Part 16 (1/2)

The rowing boat coasted the last few feet to the black bulk of the fort. It ended up at the base of a set of water-slicked stone steps that led upward.

Quickly, Matty tied the rope to a rusted iron bar that had been cemented into a gap between the stones. The two boys scrambled up the steps. Sherlock nearly lost his footing, and Matty had to grab him to stop him toppling into the water.

'How do we know it's not too late?' Matty asked.

'It's night. Bees are dormant at night. The Baron's servant hasn't had much more time to get here than we have. The bees will be released in the morning.'

When they got to the top, they knelt behind a low stone wall that ran around the outer edge of the fort. The gaps between the stones were infested with moss.

Sherlock scanned the top level he supposed it was technically the deck, although this particular 'vessel' wasn't going anywhere but the flagstones were empty of anything except coils of rope, tufts of sea gra.s.s and the occasional splintered crate.

Across the other side of the fort he saw the sudden flare of a match illuminate a bearded face with a scar running across it. Whoever was running this fort had posted guards. He and Matty needed to be careful.

The guard was moving away from them, and Sherlock spotted him pa.s.sing an opening in the stone deck which had a wooden rail running around three sides of it. Probably a stairway into the depths of the fort. As the man moved on, Sherlock tugged at Matty's s.h.i.+rt and pulled him over.

He was right. A set of stone steps led down into darkness. The smell of dankness and decay rose up to greet them.

'Come on,' Sherlock hissed. 'Let's go.'

The two of them scuttled down the steps into the depths of the fort. At first it seemed as black as the depths of h.e.l.l in there, but after a few moments Sherlock's eyes adjusted and he could make out oil lanterns fastened to the wall at regular intervals. They were in a short corridor that seemed to open up into a larger, darker room which the orange wash of light from the lamps barely illuminated.

Sherlock and Matty crept along the corridor to where the walls suddenly opened up. The circular s.p.a.ce revealed probably occupied most of the level they were on. Stone pillars every few yards supported the roof overhead, but what made Sherlock's breath quicken was the beehives, lined up in a regular pattern across the flagstones. There were hundreds of them. With tens of thousands of bees in each hive, that meant something like a million aggressive bees were located just a few feet away from him. He felt his skin itch in an unconscious response to their nearness, almost as if they were walking across his shoulders and down his spine. Whether or not Maupertuis's grand scheme would work across the whole of Britain, the presence of all these bees in one place was definitely dangerous to anyone in the locality.

'Tell me we're not going to carry them up the stairs and throw them over the edge,' Matty whispered.

'We're not going to carry them up the stairs and throw them over the edge,' Sherlock confirmed.

'Then what are we going to do?'

'I'm not sure.'

'What do you mean, you're not sure?'

'I mean I haven't thought it through yet. It's all been a bit of a rush.'

Matty snorted. 'You had plenty of time on the fis.h.i.+ng boat.'

'I was thinking about something else.'

'Yeah,' Matty said, 'I noticed.' He was silent for a moment. 'We could set fire to them,' he pointed out.

Sherlock shook his head. 'Look at the s.p.a.cing. We could set fire to one or two of them, but the flames wouldn't spread and the bees would probably get us.'

Matty looked around. 'What are they eating?' he asked.

'What do you mean?'

'We're in the English Channel. There's no flowers out here, and I don't think seaweed counts. What are the bees eating?'

Sherlock thought for a moment. 'That's a good question. I don't know.' He glanced around. 'Let's look round, in case we find something. Split up, and meet on the other side. Don't get caught.'

Matty headed left and Sherlock headed right. Looking back, Sherlock saw that the gloom had already swallowed Matty up.

The serried ranks of beehives pa.s.sing by as he moved formed an almost hypnotic pattern. He couldn't see any bees perhaps the darkness was keeping them confined to the hives but he thought he could hear them: a low, soporific buzz, almost on the edge of his consciousness. He noticed that there were wooden frames set up at various points in the cavernous s.p.a.ce. Some of them held wooden trays, others were empty. Sherlock wondered where he had seen trays like that before. Something about them was familiar.

