Mycroft Holmes: The Case of the Romanov Pearls (The Mycroft Holmes Adventure series Book 6)

by David Dickinson

  ‘I do not propose to burden you with the details of how we arrived in this predicament, save to say that the current secretary has been dismissed from post. We were perhaps naïve in assuming that previous employment at a leading public school would equip him with the necessary experience. Carruthers-Browne, like many a new boy before him, took the rules too seriously. He felt the club constitution did not permit him to speak to members who were behind with their subscriptions or late in settling their accounts for food and drink consumed on club premises. So seriously did he take the rules that he felt they did not permit him to write to the sinners either. Once this became known a number of reprobates began spending very heavily, particularly on the more expensive vintages, secure in the knowledge that nobody would pursue them for their debts. I am glad to say they have now been disabused of this point of view and some are being pursued through the courts. But the net result is that the Diogenes is in debt to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds. No benefactor has come forward to rescue a club where he would not be able to speak.

  ‘The authorities have, however, made one concession. They have stated that if you were willing to take on the position, not of Club Secretary, but of Treasurer and Auditor for two years they would hold back on the bankruptcy proceedings for that period, assuming that in that time you would have sorted the problem out.

  ‘I realise that this would be a major step but I do not believe the task would be too arduous. You have after all been performing the same function for the departments of government for many years now. I do hope you will be able to accept. So too do all the members of the Diogenes Club, including the club cat, Mog the Mute.

  I look forward to hearing from you

  Yours sincerely,

  Berkeley

  Mycroft leant across and picked up the letter. It joined the other one in his pocket book. “Really, Tobias,” he said wearily, “this is too much. I cannot be some lady bountiful for London’s club land, rescuing the fallen and restoring to life those places brought low by the folly of their own members. Can you decline for me tomorrow? It would be too much.”

  His Pall Mall apartment in danger of being sold, the club he had helped to found on the rocks, Tobias felt Mycroft’s world was crumbling slowly around him, like the erosion on the great cliffs east of Kemptown.

  “I have my solicitor coming to see me in the morning, Tobias. I feel I need to compose myself and make some notes about my affairs. By the way, could you leave me a note of your full name? I know you have told me many times but it has slipped my memory, like so much else.”

  Tobias wondered if Mycroft was planning to leave him something in his will. A book of mathematical theory perhaps, or his most expensive chess set. Tobias fetched his notebook from his attic room and hid himself in a corner of the main drawing room to compose his notes on the case so far. This position had, incidentally, the advantage of being on the main thoroughfare for pretty chambermaids going from the housekeeper’s quarters to the bedrooms on the upper floors.

  On the face of it, Tobias reflected, very little had changed since the attempted theft. Policemen in large numbers had appeared, of course, and the exits out of Brighton and other south coast ports were still guarded. But the Duchess of Alcester was still in the hotel. She had been heard telling her butler come security officer that she intended to stay a very long time and not pay the bill. Nobody, she said, would dare take me to court in the knowledge that I had been robbed of my jewels in their hotel.

  The other four who had been present on the night of the theft were still working in the hotel. Indeed Lady Alcester’s butler had assumed quite superior airs since the event, ordering the footmen about as if he were a senior member of the hotel staff. Inspectors Lestrade and Bramble had tried to see if either of the two doors guarded by the hotel staff could have had an accomplice on the other side who could have taken the Romanov pearls and fled. But Bramble’s men had searched every room in the hotel and were prepared to swear in court that the pearls were not there. At half past seven another letter arrived from London, hand delivered by a Government messenger. Most Immediate, it said on the front, Strictly Private and Confidential. Mycroft groaned when he saw it.

  “Who is it now for God’s sake, Tobias,” he sighed, leaning back in his chair. “Is there no peace for the convalescent? Being sent here for one’s health is becoming rather like recuperating in the Main Sorting Room of the Brighton Post Office. Oh well, tell me the worst.”

  “Foreign and Colonial Office, Great Charles Street, Office of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.”

