Mycroft and Sherlock

by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

  “My fault entirely; I should have given them leave to do so,” Sherlock lied quickly. For of course McPeel’s run had led to The Water Monkey. “In their defense, they are quite obedient. Next time, I shall give them leave to follow a trail where it leads.”

  “Next time?” Mycroft repeated. “No, no, you misunderstand. Not only is Douglas no doubt livid that you involved his charges, but your involvement, if there is to be any, must be severely curtailed.”

  Normally, Sherlock would have argued, but he managed to hold his tongue.

  “As for the symbols,” Mycroft said, “nearly a third of sailors on trading ships and a number of dock workers are Chinese. Douglas has acquaintances among them who might acquiesce to translate, provided the symbols are in a major dialect and not too terribly ancient…”

  “Perfect!”

  “Not so perfect, no, for a translator would have to assume whatever risk such revelations might generate, for it seems someone went to a great deal of trouble to keep this list a secret.”

  “Stating the obvious,” Sherlock countered, “why not Huan?”

  Mycroft shook his head. “Sadly, Huan can neither read nor write—not in Chinese, or in English. Both Douglas and I have offered to teach him, but he says that in his profession, he has no need of it.”

  Sherlock recalled the wistfulness in Huan’s voice when he’d said, I envy you your learning, Master Sherlock.

  “However,” Mycroft went on, “I am not clear as to why you did not investigate the stations before Baker Street—Great Portland Street, King’s Cross, et cetera—to ascertain that there were no clues there.”

  “Time,” Sherlock explained. “I had none. I knew that whoever was waiting at Mansion House would not wait forever. Then, when I found all fifteen symbols, I assumed that was it.”

  “And the carvings themselves?” Mycroft asked. “Were they uniform?”

  “Yes, up until St. James’s Park,” Sherlock said. “From there to Blackfriars, they were lighter, finer. The symbols appeared to be etched by a more delicate hand.”

  “A woman’s?” Mycroft ventured.

  Sherlock shook his head. “The location of the symbols disallows that. A woman would call entirely too much attention to herself.”

  “A woman dressed as a man, perhaps,” Mycroft suggested.

  Sherlock was ashamed to note that the thought had never crossed his mind. “What of the latest murder?” he asked, hoping to glean just enough information from his brother without having to reveal any of his own. “In the others, beyond quartering the body and cutting off the nose, the killers—for surely such an endeavor requires more than one—seemed rather fixated on draining the corpse of blood, and on excising the genitals.”

  “You are asking my opinion?” Mycroft was surprised.

  “Well, no need to bloviate,” Sherlock replied. “But it does seem ritualistic, and they are most definitely Oriental. And are you not always keen to acquaint yourself with rituals and customs, given the whole—” he waved his hand as if shooing a fly “—assistant to the War Office aspect?”

  “Special consul to the Secretary of State for War,” Mycroft corrected. “And yes, there is a reason. It is a Chinese way of shaming a man in death.”

  “Ah, because murdering the poor beggar in the first place is not shame enough?” Sherlock quipped.

  “In Yì,” Mycroft began, apparently ignoring this last, “the nose is severed. In Gōng, the reproductive organs are removed. There is also Mò, where the face is tattooed with indelible ink; and Yuè, where a foot is cut off, sometimes both.”

  “What you are saying is that thus far, the killers selected Yì and Gōng,” Sherlock interjected. “But could they not have decided, on this go round, to choose only Yì?”

  “Yes, they could have. But once the victim has been defiled, the ritual is not ended. He is then boiled alive, beheaded, strangled, slowly sliced to death, or quartered. If quartered, the blood is drained.”

  “Always?”

  “Always. Which is something you might know for yourself, if you were remotely curious about anything beyond our own shores,” Mycroft concluded.

  “I am not as provincial as all that,” Sherlock objected. “But what is your conjecture? That they murdered the latest victim in this manner solely because they knew it would make the papers?”

