The Beekeeper's Apprentice

From the Publisher Edgar Award-winning author Laurie R. King Sherlock Holmes meets his match in a formidable new enemy--and his surprising new partner "Rousing...riveting...suspenseful." -- Chicago Sun-Times " The Beekeeper's Apprentice has power to charm the most grizzled Baker Street Irregular." -- Daily News , New York "If there is a new P. D. James... I would put my money on Laurie R. King, whose A Grave Talent kept me reading deep into the night."-- The Boston Globe "Amazing first novel with intelligence, intrigue, and intricacy...This work exhibits strong psychological undertones, compelling urgency, and dramatic action. [Laurie King is] a writer to watch." -- Library Journal "Wonderful: an intelligently and imaginatively crafted novel that's also great fun." -- The Drood Review of Mystery (Editors' Choice of 1994) From the Inside Flap Edgar Award-winning author Laurie R. King again proves her flair for tantalizing mystery in this first novel of an acclaimed series. Long since retired from his observations of criminal humanity, Sherlock Holmes is engaged in a reclusive study of honeybee behavior on the Sussex Downs. Never did he expect to meet an intellect to match his own--until he made the acquaintance of a very modern 15-year-old girl whose mental acuity is equaled only by her audacity, tenacity, and unconventional taste for trousers and cloth caps. Under the master detective's sardonic instruction, Miss Mary Russell hones her talent for deduction, disguises, and danger--in the chilling case of a landowner's mysterious fever, and in the kidnapping of an American senator's daughter in the wilds of Wales. But her ultimate challenge is yet to come. A near-fatal bomb on her doorstep--and another on Holmes's--sends the two sleuths on the trail of a villain whose machinations scatter meaningless clues and seem utterly without motive. The bomber's objective, however, is quite clear: to end Russell and Holmes's partnership...and their lives. LAURIE R. KING won the Edgar and John Creasey Awards for Best First Novel for A Grave Talent . She is the author of seven acclaimed mysteries in the Mary Russell series, as well as four novels in a contemporary series featuring police detective Kate Martinelli. She is also the author of the critically-acclaimed stand-alone novels of suspense, Keeping Watch (recently optioned for film by CBS), Folly , and A Darker Place . She lives in northern California where she is at work on another Mary Russell novel. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him.xa0xa0In my defense I must say it was an engrossing book, and it was very rare to come across another person in that particular part of the world in that war year of 1915.xa0xa0In my seven weeks of peripatetic reading amongst the sheep (which tended to move out of my way) and the gorse bushes (to which I had painfully developed an instinctive awareness) I had never before stepped on a person.It was a cool, sunny day in early April, and the book was by Virgil.xa0xa0I had set out at dawn from the silent farmhouse, chosen a different direction from my usual in this case southeasterly, towards the sea--and had spent the intervening hours wrestling with Latin verbs, climbing unconsciously over stone walls, and unthinkingly circling hedgerows, and would probably not have noticed the sea until I stepped off one of the chalk cliffs into it.As it was, my first awareness that there was another soul in the universe was when a male throat cleared itself loudly not four feet from me.xa0xa0The Latin text flew into the air, followed closely by an Anglo-Saxon oath.xa0xa0Heart pounding, I hastily pulled together what dignity I could and glared down through my spectacles at this figure hunched up at my feet: a gaunt, greying man in his fifties wearing a cloth cap, ancient tweed greatcoat, and decent shoes, with a threadbare Army rucksack on the ground beside him.xa0xa0A tramp perhaps, who had left the rest of his possessions stashed beneath a bush.xa0xa0Or an Eccentric. Certainly no shepherd.He said nothing.xa0xa0Very sarcastically.xa0xa0I snatched up my book and brushed it off."What on earth are you doing?" I demanded.xa0xa0"Lying in wait for someone?"He raised one eyebrow at that, smiled in a singularly condescending and irritating manner, and opened his mouth to speak in that precise drawl which is the trademark of the overly educated upper-class English gentleman.xa0xa0A high voice; a biting one: definitely an Eccentric."I should think that I can hardly be accused of 'lying' anywhere," he said, "as I am seated openly on an uncluttered hillside, minding my own business.xa0xa0When, that is, I am not having to fend off those who propose to crush me underfoot." He rolled the penultimate r to put me in my place.Had he said almost anything else, or even said the same words in another manner, I should merely have made a brusque apology and a purposeful exit, and my life would have been a very different thing.However, he had, all unknowing, hit squarely on a highly sensitive spot.xa0xa0My reason for leaving the house at first light had been to avoid my aunt, and the reason (the most recent of many reasons) for wishing to avoid my aunt was the violent row we'd had the night before, a row sparked by the undeniable fact that my feet had outgrown their shoes, for the second time since my arrival three months before.xa0xa0My aunt was small, neat, shrewish, sharp-tongued, quick-witted, and proud of her petite hands and feet.xa0xa0She invariably made me feel