by Andrew Lane
‘You memorized it,’ Sherlock pointed out.
‘Yes,’ Mycroft said, surprised, ‘but I am Mycroft Holmes.’
‘Let’s cut to the chase,’ Crowe interrupted. ‘What’s the outcome if the sale of Alaska to the USA falls through and Spain get it? Why should we care?’
‘It destabilizes the region,’ Mycroft said simply. ‘Canada is a new and fragile country. France already has a strong influence in the Quebec region and Great Britain still retains control of British Columbia. If Spain were to gain control of Alaska then we would replicate in another continent all the problems that we once experienced here in Europe. Think of the wars that occurred between France, England and Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The last thing we want is for that to happen again. You want to know what will happen if Spain is allowed to gain control of Alaska, Mr Crowe? The answer is war – and a war that will pull America apart as it tries to work out with whom to ally itself!’
Crowe nodded his massive head slowly. ‘Ah can see that,’ he said. ‘Cram several countries together that way an’ you’ll get trouble. It’s like having three or four families livin’ together in a small house. Bound to be arguments.’
‘Stability is in our best interests,’ Mycroft observed. ‘And by our, I mean yours and mine. America’s and Great Britain’s. As should be apparent, Great Britain has been divesting itself of various colonies over the past decade. Our colonies in Canada have become a country in their own right, and I would expect British Columbia to be handed across to join them in the near future. We are trying our best to build stability into the region. Having the Spaniards, the French or anyone else interfering would set up ripples that could affect the political and geographical landscape for hundreds of years.’
‘All this,’ Crowe said, ‘is kind of outside my remit. Ah’m not a politician, and have no intention of ever becoming one.’
‘Best not,’ Mycroft murmured. ‘I have seen you negotiate. Fists are not generally thought of as weapons of diplomacy.’
‘Oh, I don’ know,’ Crowe said quietly. ‘Didn’t Clausewicz say that war is a continuation of political relations?’
‘Yes,’ Mycroft said testily, ‘but he was German.’
‘So what does all this mean to us?’ Crowe asked. ‘You think that the people who framed you for murder are agents of Spain?’
‘Possible, but unlikely.’ Mycroft shook his head. ‘Why would the Spanish court wish to hide the fact that they had made a counter-offer, unless the negotiations were at a particularly delicate stage? I cannot see them committing murder on that basis. The Russians themselves might have done it – but again, why should they wish to hide the fact that negotiations are going on?’ He thought for a moment, his fingers stroking his chin. ‘Unless the Tsar did not want the American government to know that he was talking to the Spaniards, on the basis that the US House of Representatives might suddenly approve the release of the seven million dollars in gold and thus scupper his plans to get more money from someone else. The whole thing rests on the fact that the original deal is at best ambiguous until payment has actually been made.’
‘There is another possibility,’ Crowe rumbled.
‘Yes,’ Mycroft confirmed, ‘there is. Elements in your own government might be trying to avoid any word of the possible ambiguity of the land deal until they can actually complete it – transfer the gold to the Tsar.’
Crowe shrugged. ‘Ah’m not goin’ to defend my government. They’ve made some pretty strange decisions over the years.’
‘Or,’ Sherlock said, feeling that he ought to say something, ‘it might be someone else.’
‘A third party?’ Crowe asked.
‘Fourth,’ Mycroft clarified, ‘after the Russians, the Americans and the Spanish.’
‘Fifth,’ Sherlock pointed out. ‘You’re involved too, which means so is Great Britain.’
‘I can see why diplomacy gets so complicated,’ Crowe said, smiling. ‘But this is all irrelevant to us, surely? You’ve realized what’s goin’ on, and you’re goin’ to do somethin’ diplomatic. There’s no likelihood of any more action against you, or Sherlock, or even me. Whoever tried to frame you in the first place will have to assume that you’ve gone back to your desk, seen the reports an’ drawn the right conclusions.’
Mycroft shook his head slowly. ‘It’s not that simple. For a start, my superiors are not inclined to take my word on something this big. They will make their own checks, which could take months or years. And I have lost my main source of information in Russia.’ His face took on a brooding quality. I owe it to him to find out what has happened. If he is in the cells of the Third Section then I can at least try to get him out. If he is dead then I can try and bring his murderers to justice – or what passes for justice in the Tsar’s court.’
‘You have more people in Moscow, surely?’ Crowe asked. ‘They can do this.’
‘I have nobody in Moscow that I trust. I will have to go myself, once the charges against me are withdrawn.’
CHAPTER NINE
A shocked silence descended around the table.
‘You’re going to go to Moscow?’ Sherlock asked, stunned. ‘In Russia?’
‘I’m afraid I am,’ Mycroft replied.
‘But you get vertigo if you go north of Oxford Street!’
Mycroft smiled, but it was one of those smiles where humour was a thin veneer over a deeper pain. ‘The fact that I do not wish to go to Russia is immaterial. I should go. I have to go. My own personal comfort is quite irrelevant.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Sherlock protested.
