It wasn't a buzz or a drone. Nor was it the sharp ziii of a bee in flight.
Remo and Chiun leaned in. The sound was too small for Smith's normal aging ears, but there was something about it that touched their senses.
"Speak louder, O bee," Chiun instructed.
The bee seemed to make another sound.
"I feel like an idiot," said Remo, backing away.
Chiun eyed Smith and asked, "Have you a device for capturing sounds?"
"Yes." Smith dug out a pocket tape recorder with a suction mike attachment made for recording telephone calls.
Chiun nodded. "Affix this device."
Smith attached the cup to the glass and pressed the Record button.
"What the hell are you doing, Smitty?" Remo asked in exasperation.
"Perhaps its sound can be identified by an entomologist," Smith said defensively.
Remo rolled his eyes.
Lifting his arms like a conjurer invoking a genie, Chiun exhorted, "Speak again, O bee."
The tiny sound was repeated, and when it stopped, Smith hit the Stop switch, rewound and then pressed Playback.
He fingered the volume control to the highest setting and waited.
The tape hissed loudly. Then came a tiny, metallic voice. "Release me now, or my brethren will swarm down in deadly numbers."
"What!" Remo exploded.
Gray face slack with shock, Smith replayed that part again.
"That was you throwing your voice, wasn't it?" Remo accused Chiun.
"I deny this accusation," Chiun sniffed.
Smith hit the Record button and asked Chiun, "Inquire who it is."
"To whom do I have the privilege of speaking?"
"I am but a drone in the service of the King of Bees," replayed the tape recorder after Smith rewound it.
"Who is this ruler?" demanded Chiun. "Speak the fiend's name."
"I serve the Lord of All Bees."
"Is that anything like the Lord of the Flies?" grunted Remo, who couldn't quite believe what he was hearing but went along anyway.
Smith stared at the bee, open-mouthed and bugeyed.
"I have a question for it," said Remo.
Chiun gestured him to go ahead.
"Who told you to come here?" asked Remo.
"My master." This time, Remo heard the voice clearly. The tape playback verified what he had heard.
"How'd you find this address?" asked Remo.
The tape recorder replayed the tiny reply. "One of my brethren read the address off the package you mailed from Los Angeles."
Harold Smith groaned in a mixture of horror and disbelief. "Our cover is blown."
"To the freaking bee kingdom, Smith," Remo said in exasperation. "It's not like it's going to be spread over tomorrow's New York Times!"
Smith eyed the bee. "Your terms are rejected."
"Then my vengeance will be awesome to behold. Tremble, mankind. Tremble before the awesome might of the Bee-Master."
"Did he say Bee-Master?" asked Remo.
"He has been saying that all along," said Harold Smith.
Remo snapped his fingers. "That's where I read about bees talking by antennae. In old comic books."
"It served you right for believing it," said Smith.
"Give me a break. I was only a kid. What did I know?"
"Chiun, we must drown this vermin," Smith said grimly.
"The interrogation is over, O merciless one?"
"Find a way to drown it. I must have the remains for analysis."
Bowing, the Master of Sinanju lifted up the cake holder and bore it into Smith's private washroom.
The bee was racing around the inside of the Pyrex dome, with all the agitated impotence of a condemned prisoner when they last saw it.
As the sound of running water came, Remo looked at Harold Smith and Smith looked back. Smith's face ,was gray and haggard; Remo's was flat with a kind of shocked bewilderment.
"Bees don't talk," Remo said.