Mycroft Holmes (40 page)

“Oh, I do not need his name,” Holmes assured him. “He is Count Wolfgang Hohenlohe-Langenburg.”

Ellensberg stared at Holmes, open-mouthed. Abruptly he stood, his florid face so engorged with blood that Holmes feared a cardiac episode might be imminent.

“Mr. Ellensberg,” Holmes said soothingly. “Sit, sir. I am not a constable, nor am I judge or executioner. I am here neither to arrest nor dispatch you.”

“Then, what is it you wish?” Ellensberg bleated, as he shakily resumed his seat.

HOLMES AND DOUGLAS
’
S JOURNEY BACK TO ENGLAND PROVED
blessedly uneventful. There were no storms or other calamities, and the mid-sized ship, with the felicitous name of
Constance
, had the wind at her back—another good omen.

When she made her first port of call, a few hours’ dalliance in the nearly landlocked Kingston Harbor, Holmes first ensured that Douglas was happily convalescing in the grand saloon over a game of whist, in the company of businessmen from Cuba and Cameroon. Then, without a word to anyone, he quickly disembarked. At the wharf he rented a horse and driver, paying handsomely so that man and beast would make haste to the island’s dilapidated capital, Spanish Town.

The carriage had barely drawn to a halt when he leapt out, dismissed the cab, and marched through the doors of Jamaica’s most prestigious monetary institution, the Colonial Bank. Though a bit shabby, it still had the air of self-importance, as of a nobleman gone to seed.

Besides his own credentials, he carried a signed fiduciary letter that gave the bearer the right to withdraw funds from a series of numbered accounts. These accounts held various currencies—British stock, British and South African pounds, Swiss francs, Cuban, Puerto Rican and Venezuelan pesos, and the gold
quadruple pistole
—or doubloon—that Jamaica had been circulating since the seventeenth century. Holmes imagined from the first that it would be a healthy dose of monies. After all, a relative of the Queen was not likely to cause so much double-cross and human misery over a pittance.

But by the time the clerk sent for a manager, who in turn beckoned a supervisor, who—in hushed whispers—begged the pardon of the bank president who hurried over to scrutinize Holmes, he realized that the sum might be a bit more tidy than he had imagined.

The president, a pinched and persnickety sort who would have felt quite at home at any sacred institution of funds in London, first ascertained that Holmes was indeed a member of the esteemed British government. Then he and his minions, hand wringers all, painstakingly compared Holmes’s fiduciary letter to previous signatures of one Nestor Ellensberg.

The bank president, in Holmes’s estimation, seemed not at all gratified to discover that everything was aboveboard, and that this young man—with his sun-burnished skin, an impressive scar upon his cheek, and a roguish air—had every right to the funds in question. Amidst stares and clenched-jaw whispers, with the minions at his heels like so many anxious ducklings, at long last the august head of the bank was obligated to release the combined sums into Holmes’s care.

* * *

The British cache alone was extraordinary—1.2 million pounds sterling in five-pound notes.

The rest, taken together, equaled it.

Two guards placed the money, stock, and coins in an enormous leather travel case that had been left by Ellensberg for just such purpose. The bank then provided, in addition to the guards, a driver, a carriage, and a horse. With great dispatch, these returned both Holmes and the suitcase to the
Constance
a quarter of an hour before it was scheduled to leave port. Rather than allow the retinue to accompany him aboard like a sullen parade, Holmes dismissed them all.

Once they had departed, a few shillings persuaded two local lads to drag the suitcase up the gangway. The pieces of eight were the true burden, as most everything else was made of paper.

It was only upon seeing a puzzled Douglas peering at him from the observation deck that Holmes realized he would have to come clean sooner, rather than later.

* * *

Once back on British soil, the first thing Holmes did was to ride Abie, so as to experience the freedom and exhilaration that only a fine horse—one who is an exquisite fit for its master—can provide. He was gratified to see that Parfitt had indeed taken very good care of him.

Parfitt returned him with many thanks, along with the requisite amount of wistfulness, as Abie was a horse that one thoroughly enjoyed and therefore tended to miss.

Abie, in turn, nuzzled Parfitt’s neck to show that he understood the boy’s dedication, and that the affection was reciprocal.

Holmes had messengered a note to Sherlock to meet him on the banks of the Thames, and so he rode Abie to the designated spot. Then, a few moments before his brother was to arrive, he reached into his pocket and extracted two items.

One was Georgiana’s likeness.

The other was the pair of little backward-facing feet.

He looked at them both, nestled in the palm of his hand. Complicit, somehow, belonging one to the other. Then, without recriminations or indeed much thought at all, he walked to the river’s edge, let them fall into the water, and watched them sink out of sight.

“Brother mine!” Sherlock said, walking up behind him. “What strange, exotic ritual is this? And what has happened? I hardly recognize you!”

Sherlock had guessed, from his stance alone, that something profound had altered him irrevocably. He turned and smiled, enjoying the look of utter shock on his brother’s face.

“Sit down, Sherlock,” he said, “for I have much to recount.”

SUMMER HAD VERY NEARLY OVERTAKEN THE BRITISH ISLES WHEN
Holmes and Douglas arrived at the village of Ascot, in Berkshire. A mere six miles from Windsor Castle, it was a healthy green swath of British countryside belonging to the Crown. For the past one hundred sixty years, the seventeenth day of June had—give or take a few intervals—seen the running of the horses in the Trial Stakes, the first race of the flat season.