‘I do.’ Amyus Crowe nodded softly. ‘How can you expect subordinates to trust you, to follow your instructions, if they think you will abandon them the first time they get into trouble?’
‘That is exactly it. My people across the world must know that I am not just a fair-weather superior. When storms come, as inevitably they will, I will be standing in the rain with them.’ He shuddered. ‘Uncomfortable as it may be.’
‘And you’re curious,’ Sherlock ventured.
‘Curious?’
‘You want to know the truth. You want to know who actually tried to have you framed for murder, and what the situation is with this land sale.’
Mycroft shrugged. ‘I do confess a certain desire to uncover the actual state of affairs. I dislike uncertainty. It is like having a nagging toothache.’
Across the restaurant, the family that Sherlock had been watching earlier were leaving their table. He stared at them for a moment. The mother was checking that her children were correctly buttoned up and neat while the father looked on. Were they heading off to see the sights of London, or visiting family? Perhaps they were just stopping off in London on their way to somewhere else, and were going straight to one of the main stations to catch a train. Whatever their plans, he felt jealous. He couldn’t remember a time when his own family had been like that – normal, ordinary. What with his father off on army business most of the time and his mother confined to bed, there had never been a time when they had all sat around a table and just been. .. a family.
‘So I won’t be seeing you for a while, just as I won’t be seeing Father,’ he whispered.
‘Unless you come with me.’
For the second time in as many minutes, Sherlock was shocked into silence. ‘Me?’ he squeaked eventually. ‘Go with you? To Russia?’
Mycroft was eyeing the remains of the breakfast on his plate longingly. ‘Perhaps you could explain it to him,’ he murmured to Crowe. ‘I think I may have finished too soon.’
‘Ah’m not sure ah understand it myself.’ Crowe’s expression was severe. ‘Perhaps you could explain it to both of us.’
‘Oh, very well. Sherlock has already become involved in this affair. If I head off to Russia then the best way to distract me, to get me back, or even to stop me going in the first place, would be to threaten him. If he were kidnapped, and let us say a fragment of his ear, or his little finger, we
re sent to me in a parcel, then I would be rendered incapable of further investigation. I need to establish Sherlock’s safety – ergo I need Sherlock with me.’
Sherlock put a hand to his ear. He didn’t like the sound of having it cut off and posted to Mycroft as a warning.
‘You are hardly a man of action,’ Crowe pointed out. ‘Are you sure you could fight off any attackers?’
‘I will enlist assistance,’ Mycroft said waspishly. ‘I intended taking one of my other agents with me, for protection. And protective coloration. The three of us will travel together.’
‘What does that mean – “protective coloration”?’ Sherlock asked, still trying to fight his way past the immense thought that Mycroft wanted him to go to Russia. He wasn’t sure which thought was the most immense – going to Russia, or travelling with Mycroft.
‘It means that we will be travelling incognito – in disguise, if you wish to put it that way. A relatively senior Foreign Office official cannot just wander into Russia unannounced, not without causing an international incident. No, we must use noms de plume-fake names. We must have fake histories. We must be part of a large whole, a bigger picture, so that nobody will pay us too much attention.’
‘And you’ve already decided on what this larger whole will be,’ Crowe said.
‘Indeed. I worked out the plan while in the carriage from the Diogenes Club to this hotel.’
‘You took a hansom?’ Sherlock protested. ‘It’s barely ten minutes’ walk! Two minutes in a cab!’
‘Exactly Just enough time for a little think. If I had been walking I would have been so concerned with dodging other pedestrians, horses and whatever else that I would not have had any time for thinking at all.’
‘So what’s the plan?’ Crowe asked.
Mycroft speared a fragment of sausage with his fork. ‘I was asked, some weeks ago, to give permission for a British theatrical troupe to travel to Moscow to give a series of performances to the great Russian families – Shakespeare, Marlowe, Ben Jonson, that sort of thing. I gave them my permission because their visit had been requested through the Russian Embassy, and because it will improve artistic relationships between our two countries – or, at least, it will if the performances were as good as reports have made them out to be. I heard last week that the trip might need to be cancelled, as the company’s General Manager has been taken ill with a heart complaint and been admitted to hospital, and that their principal violinist in the pit orchestra has been arrested for drunken and disorderly behaviour. It occurs to me that the duties of a General Manager cannot be that onerous, consisting mainly of making sure that everybody gets to where they are meant to be and that all bills are paid on time.’
‘And the violinist?’ Crowe asked. ‘How are you goin’ to recruit one of those?’
‘One of my agents is a passable violinist,’ Mycroft said. He seemed to be focusing on his plate very carefully. ‘I will engage him to assist us.’
‘And what about me?’ Sherlock asked.
‘General factotum and backstage assistant. There are, I understand, never enough people backstage when on tour.’
‘But…’ Sherlock’s mind was racing far ahead of his thoughts. ‘But when? How?’