  “The others certainly made the papers! No, what I mean is, this latest murder seems to have been performed in haste—as if riding the coattails, as it were, of the previous murders. Of course, if one evaluates what it takes to kill and quarter a man, give the blood time to drain, then transport it in sections to a different location altogether, this one was sloppy to a fault,” Mycroft replied. “And, although I am all but certain the same butcher was used, it was not intended to impart a message primarily to the Chinese community.”

  “What of the seafaring community?” Sherlock mused. “If many are Chinese…”

  “My thought as well,” Mycroft said. “Where else do Chinese intermingle freely with whites but at the docks, and aboard ship? These latest murders may be meant to warn those white sailors who would understand via such a display that the perpetrators mean business, and that Caucasians are not exempt from punishment.”

  Sherlock bit his tongue to stop himself from recounting the similarities between the man who lay dead in the street, his nose amputated, his body in quarters, and the scoundrel who had assailed him when he and Douglas found Charles. Or The Water Monkey where Charles once worked, and the blood he noticed on Juju’s costly shoe.

  But he could not. For, among other reasons, Juju had seen the marks on Sherlock’s arm—and that was the last thing he wished to explain to Mycroft.

  29

  AFTER A VISIT TO HIS TAILOR ON JERMYN STREET TO RID his brother of his vile garments, Mycroft sat across from Sherlock in the carriage, contemplating his next move. He had to be cautious: the last thing he wished was to further entice him. Not that Sherlock needed enticement, for he was a thoroughbred at the starting line. One way or the other, he would clamber his way onto the track.

  Best to control his involvement, Mycroft thought, to give him assignments that will keep him busy but out of harm’s way.

  To this end, he gave Sherlock an account of his visit to Beeton the sweep and to Madame de Matalin but omitted the meeting that he’d witnessed between Cainborn and the Chinese gentleman, or the three-time appearance of the yellow landaulet.

  And, he said nothing for the moment about the calling cards or the name William Angel.

  “Now. You will spend the next several days with the Quinces, perfecting your Latin—after which you will present me with a fit oration. In exchange, I shall persuade Douglas to accompany you on a hunt for a proper translator, perhaps as soon as Monday morning.”

  “Fair deal!” Sherlock grinned.

  “But, the moment you are lax in your studies,” Mycroft warned, “all this ‘sleuthing’ ceases immediately. Are we clear?”

  “Why ever do you say ‘sleuthing’ as if you were handling week-old liver?” his brother asked, a smile lighting up his very nearly handsome face. “Do you despise it as much as all that?”

  “Yes.”

  Sherlock leaned over and opened the trap. “Huan?” he called.

  “Yes, Master Sherlock!” came the reply, Huan’s voice battling to carry over the wind’s caterwauling, for it was a blustery day.

  “Would you happen to know what shòu-shòu means?”

  “Of course!” Huan replied jovially. “We say it in Port of Spain! Means thin-thin!”

  “Wherever did you hear that phrase?” Mycroft asked his brother.

  “A coolie with a rucksack spit it my way,” Sherlock said, shutting the trap. “I am fairly certain it was not meant as a compliment; nevertheless, I was curious.”

  Thin-thin, Mycroft thought, frowning. Well, Sherlock is certainly that.

  But again, something was not right. A random insult from a stranger would not ruffle Sherlock’s feathers in t
he least; he had been teased unmercifully by classmates as a child, for he did nothing to try to fit in with the crowd. And though he could still recall each raillery with painful precision, he was very nearly inured against verbal torment.

  No, Sherlock had brought it up for a reason. He was continuing to keep a secret or three, Mycroft could have sworn to it. But at the moment, there was nothing he could do. Best to see how it all played out.

  “Now. What say we try to locate that quilted bag, eh?” Mycroft asked, and Sherlock’s smile grew even brighter.

  * * *

  Huan stopped the carriage at the crumbling building the color of pitch that Sherlock had recalled perfectly. Since it was not yet dark, there was no sleeping rag-and-bone man to block the door to the small warehouse. When Mycroft opened it, its hinges squealed like a piglet chasing after its mother. With Huan acting as bodyguard in case of mischief, they entered.

