The Language Of Bees Part 34

His half of the conversation consisted mostly of disapproving grunts, as he received what was clearly a negative report from one of the men dispatched earlier that morning. He placed the earpiece in its hooks with a precision that indicated he was not much removed from throwing the instrument across the room.

"No luck?"

"Nothing," he said.

"I'll catch the night express for Scotland," I told him. "It'll be tight, but I should make it north in time for the Thursday steamer." I shook my head. "Ridiculous, to think your man Lofte could come halfway around the world in a week when it's going to take me three days to get seven hundred miles."

"Why not employ an aeroplane?"

I stared at him. "What?"

"An aeroplane. Heavier-than-air fixed-wing contraption? Been around since two brothers in America persuaded a propeller and some canvas to go airborne? You have been up in one, I believe?"

"Memorably," I said, with feeling.

"Well?"

For thrilling entertainments, darting air battles, or emergency exits from sticky situations, aeroplanes were ideal; for transporting human beings over long stretches of countryside, I was none too certain. Yes, Lofte could throw himself headlong on a dare; yes, the mail now flew daily across America; still, there was a great deal of difference between sacks of mail and human beings when it came to surviving mechanical difficulties a thousand feet in the air. beings over long stretches of countryside, I was none too certain. Yes, Lofte could throw himself headlong on a dare; yes, the mail now flew daily across America; still, there was a great deal of difference between sacks of mail and human beings when it came to surviving mechanical difficulties a thousand feet in the air.

I had to clear my throat before I could say mildly, "They're hardly dependable."

"Imperial Airways has been in existence since March," he pointed out. "Not all that many flights, to be sure, but air travel is the way of the future."

"You're not saying that there is commercial aeroplane travel from London to Orkney?" I demanded.

"No," he admitted. "I should have to arrange something more private."

I had a brief vision of Lofte's bedraggled condition on Sat.u.r.day night, but told myself that had been the result of six thousand miles; this would be a mere tenth the bedragglement.

As if following my thoughts, Mycroft said, "If I can find you a 'plane, you could be there in a day, Thursday at the latest."

"You needn't make this sound like some treat you're offering a child, Mycroft."

"What is this you're offering Russell, Mycroft?" Holmes had come into the room at the last phrase, to fetch the stack of photographs showing the Adlers and Reverend "Hayden."

"Aeroplane travel," I said bluntly. "And do leave us some of those."

He concentrated on setting aside a few of each photograph, but emotions played over his face: surprise giving way to a queasy apprehension, then serious consideration, finally settling into wonderment.

"One forgets," he reflected, "that in half a year's absence, technological advances will have been made."

"It's been an entire year since Kelly and Macready crossed America without stopping," Mycroft said, stretching out an arm for the telephone. "And the American Army round-the-world team has reached Iceland with two of its original three machines."

"Yes, and the Boston Boston wrecked off Orkney, didn't it?" wrecked off Orkney, didn't it?"

"Is that your answer, Mary?"

"No, I suppose I could think-"

But Mycroft's hand was already on the instrument. "Sherlock, if you are looking for the folded maps, I've moved them to the escritoire. h.e.l.lo, is that Carver? Can you find Lofte and send him to me?"

Holmes pawed through the maps and removed several, then noticed me. "Need you stand there gawping, Russell? Don't you have things to do? I recommend you begin with locating a pilot who has taken a pledge."

"Thank you, Holmes, for offering me up to the G.o.ds of technology." It appeared that I was to become a barnstormer.

Holmes' driver rang the bell a few minutes later, and the two men left through the hidden doorway. Ten minutes later, the bell rang again, this time for me.

Mr Lofte's appearance had improved out of all recognition in the three days since I had seen him. His face was shaved, his suit so new it still bore traces of tailor's chalk, and the only odour about him was the faint aura of shaving soap.

Mycroft greeted him by saying, "My brother's wife needs to be in Orkney immediately. I wish you to a.s.sist her."

The unflappable modern-day Phileas Fogg merely asked, "Will you need both the 'plane and the pilot?"

"I can requisition the machine, if need be."

"When you say 'immediately,' do you wish to undertake a night landing?" I hastened to a.s.sure him that my need for speed was merely desperate, not suicidal. He nodded.

"In that case, let me see what I can scare up at the Society."

"I'll come with you, if I may," I said, thinking: my life, my choice of pilots. Then Mycroft gently cleared his throat. I looked over. He was simply reading the paper, but after a moment, I saw the source of his objection.

"Actually," I told Lofte, "I have a few things I must do. How about if I meet you down the road a piece? In, say, twenty minutes?"