Mycroft popped the chunk of sausage into his mouth and chewed. As to the “when”,’ he said eventually, ‘I would suggest that we leave as soon as arrangements can be made with the theatrical company. They will, I think, be very grateful that the Foreign Office has gone so far to assist them with their tour as to actually provide them with replacements for their missing people. Their travel arrangements are already made. As I recall, they were planning to leave within the next few days, and were on the verge of sending a letter to their hosts informing them of their cancellation. Let us hope that they have not sent the letter yet, otherwise I will need to come up with another strategy. As to the “how?”, the intention is that we sail to France and take the train from there across the continent to Moscow. The journey will take, I estimate, four to five days.’ He reached for a slice of toast and proceeded to butter it. ‘I will inform our aunt and uncle that you and I will be travelling on the continent for a few weeks. They will understand, I am sure. Travel does broaden the mind. I will go and make the arrangements, while I suggest that you, Sherlock, wander down to Charing Cross Road and look for some books on Russian history and culture. They are very different from us – certainly more different than the Americans.’ He nodded towards Crowe.
‘But let me furnish you with some facts which may help,’ he continued. ‘Russia is the largest country in the world. If you were to measure its surface area on a globe you would find that it occupies almost one seventh of the available land, but much of that land is perpetually frozen grassland – tundra, as they call it. Our best estimate is that the Tsar rules over some sixty-five million subjects, which is a number that quite boggles the mind, especially when you consider that those people belong to one hundred and sixty separate races or tribes speaking one hundred and ten different languages or dialects and adhering to thirty-five distinct religions. Russia is, for all practical purposes, a world in and of itself. That is the place to which we are going.’
‘But…’ Sherlock started, ‘… but I don’t even speak Russian!’
‘That will not be a problem,’ Mycroft said reassuringly. ‘I am informed that most of the well-off households, including all of the Tsar’s court, speak French as a matter of course. I speak fluent French, and I believe yours has improved over the past few months since your time in that country. We should be able to get by.’
Sherlock glanced at Amyus Crowe. ‘But what about Mr Crowe? I don’t think he speaks French at all.’
‘Yes, his English is slightly suspect as well,’ Mycroft murmured. He gazed across at Sherlock, and his eyes were heavy with an emotion Sherlock did not immediately understand, but recognized after a few seconds as pity. ‘I am afraid that Mr Crowe will not be accompanying us. This is a trip for you, me and the violinist I intend recruiting.’
‘But why?’
‘As you pointed out, Mr Crowe does not speak French, or indeed Russian. He possesses no skills that a travelling theatrical company could make use of. He would either have to bring the lovely Virginia, taking our party up to five, or organize someone to look after her for perhaps several weeks. And he stands out in a crowd, which, if we are meant to be travelling incognito, is a problem.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Crowe said. ‘I wasn’t expectin’ to go on this little trip. You go, an’ have fun.’
Sherlock felt his stomach clench. ‘But I want you to go with us.’
‘The problem with life,’ Mycroft observed, ‘is that it rarely gives us what we want, or even what we need. I’ve heard it said that the Lord does not give us anything that we cannot cope with. In my experience this is not true, and merely serves as a mechanism for helping religious people accept the unacceptable. Life is harsh, and we cannot even hope to survive it.’
‘Ah see the lessons continue,’ Crowe said quietly.
Mycroft glanced at him. ‘The boy has to learn sometime.’
Crowe took a breath, obviously keen to change the subject. ‘What about the museum? Is there goin’ to be any further investigation there?’
‘I have notified the police as to its role in this case, and I have also initiated some more… covert… investigations through certain arms of the Government, but I strongly suspect that we will find nothing there. Either they were using it as a convenient meeting point, in which case all they have to do is walk out of the front door and we have lost them, or they had an office of some kind there, in which case they will immediately have cleared it out as soon as you and Sherlock blundered in. Either way, it will not furnish us with any clues. This is a very professional group we are dealing with.’
‘You don’t think the entire museum is a front for whoever framed you?’ Sherlock asked.
‘I sincerely doubt it. The museum is a charitable organization, above reproach. No, I
suspect that either the villains met there, or one of the staff was a member of their organization. It will prove to be a dead end.’ He popped the last fragment of buttered toast in his mouth, crunched on it for a few moments, and sighed contentedly. ‘Now I feel I can start the day properly’ He pulled a watch from his waistcoat pocket and consulted it. ‘Another hour or so until luncheon. That should give me enough time to initiate preparations for our journey. Sherlock, Mr Crowe – I suggest we meet at the Diogenes at about one p.m.’ Levering himself out of the chair with some difficulty, he added, ‘Perhaps someone would be kind enough to secure a cab for me.’
While Crowe and Mycroft talked on the pavement, Sherlock walked off. His head was buzzing with possibilities, and he wanted some time by himself to sort them out.
‘Oh, Sherlock!’
He turned around again. Mycroft was flapping a hand at him.
‘What is it?’ he asked, returning to where the two men stood.
‘You may need some money’ He handed across three coins. ‘Here’re three guineas. Keep them safe, and buy yourself some cold weather clothing, if you see any.’
