A Slight Trick of the Mind Page 8

  Later, when settled in bed, he would ponder the poet's suppressed relationship with the artist—the two men posing as brothers, yet living as a couple beneath the same roof, no doubt within the same sheets, judged by the critical glare of the disapproving but loyal Maya. To be sure, it was a clandestine life, one of subtlety and complete discretion. But he suspected there were other secrets as well, possibly one or two delicate matters soon to be imparted—for Mr. Umezaki's letters, he now suspected, had further motives beyond what was written. So an invitation had been offered, and it had been accepted. Come the next morning, he and Mr. Umezaki would begin their travels, leaving Hensuiro and Maya alone in the big house. How deftly you've lured me here, he thought before sleeping. Then, at last, he drifted off with eyes half-open, eventually dreaming as a familiar low, buzzing suddenly pricked up his ears.

  7

  HOLMES WOKE, gasping. What had happened?

  Seated at his desk, he glanced toward the attic window. Outside, the wind was blustering, monotonous and steadfast, humming against the panes, billowing through the gutters, swaying pine limbs in the yard, no doubt ruffling the blooms of his flower beds. Other than the gusts beyond the closed window and the emergence of night, everything in his study remained as it had been prior to his drifting off. The shifting hues of dusk framed between the parted curtains were replaced now by pitch-blackness, yet the table lamp cast the same glow across his desktop; and there, spread haphazardly before him, were the handwritten notes for The Whole Art of Detection's third volume—page after page of various musings, the words often scrawled into the margins—scattershot from line to line, and, in a way, lacking any conceivable order. Whereas the first two volumes had proved a rather effortless undertaking (both written concurrently over a fifteen-year period), this latest endeavor was hampered by an inability to concentrate fully: He would sit down and promptly fall asleep, pen in hand; he would sit down and find himself staring out the window instead, sometimes for what seemed hours; he would sit down and begin writing an erratic series of sentences, most unrelated and free-flowing, as if something palpable might evolve from the mess of ideas.

  What had happened?

  He touched his neck, rubbing his throat lightly. Only the wind, he thought. That swift humming at the window, filtering into his sleep, startling him awake.

  Just the wind.

  His stomach grumbled. And then he realized supper had been missed again—Mrs. Munro's Friday usual of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding with side dishes—and that he was sure to find a tray in the hallway (the roasted potatoes having grown cold beside the locked attic door). Kind Roger, he thought. Such a good boy. Because during the past week—while he had remained sequestered within the attic, forgoing supper and his normal activities in the beeyard—the tray had always found its way up the stairs, waiting to be encountered whenever he stepped into the hallway.

  Earlier that day, Holmes had felt some degree of guilt about having neglected his apiary, so following breakfast he had wandered toward the beeyard, catching sight of Roger ventilating the hives from afar. Anticipating hot weather and with the nectar flow at its most vigorous, the boy was wisely offsetting the upper supers on each hive, allowing an air current to push through the entrance and out the top, thereby aiding the fluttering wings, which, aside from also helping cool the hives, could better evaporate the nectar stored in the supers. Then whatever guilt Holmes had felt vanished; for the bees were being properly tended, and it was evident that his casual, if not deliberate, tutelage of Roger had reached fruition (the beeyard considerations, he was pleased to observe, were in the boy's capable, attentive hands).

  Soon enough, Roger would start harvesting the honey on his own—gingerly removing the frames one at a time, calming the bees with a puff of smoke, using an uncapping fork to lift the wax covers off the cells—and in the days to come a small amount of honey would flow through a double strainer into a honey bucket, followed thereafter by larger amounts. And from where he stood on the garden pathway, Holmes could imagine himself again in the beeyard with the boy, instructing Roger about the simplest method in which a novice could produce comb honey.

  After placing a super on a given hive, he had previously told the boy, it was better to use eight extracting frames rather than ten, doing so only when the nectar flow was in progress. Then the remaining two frames should be set in the middle of the super, making sure that unwired comb foundation was used. If everything was done properly, the colony would draw the foundation, filling the two frames with honey. Once the comb-honey frames became filled and capped, they should be immediately replaced with more comb foundation—providing, of course, that the flow was proceeding as expected. In the event that the flow appeared less profuse than what was desired, it was wise, then, to replace the unwired comb foundation with a wired extracting foundation. Obviously, he pointed out, the hives must be inspected frequently in order to best decide which method of extraction was appropriate.

  Holmes had walked Roger through the entire regimen, showing the boy each step of the process, feeling positive that—as the honey was ready for harvest—Roger would heed his instruction by the letter. “You understand, my boy, that I am entrusting this task to you because I believe you are fully capable of managing it without error.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Do you have any questions?”

  “No, I don't think so, no,” replied the boy, speaking with a gentle enthusiasm, which somehow gave the false impression that he was smiling—even though his expression was serious and mindful.

  “Very good,” Holmes said, shifting his gaze from Roger's face to the surrounding hives. He didn't realize that the boy remained staring at him, didn't notice that he was being looked upon with the same kind of quiet reverence that he himself reserved only for the beeyard. Instead, he pondered the comings and goings of the apiary's inhabitants, the busy, diligent, active communities of the hives. “Very good,” he repeated, whispering to himself on that afternoon in the recent past.

