Beekeeping for Beginners by Laurie R. King Read Free Book Online

disturb the sleeper within, yet hating to abandon my watch even briefly.
    But I did. I pulled out my torch and trotted up the decrepit stairs to the rooftop, battering the flimsy door open with my shoulder in the interest of speed. Outside, I pocketed my torch, the rooftop being sufficiently lit by the near-round moon and the probing beams of London’s dozen or so acetylene searchlights. The fire brigade engines had been to the north, but a flicker to my right drew the eye: fires, several of them, over the East End—alarmingly near the docks and Tower Bridge. After a moment, I lifted my gaze. The night sky held nothing but the beams and the moon—but there! An almost imperceptible motion where there should be none, high up and three, perhaps four, miles distant: a zeppelin? None of the searchlights lit upon it, but a faint flash from below lent it a momentary trace of substance; seconds later the sound of a small explosion reached my ears.
    Then the oval ghost was gone, turning for home, delivered of its load of incendiary destruction.
    Grimly, I returned downstairs. Indeed, it was no business of mine. And as I’d opined to Watson, it would not be the last such attack.
    The room opposite remained dark. If Russell had slipped away in my absence, I did not know how I would look my young associates in the face, come morning. I settled to my chair and my pipe, and spent the next hours teetering gently to and fro, to and fro.
    Just before three o’clock in the morning, the downstairs door betrayed a slow open, then a slow close. I moved silently behind the inner door, one arm raised to prevent its wood from crashing into me, but from the corridor outside came a familiar voice.
    “Mr Holmes, I thought you might like a couple hours’ sleep.”
    It was the younger of the two women from the evening before, bearing an ancient and bulging Gladstone bag.
    “Do you know what the zeppelin hit?” I demanded.
    “Is that what it was? They’ve been warning us about the zeppelin menace for months now, I think we’d all but decided they were a myth. All I heard was, there’s been a series of fires and explosions in Shoreditch and Whitechapel.”
    “No myth. I saw it.” My eyes went to the bag. She dropped it to the floor and drew out the paraphernalia of an angel of mercy: sandwiches, two flasks, some apples, and an old but thick travelling rug. She held out one flask and the rug.
    “Tea?”
    “What is your name?” I asked.
    “Marilyn White.”
    “Miss White, I thank you.”
    There was sufficient light in the room for me to see the look of apprehension on her features give way to one of pleasure. I unwrapped a sandwich and poured some tea into the flask’s beaker while she settled on my inadequate perch before the half-boarded window. I then pointed out the window behind which my apprentice (I hoped) slept, told Miss White to wake me before dawn, and wrapped myself in the rug on the floor.
    No need to mention that I had abandoned my post for nearly twenty minutes.
    I slept. But when the wake-up call came, it was rather more urgent than a proffered flask of coffee.

11
    “Mr Holmes—her light’s come on!”
    I was on my feet and free of the rug in an instant. The glimpse of sky between the boards was not much brighter than it had been: not yet six.
    “A lad came to the club’s door a few minutes ago, knocked on it and handed over a note. When her window went light, I thought I should tell you.”
    “Good work.” I began to fling on garments. “When we get down to the street, you go right, I’ll go left—I spotted one of the Post Office’s telephone boxes there, I’ll ring for reinforcements.”
    “Do you want me to ask in the club, after she leaves? They may have seen what the note said.”
    “If your colleagues reach us, then yes, but I’d rather have more than one person on her than know what summoned her.”
    When Russell came out, she turned in my direction. She went past the telephone kiosk, on the opposite