The Language of Bees (42 page)

“I heard. About Yolanda, I mean. I know it must be very disturbing.”

“That’s the least of it. No,” she said, “I don’t mean that, it’s terrible, of course, but the police have been all over, asking questions, insinuating—”

She broke off, and picked up the box to carry it to the storage cabinet. I followed with the folding table. When we had the doors shut and the padlocks on, she turned to me.

“What do you want?”

“I’d like to talk about the Children,” I said.

“You and everyone else!”

“I’m not with the police. Or the newspapers. I’m just a friend.”

“Not of mine.”

“I could be. Look,” I said reasonably. “I noticed a café next door but one. We could have a bowl of soup, or a coffee, maybe?”

She hesitated, but just then the heavens contributed their opinion, and a growl of thunder accompanied by a thrust of drops against the window warned her how wet she would be if she walked home now. She agreed, grudgingly, and we scurried through the rain to the café. I moved with my arm across my face, holding my hat against the wind, but the police watcher appeared to have waited only to be certain that Brothers did not appear, then gone home.

Millicent—we soon graduated to the intimacy of first names—unblushingly ordered cocoa; I did so as well, although I had not downed a cup of the cloying liquid since my undergraduate days, and frankly I would have preferred strong drink for both of us. And when I pressed upon her the necessity for keeping her energy up, she added a request for a slice of sponge cake, “although I shouldn’t.”

“Make that two,” I told the waitress, joining Millicent in her naughtiness. When the tired woman had taken herself away to fetch our drinks, I said, “Oh, I haven’t had a slice of Victoria Sponge in yonks.”

“It has rather passed out of popularity, hasn’t it?”

I pounced, before she could redirect the conversation. “Even the name Victoria has gone out of fashion. What does that remind me of? Oh, I know—I’ve been thinking about the Adler child, Estelle, this week, another uncommon name. So sad, isn’t it? And what do you imagine has become of Damian?”

She picked at the bundle that contained her robe and shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.

“I can’t believe he had anything to do with her death, as the newspapers would have us think,” I persisted. “I mean to say, he’s odd, but not like that.”

She sat up straight. “I think it’s very possible. He’s a very peculiar
young man, is Damian Adler. The sooner they find him and take the child into safe keeping, the better.”

“Really? Well, you know him better than I do. But it must be making a lot of trouble for you, in the Children, I mean. To have Yolanda a member and Damian missing. Plus that, your leader—The Master, don’t you call him? It can’t be easy to have him gone, too.”

“The Master is here when we need him,” she snapped. She might have stormed out but the waitress appeared at that moment. When the cocoa and sponge had been arranged before us, I turned the questions in another direction.

“I greatly look forward to meeting him, once this uproar is passed. Tell me, is there some kind of a study group, in addition to the services, where one might read more of the book you use?”

“We had been discussing that need, before … Perhaps in a few weeks we can find the time to arrange one. There is a weekly meeting of advanced students of the Lights, but the need is, as you say, for beginners. The Master is preparing an introductory text, the
Text of Lights
, with the message of
Testimony
but in a form that is more easily understood.”

“Oh good,” I enthused.

“This is very nice,” she said, chewing on her cake.

In truth, the sponge was stale and the cocoa so hot it had cooked into a skin: As a memory of undergraduate days, it was a bit too realistic. But Millicent enjoyed it.

“You seem terribly knowledgeable about
Testimony
,” I said. “How long have you been studying it?”

“I received my copy in May, although I had been hearing it for some months before that. It is a book that rewards close study.”

“Tell me about The Master. He must be an attractive person, to bring together such an interesting group of people.”

She blushed. “It is an honour to serve the Children.”

“That book,
Testimony
—is by him?”

It was the wrong thing to say. “It is not ‘by’ any man, no more than the New Testament is by any man. Portions of it were transmitted through The Master.”

“Sure, I understand. Say, I don’t suppose The Master needs a paid assistant, does he? I’m looking for work, and I’m happy to do typing, shopping, what have you.”

“What he needs, I do.”

“Oh, I see—you work for him as well. That’s fine, but if you need help, keep me in mind.” I swallowed some more of the drink, now gone tepid, and wondered if there was anything else to be had from her. Although come to think of it, there was one question she had sidestepped rather markedly.

“Do you think it’s possible The Master will be here for next week’s service?”

“The needs of the Lights may keep him away for another week, but he should return after that.”

She pushed away her cup, making it clear that we had reached the end of our refreshment and our conversation. I called for the bill and looked towards the front windows, to see if it was still raining. A small man in a dark rain-coat was standing at the window, looking in; drops were coming from the brim of his hat, but not in a stream: Millicent would not drown on her walk home.

We chatted until the bill arrived, and I paid it. She thanked me, I told her I looked forward immensely to seeing her again, and we climbed back into our damp outer garments. At the door, I suddenly remembered a personal need in the back.

“But don’t you wait for me, the rain’s let up for the moment and you may be able to make it home before it starts again.”

She peered at the sky, opened her umbrella, and scurried off. My original thought had been to share a taxi and accompany her home, but the face at the window had put an end to that idea. I waited until she was securely across the street, then stepped out to greet the man in the hat.