  Turning around on the garden pathway, returning slowly to the house, Holmes knew Mrs. Munro would eventually do her part, filling jar after jar with the honey surplus, delivering a batch to the vicarage, to the charity mission, to the Salvation Army when running her errands in town. By providing these gifts of honey, Holmes believed he was also doing his part—making available the viscid material from his hives (something which he regarded as a wholesome by-product of his true interests: bee culture and the benefits of royal jelly), giving it to those who would fairly disburse the many unlabeled jars (on condition that his name would never become associated with what was given), and providing a beneficial sweetness to the less fortunate of Eastbourne and, hopefully, elsewhere.

  “Sir, it's God's blessed work you're doing,” Mrs. Munro had once told him. “Sure enough, it's His will you're following—the ways you help them who've been living without.”

  “Don't be ludicrous,” he'd replied disdainfully. “If anything, it is you following my will. Let us remove God from the equation, shall we?”

  “As you like,” she'd said in a humoring tone. “But if you ask me, it's God's will, that's all.”

  “My dear woman, you were never asked to begin with.”

  What could she know about God anyway? The personification of her God, Holmes figured, was surely the popular one: a wrinkled old man sitting omnisciently upon a throne of gold, reigning over creation from within puffy clouds, speaking both graciously and commandingly at the same instant. Her God, no doubt, wore a flowing beard. For Holmes, it was amusing to think that Mrs. Munro's Creator probably looked somewhat like himself—except her God existed as a figment of imagination, and he did not (at least not entirely, he reasoned).

  However, sporadic references to a divine entity aside, Mrs. Munro proclaimed no open affiliation with a church or a religion, nor had she made any obvious effort toward insinuating God into her son's thoughts. The boy, it was clear, held very secular concerns, and, truth be known, Holmes fou
nd himself gladdened by the youngster's pragmatic character. So now on that windy night, there at his desk, he would jot several lines for Roger, a few sentences he wanted the boy to read sometime later.

  Placing a clean sheet of paper before him and bringing his face to hover just above the desktop, he began writing:

  Not through the dogmas of archaic doctrines will you gain your greatest understandings, but, rather, through the continued evolution of science, and through your keen observations of the natural environment beyond your windows. To comprehend yourself truly, which is also to comprehend the world truly, you needn't look any farther than at what abounds with life around you—the blossoming meadow, the untrodden woodlands. Without this as mankind's overriding objective, I don't foresee an age of actual enlightenment ever arriving.

  Holmes put his pen down. Twice, he considered what was written, speaking the words aloud, changing nothing. Afterward, he folded the paper into a perfect square, pondering an acceptable location in which to store the note for the time being—a place where it wouldn't be forgotten, a place where he could retrieve it with ease. The desk drawers were out of the question, as the note would soon become lost among his writings. Likewise, the disorganized, overstuffed file cabinets would be too risky, and so would the confounding enigmas that were his pockets (often small items went in without much thought—bits of paper, broken matches, a cigar, stems of grass, an interesting stone or shell found upon the beach, those unusual things gathered during his walks—only to vanish or appear later as if by magic). Someplace reliable instead, he decided. Someplace appropriate, memorable.

  “Where then? Think . . .”

  He surveyed the books stacked along one wall.

  “No . . .”

  Pivoting the chair, he glanced at the bookshelves beside the attic doorway, narrowing his gaze to a single shelf reserved solely for his own published editions.

  “Perhaps . . .”

  Moments later, he stood before those early volumes and various monographs of his, an index finger pushing a horizontal line across the dust-coated spines—Upon Tattoo Marks, Upon the Tracing of Footsteps, Upon the Distinction Among the Ashes of 140 Tobacco Forms, A Study of the Influence of a Trade Upon the Form of the Hand, Malingering, The Typewriter and Its Relation to Crime, Secret Writings & Ciphers, Upon the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus, A Study of the Chaldean Roots in the Ancient Cornish Language, The Use of Dogs in the Work of the Detective—until arriving at the first magnum opus of his latter years: Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with Some Observations Upon the Segregation of the Queen. How immense the book felt when taken off the shelf, the hefty spine cradled by his palms.

  Between chapter 4 (“Bee Pasturage”) and chapter 5 (“Propolis”), Roger's note was stuck like a bookmark—because, Holmes had decided, the rare edition would be a fitting gift for the boy's next birthday. Of course, being one who seldom acknowledged such anniversaries, he needed to ask Mrs. Munro when the auspicious day was celebrated (had the occasion come already, or was it imminent?). Still, he envisioned the surprised look spreading on Roger's face as the book was presented, then the boy's fingers slowly turning the pages while reading alone in his cottage bedroom—where, eventually, the folded note would get discovered (a more prudent, less officious manner in which to deliver an important message).

  Confident that the note now resided within an assured location, Holmes placed the book on the shelf. When turning and going toward the desk, he was relieved that his attention could again focus on work. And once settled in his chair, he stared intently at the handwritten pages covering the desktop, each filled with a multitude of hastily conceived words, inked characters like a child's scrawl—but just then the strands of his memory began unwinding, leaving him unsure of what those pages might actually pertain to. Soon the receding threads floated away, disappearing into the night like leaves whisked from the gutters, and for a spell, he remained staring at the pages, while not questioning or recalling or thinking anything.

