The Beekeeper's Apprentice

Russell returns to Oxford for the spring term, deliberately transforming her appearance and persona as part of their deception. She adopts expensive skirts, a colder demeanor, and distances herself from friends like Veronica Beaconsfield. This calculated change supports their strategy to draw out their adversary.

Concerned letters arrive from Mrs. Hudson, and a visit from Watson details Holmes’s apparent severe physical and mental decline at his Sussex cottage. Inspector Lestrade has stationed guards around the property. After exchanging terse telegrams with Holmes, Russell agrees to visit Sussex and obtains an advance on her inheritance to purchase a Morris Oxford motorcar.

Russell becomes aware that three skilled operatives watch her movements. She becomes so distracted that one day, she walks into a lamppost, breaking her glasses. She drives to Sussex, ensuring her followers can track her route. At her farm, Patrick reports that strangers inquired about both her and Holmes weeks earlier. Russell arrives at Holmes’s cottage for a tense tea with him and Mrs. Hudson, during which they secretly confirm the surveillance. In the laboratory, Holmes gives her photographs of the cuts in the cab seat, and they realize that the cuts make up Roman numerals. They stage a loud, bitter argument before Russell departs.