The God of the Hive by Laurie R. King

and I could see neither doubt nor truculence there.
    I mouthed, “Fort William.”
    He turned back to his controls; the noise from the engine picked up a notch.

Chapter 13
    C hief Inspector Lestrade picked up the latest report from Scotland, then threw it down in disgust. It said the same thing all the other reports had said: no sign of them.
    Lestrade was not a man much prone to self-doubt, not when it came to his job, but in the eight days since he’d posted the arrest warrants for Sherlock Holmes and his wife, he’d begun to wonder if he might not have been rash. Granted, their outright refusal to appear and be interviewed had left him with little choice in the matter, but even then, a part of him had refused to believe that the man had anything to do with the death of that artist’s wife down in Sussex.
    Yet, he was involved somehow. The name Adler could be no coincidence—the artist had to be related to Irene Adler, even if French records had been too thin to show precisely how.
    Still, even if Damian Adler was a blood relation to the woman, what right did Holmes have to take matters into his own hands? An amateur investigator was a danger to society, and the man’s attitude towards the police was outmoded, self-important, and frankly offensive. It happened every time Holmes appeared on the borders of a police investigation. It hadn’t taken much urging for Lestrade to agree that it was high time to let Holmes know that a Twentieth-Century Scotland Yard would no longer tolerate his meddling and deceptions.
    No matter how often the man had solved a crime the police could not.
    No matter the respect Lestrade’s father had held for the man.
    No matter the reverence with which politicians and royals alike spoke of him.
    Time to bring the old man down a peg, him and that upstart wife of his.
    (If he could only lay hands on them.)
    Except that now the man’s brother had vanished as well.
    He’d had Mycroft Holmes in two days before, and—surprise—the man had answered not one of his questions to his satisfaction. He’d been even more irritated when, half an hour after the man left, an envelope with his name on it was brought up—left by Mycroft Holmes at the front as he went out. Having spent two hours in Lestrade’s office, he was now suggesting a meeting later that afternoon.
    Lestrade had thrown the note into the waste-bin and got down to the day’s work, but at five o’clock, he’d found himself going not home, but in the direction of the suggested meeting place.
    But the man didn’t show. Lestrade stood in the crowded halls amongst the children and the tourists, feeling more like an idiot every minute. He went home angry.
    His anger had become slightly uneasy when the man’s housekeeper telephoned bright and early the next morning to say that when she’d let herself into the Holmes flat that morning, her employer had been missing, and what was Scotland Yard going to do about it?
    In fact, he’d been uneasy enough that he’d telephoned to the offices Mycroft Holmes kept in Whitehall. And when the secretary said that his employer hadn’t come in that morning, and yes it was highly unusual, Lestrade had rung the caretaker at Mycroft Holmes’ flat on Pall Mall: Mr Holmes had left Thursday morning, and not returned.
    Not that there was much Lestrade could do about it yet. Mycroft Holmes was a grown man, and although he had not been seen since walking out the doors of Scotland Yard Thursday afternoon, there could be any number of reasons why he might have done so, and it was tooearly to assume foul play. The man had vanished on the same puff of smoke as his brother Sherlock, along with Mary Russell, Damian Adler, and Adler’s small daughter. To say nothing of Reverend Brothers and his henchman Gunderson.
    Nary a sign of any of them.

Chapter 14
    A n hour south of Thurso, I was relieved when the clouds at least grew light enough to suggest where the sun lay. However, its location also was a sign that we