  “Sir Edward Granville, by God,” Mycroft muttered, “what has the Foreign Secretary to do with the Majestic Hotel? We shall soon see. Read on, Tobias, thank you.”

  ‘Dear Mycroft,’ the letter began. The Foreign Secretary was the only man in Government who addressed Mycroft by his Christian name rather than his official title of Government Auditor. He was also Mycroft’s oldest friend in Whitehall.

  ‘I shall be brief. I write with deep regret and a great wish that recent events might have turned out differently. The Prime Minister has asked me to write to you on behalf of the Government to tell you of our decision about the position of Government Auditor. The deficiencies in administration since you were taken from us have been many fold: the inability to forecast correctly the likely impact of future Cabinet policies has made Government virtually impossible: the absence of an experienced counsellor able to offer impartial and well informed advice to the Prime Minister has made Number Ten Downing Street even more of a burden than it was before.’

  The letter was certainly having an impact on Mycroft. He was sitting bolt upright in his chair now, forming the fingers of his hands into a steeple.

  ‘To aid your recovery, we are relieving you of all your duties from the end of next week. The position will be advised in the usual quarters. Medical advice has been virtually unanimous, from Dr Moore Agar to the Prime Minister’s personal physician. In retirement you have a chance of recovery. If you attempt to remain in office, not only will you be unable to continue your normal duties, but you may not live till the New Year.

  ‘The Prime Minister will be writing to you personally. He asks me to convey on behalf of his Cabinet and his Government a multitude of thanks for your devoted work over the years.

  ‘I hope to you see you soon and I trust that your convalescence by the sea is bringing an improvement in your health.’

  ‘Yours ever,

  Granville.’

  Tobias was conscious of a low murmur that grew into a growl as he read through the letter. He also saw out of the corner of his eye that Mycroft was becoming redder and redder in the face. When the letter ended he gave a great shout of pain.

  “Betrayed!” he shouted, “betrayed! The bastards! They’ll pay for this, they bloody well will!”

  Mycroft Holmes rose from his chair and began to stomp about the room. Tobias noticed that he was moving at almost his normal speed and not in the slow shuffle of the convalescent. He waddled out onto the balcony and glared at the sea and the West Pier.

  “Right, Tobias,” he cried, still pacing about his enormous sitting room. “Send a wire to the bloody Foreign Office. Tell them that I propose to call on Sir Edward bloody Granville at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Tell Mrs Hudson that I shall be staying the night before coming back here. She should make up the spare room for you if you wish to stay.”

  Tobias headed for the door. “Stop, Tobias, not too soon. I fear I shall have to set my powers to work on the affair of these wretched pearls. Can you send word to Lestrade that I would like to see him for breakfast here at eight o’clock in the morning and that I suggest he should plan for a reconstruction of the theft round about ten o’clock, notices to that effect to be posted all over the hotel.”

  Mycroft finally located his cane and began swotting imaginary enemies. “And in ten minutes time, Tobias, when your errands are complete, meet me by the front door. We’re going to English’s Oyst
er Bar and Seafood Restaurant round the corner. Damn the doctors! Damn their eyes! I want the finest and the richest sauce the chefs of English’s have yet devised to adorn a lobster. Oysters to start with, that’s it, oysters. We’re celebrating something, Tobias, we’re definitely celebrating something. I’m not sure what just for the moment, but it’s going to be a great evening.”

  Half an hour later Mycroft and Tobias were sitting in a booth in the red velvet splendour of English’s. A dozen oysters had been despatched, and half a bottle of Meursault.

  “Let me tell you something, Tobias. I don’t think I’ve ever told this to anybody else except Mrs Hudson when I had a bad fever some years back.”

  Mycroft paused to inspect a large crab that was making its way to a nearby table, instruments of torture and extraction displayed on the silver salver.

