The Brothers of Baker Street

by Michael Robertson

  Perhaps the difference was that the last time he was in this lobby, he had been rushing frantically out for Heathrow and the next plane to Los Angeles, with the knowledge that there was a dead body in his office on the next level up.

  Yes, that might be the difference.

  Nigel got in the lift. Just before the doors could close, someone put a hand in to stop them.

  A man whom Nigel had not seen before got in and pushed the button for the top floor.

  The man looked over at Nigel as the lift began to move.

  “You’re a Heath, aren’t you?” he said.

  Nigel would have just nodded politely, but the flight had been very long, and although the brunch with Laura had been quite pleasant, the subject matter of their conversation—and Nigel’s present task—verged on stressful. And so Nigel was in a short mood.

  “Are we a species, then?” Nigel replied.

  “I wouldn’t know that,” said the man, “but wouldn’t rule it out. Just thought I saw a resemblance between you and, I presume, your brother Reggie. My name’s Rafferty.”

  Nigel studied the man for a moment, then said, “The leasing committee.”

  “Ahh,” said Rafferty. “I thought so. You’re the brother who notices the details.”

  Nigel said nothing to that. He didn’t know whether Rafferty was referring to the Sherlock Holmes letters themselves or to the clause in the lease that made them so important to Reggie’s chambers. But either way it sounded like a problematic discussion, especially so because Rafferty gave the impression of being just a little too impressed with himself.

  But fortunately, Rafferty did not seem intent on continuing the conversation, and the lift doors had opened. Nigel nodded quickly in Rafferty’s direction, and then exited the lift, heading for his former office.

  The walk down the corridor felt odd, and Nigel realized after a moment that it was not because he had been away for a while. It was because the floor was quieter than it should be in the middle of a workday. Reggie’s practice could not be going well. Between the lift and the secretary’s desk, which he was approaching now, he had encountered no one, and that was not a good sign.

  But the secretary was there—the new one, whom Reggie had hired after the events in Los Angeles.

  As Nigel approached, Lois got up from her desk, maneuvering as quickly as she could between the corner of it and the edge of the cubicle.

  “This is Baker Street Chambers, Reggie Heath QC,” she announced eagerly.

  “Yes,” said Nigel. “I’m Nigel Heath. I’m—”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “I’ve heard of you.”

  “That I’m the taller, better-looking, and more responsible one?” said Nigel. All of this was patently untrue, of course, except for the better-looking part, which Nigel regarded as subjective.

  Lois was stumped for just an instant, her eyes fixing at some nonexistent point in the distance as she tried, no doubt, to think of the appropriate lie.

  “Yes,” she chirped, with a wide smile.

  “Well put,” replied Nigel. “You know Reggie’s situation?”

  “He’s in—”

  “Go ahead, you can say it.”

  “Indisposed,” she said, bravely.

  “Quite right,” said Nigel. “That’s exactly how you should respond to the odd solicitor that might drop by. Or close enough. But you and I know where Reggie is, though it’s not good business for a barrister to be there.”

  “Yes,” she said in a low voice.

  Nigel continued. “Every day that goes by with Reggie still accused is another day that he will get no briefs and another day of being slammed in the tabloids to the point his chambers might never recover. We might have several weeks until the trial date to find evidence to keep him from going to prison. But we have only days to save his career. And—unlike me, as you may have heard—Reggie values his law career.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I have noticed.”

  “Very well. The bail hearing is already in good hands. I’ve got Reggie’s arrest report, but there are some other things I’ll need: the prosecutor’s disclosures from Reggie’s Black Cab case, the solicitor’s instructions in that case to Reggie—and we need to hunt up the solicitor herself as well.”

  “I’ve been trying to reach her,” said Lois. “Reggie told me to do so when he called from … that place where he is … but I get no answer.”

  “Yes, I heard that she’s been hard to get hold of,” said Nigel. “Which is odd, because even if she regards her case as over and done with, you’d think she’d read the papers this morning and check in.”

  “Perhaps she’s on holiday?”

  “Perhaps. Do you have her address?”

  “I’m sure it must be in Reggie’s office,” she said. “I’ll get it.”

  Lois was about to move off toward Reggie’s office, but Nigel paused and looked toward the smaller office, the one just across from the secretary’s desk, that he himself had occupied until the events in Los Angeles.

  “Is that locked?” he said.

  “No, you can go right in. It’s your old office, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Nigel. “You go on; I’ll just be a moment.”

  Lois bustled off to get the briefing papers.

  Nigel entered his old office. He shut the door behind him and leaned back against it. He wanted to get a sense of the room once more.

  He had not been in this office since discovering the body of the previous clerk, Robert Ocher, just a month earlier.

  In the time since, he had gone to Los Angeles and solved Ocher’s murder, rescued Mara or been rescued by her (depending upon how he looked at it), got his solicitor’s license suspended without regretting it, and, finally, set Reggie back on the right course with Laura—or at least tried, to the extent one sibling could do for another without crossing the line.

  So it was surprising, after all that, how the office itself still seemed familiar.

