A Slight Trick of the Mind Page 16

Then as impressions of Roger and Mrs. Keller commingled in his mind, Holmes exited his smoke-filled workplace, reflexively checking for the supper tray usually left by the boy in the hallway, yet knowing even before crossing the threshold that it wouldn't be there. He proceeded along the hallway, tracing the route that had brought him miserably upstairs. However, his stupor of the previous evening was gone; the horrible black cloud that had stunned his senses and turned a pleasant afternoon to the darkest of nights had dissipated, and Holmes was ready for the task ahead: the descending into a house absent of any soul other than himself, the donning of suitable attire, the sluggish journey beyond the garden—where he'd approach the beeyard like a phantom concealed behind a veil, going forward in clothes of white.

  But for a long time, Holmes stood at the top of the stairs, waiting as he did when Roger was coming to assist him downward. His tired eyes closed, and the boy moved swiftly up the stairs. Subsequently, the boy materialized elsewhere, too, appearing in places Holmes had seen him in the past: easing his slender form into the tide pool, the cool water producing goose pimples on his chest as it engulfed his body; running through high grass with his butterfly net outstretched, wearing an untucked cotton shirt, its sleeves rolled to his elbows; hanging a pollen feeder near the hives, positioning it in a sunny spot for the creatures he'd grown to love so. Curiously, each fleeting glimpse of the boy was in the spring or the summer. Still, Holmes could feel winter's cold, could suddenly imagine the boy underground, entombed beneath the frigid earth.

  Mrs. Munro's words found him then: “He's a good boy,” she'd said when taking the job of housekeeper. “Keeps to himself, rather shy—very quiet, more like his father was. He won't be a burden on you, I promise.”

  Except, Holmes knew now, the boy had become a burden, a most painful burden. All the same, he told himself, whether it was Roger or anyone else, every life had a finish. And every one of the dead he'd knelt beside had had a life. He set his sights on the stairs below, and while beginning his descent, he repeated within the questions he'd pondered to no avail since his youth: “What is the meaning of it? What object is served by this circle of misery? It must tend to some end, or else the universe is ruled by chance. But what end?”

  Upon reaching the second floor—where he'd use the lavatory, and enliven his face and neck with cold water—Holmes heard, for a moment, the faint hum of what he imagined to be an insect or bird singing, and thought of the thick stems that likely guarded it. For neither stems nor insects took part in the misery of mankind. Perhaps, he mused, this was why—as opposed to people—they could return again and again. Only later, when arriving on the ground floor of his house, would he realize that the humming was originating indoors—a soft drone, sporadic and human, brightening the kitchen; it was a woman's, or a child's voice, to be sure—although clearly not Mrs. Munro's, and, with certainty, not Roger's.

  Taking half a dozen nimble steps, Holmes brought himself to the kitchen doorway, catching sight of steam rising from a boiling pot on the stove. Then moving inside, he spotted her at the cutting board, her backside to him as she sliced a potato and thoughtlessly hummed. But it was the long, waving black hair that at once unsettled him—the floating black hair, the pink-and-white skin of her arms, that diminutive form he associated with the unfortunate Mrs. Keller. How speechless he stood there, incapable of addressing such an apparition—until, finally, he parted his lips, desperately saying, “Why have you come here?”

  With that, the humming ceased, and the head pivoting sharply to meet his stare revealed a plain-looking girl, a child no older than eighteen—large, mild eyes and a kind, possibly stupid, expression.

  “Sir . . .”

  Holmes ambled forward, looming in front of her.

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  “It's me, sir” was her earnest answer. “I'm Em—I'm Tom Anderson's daughter—I thought you knew.”

  There was silence. The girl lowered her head, avoiding his glare.

  “Constable Anderson's daughter?” asked Holmes quietly.

  “Yes, sir. I didn't think you'd be taking your breakfast—I was getting your lunch ready.”

  “But what are you doing here? Where is Mrs. Munro?”

  “She's asleep, poor dear.” The girl didn't sound glum about this, but happy to have something to relate. She kept her head lowered, addressing the canes near her feet, and as she talked, she made a slight whistling noise, as if she were blowing the words between her lips. “Dr. Baker was with her through the night—except she's sleeping now. I don't know what he gave her.”

