“I am all ears, Your Majesty.”
“All in good time, Mr. Holmes. We are always glad for intelligent company and shall not let you go so soon as all that.”
She planted herself into a tufted chair while motioning that he should do the same.
“Although you placed us in quite the precarious position some small time back, pitting us against our own cousin, not to mention half of Parliament, with the reforms you and Mr. Cardwell requested.”
“Your Majesty signed them into law,” Mycroft reminded her with a smile.
“Only because we recalled a small but pertinent favor you did for us at Ascot, one that you are much too well bred to ever bring up again,” she murmured.
“I cannot recall it for the life of me, ma’am,” Mycroft replied.
The Queen leaned in, appraising him, while he quietly appraised her.
Favors right arm. Still suffers the after-effects of quinsy a year ago. Nails unkempt: has no patience for allowing herself to be groomed. Picks nervously at cuticles of right thumb. Grief still dulls her countenance, draws black circles under her eyes. Teeth worn at the edges, grinds them in her sleep…
“You are a fine-looking specimen, Mycroft Holmes,” the Queen said. “What age might you be now?”
“Twenty-six, ma’am.”
“A very good age. We were quite happy at twenty-six. We’d had four, no, five children by then,” she mused. “Bertie, our second, is five years your senior but with not a third your wisdom. And handsome we cannot think him, with that painfully small and narrow head, those immense features and total want of chin. And yet, he has no lack of pliable women. As no doubt, you have. Falling at your feet, we take it?”
Mycroft laughed sadly. “If so, I have all but leapt over them…”
“Ah. You do not notice women, then?” she asked, amused.
“I notice falling in love. And when I do, I fear that one woman possesses my every thought.”
“Well said. In that, we are birds of a feather. We must say that we prefer you unattached, as it allows you to be more available to us, should we desire it.”
The Queen had hit a painful bull’s-eye. Mycroft drew in a breath.
“Now to the topic at hand,” the Queen said, either unaware or unconcerned. “Scotland and England are to play the first recognized international football match in history. And while we are forced to put a good face on it, it is ghastly news, occurring at a time of fierce animosity between our two lands. One extra point on either side could spark a national riot. We cannot have it, Mr. Holmes.”
Mycroft wondered if he had heard correctly. A football match?
“I see the dilemma, ma’am,” he said, “but surely you are not asking me to halt the match!”
“I wish you to arrange it so that no one will win.”
Mycroft was stumped. It was one thing to provide a team with an advantage, as he had for the Cambridge crew a few years before; quite another to ensure a zero-sum game!
“The match is on Saturday,” the Queen added. “Today is but Tuesday—surely you have time to think up something by then? Or have we perhaps been mistaken about the prowess of the great Mycroft Holmes?”
“Your confidence is gratifying,” Mycroft replied, and the Queen rang a bell by her side. A mere blur of seconds later, one of the lord steward’s men entered, a blank-faced assistant whose impeccable uniform boasted more personality than he did. He bowed to the Queen and presented her with a cloth folder tied in black ribbon. A barely perceptible nod of her head, and he disappeared again.
“Here you are,” she said to Mycroft. “If you’ve need of more, simply inform our secretary, and he shall oblige you.”
Mycroft opened the folder and peered inside, all the while feeling her keen blue gaze on him. It contained, among other things, a roster of prospective players.
“Ma’am,” he said a moment later. “I can neither coerce nor cajole grown men into abstaining from competition. But perhaps Your Majesty could assist.”
“We would not know where to begin,” the Queen grumbled. “If we did, we would not need you.”
“You begin with Scotland, for it is the stronger team. It would serve us well if Your Majesty could persuade Arthur Kinnaird of the Wanderers to make himself unavailable. Also,” he went on before she could object, “Henry Renny-Tailyour.”