"I don't mind wait-"

"No no, it's a lovely day out there." I plucked his shiny new Panama hat from the side-table and thrust it back into his hands. "Where are we headed?"

"Albemarle Street," he answered.

"The Burlington Arcade, then. Twenty minutes. See you there."

Obedient, if uncomprehending, he stepped out of Mycroft's front door. Three minutes later, I stepped through Mycroft's private back exit.

What happened next is no-one's fault but my own. Leaving the dim tunnel near Angel Court with my mind on aeroplanes, I came face to face with a man I had last seen in the corridors of Scotland Yard. Worse, his reactions were quick.

Leaving behind the light cardigan I wore seemed preferable to a.s.saulting one of Lestrade's men, but it was training, not speed, that wrenched my arm free from his hard fingers. Speed did make it possible to draw away from him on the street, as I led him on a circuit of St James's Palace and up to the mid-afternoon crowds along Piccadilly.

He was persistent, give him that. I didn't shake him off until I dodged in and out of the Dorchester, and even then, I took care to work my way back through the by-ways of Mayfair. All in all, it was a full half hour before I spotted Lofte, browsing a display of silk kerchiefs in the Burlington Arcade.

"Good," I said nonchalantly, my eyes everywhere but on him. "Shall we go?"

He took in my breathless condition and proved his worth by whipping the hat from his head and popping it on mine, then did the same with his jacket, which fit my arms rather less completely than it had his. He smoothed his hair with both hands and followed me back up the Arcade, removing his neck-tie and rolling up his sleeves to make for a more complete change of image. From a distance, the two men who left the Arcade, one of them regrettably en dishabille en dishabille, bore little resemblance to the young woman who had sprinted away from an officer of the law.

Lofte's "Society" was, it transpired, the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain. And Mr Lofte himself, I found as we strolled up Old Bond Street with watchful eyes, had been Captain Lofte of the RAF, beginning in the early days of the War when, if memory served me, the average life span of an active fighter pilot had been three weeks. Even after several years in the Far East, he still knew half the world's airmen, and those he didn't, had at least heard of him. It explained how he had been able to thumb rides across two continents at the drop of a hat. Great Britain. And Mr Lofte himself, I found as we strolled up Old Bond Street with watchful eyes, had been Captain Lofte of the RAF, beginning in the early days of the War when, if memory served me, the average life span of an active fighter pilot had been three weeks. Even after several years in the Far East, he still knew half the world's airmen, and those he didn't, had at least heard of him. It explained how he had been able to thumb rides across two continents at the drop of a hat.

The Aeronautical Society wore the face of science over the heart of madcap undergraduates. We walked past a dignified sign and through a polished front door into a minor riot that would not have been tolerated at that bastion of Bohemian excess, the Cafe Royal. Five boisterous young men were racing-literally-down a long staircase while a sixth flung his legs over the banister and leapt to the floor below, staggering into a scramble as he hit the carpet ahead of the pack that rounded the newel and circled towards whatever rooms lay behind. Voices raised from the depths of the building indicated disputed results and an accusation of cheating; the dignified Swiss man at my side looked only marginally discomfited.

"We shall wait for them in here," he suggested, leading me to a sitting room too tidy to be used for anything but the occasional entertainment of guests and ladies. He pressed into my hand an unasked-for gla.s.s of sherry, and slipped out. I set the gla.s.s on the table, and looked around me.

The quiet room was decorated primarily with photographs: Bleriot after crossing the Channel in 1909; the Wrights' first flyer, wings drooping alarmingly but its wheels clear of the ground; an aerial dogfight over English fields; Alc.o.c.k and Brown standing next to the biplane they crossed the Atlantic in. I lingered over this last-surely immeasurably harder than a jaunt to Scotland, and that was five whole years ago. I puzzled over the next photograph, of a curious looking aeroplane with an enormous set of propellers misplaced to its roof. It resembled some unlikely insect.

"That's an autogiro," said an American voice from behind me.

I had not known there was anyone else in the room, but the man had been sitting in a high-backed chair in a dim corner. I smiled vaguely in his direction, and returned to the photo. "It looks like the result of two aeroplanes flying into each other," I commented. Then, realising that a jest about mid-air collisions might not be in the best of taste here, I amended it to, "-or a piece of very Modernist sculpture. Does it actually function?" had been sitting in a high-backed chair in a dim corner. I smiled vaguely in his direction, and returned to the photo. "It looks like the result of two aeroplanes flying into each other," I commented. Then, realising that a jest about mid-air collisions might not be in the best of taste here, I amended it to, "-or a piece of very Modernist sculpture. Does it actually function?"