“You were looking for me?” I asked him. Had he been more obviously a policeman, I should have left through a back door.

“Mr Mycroft Holmes sent me to find you.”

“And the skinny little bureaucrat wants to drag me clear across town?” I responded.

The man looked at me oddly, then realised what I was doing. He reached up to tip his hat in acknowledgment. “I’d hardly call Mr Holmes skinny, even now,” he replied, “and Pall Mall is no distance at all.”

He knew Mycroft; it was safe to climb into the car with him.

I glanced down the street, found Millicent Dunworthy gone, and got into the passenger seat of the car belonging to Mycroft’s operative.

Power (2):
It takes a practiced mind and a purified heart
to discern the subtle patterns of the heavens, freeing
sources of Power to fuel the divine spark
.
The manipulation of the Elements is a life-time’s work
.
Testimony, III:7

W
HAT DOES HE WANT?” I ASKED.

“Mr Holmes is not in the habit of sharing that sort of information with his employees,” the man said, putting the motor into gear. “However, it may have to do with an arrival from Shanghai.”

At last!

We were on the street near Mycroft’s back door in no time at all. I got out, then looked back at the driver. “You’re not coming in?”

“I was only sent to find you. Good evening, Miss Russell.”

“Good night, Mr …?”

“Jones.”

“Another Jones brother,” I noted. “Good night then, Mr Jones.”

As way of proof that watched plots never come to a boil, my absence from Mycroft’s home had opened the way for furious activity. For one thing, Holmes was back, looking sunburnt, footsore, and stiff, no doubt from sleeping on the ground. Also hungry, to judge by the ravaged platter of sandwiches on the table before him. He’d been there long enough to bath, and therefore long enough to be brought up to date by Mycroft—the files and papers relating to the investigation had been moved; Damian’s redirected letter lay on the top.

I greeted him, with more reticence than I might have were Mycroft our only witness to affection. He nodded at me and returned his attention to the fourth person in the room.

Apart from his lack of sunburn, the newcomer looked even more worn than Holmes. The small man’s now-damp linen suit was as wrinkled as a centenarian’s face, and bore signs of any number of meals and at least one close acquaintance with oily machinery. He had not only slept in his clothing, he had lived in them for days, and for many, many miles.

The arrival from Shanghai was not a document.

“You have been in Shanghai, I perceive,” I blurted idiotically.

The three men stared at me as if I had pronounced on the state of cheese in the moon, so I smiled weakly and stepped forward, my hand out. The small man started to rise.

“Don’t stand,” I ordered. “Mary Russell.”

He subsided obediently, clutching his plate with one hand; the other one took mine with a dapper formality that sat oddly with his state of disrepair.

“This is Mr Nicholas Lofte,” Mycroft said. “Recently, as you say, of Shanghai.”

“Pleased to meet you,” he said smoothly, with an accent as much American as his native Swiss.

One whiff of the air in his vicinity explained why Mycroft had left a space between himself and Lofte; it also meant that I retreated to Holmes’ side rather than take the chair between them.

Mycroft circled the table with a bottle, playing host to the wine in
the glasses as he told me, “From time to time, Mr Lofte takes commissions for me in the Eastern countries. He happened to be on hand in Shanghai, so my request for information was passed to him.”

Which did not explain why Mr Lofte himself occupied a chair in Mycroft’s sitting room: Was the information he had compiled too inflammatory to be committed to print? As if I had voiced the speculation aloud, Mycroft said, “His dossier of information was rather lengthy for telegrams, and writing it up and presenting it to the Royal Mail would have delayed its arrival until the middle of the week.”

“As I had my passport in my pocket, I merely presented myself at the air field instead and, as it were, affixed the stamp to my own forehead,” the man said. “Sat among the mail sacks across Asia and Europe, which doesn’t leave one fresh as a daisy, if you’ll forgive me, ma’am.”

My distaste had not passed him by, but he seemed more amused than offended by it, his eyes betraying a thread of humour that, in a man less stretched by exhaustion, might have been a twinkle.

“No need for apology, Mr Lofte, I have been in similar circumstances myself.”

“So I understand,” he said, which rather surprised me. Before I could ask him how he knew, he had turned back to Mycroft. “It cost me a few hours to get free of my prior commitments after I’d got your orders, but Shanghai’s a small town for its size, if you get my meaning. It didn’t take me long to find your man.”

He paused to add in the direction of Holmes and me, “My brief was to find what I could about an Englishman named Damian Adler, and about his wife Yolanda, previous name unknown. Adler’s name came with a physical description and a date and place of birth, his mother’s name, and the fact that he might be a painter. And that was all.

“I got lucky early, because he’d been in and out of the British Embassy a number of times last year, first to replace his lost passport, then to add his wife and young daughter to it. You hadn’t said anything about a daughter, but I figured it had to be he, so I started from there.

“Before I go any further, do you want this in the order of how I came upon the information, or re-arranged chronologically? They’re more or less reversed.”

Mycroft answered before Holmes could. “You’ve had time to consider your findings; feel free to tell it as you wish.”