“Scotland may be ours,” she replied, “but the Scottish are a notoriously stubborn, entrenched people…”
“Perhaps your servant John Brown might be of use,” Mycroft suggested, “as he is beloved north of the border. But regardless, may I remind Your Majesty that Arthur Kinnaird’s father has a seat in the House of Lords. I am certain you shall have no lack of sway with him, even without Mr. Brown’s charismatic appeal. As for Renny-Tailyour, he is a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers and so might appreciate the wisdom of remaining at home for one day.”
“I see,” the Queen said. “Two changes on the Scotland side. What of England? Shall we do nothing with her?”
“No, ma’am. Charles Alcock is already hobbled by an injury. I have in mind one small adjustment that should balance the scales quite adequately.”
“And what would that adjustment entail?”
“If Your Majesty can do her part,” he responded, smiling, “I shall do mine. But if I may be permitted…”
Mycroft leaned forward, intent on using wisdom as well as charm to communicate his next point: “I have pored over the economic forecasts and financial ledgers of 1868, 1862 and 1858 for guidance as to what is to come economically—”
“You have means, Mr. Holmes, but you are not an economist,” the Queen said, interrupting him.
“No, ma’am. And yet, I know what I see. Within a year, prices shall plummet as much as forty percent. Shipbuilding and engineering—metal industries, in fact—will suffer terrible unemployment. Raw wool, cotton, wheat, tea, meat, beer and tobacco should be safe enough. But our investment in steel, those infinite railroads…”
The Queen’s eyes grew hard. “No one else thinks so.”
“You have been given predictions of milder weather, but they are wrong, do you see?” Mycroft said.
It was as if he had fired a shot across the bow. The Queen rose abruptly. “Thank you, that is all.”
Mycroft rose, bowed, and kissed her hand.
Busy work! he thought furiously as he watched her go. That is what I have been given!
Nevertheless, he had an assignment, and he would perform it to his utmost.
If everything went according to plan—for he had already concocted one—he could be to Scotland and back within twenty-four hours.
11
BY THE TIME DOUGLAS ARRIVED IN DORSET, NIGHT HAD descended: a terrible time to discern loss of goods, especially if complicated by loss of life. At the station to meet him was an old square-jawed, square-headed salt by the name of Paleen whose days of sailing were well behind him. He now occasionally drove a cart for hire between the train station and the beach. Weather had twisted his hands and gouged wrinkles deep into his ancient face.
Douglas smiled when he saw him, for it had been some years since he had seen him last, and he well remembered that Paleen’s natural scowl masked a friendly and honorable soul.
“Wot’s the damage, Cyrus?” Paleen asked as Douglas took a seat beside him in the cart.
“Don’t know as of yet,” Douglas said. “The telegram contained only the bare facts. But gales and fog alone could not have brought her aground…”
“No indeed,” Paleen agreed. “She come up through the Channel in fine fettle, but rumor has it Cap’n Hunter be thinking she’s bound for Portland Roads when all along she’s makin’ fer Chesil.”
“Wrong calculations, then,” Douglas said, nodding. “And in the fog, he would not have gleaned that until it was too late.”
Paleen nodded. “People on shore knowed she was in trouble. She burnt a blue light, but the sea was aboil; we could bare make ’er out past the flying scud. She drifted broa
dside, her anchors about as useful as a bone to a toothless dog, no ground to clamp onto, so she heaved and rolled. We lighted a tar barrel, worked through the night to save them poor souls aboard, but she split right in two afore our eyes.”
Paleen swallowed hard, removed his cap, and dug his fingers through white hair as sparse as cobwebs while his other hand manned the reins.
“We were pullin’ two to shore in a cradle when the rope brake. The surf swallowed ’em whole and they were seen no more.” Paleen put his cap back on his head and went on in a monotone. “We got the second line up an’ runnin’, but now the poor souls on deck, women and children most of ’em, is cryin’ to be saved while the ship splinters to bits and sheets of water careens over ’em. We gets the basket to workin’. A father with two children is beggin’ for someone to take ’em, but a woman in the basket says, ‘No indeed, I will take no one’s child!’ Milk of human kindness in that one!” Paleen exclaimed.
