“And I was correct that the boy is an inveterate dope fiend, as he has overdosed. But on what? Tincture of opium? Laudanum? Morphine? My guess is the latter, but it would take quite a bit to kill a boy with this large a habit.”
“I am no physician…” Douglas began, his tone slightly mocking.
“No, you are not,” Sherlock replied.
“…but the only drug we can rule out for certain is a coca derivative, as that would have raised his heartbeat, not slowed it down to almost nothing.”
“Opium and its derivatives can be smoked or eaten without censure,” Sherlock ruminated. “Why go to the trouble of a syringe, which costs money and is difficult for boys like this to procure? And as to the locations of the injections themselves,” he continued, “it appears I have missed only three on the back of his neck, hidden by his hair, plus two fresh ones on his right triceps.”
“So, he went out to flaunt his new clothes, and someone injected him—” Douglas began.
Sherlock shook his head. “I believe that was the tale he told his brother, if indeed he told it at all. For it sounds more like an eleven-year-old hard pressed for a story. No, he went out to be injected, for his own reasons or someone else’s. He is almost absurdly right-handed. Judging by the left-hand pocket in his jacket and trousers, he does not use his left hand to put so much as a sou in there. The hole in his right triceps is too clean and precise for Charles to have done it himself. Even if he could, why would he? He can easily inject himself in the usual places, such as the crook of the elbow or the biceps, and no one would be bothered by the aesthetics of such an act, much less be the wiser.”
Douglas thought back to the young sailors on the beach, and their own improbable punctures. The two lads and Charles had a handful of things in common: they were small; they had been, or had been around, chimney sweeps; and they were apparently addicted to injectable substances that had been administered in out-of-the-way regions of their bodies. He considered mentioning all of this to Sherlock, but he did not think he could bear his enthusiasm—nay, his unbridled glee—at being on the precipice of a very definite mystery.
Besides, he himself had passed his own precipice: he could no longer keep his eyes open, much less adequately gauge which side of an ethical dilemma to choose, without sustenance and rest.
“Enough for now,” Douglas said, rising. “Let us wait to see what the doctor has to say.”
“The doctor?” Sherlock sneered. “What could the doctor possibly tell us besides ‘drug user’? And what relevance would that hold? No, what is relevant,” he went on as he inspected the punctures on the boy’s triceps with his spider-like fingers, “is who may have been injecting him, and why. Look here,” he said, pointing. “Based on the degree of healing, these older injections have been administered with some regularity; if not day by day, then certainly every few days.”
“You would now be an expert on how long wounds take to heal?” Douglas asked, to which Sherlock replied decidedly:
“Not yet. But I shall be. Sooner rather than later, I’d say. And when Charles ran off, he was wearing new clothing, and was found in same the following evening. Why were they not stolen? He must’ve known they would not be, for he took no precautions, had no weapon or spare set of clothes…”
Douglas had to admit that his first thought when defending Charles from the men in the alley was that they were after his belongings. The streets were such that nothing was safe, certainly not a scrawny lad in a new suit and shoes. That Charles might be somehow inured from such thievery never crossed his mind. But, thinking back on it, George had not been worried about Charles’s physical welfare over the past twenty-four hours, only about their being banished from Nickolus House for Charles’s transgression.
Was he under someone’s protection?
If so, why then had he not been safe from those hooligans? Did they not realize that Charles was not to be molested?
“Then, when we undressed him and put him to bed,” Sherlock was saying, “we found nothing that indicated drug use beyond the holes in his body.”
“What do you mean?” Douglas asked, feeling slightly lightheaded.
“Those rags the boys owned were destroyed for lice,” Sherlock clarified. “Do you not think a drug fiend of his caliber would keep a hypodermic syringe upon his person? And do not bother to tell me that he could have stashed it somewhere. The moment I realized he had left, I carefully inspected every inch where he could have set foot, from bedroom to classroom to bath. I found nothing.”
The young sailors! Douglas thought once again. It never occurred to him to ascertain if one or both had carried a syringe upon their person. Now of course it was too late.