A grotesque figure came into view through the gloom: a man dressed in an all-encompa.s.sing canvas suit whose head was covered with a muslin hood held away from his face by bamboo hoops. He was bending over a large box one of many that Sherlock could now see were lined up along this portion of the curved wall that bounded the s.p.a.ce. He straightened up, holding a tray like the ones that had been fitted into the easel-like frames scattered around, and walked towards the hives. A fine haze seemed to rise up from the tray as Sherlock watched him go.

He remembered just as the man in the bee-suit reached a frame and slotted the tray inside. He'd seen beekeepers in the same suits at Baron Maupertuis's manor house just outside Farnham removing similar trays from underneath the hives. And then suddenly everything fell into place the trays, the haze of powder that rose up from them, the ice that he'd seen the thug Denny unloading from the train in Farnham and Matty's question about how the bees ate in the absence of flowers. It was all so perfectly logical! Bees collected pollen from flowers, storing it on fine hairs on their legs until they got to the hive and then used it as food. Put a tray beneath a hive, and create some kind of 'gate' that the bees had to go through to get into the hive, and you could brush some of the pollen from their legs and collect it in specially positioned trays. Put the trays on ice and you could store the pollen for when you needed it for instance, when the bees were being kept somewhere where there were no flowers. Place the trays scattered around, and the bees could collect the pollen from them, not even realizing that this was the second time they had collected the pollen.

Remembering Farnham, and the station, another memory clamoured for Sherlock's attention: something that Matty had told him. Something about powder. About bakeries. He ransacked the lumber room of his memory, trying to bring the words to mind.

Yes. Powder. Flour. Matty had mentioned a fire that had occurred at a bakery where he once worked. He'd said that a powder like flour was highly inflammable when it was floating in air. If one speck of flour caught fire then it would spread from speck to speck faster than a man could run.

And if it worked for flour, it might just work for pollen.

'Penny for your thoughts,' said a voice behind him.

Sherlock turned, knowing what he would see.

Mr Surd, Baron Maupertuis's faithful retainer, was standing in the shadows. The leather thong of his whip spilt from his hand and curled around his feet.

'Never mind,' Surd said, advancing on Sherlock. 'If the Baron wants to know what's in your head, I'll just give him your head and he can pull it out himself.'

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Sherlock stepped to one side. Mr Surd swung around to track him. The metal tip of the whip sc.r.a.ped along the ground as the man moved.

Surd's face was a mask of polite indifference, but the scars criss-crossing his scalp were red and inflamed with anger.

'Did the Baron give you a hard time?' Sherlock taunted. 'Letting us escape like that couldn't have done much for your reputation. I'll wager the Baron discards useless servants like any other man throws away a used match.'

Surd's face remained impa.s.sive, but his hand flicked and the whip lashed out. Sherlock jerked his head to one side a split second before the metal tip would have sliced his ear off.

'That's a neat circus trick, but there's any number of better tricks out there,' Sherlock went on, trying not to let his voice waver and betray him. 'Perhaps Maupertuis could hire a knife-thrower next time.'

Again the whip flickered out, its tip snapping past Sherlock's left ear with a crack crack that momentarily deafened him. He thought it had missed, but a sudden warm splatter of blood on his neck and a growing icy pain at the side of his head suggested that the metal tip had made contact. He staggered to one side, holding his hand to his ear. The pain wasn't that great, not yet, but he wanted to change their positions and he wasn't quite there yet. that momentarily deafened him. He thought it had missed, but a sudden warm splatter of blood on his neck and a growing icy pain at the side of his head suggested that the metal tip had made contact. He staggered to one side, holding his hand to his ear. The pain wasn't that great, not yet, but he wanted to change their positions and he wasn't quite there yet.

'Every taunt that you throw in my direction is another strip of flesh I'll peel from your face,' Surd said calmly. 'You'll be begging me to kill you, and I'll just laugh. I'll laugh.'

'Laugh while you can,' Sherlock said. 'Perhaps I can persuade the Baron to employ me in your place. At least I've proved I'm more competent than you.'

'I'll keep you alive just long enough for the girl to see what I've made of you,' Surd went on as if Sherlock hadn't said anything. 'She won't want to look at you. She'll scream at the sight of you. How will that feel, boy? How will it feel?'

'You talk a good fight,' Sherlock said. He took another step to one side. Surd moved as well.

The wooden boxes containing the trays of pollen were directly behind Sherlock now. He reached behind with his right hand, and let his questing fingers close around the edge of one of the trays. It was cold from the ice beneath it.