  Yet his hands kept busy even as his mind was at a loss. His fingers roamed about the desktop—sliding over the many pages before him, randomly underlining sentences—ultimately rummaging through the stacks of papers without any apparent reason. It was as if his fingers were operating of their own accord, searching for something that had recently been forgotten. Pages and pages were set aside, one upon another—creating an entirely new stack near the center of the desk—until, at last, his fingers lifted that unfinished manuscript that was held together by a single rubber band: “The Glass Armonicist.” Initially, he gazed blankly at the manuscript, appearing indifferent to its rediscovery; nor did he discern in any way that Roger had repeatedly studied the text, the boy sneaking into the attic on occasion to check if the story had been elaborated or finished.

  But it was the manuscript's title that finally eased Holmes from his stupor, producing a curious, modest smile within his beard; for if the words had not been written clearly at the top, appearing above the first section, he might have put the manuscript into the new stack, where the text would once more become obscured beneath subsequent and unrelated jottings. Now his fingers removed the rubber band, letting it drop to the desktop. Thereafter, he reclined in his chair, reading the incomplete story as if it had been written by someone else. Nevertheless, the recollection of Mrs. Keller suddenly persisted with a certain amount of clarity. He could behold her photograph. He could easily summon her upset husband sitting across from him at Baker Street. Even when pausing for a few seconds, glancing upward at the ceiling, he could still place himself back in time—venturing out from Baker Street with Mr. Keller, mixing amid the crowded din of London's thoroughfares as they made their way toward Portman's. He could, on that night, occupy the past better than the present, doing so as the wind murmured ceaselessly against the attic panes.

  8

  II.

  A Disturbance at Montague Street

  At precisely four o'clock, my client and I were positioned beside a lamppost, waiting across the street from Portman's, but Mrs. Keller had not yet arrived. As it happened, we were also loitering within sight of the shuttered rooms I had leased on Montague Street when I first came up to London in 1877. Clearly, there was no reason to share such personal information with my client, or to impart that—during my youthful tenure within that terrace development—Portman's shop was once a female boardinghouse of some dubious repute. Even so, the area itself had changed little since I lodged there, and consisted mostly of identical common-walled dwellings, the ground floors dressed in white stone, the upper three levels showing brick.

  And yet standing there, my eyes travelling from those windows of the past to the present locale before me, I was touched by a degree of sentiment for what had escaped me over the years: the anonymity of my formative consulting detective practice, the liberty of coming and going without recognition or diversion. So while the street endured as it always had, I understood that my older incarnation differed somewhat from the man I had been when living there. Early on, disguises were previously donned only as a means for infiltration and observation, a way in which to blend effortlessly into various parts of the city while gaining information. Amongst the numerous roles I assumed, there was a common loafer, a rakish young plumber named Escott, a venerable Italian priest, a French ouvrier, even an old woman. However, towards my career's end, I had resorted to carrying upon me at all times a fake moustache and a pair of eyeglasses, doing so for the sole purpose of evading the widespread followers of John's accounts. No longer could I go about my business unidentified, nor could I sup in public without strangers accosting me midmeal, wishing to converse with me and shake my hand, asking intolerable questions regarding my calling. Therefore, it might seem an imprudent oversight—as I quickly realised while hurrying with Mr. Keller from Baker Street—that I was able to start forth on the case while forgetting to bring along my facade. For as we rushed to Portman's, we found ourselves engaged by a workman of the amiable and simpleminded variety, to whom I woul
d offer a few curt words.

  “Sherlock Holmes?” said he, suddenly joining us as we made our way along Tottenham Court Road. “Sir, it is you, is it not? I have read all your stories, sir.” My reply was given with the gesturing of a hand, which I waved briskly in the air, as if to cast him aside. But the fellow was not to be deterred; he set his senseless gape upon Mr. Keller, saying, “And I should think this is Dr. Watson.”

  Surprised by the workman, my client glanced at me with an uneasy expression.

  “What an absurd notion,” I said demurely. “If I am Sherlock Holmes, then pray explain how it is possible for this much younger gentleman to be the doctor?

  “I don't know, sir. But you are Sherlock Holmes—I ain't easily flat, I can tell you that.”

  “Perhaps a touch glocky?”

  “No, sir, I wouldn't say I am.” Sounding a tad doubtful and confused, the workman paused in his tracks as we continued onwards. “Are you on a case?” he soon called after us.

  Again I gestured my hand in the air, addressing him no more. This was how I usually dealt with the unwanted attention of strangers. Moreover, had the workman truly been accustomed to the narratives of John, he would have surely known that I never wasted words or disclosed my thoughts while a case was under consideration. Yet my client seemed dismayed by my abruptness, although he said nothing of it, and the two of us continued silently together on our journey to Montague Street. Then having taken up our position near Portman's, I began to ask something which had crossed my mind earlier while en route: “A final question regarding payment of—”