  “She is at the cottage?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I see. And Anderson sent you here?”

  She seemed bewildered. “Yes, sir,” she said. “I thought you knew—I thought my father told you he'd send me.”

  Then Holmes recalled Anderson knocking on the study door the night before—the constable asking questions, saying some trivial things, placing a hand gently on his shoulder—but it was all a blur.

  “Of course,” he said, glancing at the window above the sink, the sunlight illuminating the countertop. He breathed rather hard, then looked again, with a hint of disarray, at the girl. “I am sorry—it's been a very trying few hours.”

  “No apologies, sir, really.” Her head rose up. “Something to eat is what you need.”

  “Just a glass of water, I should think.”

  Listless from lack of sleep, Holmes scratched at his beard and yawned, watching as the girl promptly fetched his drink, frowning as she ran her hands on her hips upon filling the glass from the tap (the glass being delivered to him with a pleased, somewhat grateful smile).

  “Anything else?”

  “No,” he said, hanging a cane on his wrist, freeing a hand so he could accept what she held for him.

  “Got the pot boiling for your lunch,” she told him, crossing back to the cutting board. “But if you change your mind about breakfast, you let me know.”

  The girl lifted a paring knife from the counter. She slouched carelessly forward, slicing at a potato piece, clearing her throat as the blade diced. And after Holmes emptied the glass, placing it in the sink, she resumed humming. So he left her, going from the kitchen without saying any more—along the corridor, out the front door—listening to that wavering, tuneless hum, which stayed with him for a while—into the yard, toward the garden shed—even when it could no longer be heard.

  But as he approached the shed, the girl's drone fluttered away like the butterflies around him, becoming replaced in his thoughts by the beauty of his own garden: the blooms aimed at the clear sky, the scent of lupine in the air, the birds twittering from the nearby pines—and the bees hovering here and there, alighting on petals, vanishing within the cups of flowers.

  You wayward workers, he thought. You mercurial insects of habit.

  Looking from the garden, facing the wooden shed directly before him, the centuries-old advice of a Roman writer on agriculture found Holmes at that moment (the name of the author eluding him, yet the man's antiquated message eased readily through his mind): Thou must not come puffing or blowing unto them, neither hastily stir among them, nor resolutely defend thyself when they seem to threaten thee; but softly moving thy hand before thy face, gently put them by; and lastly, thou must be no stranger to them.

  He unlatched and pulled open the shed door fully so that sunshine could precede him into the shadowy, dust-rich hut—the rays irradiating the crowded shelves (bags of soil and seeds, gardening spades and claws, and empty pots, and the folded clothing of a once-novice beekeeper), those places where his hands now reached. On a rake standing upright in a corner, he'd hung his coat, leaving it there as he managed to slip on the white overalls, the light-colored gloves, the wide-brimmed hat, and the veil. Soon he emerged transformed, surveying his garden from behind the veil's gauze, shuffling onward—down the pathway, across the pasture, to the beeyard—with his canes as the only visible signatures of his identity.

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p; Yet when Holmes wandered about his apiary, everything immediately appeared ordinary there, and suddenly he felt ill at ease in the confining clothing. Peering into the dark interior of one hive, then another, he saw the bees among their cities of wax—cleaning their antennae, rubbing forelegs vigorously around their compound eyes, readying themselves for departure into the air. On initial observation, all was customary in the bees' world—the machinelike life of such social creatures, that steady, harmonious murmur—with no clue of any rebellion brewing amid the ordered routine of their insect commonwealth. The third hive was the same, as were the fourth and fifth (whatever reservations he'd harbored quickly evaporated, replaced instead by more familiar feelings of humility and awe for the complex civilization of the hive). Taking his canes from where he'd propped them during an inspection, a sensation of invulnerability claimed him: You won't harm me, was his calming thought. There is nothing here for either of us to fear.