  The room beyond was as George had described: a miserable hole infested with vermin but sound enough to impede wind and rain. The ancient newspapers that the boys had used as bedding were scattered about, and beside an old bucket, which most likely served as a makeshift latrine, was the quilted bag they sought.

  Sherlock snatched it up and felt inside, but it was empty. He counted the compartments within: twenty, and arranged in circles. This made it cumbersome to place the symbols therein in some particular order, though it could not yet be discounted.

  Prize in hand, he and Mycroft returned to the carriage. Mycroft frowned at the quilted bag on the seat beside Sherlock.

  “Why did Charles not take the bag with him?” Mycroft asked. “He could have slipped it underneath his jacket. Why bother to stash it here? And why, when Douglas interviewed him at Nickolus House, did he say that he was ‘saving up’ for a good used watch? Gin was paying him something. Else, why do it? And used watches are not so dear that he could not have purchased one by now.”

  “Unless he was using the money to procure his own drugs,” Sherlock said.

  “Did you not say that the lashes on Charles’s back, and on his brother’s, were approximately of the same ‘vintage,’ as it were? Perhaps he was giving Beeton money to stop hurting George,” Mycroft posited.

  “It was Madame de Matalin who sent the boys to Nickolus House and who had offered to pay for their room and board there. But how did she learn of the boys to begin with?” Sherlock wondered. “It’s a bit much to think that, since they were both drug addicts, they knew each other. If that were the case, the good Madame would be acquainted with a third of London!”

  “Exaggeration to make a point is not helpful in this case, Sherlock,” Mycroft said. “So to summarize, it may be that Charles himself was protected from Beeton by his employer, but George was not, and so Beeton had to be paid off with his earnings. At some point, Charles must’ve grown weary of the arrangement. Perhaps he asked Madame de Matalin for assistance…”

  “…and de Matalin contacted Nickolus House,” Sherlock concluded, “providing both boys with a way out.”

  Sherlock mulled over this newest information. The pockmarked boy that Mycroft and Douglas had seen hurrying away from Beeton’s was possibly the same lad who went to inform Gin of Charles’s demise, thereby unknowingly leading McPeel and Ducasse to The Water Monkey.

  And Madame de Matalin’s could have been Charles’s destination, and where Sherlock himself might go, if Juju saw fit to employ him.

  Thin-thin, Juju’s rotund henchman had called him.

  A compliment perfect for the work at hand, if Sherlock’s suppositions proved accurate.

  30

  SCOTTISH SURGEON JOSEPH BELL WAS TEN YEARS OLDER than Mycroft, yet he seemed to him infinitely wiser as he listened to Mycroft’s heart, paused a moment, then listened again.

  “Inherited susceptibility,” Bell muttered, which struck Mycroft as ironic, given the circumstances.

  “I have been under pressure lately,” he ventured, “that can certainly be labeled ‘inherited.’ My brother Sherlock is often more than I can manage…”

  It was a joke, and a weak one at that. But there were not even signs of polite amusement on Bell’s face. He simply lifted the cold stethoscope from Mycroft’s chest and bid him wait a moment before putting his shirt back on.

  Bell had a military bearing, a high forehead, a strong jawline, and features that just skirted handsomeness, given a slightly hooked nose. And although his light-colored eyes were kind, he was rather inscrutable, even for a formidable appraiser like Mycroft Holmes. He suspected that Bell had taken some pains to become so, most likely as protection against nosy patients.

  “Is there something the matter with my heart?” Mycroft asked pointedly.

  Dr. Bell removed his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He took Mycroft’s pulse, as he had already done a half-dozen times, dropped Mycroft’s arm, waited five seconds, then lifted it once more.

  “What is this about?” Mycroft inquired, unnerved.

  “The pulse. It has twelve variables of rhythm, each one distinct, each forecasting a different outcome. And yes,” he said as he pressed his thumb into Mycroft’s wrist before releasing it one last time. “There is something wrong with your heart.”

  Mycroft thought back to the physical examination he’d endured a few years previous with the Methuselah of doctors, “physician to Prince Albert” Sir James Clark, and what Clark had said upon examining his heart: Not a pleasant sound at all—like water sloshing in there, Mr. Holmes.