“How many deaths in all?” Douglas asked.
“Six we know of: two crew, four passengers. And four more on the shore.”
“What do you mean, four on the shore?”
“The Royal Adelaide begun to disgorge her cargo of boxes and casks through her riven side. Four crewmen, they comes in safe but finds three bottles a whiskey washed up ashore; greedy cusses go and hide on the cliff, drinks ’em to the dregs, then pass out like happy sots. In the morning there they is, froze to death. Two of ’em local lads.”
“May God have mercy upon their souls,” Douglas said softly.
He did wonder, though, if the four had really died of exposure or something else. Deaths of crew at sea, or even ashore, needed careful investigation. Within the confines of a ship, an infectious disease could be fatal for all aboard.
Still, the first order of business was to salvage what he could. The thought of failing Nickolus House, and the memory of his dead son, was too much to bear.
* * *
Douglas presented himself to the coast guards and the soldiers of the 77th Regiment, and his request to recoup whatever he could was granted with weary consent.
Troops had been out in force through the day, but there was no stopping the rapacious and hollow-eyed humanity intent to haul off whatever their arms and skirts and pockets and kerchiefs could carry. All the law could do was to make its presence known, so that the people’s assault on the ship would not mutate into an assault on each other.
Douglas and Paleen converted a few burly but good-natured marauders into well-paid workers, and together they pulled onto dry ground every floating crate and cask that they could find. Freezing-cold water helped to keep all but the most intrepid freebooters at bay. The few valiant thieves who did attempt to wrest a precious crate from Douglas’s grasp quickly found themselves underwater, with a long, dexterous foot bracing their necks until their panicked and flapping hands assured Douglas of their noblest intentions towards him and his goods from that point on.
And all the while, he prayed that the bullets in his chest would stay lodged where they were one more time.
* * *
By Wednesday dawn, Douglas and his makeshift crew were done, and he was stunned to realize that nearly seventy percent of his cargo had been salvaged. It would be transported back to Regent Tobaccos to be shipped out again at a future date.
Relieved and feeling undeservedly blessed, Douglas’s thoughts turned again to the four sailors whose lives had been cut short at the height of their merrymaking, thanks to his whiskey. In the chaos, their bodies had not yet been removed but had been left where they’d died on a cliff overlooking the sea, covered with tarpaulins.
Douglas made his way to the bodies and removed the tarps. All four had been dead a day, most likely perishing at first light, which often proved more chilling than even the darkest point of night. One of the men, a boy in fact, with long reddish-blond hair and a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of his nose, still clenched an empty bottle of Irish whiskey in his right fist. Rigor mortis had cleaved boy and bottle together, and the freezing temperatures had made certain that he would not loosen that grip anytime soon.
Douglas, from his several decades aboard ship, was long practiced at deducing seaborne diseases of various kinds. He inspected the four men carefully for signs of infection. On the older two sailors, he found nothing. But the younger two, small and slender, whose age he estimated to be seventeen to nineteen, had what at first appeared to be insect bites. Upon closer scrutiny he realized that the bites were in actuality tiny holes made with a needle, along both arms, as well as between their fingers and toes, and even on the fleshy part of their triceps.
“I knowed these two,” Paleen muttered by way of explanation, pointing to the young sailors. “Cuckney and Le Bone. So small, they was. And smaller still in death.”
Douglas stated the obvious, though he framed it as a question. “Drug users?”
Paleen brought the light of his lantern closer, dropped to his knees and squinted. “Looks like it,” he said gruffly. “But then, I don’t know many seamen that ain’t. You be cold and wet long enuff…”
“Had they been at sea for long?” Douglas asked. It was another obvious question, as he did not see the calluses of long months aboard ship.
“New hires both,” Paleen confirmed. “First time out, I’d say.”
And made it all of one hundred forty-four nautical miles, Douglas thought to himself, only to die close to home.
“But if they were local boys,” he asked, “why have their families not come to claim them?”