  The old wooden file cabinet that had hidden the crouching secretary was still there in the corner.

  And there was still an in-basket on the desk, into which the new secretary was still collecting the letters addressed to Sherlock Holmes. One thing had changed in that regard, and Nigel had to smile at it: Reggie obviously wanted Lois to have no doubts about who would be responding to the letters; on the edge of the basket he had taped a note in broad felt pen strokes: “For Nigel.”

  At this moment there was one new letter in the basket. Presumably everything else had been in the packages that Reggie had sent on.

  Nigel picked it up.

  It was a rather short letter:

  Dear Mr. Holmes:

  What you value most.

  Your humble servant,

  Professor Moriarty

  That was all it said.

  Nigel sat down in his old chair. Perhaps one letter from Moriarty could be ignored by more sensible minds than his own. But two such letters indicated a continuing delusion, in Nigel’s view, and should not be taken lightly.

  Nigel took the first letter from Moriarty out of his pocket and compared it to the new one.

  In the second letter, the writer seemed to have been promoted to “Professor”—and for a moment, Nigel considered whether the letters might have been written by two different people.

  Both were done on the same stationery. That didn’t mean much by itself, it was a common brand.

  Both letters were also done, apparently, in the same typeface. So one stationery, one typeface—probably one person, in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

  But who?

  Neither letter had a return address, of course. And no handwritten signatures.

  Nigel looked at the backs of the sheets. Nothing. He held them up to the light—nothing. He looked at them sideways—of course, nothing.

  He knew he wasn’t focusing properly. He was in the office, he was sitting in the chair, the letters were on the blotter. There must be something important in them beyond the obvious m
essage but he just wasn’t getting it. Something was impeding his concentration.

  But what was it? Finally, Nigel thought to open the top left drawer of the desk, the shallow drawer for pencils and paper clips and such.

  Thank God, there it was. Reggie had not had the drawer cleaned out.

  There was still an unopened tube of chocolate Smarties.

  Forty minutes of sugar rush ought to do it. Nigel started in on the candy-shelled discs and then, careful not to smudge, again picked up the letters.

  Nigel looked more closely at the typeface on each. It was blunt, uneven in impact, and irregular in alignment. A manual machine. A very old one.

  Nigel picked up the letters and went to find Lois, who was just about to exit Reggie’s office, papers in hand.

  “I have the bundle the solicitor brought in for the Black Cab case,” she said. “Her business phone just gets an answering service; we tried that earlier. But I did find her mobile phone number.”

  “Let’s give it a try then,” said Nigel.

  Lois picked up Reggie’s desk phone, put it on speaker phone, and rang Darla’s mobile number. It rang continually, until finally it switched over, and an automated voice from the mobile phone company identified the number they had called and said to leave a message.

  “I hate these things,” said Nigel to Lois. Then, into the phone, he said, “This is Nigel Heath, Ms. Rennie. Kindly call Reggie Heath’s chambers and assist us in getting him out of jail over your client, if it is not too much trouble.”

  Then he hung up.

  “You’d think she’d have a secretary,” said Nigel. “But I’ll try her office in person. Meantime, there’s something else I need, if you aren’t too busy with your regular duties.”

  Lois looked over at the shelf where she was supposed to collect the briefs for new business incoming from solicitors. Nigel looked, too. The shelf should have been full of documents, each rolled up and tied with the traditional purple ribbon that solicitors used when delivering new case instructions to barristers.

  The shelf was empty.

  “I just might have time for it,” said Lois.

  Nigel gave her the letters from Moriarty. “These were done on a very old typewriter. Please see what you can find out about them.”

  She gave Nigel a blank look.

  “Such as?”

  “Letters done on typewriters are traceable to the machines on which they were typed. The characters tend to arrange themselves in their own particular angles and impressions.”

  “Yes, but how do I find—”

  “Try some repair shops. Maybe there’s a typewriter museum? I don’t know. Someone must have something you can compare it to. If you can get the make and model, perhaps we can even find out where and who purchased the particular machine that typed this. For that you’d get a gold star.”

  Her look back at Nigel had not improved much. “I … I’ll certainly try,” she said, gamely.

  Nigel thanked her and turned to leave the office now. But then he stopped inside the doorway.

  There was a scent. At first, just a very pleasant and interesting scent, of roses and other things—but then he began to remember where he had encountered it before, and the memory aroused mixed emotions.

  “What perfume are you wearing?”

  Lois looked shocked at first, and then, very quickly, quite pleased.

  “Nothing, really. Just what I put on in the bath.” She blushed immediately after saying that.

  Nigel sniffed the air, then took a step toward one of the guest chairs. Lois watched him, wondrously, as he looked first behind the chair, and then underneath it.

  And then, having found nothing, he boldly put his hand into the crease of the chair.

  He found something. He grasped it carefully between the tips of two fingers, and withdrew it.

  It was the solicitor’s business card. Darla Rennie’s business card. It was slightly scented. And the scent was familiar.

  “Oh,” said Lois. “Yes, she sat there the other day. She must have taken it out of her purse and dropped it?”