  Was it within the realm of the feasible that both he and Douglas suffered from some ailment of the heart? Douglas due to those small but potent bullets lodged nearby, and he from… he had no notion. In any event, Bell was taking a Saturday morning not only to discuss Charles Fowler, but also to put Mycroft under the stethoscope. For it was Bell who had commanded him to lie down the moment he’d laid eyes on him.

  “With the stethoscope, I hear what is called a ‘friction rub,’ lower left sternal border,” Bell was saying in his light Scottish brogue. “From other sounds, as well as symptoms you have mentioned and I’ve observed, including the slight swelling in your feet, the left ventricle of your heart is enlarged, and you have a murmur. The murmur is light and intermittent, yet it is there all the same, rather stubbornly so. Childhood illnesses?”

  “Rheumatic fever, aged three,” Mycroft replied.

  “Ah. Well then, these issues have likely been present for many years, nothing to do about it. Unfortunately, the already weakened muscle has been badly compromised.”

  “By what? A poison of some kind?” Mycroft blurted out.

  “Poison?” Dr. Bell responded, eyes widening. “Whatever gave you that idea? No. A bout of untreated malaria.”

  Mycroft was speechless. He looked around the examination room in which he sat, trying to collect his thoughts. There were but two chairs, one for the patient and one for Bell, and a clean white counter upon which rested the most basic physicians’ implements: a microscope, a thermometer, an ophthalmoscope, a kymograph, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, carbolic acid, and an assortment of unguents and astringents.

  The counter also held a handful of books: among which was the one Mycroft had seen at the chemist’s, the Shen-nung Pen Ts’ao Ching.

  Mycroft latched upon it so as to focus his floundering brain. “What do you think of that?” he inquired.

  “Well, roughly translated it is ‘Divine Husbandman’s Materia Medica,’” Dr. Bell replied. “A foundational book for Chinese medicine, from what I glean.”

  “And do you? Glean from it?” Mycroft asked.

  “Not a word,” Bell admitted. “But I find it fascinating nonetheless. Since I am in London but a few days a month, I share the facilities with four other physicians, one of whom speaks a bit of Mandarin. As he explained it, there are three hundred and sixty-five treatments, with an emphasis on grass and roots, some of which we use with great success in our own medicine. You’ve been to the tropics, I take it?” he said, returning to the unpleasant subjec
t at hand.

  “Yes,” Mycroft stuttered, despising the sudden tremor in his voice. “Trinidad, two years ago.”

  “Ah.”

  Dr. Bell examined Mycroft’s eyes, stretching each one open with a thumb and forefinger. “Well,” he said at last. “No signs of gaze palsy or cerebral malaria.” He prepared a hypodermic and inserted it into Mycroft’s arm.

  “Before you left for Trinidad, were you not given an antimalarial drug?” he asked as he drew blood. “They are absurdly easy to procure. There,” he said upon completion. “Now you may put on your shirt.”

  Mycroft shamefacedly recalled that Sir James Clark had offered it, but that he had declined, thinking it the precautions of a doddering relic.

  “And for the past two years you have had symptoms,” Dr. Bell scolded. “You told me so yourself. Did they not warn you that something was amiss?”

  “I chalked it up to general fatigue.”

  “No such thing,” Dr. Bell said. “The enlargement and the murmur—those, you could not help. But this newest damage is of your own doing.”

  “Is it too late to repent?” Mycroft asked, trying to make light of a bad situation. But when Dr. Bell said nothing, he added peevishly: “I would say that a blood-sucker had something to do with it, so there is blame enough to go around. In any event, what can be done about it now?”

  “Now? Now there is nothing to do. Not until we discover ways of repairing the heart muscle without destroying the patient. No, though the infection might depart, the damage has been done. To tax your heart at all is suicide.”

  “What do you suggest? That I wait to die?” Mycroft asked, hoping he did not sound as nonplussed as he felt.

  “We are all waiting to die, Mr. Holmes. Except for the dead, of course. Their wait is over. Speaking of which, you came here to find out about young Charles Fowler, did you not?”