Holmes and I took the glass of brandy offered by the club’s waiter and sat in the leather chairs and waited to hear from Mycroft. He paced a little around the room before turning to us. “I’m sure that Sherlock told you that I hold a significant and fairly unique role in the British government. I hold no official job title and I draw a wage that covers my expenses only, yet I am privy to everything that occurs in the government. I make the connections that others are unable to, as they are fettered by the concerns of their department. As in the nursery rhyme, the want of a nail leads to the fall of a kingdom; my role is to ensure that a missing nail doesn’t cause the fall of The British Empire.”
Mycroft paused and paced some more. “I have noticed a pattern that shows that someone has been deliberately removing nails, if I may continue the metaphor, to bring about the end of the reign of Queen Victoria and the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.”
As someone who had been involved in several revolutions around the world, the idea wasn’t as inconceivable to me as it was to the Holmes brothers who had lived all their lives under one monarch who had ruled for fifty-five years. Indeed, for an unemotional man, Sherlock Holmes was able to display a great deal of emotion for the Queen, as he’d once demonstrated to me via by the ‘VR’ he had shot into a wall in our Baker Street suite in bullet pocks. “Surely, this is impossible!” Holmes declared jumping to his feet, proving his respect for Her Majesty was still strong.
“Not impossible, just improbable,” I replied, after taking a sip of the excellent brandy. “The Queen has more children than the little old woman in the shoe.”
“As you keep saying, Sherlock, once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth,” Mycroft stated. “I fear that the recent death of the Duke of Clarence was the start of the next phase of a plot. It was reported that he died of influenza but the truth is that he was assassinated.”
“Assassinated? But how?” I queried.
“The Royal Physician reports that he was poisoned,” Mycroft answered.
Holmes lit his pipe and began to puff. “If memory serves, the Duke had just become engaged, and was going to become the Viceroy of Ireland. He’d come a long way from the scandal at the Cleveland Street male brothel, and his sending compromising letters to prostitutes, a few years back.”
“It was his rehabilitation that led to his death,” agreed Mycroft, “for, as long as he was a potential embarrassment to the Royal family he was safe. My reports are that his parents are distraught and that his father, The Prince of Wales, is contemplating renouncing his succession rights.”
“That would not be enough to dethrone Victoria and end her line. As I said, she has many children and grandchildren.” I ventured.
“Quite right, Doctor,” said Mycroft. “Prince George would ascend to the throne upon the death of his grandmother in that event. But I have just been informed this evening that he has been struck down with typhoid and confined to bed and there is grave fear for his life.”
“Surely not another poisoning attempt?” asked Holmes. “That would be far too obvious.”
“No, he has the disease but it would be easy enough to infect him at a public event.”
“While the death of two heirs, and another renouncing the throne, would be tragic, it wouldn’t be enough to cause the fall of the Empire,” I pointed out.
“True, but I have had reports that dissent is being sown throughout the Colonies. There is a push for independence by the Australians, Maoris in New Zealand are openly calling for the revocation of The Treaty of Waitangi, and there is dissent being sown in South Africa, Rhodesia and our other African colonies. If these become open rebellions, paired with the succession issues we just discussed then the British people will call for the removal of the Monarchy and we may be faced with a Protectorate with a new Cromwell.”
Holmes and I sat for a moment and digested that information.
“There is no-one with the reach or planning ability to pull off such a plot since the late Professor Moriarty danced the Newgate jig at the end of the hangman’s noose,” Holmes said gravely.
“Perhaps we did not sweep away all of the web that Moriarty wove as thoroughly as we thought, and a new spider is sitting in the centre of this web and plucking at the thread of a plan that offers the ultimate punishment against the government responsible for his death?” I suggested. “Colonel Moran, for one, evaded our broom, and fled to the Continent.”
“After Moran’s escape, I contacted several of my colleagues throughout the Continent to keep watch for him but no one has reported anything, as you well know,” Holmes rebuked me. “There have been no murders with his signature weapon—an air gun—reported anywhere.”
Mycroft cleared his throat. “No, not on the Continent, but there was a report last month that a Maori chieftain was murdered with an air rifle, which helped stir up unrest in Tahupapa, New Zealand. Also, the irregularities of the death of the Earl of Maynooth in one of our Australian colonies are suggestive of an air rifle; as is the dissent that the Governor’s recent death has raised. And I have an unconfirmed report that an air rifle might have been used to spark a riot in Kabul just last week. So it seems that Moran is involved in this. Sherlock, I need you and the doctor to locate the puppet master pulling his strings.”
The large man moved closer to his brother and put his flipper-like hand on Holmes’ shoulder. “You are the only one I can trust with this. I have no idea just how far this corruption is spread throughout the civil service and the military. There will be gratitude and honours from the Empire if you are successful.”
Holmes smiled. “This is a mess of my own making, as I did not properly finish the Moriarty organisation the first time. To be of service to Her Majesty is honour enough for me. Come, Doctor.” With that, Holmes walked out of the Stranger’s room. I took a moment to compliment Mycroft on the brandy, then followed.
