"Who? Holmes, what is going on? Don't tell me you suggest we go out again into that." I waved my hand at the window, where the damp, splashing drops told of rain halfway to being snow. "I'm not even dry from the first time. And what is that thing you've brought — is it really a bomb? Why did you bring it here? Talk to me, Holmes!"
"Very well, to be succinct: We shall go out, but not yet; the bomb was here, attached to your door when I arrived; and 'what's going on' is nothing less than attempted murder."
I stared at him aghast. The tangled object on the desk seemed to writhe gently in the edges of my vision, and I felt cold fingers running up my spine. When I had my breath back I spoke again and was pleased to find that my voice was almost firm.
"Who wishes to kill me? And how did you know about it?" I did not think it necessary to ask why.
"Well done, Russell. A quick mind is worthless unless you can control the emotions with it as well. Tell me first, why did you come up the ivy, rather than through the door? You did not have your revolver and could hardly have expected to leap in the window and overpower your intruder." His dry voice was marginally too casual, but I could not see why this was so important to him.
"Information. I needed to know what awaited me before making a decision. Had I found an armed reception party I'd have gone down and had Mr. Thomas telephone for the police. Am I correct in assuming that you left the black smudge on the doorknob for me to find?"
"I did."
"And the mud and leaves on the opposite window ledge?"
"The mud was there before I came. One leaf I added, as assurance that you should notice."
"Why the charade, Holmes? Why risk my bones coming up the wall?"
He looked straight at me and his voice was dead, flat serious.
"Because, my dear child, I needed to be absolutely certain that despite being tired, cold, and hungry, you would pick up the small hints and act correctly."
"The business of the note in my pigeonhole was hardly a 'small hint.' A bit heavy-handed for you. Why didn't you ask Mrs. Hudson which room I was in? She has been to my rooms before." There was something here I was just not seeing.
"I have not seen Mrs. Hudson for some days."
"But — the food?"
"Old Will brought it to me. You may have seen that he's more than just the gardener," he added with apparent irrelevance.
"I surmised that some time ago, yes. But why have you been away —?" I stopped, and my eyes nan-owed as various facts merged and his stiffness came back to me. "My God, you're hurt. They tried to kill you first, didn't they? Where are you injured? How badly?"
"Some distinctly uncomfortable abrasions along my back, is all. I'm afraid I may have to ask you to change the dressings at some point, but not immediately. The person who set the bomb thinks I'm dying, fortunately. Some poor tramp was run over just after they took me to the hospital, and he's there still, with bandages about his head and my name on his chart. And, I might add, a constable at his side at all times."
"Was anyone else hurt? Mrs. Hudson?"
"Mrs. Hudson is fine, although half the glass in the south wall is out. The house is miserable in this weather so she's off to that friend of hers in Lewes until repairs are made. No, the bomb was not actually in the house; they set it in one of the beehives, of all places. He, or they, must have laid it the night before, expecting it to catch me on my morning rounds. Perhaps he used a radio transmitter to trigger it, or else motion at the adjoining hives was enough. In any case, I can only be grateful that it did not go up in my face."
"Who, Holmes? Who?"
"There are three names that come to mind, although the humourous touch of using the hive is of a level I should not have credited to any of the three. There are four bombers I have put away in the past. One is dead. One has been out for five years, though I had heard that he had settled down and become a strong family man. The second was let out eighteen months ago and has apparently remained in the London area. The third escaped from Princetown last July. Any one of the three could have been responsible for my bomb, which was professionally laid and left very little intact evidence. Yours, however, is a different matter. A thing like that is as individual as a fingerprint. Not being entirely up to date on bombs myself, however, I need an expert to read this particular fingerprint. We shall take it with us when we go."
"Where are we going?" I asked with considerable patience, I thought, considering the havoc I could see this was going to wreak on my plans for a lovely holiday.
"To the great cesspool, of course."
"Why London?"
"Mycroft, my dear child, my brother Mycroft. He possesses the knowledge of Scotland Yard without the obsessional reticence of that good body, which tends to hoard information like a dragon its gold. Mycroft can, with a single telephone call, tell me the precise locations of our three possibilities, and who is the most likely author of your mechanism here. Assuming my attempted murderer still believes me to be in hospital, he would not connect you with Mycroft, as the two of you have never so much as met. We will be safe with him for a day or two, and we shall see what trail turns up. The scent in Sussex is, I fear, very cold. I did come up here as quickly as I could, but I was not in time to catch him at his work. I am sorry about that. You see before you a distinctly inferior version of Sherlock Holmes, old, rusty, and easily laid out."
"By a bomb that nearly killed you." His long, expressive fingers waved away my proffered excuse. "Do we go now?"
"I think not. He already knows the bomb did not go off. He will no doubt assume that you will be on full guard tonight — that you have not called the police already tells him that. He will bide his time tonight, and tomorrow either lay another bomb for you, or if, as I suspect, he is intelligent and flexible enough, he will be creative and use a sniper's rifle or a runaway motor car, should you be so foolish as to provide a target. However, you will not. We will be on the streets before light, but not earlier. You may rest until then."
"Thank you." I tore my eyes from the bomb. "First, your back. How much gauze will I need?"
"A considerable quantity, I should think. Do you have it?"
"One of the girls down the hall is a hypochondriac with a nurse mother. If you can do your lock trick on her door as well as you did on that of my other neighbour we should be well supplied."
"Ah, that reminds me, Russell. An early birthday present."
Holmes held out a small, narrow package wrapped in shiny paper. "Open it now."
I undid the wrappings with great curiosity, for Holmes did not normally give gifts. I opened the dark velvet jeweller's box and found inside a shiny new set of picklocks, a younger version of his own.
"Holmes, ever the romantic. Mrs. Hudson would be pleased." He chuckled and stood up cautiously. "Shall we try them out?"
Some time later we were back in front of my fire, richer by several square yards of gauze, a huge roll of sticking plaster, and a quart bottle of antiseptic. I poured him a large brandy, and when he took off his shirt I could see that I was going to need most of that gauze. I refilled his glass and stood assessing the job.
"We ought to let Watson do this."
"If he were standing here I would. Get on with it." He swallowed this second brandy neat, so I poured him a third, picked up the scissors, and paused.
"Personally I have found that the mind handles pain best if it is given a counterirritant to distract it. Aha, I have just the thing. Holmes, tell me about the case of the King of Bohemia, and Irene Adler." Holmes was seldom beaten, but that woman had done it, with an ease and a flair that I knew still rankled. Her photograph stood on his bookshelf, as a reminder of his failure, and telling me about it would very possibly distract him from his back.