surprised to find his companion's gla.s.s barely touched. After a moment's thought, he bent to add a splash, regardless-shooting a casual glance at the state of his old friend's eyes as he did so.

Holmes was not deceived. "No, Watson," he said, "any elevation of spirits you may perceive does not have a chemical source. Not today."

"I'm glad to hear that," Watson remarked. Glad, but puzzled.

The doctor tossed a small log onto the low-burning fire, then settled back in his chair. "So, you are teaching this stray girl. I can't imagine what subjects a budding theologian would find your tutorials helpful for."

"I told you, I'm getting my instruction in before she falls under the sway of the dons. Chemistry first, naturally."

"Oh, naturally."

"It's useful both in a.n.a.lysis and when it comes to reactions. There's nothing quite so handy as a nice controlled explosive device."

"How the devil would explosives be of use to a theologian, Holmes?"

"Watson, what on earth is wrong with you? I'm not interested in training a theologian. I intend to make a detective out of her."

The doctor's jerk came near to upending the gla.s.s. "A detective? Holmes, are you telling me that after all these years, you've taken an apprentice? A girl apprentice?"

"Extraordinary, isn't it?"

But Dr Watson was beyond answering.