As we walked out onto Pall Mall, Holmes stopped to look back at his brother watching us out of the window of Diogenes Club. It was at that point that one of the ground floor windows of the club shattered. Had Holmes not stopped to look back, he would have been directly in the line of fire.
The fact that there was no sound of a gunshot meant that the bullet had come from an air rifle. That suggested that Colonel Moran was most likely the shooter. In any case, the only conclusion was that the shooter had been assigned to watch Mycroft Holmes, to see what counter-measures were being taken by the one man with both the access to the large tapestry of information needed as well as the requisite intellect to discern the common disruptive thread to the Crown’s interests. The one man who might be able to prevent the unravelling of the British Empire.
My files told me that Mycroft Holmes was a man of fixed habits, only leaving his flat to travel to his office around the corner, and the Diogenes Club across the street. As I mentally followed the bullet’s path back to Mycroft’s rooms I could see the air gun being pulled back into the window. I could tell that Holmes had matched my deductions as we both sought cover. I could hear him cursing his brother’s laziness from my vantage point. Mycroft had uncovered this vast conspiracy, and his idea of a safe house was one of his usual haunts directly across the road from where he lives!
While there was an element of laziness to Mycroft hiding at the Diogenes Club, the truth was, he was a thinker, and a planner, who left the practicalities to others, and when he was threatened, took to the place where he felt safe. As a founding member of the Diogenes Club, it was a niche that he had made for himself. I suspected that were Holmes thrown into the byzantine political waters that his brother effortlessly sailed he’d make equally embarrassing mistakes, although perhaps not as potentially permanently fatal.
I yelled to Holmes that the gun had been taken from the window, and together we raced across Pall Mall and into the building where Mycroft lived. I was very keen to make the acquaintance of th
e shooter, but as we raced up the stairs I could hear a door slam shut. By the time Holmes and I reached the back door, our assailant was long gone, and it defied even Holmes’s deductive abilities to track the shooter. There seemed not a trace of evidence.
We returned to the stairs to determine if any clues had been left in Mycroft’s rooms. In his haste to flee, the shooter had left the door ajar. Holmes pulled out his magnifier and inspected the lock.
“It’s been picked,” he declared as he showed me the minute scratches; an expert job.
As we entered Mycroft’s rooms, another sign of the differences between the Holmes brothers became apparent. Where our flat in 221B Baker Street was a miscellaneous collection of curiosities haphazardly decorating our living space, Mycroft led a more Spartan existence with few personal items; in the event of Mycroft’s death the landlord could rent the room fully furnished after removing only a couple of items. The only two items—aside from the obvious toiletries that showed that Mycroft Holmes lived here—were a cameo of a woman in a sitting room; Holmes’ reaction to it told me it was their mother, and another picture. This other was a portrait of the Queen.
I could see that Holmes’s eyes were darting around the room looking for any detail that was out of place. I looked around, but with so few items there was nothing that seemed out of the ordinary. There was a comfortable chair beside the fire with a folded paper placed on it. Much to my surprise, it was that very paper that Holmes seized and began to frantically look through. I said as much to him.
“Mycroft takes his papers at the club, there is no need for him to have one in his rooms. Also this is this morning’s paper, and, as we know Mycroft has not been here for the last two days,” Holmes snapped as he returned to the paper.
I could see that he was furiously scouring the agony columns, I suspected this was for some message that had been sent to those watching Mycroft. Holmes was muttering as he read the notices, so I took the opportunity to peruse the headlines on the front page. “ROYAL FUNERAL TOMORROW” the headline screamed at me.
I pulled out my pocket watch and saw that it was past midnight. “Holmes, let’s take this back to Baker Street, and get some rest. The Prince’s funeral is later today, according to the paper.”
With that Holmes leapt to his feet. “That’s it, Nikola! You are a genius; you never fail to show me a new perspective on a case. Our mastermind hid his plans in plain sight. If he plans to overthrow the monarchy the death of Her Majesty at this time would be particularly disastrous, especially if the Prince of Wales steps down. Come, Nikola, there is much to do.”
We hastened across the road and again spoke with Mycroft. Security at the funeral was already high but Mycroft promised to do what he could.
Later that morning saw Holmes and I, in disguise, amongst the crowd at the funeral to pay their respects to the late Prince. I looked for any threat that the very prominent police presence might overlook. I looked around and saw Holmes wandering through the crowd as an elderly clergyman rattling a donation can for the needy orphans at Saint Simon’s Orphanage. While Holmes walked through the masses I was hobnobbing with the elite of London posing as Sylvester Wetherall, the Colonial Secretary of New South Wales.
Nothing untoward happened at the funeral and there was barely a dry eye in the house when the Prince’s fiancée placed what was to have been her wedding bouquet on his coffin. The funeral procession left the church to take Prince Albert Victor to his final resting place. I made my farewells, and found my way to Holmes.
To say that Holmes was disappointed there had been no attempted act of violence was an understatement of the first order. As we made our way back to Baker Street, he expressed how he sought to understand why our mysterious nemesis had not struck at the most opportune moment.
“These are most deep waters, Nikola,” Holmes exclaimed. “Our mystery villain is playing a deeper and longer game than I first thought.”