"They go up," he said laconically. "Something I could help you with?"

"No, I'm here with Mr-Captain-Lofte. I think he's gone to find someone."

"Probably me." The man peeled himself out of the chair and started in my direction. Watching the unevenness of his progress, I thought at first that he had been injured, then decided he was intoxicated. When he stood before me, I saw it was both.

He'd been burned. Shiny scar tissue spread up his neck to his jaw-line, the skin on his left hand was taut enough to affect mobility, and the stiffness of his gait suggested further damage. He held his drink in his right hand, and watched my reaction to his appearance.

It must be hard, to have to wait for every new acquaintance to absorb the implications of scars. Particularly when the new acquaintance was a not entirely unattractive young woman.

"I'm Mary Russell," I said, and hesitated about whether or not to put out my hand.

He decided for me, moving his gla.s.s over to his left hand, concentrating for a moment until the fingers grasped it, then putting his right hand out for me to shake. "Pleased to meet you. The name's Cash Javitz."

I narrowed my eyes. "Detroit?"

He transferred the gla.s.s back to the more secure grasp. "'Bout fifty miles away. How'd you guess?"

"Accents are one of my husband's ... hobbies, you might say. I pick things up from him."

"I been here so long, some Yanks think I'm a Brit."

"Me, too. Mother was English, I'm from California, my father from Boston."

"So, what's Lofty want?"

"I need to get to Scotland in a hurry. Mr Lofte seemed to think this was the place to start looking."

He lifted the gla.s.s to his face and drank, watching me over it. "Where in Scotland?"

"Well, actually, the Orkneys. Those are the islands-"

"I know where Orkney is. Don't I, you snake?"

I was taken aback until Lofte's voice answered; I hadn't heard him come in.

"Don't be rude to the lady, Cash. A simple no will suffice."

"How much?" Javitz said instead.

"Do you have a 'plane?"

"Wait a minute," I interrupted. "Not to offend, Mr Javitz, but my husband suggested I find a pilot who had taken the pledge. Considering the distance, I'd say that was a good idea."

"He'll be sober," Lofte a.s.sured me.

"Mostly," Javitz muttered under his breath.

Lofte frowned at the American, than said, "Cash knows the terrain like no other. When the RAF wouldn't let him fly any more, he joined the Navy, and spent so much time around Scapa Bay they've made him an honorary Orcadian. The islands are tricky, the winds can be difficult. I'd trust my mother to Cash."

"This mother of yours: Is she still alive?"

"My sister, then."

"I've seen a picture of his sister," the American commented. "She'd be safe from me, no question."

I eyed him. This was adding up to one of those situations whose details Holmes did not need to know.

"To answer your question, Cash," Lofte said, "we will have a 'plane by evening. I'll ring here as soon as we know what kind and where it is. We can discuss then your fees."

"By which time you'll be sober," I added firmly.

Javitz laughed and swigged down the last of his drink. "If I'm not, what will you do? Fly her yourself?"

"I'll fly her," Lofte said.

"To Orkney?"

The question was close to being a jeer, but Lofte held the American's gaze. "Innocent lives are at stake, Cash. A man and a child. Miss Russell has to reach the Orkneys no later than Friday."

"Right. Okay. 'Phone me, when you know. But if it's some piece of rubbish held together by chewing gum and baling wire, you can take it yourself. I'm going to go find me some lunch."

He stalked out, putting his empty gla.s.s on a polished table as he went by. I watched him leave.

"Can he fly, with that hand?" I asked my companion.

"He flies with his will, not his flesh. He will get you there."

With a final glance at the doorway the American had gone through, I thought it a pity that we could not take Lofte with us. A man that experienced at conjuring transportation from thin air might be useful if we ran out of fuel halfway over the Cairngorms.

Place (1): As celestial bodies work their influence, so do As celestial bodies work their influence, so do historical bodies shape one another Britain is the sum of its peoples: the ancients; the Romans; the Angles and Saxons; the North Peoples; the Norman French.

All built their roads, raised their children, and left their names, their G.o.ds, and their Powers.

Testimony, IV:6

I REACHED HENDON AIR FIELD JUST BEFORE DAWN on Wednesday. The aeroplanes that greeted my eyes were rea.s.suringly solid, gleaming new, proud, broad-chested harbingers of the muscular future of flight. REACHED HENDON AIR FIELD JUST BEFORE DAWN on Wednesday. The aeroplanes that greeted my eyes were rea.s.suringly solid, gleaming new, proud, broad-chested harbingers of the muscular future of flight.