  However—while hunched over, removing the cover of the sixth hive—an ominous shadow fell upon him, giving him a start. Glancing sideways through the veil, he first noticed black clothing (a woman's frock, fringed in lace), then a right hand, the thin fingers gripping a red gallon canister. But it was the stoic face gazing at him that provided the greatest vexation—those wide, sedated pupils, the grief conveyed only by the insensible absence of emotion—recalling the young woman who had come to his garden holding her dead infant, yet belonging now to Mrs. Munro.

  “I am not sure it's safe, you know,” he told her, becoming upright. “You probably should go back at once.”

  She didn't alter her gaze, or respond with as much as a blink.

  “Did you hear me?” he said. “I cannot say for sure if you are at peril, but you might be.”

  Her eyes kept firmly on him, except her lips moved, imparting nothing for a moment, until asking in a whisper, “Will you kill them?”

  “What's that?”

  She spoke a little louder: “Will you destroy your bees?”

  “Certainly not” came his emphatic reply, even as he felt sympathy for her, and suppressed a growing sense that she was intruding.

  “I think you must,” she said, “or I'll do it for you.”

  He already understood it was petrol she was carrying (for the canister belonged to him, its contents used on the dead wood in the nearby forest). In addition, he'd just seen the box of matches held in her other hand, although in her state he couldn't envision her mustering the vigor to ignite the hives. Still, there was something determined in the flatness of her voice, something resolute. The grief-stricken, he knew, were occasionally possessed by a powerful, ruthless indignation—and the Mrs. Munro before him (unflinching, cool, somehow impassive) was a far cry from that chatty, gregarious housekeeper he'd known for years; this Mrs. Munro, unlike the other, made him hesitant, and timid.

  Holmes raised the veil, showing an expression as restrained as her own. He said, “You are upset, my child—and confused. Pray go to the cottage and I will have the girl send for Dr. Baker.”

  She didn't budge. She didn't take her stare from him. “I'm burying my son in two days,” she told him plainly enough. “I'll be going tonight—he's going with me. He's going to London in a box—it isn't right.”

  A deep gloom settled on Holmes. “I am sorry, my dear. I am so sorry—”

  And with the softening of his expression, her voice rose above his, saying, “You didn't have the decency to tell me, did you? You hid in your attic and refused seeing me.”

  “I am sorry—”

  “I think you're a selfish old man, it's true. I think you are responsible for my son's death.”

  “Nonsense,” he uttered, but all he felt was her anguish.

  “I blame you as much as I blame these monsters you keep. If it weren't for you, he wouldn't have been here, would he? No, it'd be you that got stung dead, not my boy. It wasn't his job anyway, was it? He didn't have to be here alone—he shouldn't have been here, alone like that.”

  Holmes studied her austere face—the hollow cheeks, the bloodshot eyes—and searched for words, finally telling her, “But he wanted to be here. You must know that. Could I have foreseen the danger, do you imagine I would have let him tend the hives? Do you know how I ache from his loss? I ache for you, as well. Can't you see?”

  A bee circled her head, landing briefly on her hair; yet, pinning Holmes with those glaring pupils, she paid the creature no mind. “Then you'll kill them,” she said. “You'll destroy them all, if you care anything about us. You'll do what's right to do.”

  “I won't do that, my dear. It would serve no one to do so, not even the boy.”

  “Then I'll do it now. You can't stop me.”

  “You will do nothing of the sort.”

  She remained motionless, and for several seconds, Holmes contemplated his course of action. If she toppled him, he could do little to prevent her havoc. She was younger; he was frail. But if the attack was his, if he could swing a cane into her chin or neck, she might fall to the ground—and if she fell to the ground, he could strike her again, repeatedly. He glanced at his canes, both propped against the hive. His stare returned to her. Moments passed in silence, neither shifting an inch. At last she relented, shaking her head, saying with a trembling voice, “I wish I'd never met you, sir. I wish I'd never made your acquaintance in this world—and I'll shed no tears on your passing.”

  “Please,” he implored her, reaching for his canes, “it isn't safe for you. Go back to the cottage.”

  But already Mrs. Munro had turned, going sluggishly away, as if walking in her sleep. By the time she reached the edge of the beeyard, the canister had been dropped, followed shortly thereafter by the box of matches. Then as she traveled across the pasture, where presently she went from view, Holmes heard her weeping, her sobs becoming more severe, yet fainter and fainter along the cottage pathway.