In some perverse way, Holmes was taking delight in being stymied. Since the demise of Professor Moriarty, however, I had noted he was prone to fits of despair. He would sprawl over the easy chair with his long leg draped over the arm and play the most maudlin music on his violin. When he spoke it was only of the lesser calibre of criminal left in London, declaring that the police no longer needed to consult him. Each new mystery would temporarily break him out of his mood but after the solution of a case a dark cloud would settle over his head and he would return to his melancholy.
He had seemed to delight in explaining this mastermind’s recent plan. The public assassination of any member of the royal family would serve to make them martyrs in the eyes of the public and gain them further sympathy. A case worthy of his mind, I realized.
It was during his explanations and hypotheses, as we turned into Baker Street, that a cabbie lost control of his hansom taking the bend. Holmes was so engrossed in his deductions that he was oblivious to the danger. It was only the fact that I was alert that spared our lives. I shoved Holmes out of danger, and leapt after him. The cabbie did not stop his horses and instead continued on his journey. It happened so quickly that neither Holmes nor I was able to recall any specific details of the cab.
The attempt on his life delighted Holmes! It told him that we were considered a threat by a foe perceptive enough to penetrate the disguises we were still wearing. We hastened into our rooms. We made sure to stay away from the windows as we removed our disguises; a sound precaution knowing that there were assassins on the loose.
“Our enemy has failed twice to kill us now and I’m sure that they will try again,” said Holmes as he lit his pipe. “We can use this to draw them out when we want.”
“I have just the thing,” I said. I went to the storage cupboard and pulled out two boxes. “You may recall the gift from John Theodore Tussaud when we solved the mystery of his moving waxworks?”
“And prevented the robbery of the Bank of England by John Clay,” Holmes added.
I reached into the boxes and pulled out wax replicas of both Holmes and myself. We soon had them set up so that the silhouettes could be seen in the window once the night had fallen. Holmes and I sat in silence as he puffed on his pipe and contemplated the case. Apollyon rubbed against my legs and I stroked him as I waited.
The night wore on, and I was just about to turn off the light, when the window shattered and the bust of Holmes fell to the floor. Holmes and I were soon out the door and heading for the origin of the shot. By the time we arrived in Camden House, the building opposite 221B Baker Street, the shooter was long gone, but Holmes was immediately on the scent for any clues, and moved to the open window that was best located for a weapon used to shoot at us. Holmes’s nose came close to the windowsill, and he took a deep breath.
“Nikola, come smell this, and see if you match my conclusions.”
I walked over to the window and duplicated Holmes’s actions. I smelt tobacco, a particular blend unique to the Indian sub-continent, particularly favoured by members of the British military; a blend we both had familiarised ourselves with when hunting the late Professor Moriarty’s lieutenant, Colonel Sebastian Moran. Combined with the fact an air gun shot at us, doubt was removed that we had been attacked by any other man.
But with that tobacco scent, I caught a hint of another scent. I took another deep inhalation, and allowed the smell to trigger my olfactory memory. It took a couple of seconds to recall the exact location that I had come across the smell.
It was the unique, spiced rum served in a waterfront pub, the Green Sailor on East India Dock Road. About three years ago, Holmes and I had come close to capturing Moriarty when he had been running his operations from the back room of that establishment. It took all of my powers of persuasion to convince the barman to let us into the back room and I had ample opportunity to smell the house speciality at that time. The barman was resistant to my pleadings, and Holmes and I were regrettably to later find that Moriarty and hi
s lieutenants had made their escape through an old smuggler’s tunnel. It took much further investigating but we were eventually able to track the Napoleon of Modern Crime down to his new hideout and send him to his deserved fate at the end of a hangman’s noose—but that is a case fully documented in a one of my published accounts in the Windsor.
I told Holmes of my observations. “Excellent, Nikola, you have exactly replicated my findings. It seems that the man responsible for resurrecting the Moriarty organisation has returned to one of the professor’s old haunts; I think I feel like a hot toddy of spiced rum.”
With that we returned to the street and soon hailed a cab. I noted that Pendergast had relieved Baxter as we hopped aboard. We were soon headed to the Green Sailor. Holmes once again resorted to his infuriating habit of talking on esoteric subjects instead of informing me of his plans. This time it was the embalming processes of the ancient Egyptians upon which topic he was planning on writing a monograph. Even if Holmes refused to believe in telepathy, he had inadvertently discovered the perfect technique to divert my psychic abilities!
We soon arrived at the inn and entered. Neither Holmes nor I—fairly well-known figures—were best prepared for an ‘incognito’ arrival without wearing any form of disguise, but the urgency of our mission precluded taking the time to adopt any such measures. Instead, we entered the inn as bold as brass. The barman was the same as on our last visit and he visibly blanched at the sight of us, and fled.
Holmes and I went to the back room that was the subject of our previous visit. I heard a high voice speaking in what might be considered a falsetto as we went down the hallway; I could not make out words but the elevated pitch of the voice carried some distance. There were moments of silence that must have been the responses of the Voice’s companion. As we walked through the door I detected a strange popping or cracking sound.
Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Was Not Page 10