  No cause for alarm, Nigel told himself. He might be misremembering the scent. And even if it was the same scent, it could be coincidence. Two different women could wear the same scent. One of them might even put it on her business cards.

  And in any case, now he had the solicitor’s address.

  Nigel left the chambers and hailed a Black Cab. He showed the driver Darla Rennie’s business card.

  “A solicitor at that address?” said the driver.

  “Yes,” said Nigel. “Tottenham Court Road.”

  “Oh, I know where it is all right,” said the driver. “I know every address in London you can name. But there’s no lawyer’s office at 369 Tottenham Court Road.”

  “You’re sure about that?” said Nigel, skeptically.

  “Of course I’m sure. I know the street, I know what’s on it, and I don’t need any bloody satellite navigation system for it either,” said the driver, with slightly more heat than one would expect.

  “Didn’t mean to offend,” said Nigel.

  “Pay me no heed, guv. I’m just a bit annoyed that they’re trying to jam this thing down our throats.”

  “A navigation system, you say?”

  “Don’t read the papers then, do you?”

  “I’ve been out of town,” said Nigel.

  “Well, there’s a public hearing tomorrow, and I’ll give them a piece of my mind.”

  “You should,” said Nigel. “Clearly you have some to spare. But for now, let’s just verify this lack of a solicitor’s office, shall we?”

  “Right you are,” said the driver.

  They reached the 300 block of Tottenham Court Road—featuring a newly installed American hamburger chain, a Tesco express, a launderette—and Nigel had to admit it was not where one would expect to find a high-end solicitor’s office. But as he could personally attest, not all solicitors are high end.

  But now the cab pulled to a stop, and Nigel looked out the window at the address.

  “Bloody hell,” said Nigel. “It’s a mail-box rental.”

  The cabbie looked back at Nigel and nodded in a self-satisfied way.

  “Right you are,” said Nigel.

  14

  Shortly after one that afternoon, Laura arrived by cab to meet Geoffrey Langdon at the entrance to Central Criminal Court.

  She saw a man standing anxiously at the curb in a barrister’s chalk-stripe suit. He was smaller than she expected—thin-faced, with bright, darting eyes, as if always on the alert for some sort of attack from unexpected quarters.

  He stepped toward her as soon as the cab door opened.

  “Mr. Langdon?” she said.

  “Yes, Ms. Rankin; we’ll go right inside, if you don’t mind. The court has allowed some media for this hearing; but let’s give them as little spectacle as we can.”

  “I quite agree,” said Laura.

  Laura tagged along with Langdon to get admitted through security.

  As often as she had seen the outside of it, she had never before been inside the Old Bailey. The lobby was quite spectacular, with its arches and murals—or would have been, if one weren’t there for a criminal proceeding, which of course was the only reason to be there.

  Langdon escorted her quickly up the stairs, and then through a short, narrow corridor into the courtroom.

  “Sit one row back of me, as if you are Heath’s family,” said Langdon.

  She did so, although the “as if” sounded odd somehow.

  The prosecuting barrister entered, and sat at a table to their left.

  And then a side door opened, and a sergeant entered, escorting a tall man in a regulation beige jumpsuit. It was Reggie.

  Reggie stepped into the dock—a raised platform with four-foot glass sides, positioned at the end of the aisle between the defense and prosecuting benches. He managed a subtle wink at Laura as he took his position.

  And now a door at the front of the
courtroom opened, and the judge entered. Everyone stood. The bailiff called the court to order and announced Reggie’s case.

  The judge, not bothering to look up, routinely asked if there would be application for bail.

  “My lord, we request that the defendant be released on his own recognizance pending trial.”

  Langdon said this in a low voice, matching the judge’s matter-of-fact tone as well as he could. But it didn’t work. The judge looked up.

  “The charge is homicide, Mr. Langdon.”

  “Yes, my lord, but the defendant is a respected member of the legal profession.”

  “But we don’t want one standard of bail for members of the legal profession and another for everyone else, do we?” The judge intoned this with an inflection that made it clear what the right answer should be.

  “Certainly not,” said Langdon, correctly. “The relevance of my client’s profession is simply that he must be free in order to properly prepare his own defense.”

  “That’s a consideration. But can you cite any instance in recent memory where a London court has released a homicide suspect—one from the general population—on his own recognizance?”

  “No, my lord, but I can cite many for which bail was granted on bond to a defendant who has had no prior violent acts, is of solid reputation, and has strong ties in the community.”

  “Well, yes, on sufficient bond. That may be something we can consider.”

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  But now the prosecuting barrister spoke.

  “My lord?”

  “Yes?”

  “As to prior violent acts—I believe there was an incident just a few days ago at Fleet Street in which a well-respected London publisher was violently deposited by Mr. Heath into a rubber tree plant.”

  “No charges were filed,” said Langdon quickly.

  “And yet another incident in which a photographer duly doing his job at a crime scene was violently accosted—”

  “It was a rumpled collar, my lord, nothing more, and again no charges filed.”

  The prosecutor sighed, very slightly, in a way intended to convey that it was a shame that multiple instances of no charges being filed could not in themselves add up to something.