But too late for what? Was he truly being carried away by Sherlock’s imaginings of a great mystery, of a conspiracy involving former or aspiring chimney sweeps?
Just then on the bed, Charles’s shallow but steady breathing became a wheezing rasp. He half sat up and opened his eyes like a trout wrenched from the water and gulping oxygen.
Douglas slipped a hand behind his back. “Easy, lad, easy…”
Charles looked from one to the other with his wide-eyed, drowning gaze and sputtered one word: “Baker.”
He attempted to draw one more breath, then he was gone.
15
AFTER AN EXQUISITE DINNER OF FRESH SQUAB AND MASH, followed by a peaceful night’s sleep, Mycroft sat in his carriage on the way to catch the Special Scotch Express. It was the first morning in a long while that he had felt perfectly well. It was as if a fog in his brain had lifted, and he wondered—not for the first time—if the responsibility of caring for Sherlock somehow contributed to his muddleheaded state.
He picked up the Daily Telegraph and turned to the international news, a segment that Sherlock would never have deigned to peruse, for his brother’s interest in worldly affairs was only slightly more than his interest in cosmology, which was to say none at all.
He bypassed all the news he already knew until he spotted a story whose subject matter he was unaware of: an American by the name of Susan B. Anthony and fifty other women had attempted to cast their vote for U.S. president, whereupon she and several others had been arrested.
He could hear Georgiana’s plaintive tone, its sweet melody in stark contrast to her terrible words: And what of me? Am I to do nothing while former slaves are given more rights in England than I, as a woman, will ever hope to achieve? The right to vote, Mycroft! How long have I been dreaming of that?
At that juncture, she was no longer Georgiana the quintessential English rose, the woman he had sworn to marry, but a specter the color of tombstone.
At that moment the carriage halted abruptly. He heard Huan mutter a few choice words in his Trinidadian patois. Mycroft glanced out the window.
Gliding across the street, with two brawny bodyguards at her heels, was the most beautiful Chinese woman he’d ever seen, though this was damning her with faint praise, as there were but a handful of Chinese women in all of London. No, he amended. She was easily the most beautiful woman of any race that he had ever seen. Her nose was rather elongated but fine, her eyes large and almond-shaped, and the color of tourmaline. Her mouth was small but full, her face a perfect oval. Her ebony hair had been combed into a two-coned chignon, each side interwoven with vivid purple flowers that matched the flowers on her silk skirt, over-blouse and Qing jacket. She was dressed sumptuously but was, Mycroft thought, the sort who would look every bit as regal if she were covered in rags.
As for her two companions, their vocation was rendered clear from their musculature, the way they carried themselves, and their steely glare.
As the woman made her way across the street towards the carriage, Mycroft could not help but gape at her. This was not typical behavior on his part. He had no use for conventional standards of feminine desirability, paragons of soap-tin prettiness with mincing steps and eyes coquettishly downcast. This woman’s gait was delicate yet purposeful, her gaze direct without seemi
ng intrusive.
Early twenties, he thought, upper class Han. The last was clear by her bearing and attire. Yet she walked freely, her feet unbound. As ninety-eight percent of Han women kept the tradition of foot binding, the odds were better that she belonged to the Hakka subset that did not bind, and that emphasized education, even for women.
I can only hope that is what she is, he sighed. For her sake, he added primly.
The woman acknowledged Huan’s kindness at letting her by with a gracious bow of her head. Mycroft gazed at her until she and her bodyguards had passed by his window and disappeared from view. Then he sat stunned and slightly chagrined at his own untoward behavior.
Oh, for pity’s sake, he thought, defending himself against mute accusers, Georgiana has been gone two years! I cannot remain a monk forever!
Finally, he forsook all propriety; as the carriage commenced its journey, he turned to glance out of the opposite window, and saw her enter a herbalist’s shop, her companions following behind, as if her small, perfect silhouette were casting not one but three shadows.