“They ain’t got none,” Paleen said. “Bitty as they are, they went to the city and tried their ’ands at chimneyin’, but they was already too up in years…”
Douglas picked up the hand of the boy still clutching the bottle and turned it so that the underside of the arm was visible. “Some of these injections,” he said, “could not have been self-administered. He holds the bottle in his right hand, so he was right-handed, and yet the injections are here, in his right wrist.”
Paleen grunted as if to say this was out of his frame of knowledge, nor did he care to pursue it.
Douglas sighed. “Could be that they injected each other,” he said almost to himself, “but if so, why on the wrist? It seems a peculiar spot…”
“Cursed from birth, they was,” Paleen concluded, wiping sand off his knees as Douglas pulled the tarpaulins back over the dead.
As the two men walked back to the cart, Douglas noticed a barefoot little girl protectively hugging a child-sized, sodden bisque doll, hurrying her treasure away lest anyone tell her no. It was a strange sight. To his knowledge, bisque dolls hailed from France and Germany and were therefore not the typical cargo of the Royal Adelaide, which did not make stops at ports in either country.
It must’ve belonged to a passenger’s child, he mused.
Moments later, another discovery: long blond hair lulling like seaweed on the waves near the shore. Inebriated with chill and weariness, Douglas waded in. But instead of a child in distress, he pulled up a second doll, the space between its glass eyes and their sockets streaming with water. Within minutes, he was surrounded by six more: redheads, brunettes, blonds, their cloth bodies sodden, the hollow porcelain of their heads, hands and feet keeping them more or less afloat for a moment or two, before they sank under the waves again.
For a reason he could in no way discern, the vision of those sinking dolls, and two human beings barely into manhood dead underneath a tarpaulin, began to merge into the most disturbing image. As if a great evil were suddenly laying its cold and impenetrable blanket upon his little corner of the earth.
By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes…
Enough, Douglas! he told himself as he made his way back out of the water. The second witch in Macbeth was certainly not referring to hypodermic needles!
12
BY EARLY EVENING, DOUGLAS HAD RETURNED TO NICKOLUS House. He had not yet bathed, had barely eaten, and his feet had not
been dry for the last twenty-four hours. All he wanted was to remove his stinking boots and take a seat in the kitchen, where a nice cup of tea and a handful of biscuits to dip therein would set the world to rights.
Alas, he was still in the hall hanging up his coat and hat when Mr. Capps approached him. “Mr. Douglas,” he said, hissing the first word.
Douglas turned, smiling wanly. He was about to say good evening and go about his business when he realized that Capps was distraught.
“The lad you left in charge of the tutelage? The brother of your friend Mr. Holmes, the one who was to teach the boys mathematics…?”
“Yes, Mr. Capps, I am aware of him. Did he not do as I asked?”
“Why, he most certainly did!” Capps cried. “And left the boys bleeding and battered!”
Douglas stared at him, praying he had heard incorrectly. “What are you saying?”
“Battered! Battered!” Capps insisted.
“Steady, Mr. Capps. How do you know this?”
“Seen it with my own two eyes!” Capps exclaimed, his proper grammar evaporating with his equanimity. “This afternoon, I noticed that the boys were at their desks a good quarter-hour before class was to begin, scrubbed and eager. I had never seen them so enthused before, so I assumed they were in good hands. I left to go to the post office and when I came back, there they were, filing out to their work assignments, half of them sporting fresh nicks and bruises! And poor Alvey missing half an eyetooth!”
Douglas realized his arm was still raised to the coat hook. He dropped it to his side, hoping the blood would rush back up into his brain, where he obviously needed it most.
“Were the boys upset?” he asked.
“Upset!” Capps sputtered indignantly. “They were happy as larks!”
Douglas was not following any of this. He drew a breath and tried again: “Did you speak to them? What did they say?”
“Well of course I spoke to them! I demanded they tell me all that had transpired, but they refused to utter a word against him! Said they got the bruises elsewhere!”
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