  “For some people the most important thing in their lives may be their family, their parents, their brothers and sisters, their wives, their children. For others it may be sport or exploration, the exhilaration of the hunt in full cry, the perilous ascent of the Matterhorn, the impossible late cut through the slips. For me, it was the position of Auditor of all Government Departments given into my care all that time ago. For years Sherlock had lorded it over me with that supercilious air of his, the dramatic crimes solved, the rich and the aristocratic competing for his services. But once I was Auditor of all Government Departments, that ceased to matter. My brother might have been the most distinguished consulting detective in the land, but I was the most important man in the entire Government. In the long battle for supremacy between brother and brother, I had won. The administration could not function without me, as Granville’s letter said. There was no question in my mind as to who held the more important position.”

  Mycroft’s lobster thermidor arrived, an enormous helping in pink and cream and gold. Mycroft rose to his feet. “I give you a toast, Tobias. To Dr Moore Agar! To the medical profession! Damn their bloody eyes!”

  Silence reigned briefly while Mycroft did battle with his lobster. Sections of it were dismembered as if he were drawing and quartering his enemies. Tobias was savouring a lemon sole with a cream and onion sauce.

  “So you see, Tobias, where we are. I defined that job. That job defined me. Now they are trying to take it away from me. I will not have it. I refuse to have an inferior post to my brother. Even if he is now only a glorified bee keeper, I should have no position at all. In some countries the Prime Minister never takes a long holiday in case his enemies have removed him from office before he comes back. Intrigue and conspiracy are as rife in Whitehall as they were in Machiavelli’s Florence. If you’re ill, your job will be taken before you’re out of your pyjamas. Well, tomorrow the comeback begins, Tobias.”

  “Let me give you a toast, sir. To the return of Mycroft Holmes. Mycroft Redux!”

  Mycroft’s return to gastronomic form was not over yet. For pudding he forced down a crème brulee with white chocolate and mint ice cream. He took a large glass of Armagnac on his balcony at the hotel, entertaining Tobias with tales of his early triumphs as Auditor of all Government Departments.

  Appetite had returned by breakfast time. Mycroft, freshly bathed and with a flower in his buttonhole, greeted Inspector Lestrade over a plate of eggs, bacon, kidneys and tomatoes followed by multiple rounds of toast. Lestrade was about to make a comment on his apparent return to health and appetite but he thought better of it. Just pretend he’s well again, he said to himself, who knows, perhaps he is. Carrie had always maintained that in a profession such as his, if there was a choice between speech and silence, silence was usually the better option. She had, on numerous occasions, thought of putting her husband’s name up for membership of the Diogenes Club, but had always resisted, saying to herself that the bloody man would never come home at all.

  “This reconstruction at ten o’clock this morning, Mr Holmes,” Lestrade began. “Tobias tells me that you would like all the original participants to take part. Is that true?”

  “It is indeed,” said Mycroft, through a mouthful of toast and the Majestic’s finest marmalade, “how rare it is to be able to have a reconstruction with the real people involved. Like Hamlet with the original cast. I dropped a note to the Duchess earlier this morning. She’s so vain I’m sure she’ll come.”

  “Inspector Bramble has got his hands on some cheap pearls from a dodgy shop in the Lanes behind the hotel. And did I tell you yesterday, Mr Holmes, our friend Diamond Jack has disappeared? His family won’t say where he’s gone. Do you think that’s significant?”

  “It could be,” said Mycroft, “I have wondered all along if this theft isn’t robbery to order, some unknown mastermind putting a price on the pearls being delivered to him. Theft by request, almost by mail order, if you follow me. I believe it happens more often than one might think with artistic goods of high value.”

  “So where do you think the Romanov pearls are, Mr Holmes?”

  “Why, Lestrade, it’s obvious, surely. The most likely place for them to be is here in this hotel. They have never gone away because the thieves have never been able to get them out of the building. Precisely where they are, I have no idea. We might get the answer this morning.”