  Stepping in front of the hive, he continued looking at the pasture, at the high grass swaying in Mrs. Munro's wake. She had disrupted the equanimity of the beeyard, now the tranquil grass. There's important work to be done, he wanted to shout out, but stopped himself, for the woman was ravaged by sadness, and he could think only of the business at hand (inspecting the hives, finding a degree of peace within the apiary). You are right, he thought. I am a selfish man. The reality of this notion produced a frown on his troubled face. Propping his canes once more, he sank to the ground, sitting there as a feeling of emptiness swelled up inside. His ears registered the low, concentrated murmur of the hive—the sound of which, in that moment, refused to summon his isolated, content years cultivating the beeyard, but, rather, conveyed the undeniable and deepening loneliness of his existence.

  How thoroughly the emptiness could have consumed him then, how easily he might have begun sobbing like Mrs. Munro—if not for the lone yellow-and-black-winged stranger landing on the side of the hive, drawing Holmes's attention, pausing long enough for him to speak its name “Vespula vulgaris”—before taking flight again, zigzagging overhead and off in the direction of Roger's death place. Absently, he went for his canes, his brow creasing with puzzlement: What of the stingers? Were there stingers on the boy's clothing, on his skin?

  But try as he did—conjuring Roger's body, seeing just the boy's eyes—he couldn't say for sure. Even so, he had probably warned Roger about wasps, mentioning the danger they posed to the apiary. He would, most certainly, have explained that the wasp was the natural enemy of the bee, capable of crushing honeybee after honeybee with its mandibles (some species killing as many as forty bees per minute), wiping out an entire hive, and robbing the larvae. Surely, he would have told the boy the differences between a bee's stinger and a wasp's stinger—the heavily barbed organ of the bee fixing into skin, disemboweling the creature; the wasp's lightly barbed needle barely penetrating flesh, getting withdrawn and used many times.

  Holmes climbed to his feet. Hastily, he crossed the beeyard, and as his legs brushed through high grass, he began trampling down a para
llel trail alongside the one that Roger had previously created, hoping to chart the boy's journey from the beeyard to his death place. (No, you weren't fleeing the bees, he reasoned. You weren't running from anything, not yet.) Roger's trail curved sharply at its halfway point and veered toward the spot that had obscured the corpse, dead-ending where the boy had fallen—a small clearing of limestone encircled by the grass. There, Holmes saw two more man-made trails, stretching from the distant garden pathway, circumventing the beeyard altogether, each leading to or from the clearing (one fashioned by Anderson and his men, the other by Holmes after finding the body). Then he wondered if he should simply continue forging his own trail farther into the pasture, pursuing what he knew he would likely find. But when turning and staring at the flattened grass, noting the curve that had sent the boy to the clearing, he began retracing his own steps.

  Stopping near the curved area, he looked ahead at Roger's trail. The grass was crushed deliberately and evenly, suggesting the boy, like himself, had walked slowly from the beeyard. He glanced to the clearing. The grass was flattened only intermittently, telling him that the boy had been running there. He set his sights on the curve, that changing of course, that abrupt departure. To this point you walked, he thought, and from here you ran.

  He moved forward, bringing himself to stand on the boy's trail, where he peered into the grass just beyond the curve. Several yards away, he saw a glint of silver among the thick stems. “What's this?” he said to himself, searching for the glint again. No, he was not mistaken: Something was gleaming dully there in the high grass. He pushed onward for an improved view, departing the boy's trail but soon discovering he had entered another, less obvious path—a detour that had taken the boy step by gradual step into the pasture's densest overgrowth. Pressed with impatience, Holmes quickened his pace, crushing the spots the boy had been careful to tread upon, unaware of the wasp riding on his shoulder—or the other wasps skimming above his hat. Half-crouching, he took a few more steps and found the source of the strange gleaming. It was a watering can, one belonging to his garden, resting on its side, the spout still wet and dripping and obliging the thirst of three wasps (the black-and-yellow workers bustling around the sprinkler, scurrying about for a fuller drop).