He marveled at the coincidence of the past few days. Not taking into account the passel of Chinese sailors who came and went with the cargo ships, there were little more than two hundred Chinese in the whole of Britain. The odds of Mycroft having seen two upper class Han Chinese in the span of twenty-four hours was absurdly low. And the odds that the two were not in some way related?
Lower still.
Which meant the elegant Chinese woman was very likely linked to the Chinese gentleman of the same caste who had met with Cainborn outside the National Standard Theatre. Mycroft mentally compared her exquisite face to that of the man, as well as their relative age, height, weight, style of movement, and mannerisms. The older man had the same elongated nose, the same large, symmetrical almond shape to his eyes, though his were black. They had the same forehead, though a different chin—hers being a good deal daintier. And they both carried themselves like aristocrats.
Uncle and niece? Perhaps. But father and daughter was the most likely scenario, for their commonalities appeared unadulterated. And what of it? he reprimanded himself irritably. What on earth could any of it have to do with me?
Besides, he could be mistaken about the Chinese population in Britain. He knocked on the trap. “Huan?”
“Mr. Mycroft!”
Mycroft grimaced. “I believe there to be only some two hundred Chinese in the whole of Britain,” he said. “Does that ring true?”
“I do not know,” Huan said. “But it is a small number. All my Chinese friends here know each other. The girl was beautiful, no?”
“Beautiful, yes,” Mycroft responded rather crossly. “But she has nothing whatever to do with us.”
“True,” Huan responded. “Though to see two Han Chinese in two days, that is many, no? It is the Year of the Water Monkey. We are apt to see many tricks, many tricks,” Huan concluded ominously before shutting the trap again.
Tricks or no, the further the herbalist’s shop receded, the more Mycroft’s anxiety grew. A touch of curiosity about this strangest of coincidences was surely healthy and worth pursuing, was it not?
“Huan?” he called, opening the trap. “Turn back!”
“Turning, Mr. Mycroft!” Huan called out gaily.
16
MYCROFT ENTERED THE TINY SHOP, SQUEEZING PAST THE two bodyguards, who stood on either side of the door. On the far wall, in floor-to-ceiling wooden shelving behind glass apertures, was an array of remedies and potions in multicolored bottles, from butternut and carnelian to jade and deep-water blue. Below were dozens and dozens of small wooden drawers with shiny copper pulls, each herb therein carefully labeled.
The Chinese woman stood at the counter, her back to Mycroft. She was turning the pages of a large book faded with age and wear, while an older man—perhaps the owner of the establishment—waited patiently to assist her, his sparse blond hair slicked back with pomade, the skin on his face and neck as soft as a baby’s; a testament to his wares, Mycroft assumed.
As Mycroft approached the counter, the woman ran her finger down a page, paused a moment, and then closed the book.
He eyed the spine and cover. Though its characters were Chinese, its title was written out phonetically in the Latin alphabet: Shen-nung Pen Ts’ao Ching.
“Ma huang,” the woman said. “Twelve ounces please, and twelve ounces of monkshood. And a small bag of aniseed.”
She had a slight accent. Her voice was melodious but lower than Mycroft had expected: a mezzo, as opposed to a soprano.
“Oh, and Marrubium vulgare, three bunches,” she said, pointing towards a drawer of herbs while holding her little finger slightly aloft.
“No paregoric?” the herbalist asked.
“No,” she said, her tone firm.
“You might try natrii calcii edetas,” Mycroft suggested.
She turned towards him with a start, as did the man.
“Calcium disodium edetate?” he translated. “Why would Madame wish for that?”
“It serves as an antidote for arsenic,” Mycroft said, looking directly at the woman. The moment he did so, he noticed in his peripheral vision her bodyguards making a move towards him.
She raised her hand and halted them midstride. It was an impressive display of power and restraint, and it made Mycroft so giddy that he nearly laughed aloud.
“And what makes you believe I need an antidote for arsenic?” she said evenly, betraying the smallest smile that told him he was on the right track.
“The page you were on,” he replied, nodding at the tome on the counter, “concerned bronchial distress.”