  Shortly before ten o’clock a bizarre assembly had gathered in the Fitzherbert Suite. There was a small crowd gathered round the doors and on the pavement outside, drawn to the event by the signs placed all over the public rooms of the hotel. The blinds and the floor length curtains were still open. Tobias had been appointed Master of Ceremonies. The two Inspectors and Mycroft were directly opposite the Duchess’s chair for the clearest view of the proceedings. The Duchess was wearing Inspector Bramble’s pearls. The butler come security man lurked some ten feet behind her chair, as before. He was rubbing his hands together in a nervous manner. The Head Waiter, imperturbable as ever, the wine waiter, shaking slightly and the Duchess’s personal waiter, grinning vacuously into the air, were alert at their posts, like fielders round the batsman at a cricket match. Lestrade was adjusting his chair to get a clearer view of the proceedings. Mycroft looked as though he was falling asleep. The key question, as Tobias had worked out early on, was who has the sponge with the chloroform. Neither Mycroft nor Lestrade were prepared to identify the bearer of the sponge until the last possible moment.

  Shortly before ten o’clock Valentine Delaney closed the curtains with a dramatic flourish, as if he were master of ceremonies at the Music Hall. For now the lights stayed on in the Fitzherbert Suite. Mycroft whispered something into Tobias’s ear. The lights went out. It was dark, but not so dark that you could not just discern what was going on. Inspector Brambled coughed loudly into an enormous handkerchief.

  “Mr Butler, sir, could you please use this to knock the Duchess out?” Tobias handed him the sponge, soaked in some strong liquid. The two Inspectors sniffed the air like bloodhounds on the scent. There was a struggle, with the Duchess, shouting loudly for help, trying to force the sponge away from her mouth. The butler cum security man was stronger. When she grew still, her security man began wrestling with the pearls around her neck. He had great difficulty freeing them from the Duchess’s throat. Eventually he drew a knife from his pocket and cut them free. The Head Waiter and the wine waiter were feeling their way across the tables and the furniture towards the doors out of the room. They did not seem to want to intervene in the theft of the pearls. This, after all, was what they had learnt in their rehearsals, that their job, above all, was to block the doors and make sure nobody could leave the room. The butler handed the pearls and the sponge to the Duchess’s personal waiter, who seemed to be expecting them. With his back to the Inspectors, the waiter shoved the sponge into the butler’s face as hard as he could. As the lights came back on the personal waiter placed the sponge very firmly onto his own face and held it there with his right hand. Both men passed out, one on the floor, the other across a chair. The tableau was identical to the one on the night of the robbery. Right down to the fact, as Lestra
de bitterly remarked, that the wretched pearls were nowhere to be seen.

  Mycroft Holmes was rubbing his hands together. A slight smile of satisfaction played across his features.

  “Good, Lestrade, very good. I think you may arrest the butler come security man and the Duchess’s personal waiter when they come round. Shouldn’t be long.”

  “Was that sponge soaked in chloroform, Mr Holmes?” cried Lestrade. “Like the original one?”

  “It was, I’m afraid. No point in having a reconstruction unless it’s as realistic as possible, is there?”

  “Well, I never,” Lestrade began,

  “But, Mr Holmes, where are the pearls?” Inspector Bramble was now standing next to the Duchess’s chair, looking round at the tables and chairs surrounding him.

  “Which ones?” said Mycroft. “The Romanov Pearls or the Brighton Pearls?”

  “I don’t know,” said Inspector Bramble, “you tell me.”

  “Come, Mr Holmes, you’re playing games with us,” said Valentine Delaney. “I’m the manager of this hotel. I’ve a right to know and to know now.”

  Mycroft padded over to the Duchess’s table. “Very well,” he said. “I should say that I have no idea if my theory is right or not. I would remind you of my brother’s comments to Dr Watson in The Sign of Four: ‘How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ The waiter grasped that he could not put the pearls in his pocket, which may have been the original plan. He would be searched at the door, or shortly afterwards. He knew that he must try to divert suspicion away from the butler and himself, so he applied the sponge twice over. Now look carefully at the contents of these two tables here. The Duchess’s table has salt, pepper, a sugar bowl, an ornamental candelabra and various knick knacks. The table next door, being for eight persons rather than two, has the same collection, only in considerably larger sizes. So granted these choices, gentlemen, where might a man conceal the Romanov Pearls?”