clumsy, uncouth, and unreasonably touchy about my height and the corresponding size of my feet.xa0xa0Worse, in the ensuing argument over finances, she had won.His innocent words and his far-from-innocent manner hit my smouldering temper like a splash of petrol.xa0xa0My shoulders went back, my chin up, as I stiffened for combat.xa0xa0I had no idea where I was, or who this man was, whether I was standing on his land or he on mine, if he was a dangerous lunatic or an escaped convict or the lord of the manor, and I did not care.xa0xa0I was furious."You have not answered my question, sir," I bit off.He ignored my fury.xa0xa0Worse than that, he seemed unaware of it.xa0xa0He looked merely bored, as if he wished I might go away."What am I doing here, do you mean?""Exactly.""I am watching bees," he said flatly, and turned back to his contemplation of the hillside.Nothing in the man's manner showed a madness to correspond with his words. Nonetheless I kept a wary eye on him as I thrust my book into my coat pocket and dropped to the ground--a safe distance away from him-- and studied the movement in the flowers before me.There were indeed bees, industriously working at stuffing pollen into those leg sacs of theirs, moving from flower to flower.xa0xa0I watched, and was just thinking that there was nothing particularly noteworthy about these bees when my eyes were caught by the arrival of a peculiarly marked specimen.xa0xa0It seemed an ordinary honeybee but had a small red spot on its back.xa0xa0How odd--perhaps what he had been watching? I glanced at the Eccentric, who was now staring intently off into space, and then looked more closely at the bees, interested in spite of myself.xa0xa0I quickly concluded that the spot was no natural phenomenon, but rather paint, for there was another bee, its spot slightly lopsided, and another, and then another odd thing: a bee with a blue spot as well.xa0xa0As I watched, two red-spots flew off in a northwesterly direction.xa0xa0I carefully observed the blue-and-red spot as it filled its pouches and saw it take off towards the northeast.I thought for a minute, got up, and walked to the top of the hill, scattering ewes and lambs, and when I looked down at a village and river I knew instantly where I was.xa0xa0My house was less than two miles from here.xa0xa0I shook my head ruefully at my inattention, thought for a moment longer about this man and his red-and blue-spotted bees, and walked back down to take my leave of him.xa0xa0He did not look up, so I spoke to the back of his head."I'd say the blue spots are a better bet, if you're trying for another hive," I told him.xa0xa0"The ones you've only marked with red are probably from Mr. Warner's orchard.xa0xa0The blue spots are farther away, but they're almost sure to be wild ones." I dug the book from my pocket, and when I looked up to wish him a good day he was looking back at me, and the expression on his face took all words from my lips--no mean accomplishment.xa0xa0He was, as the writers say but people seldom actually are, openmouthed.xa0xa0He looked a bit like a fish, in fact, gaping at me as if I were growing another head.xa0xa0He slowly stood up, his mouth shutting as he rose, but still staring."What did you say?""I beg your pardon, are you hard of hearing?" I raised my voice somewhat and spoke slowly.xa0xa0"I said, if you want a new hive you'll have to 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.xa0xa0How do you come to know of my interests?'"I should have thought it obvious," I said impatiently, though even at that age I was aware that such things were not obvious to the majority of people.xa0xa0"I saw paint on your pocket-handkerchief, and traces on your fingers where you wiped it away.xa0xa0The only reason to mark bees that I can think of is to enable one to follow them to their hive.xa0xa0You are either interested in gathering honey or in the bees themselves, and it is not the time of year to harvest honey. Three months ago we had an unusual cold spell that killed many hives. Therefore I assume that you are tracking these in order to replenish your own stock."The face that looked down at me was no longer fishlike.xa0xa0In fact, it resembled amazingly a captive eagle I had once seen, perched in aloof splendour looking down the ridge of his nose at this lesser creature, cold disdain staring out from his hooded grey eyes."My God," he said in a voice of mock wonder, "it can think."My anger had abated somewhat while watching the bees, but at this casual insult it erupted.xa0xa0Why was this tall, thin, infuriating old man so set on provoking an unoffending stranger? My chin went up again, only in part because he was taller than I, and I mocked him in retum."My God, it can recognise another human being when it's hit over the head with one." For good measure I added, "And to think that I was raised to believe that old people had decent manners."I stood back to watch my blows strike home, and as I faced him squarely my mind's eye finally linked him up with rumours I had heard and the reading I had done during my recent long convalescence, and I knew who he was, and I was appalled.I had, I should mention, always assumed that a large part of Dr. Watson's adulatory stories were a product of that gentleman's inferior imagination. Certainly he always regarded the reader to be as slow as himself.xa0xa0Most irritating.xa0xa0Nonetheless, behind the stuff and nonsense of the biographer there towered a figure of pure genius, one of the great minds of his generation.xa0xa0A Legend. Read more