“Ah, so you read Mandarin,” she said as if it were a statement of fact.
“No,” he admitted. “But I recognize inflamed bronchi when I see an illustration.”
Her smile was now full, and it was glorious. “Stunning, are they not?” she said. “The illustrations. I have studied this book since I was a child, yet they never fail to impress me. Still, it seems a leap from ma huang, anise, horehound, and inflamed bronchi to arsenic poisoning.”
“It would seem so, yes. But there is a dye that clothiers and artificial-flower makers use to create a brilliant green hue,” he continued, daring to draw a bit closer, the tension in the room rising even as he did so. Mycroft was temporarily distracted by her scent. Though subtle, he could still pick up hints of lavender, chamomile, and Marseilles soap, with its mixture of olive oil, sea salt and ash.
“Unfortunately,” he continued, pulling himself together, “in order to achieve it, one must mix copper and arsenic trioxide, or white arsenic, a highly toxic cocktail. Much has been written on it of late. You must be familiar with it, for you carry a small green stain of it on the little finger of your right hand.”
She lifted her finger to see, her expression part wonder, part horror. The herbalist quickly drizzled calendula oil onto a ball of cotton wool and passed it to her.
“Ah,” she said as she rubbed off the telltale mark. “And, as you realize that I am neither a clothier nor a maker of artificial flowers, you assume I am here to seek a remedy for one thus afflicted. And so I am, for it is a gruesome way to die,” she concluded, placing the soiled cotton ball back on the counter with a nod of thanks to the shopkeeper. “But since it is bad form for women to study medicine, and an abomination if one is not only female but Chinese, I pray you let this be our little secret, Mr.…”
“Holmes,” Mycroft replied, doffing his hat with a slight bow.
Her eyes opened wide. “Holmes?” she repeated. “Are you perchance related to a Sherlock Holmes?”
“He… he is my brother,” Mycroft said, truly thrown.
“Oh, but I have been hearing that name for months!” she said with enthusiasm. “Sherlock Holmes! He is quite the adept fighter, is he not? A boxer, I believe?”
“Yes, he is, but—”
“My younger brother Dai en-Lai is at Cambridge at Downing, and has seen him in combat with his friends! H
e is all in awe. Dai brings me home medical journals, which I devour, and risks the wrath of our father to do so!
“I am Ai Lin,” she said, extending her hand. “I should like to extend to you and Master Sherlock an invitation to dinner next Wednesday. I would consider it an honor, and a proper recompense from me to my brother, were you to accept!”
When no answer was forthcoming but Mycroft had not released her hand, she laughed lightly. “Mr. Holmes, I seem to have caught you at a loss for words. Forgive me, my family often comment on my impulsivity, and not in flattering terms. I realize a ‘proper’ dinner party requires more notice than one week—”
“No, no, no, it is quite all right,” Mycroft managed to stutter, letting go of her hand and recovering his wits. “I would be more than pleased to accept on our behalf.”
“Wonderful!” she exclaimed, smiling. “We are confirmed, then!”
“Though, due to my post in government,” he improvised, “I fear I must be accompanied by a bodyguard.”
“As you can see, we have no shortage of those,” Ai Lin replied wryly. “By all means. We shall provide sustenance to anyone you care to bring.”
The door opened, and Huan peered inside.
“Mr. Mycroft?” he said. “You are to catch a train, yes?”
“Yes, Huan, I am coming,” Mycroft replied. He handed Ai Lin his calling card.
“Mr. Mycroft Holmes,” she declared staring down at it, and then at him. “I shall follow up with a more formal invitation and look forward to seeing you on Wednesday!”
Mycroft turned and walked out in a daze, past the burly guards with their steel-eyed glares and through the door that Huan was thankfully holding open for him, else he might have blundered directly through the glass.
17
ON THURSDAY MORNING, CHARLES FOWLER LAY ON THE third floor, dead; on the floors below him, gossip was running rampant, threatening to burst through the walls and spill out into the narrow, twisted streets of the Devil’s Acre.
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