The royal carriages, which held Her Majesty the Queen and the royal party, made their formal procession up the Straight Mile. The spectators who had gathered to watch—some hundred thousand, by Holmes’s speculations—were beautifully turned out and eager. Perhaps not so much for the race to start, as to see and be seen.

“Ascot,” Holmes quipped to Douglas, “is a social event with racing as an addendum.” He wore a gray morning coat and matching top hat, both purchased on German Street, and both so fine as to shame the topcoat that Georgiana had once favored. Though he was no longer saving for marriage, and though the money was now abundant, nevertheless he had blanched at the cost.

He was finally persuaded to indulge by his distinguished dark-skinned “butler.” “Since you have been given access to the Royal Enclosure, perhaps a bit of extra decorum is warranted,” Douglas had reminded him wryly.

Holmes conceded the point, calculating that if he could but utilize the outfit for twenty occasions or more, he could justify the exorbitant expense.

As he had requested permission for Douglas to accompany him, he had also selected a double-breasted waistcoat with a turnover of quilted silk and an overcoat trimmed in fur. In truth, Douglas’s outfit had cost more than his, but it had seemed somehow less ostentatious. And since a black man not of royal blood could not attend a series of fittings for such a fine set of clothes, he had even hired a man of Douglas’s height and size to serve as mannequin, so that the tailoring would be as near perfect as could be managed.

“Fur lining might be a bit excessive for a gentleman’s gentleman,” Douglas had mocked when he’d first laid eyes on it. “You have me gussied up like an Ethiopian princeling!”

“Since we have been given access to the Royal Enclosure, perhaps a bit of extra decorum is warranted,” Holmes retorted with a grin.

Regardless, Douglas wore it as he did his own more modest outfits, with an easy grace that belied any sense of discomfort he might have felt. After the Queen’s procession, the two men made their way to the Royal Enclosure, where Holmes showed his badge, as well as Douglas’s, signifying the Queen’s permission to enter.

They were now among the most elite of the elite.

A few moments later, Queen Victoria—in her usual mourning black and accompanied by her faithful Scottish manservant—arrived amid great pomp and took a seat at her private box. Sitting behind her was an array of lords and ladies, beautifully turned out. Beside her, by special invitation, was her rather delicate half-sister, Princess Feodora of Leiningen, on one of her rare visits to London.

And on her other side—gazing on the still-empty racecourse as if he could not be bothered to engage with mere mortals—sat Count Wolfgang Hohenlohe-Langenburg.

He was some fifty years of age, well dressed, bearded and portly, with a settled, self-satisfied countenance which said that the world belonged to him, and nothing could alter that fact.

To accuse such a man of misdeeds is to court disbelief, if not outright hostility
, Holmes mused, eyeing him.

Moments before the first race was to commence, the Queen’s manservant, John Brown, glanced over at Holmes and nodded discreetly. Holmes rose and made his way to the Queen’s private section. When a guard stepped in his path, Brown signaled that Holmes be permitted into the inner sanctum.

He bowed to Victoria as he passed. She dipped her head but did not look him in the eye. Then he went and stood directly in front of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, blocking his sightline and his light.

The latter looked up at him mildly and blinked a few times, as if not altogether certain that he was real. He glanced at Victoria, but as she paid neither him nor the blond chap any mind, he turned back to Holmes.

“Have I the pleasure of your acquaintance?” he asked icily.

“Not at all,” Holmes said equitably, “but I believe you were very well acquainted with Adam McGuire, who met an unfortunate end. And you are also acquainted with Nestor Ellensberg. He has returned to Zurich, there to remain unmolested.

“The Crown is now richer by 1.2 million pounds,” he continued, “a sum that you should consider well spent, as it prevents you from wasting the rest of your natural life in confinement.”

The older man blanched. He glanced again at the Queen, but she sat ramrod straight and did not deign to give him even the smallest glance.

Feodora looked over, curious.

“You will also be gratified to note,” Holmes went on, “that the remainder, in various currencies—since they cannot be easily returned—shall be well spent on operations of mercy and the like. Of course, should you attempt to claim any portion thereof, I have it on good authority that the confinement you have thus far avoided shall be awaiting you.

“And now,” he concluded, “I very much hope you enjoy the freedom that a fortune of birth has granted you, for surely others would never be so lucky.”

Holmes was about to walk away when he was called over by an unmistakable brogue.

“Mr. Holmes…”

John Brown beckoned him to Victoria’s side.

Holmes went to the Queen, and bowed low.

She glanced at him with her indecipherable shoe-button eyes, and then leaned toward her half-sister.

“Feodora,” she said languidly. “May I present Mycroft Holmes…”

As Holmes bowed again, and Feodora dutifully extended her hand in greeting, the Queen raised her voice so that it could clearly be heard.

“Mr. Holmes was able to recover more than one million pounds in five-pound notes that were somehow… misplaced.”

“Oh!” Feodora said. “That is quite a large sum to go missing, is it not, Wolfgang?” she said, in an attempt to include her cousin in the conversation, for it appeared to her that he was being left out.

Hohenlohe-Langenburg tried to speak, but the words seemed to stick in his throat. He could manage little more than a nod.

“Mr. Holmes is a man whom I hope to convince to come and work for the Crown, for he has our highest trust and esteem,” declared the Queen.

“I cannot imagine I shall be very hard to convince, Your Majesty,” Holmes said with a smile. Then, as the first race of the season was about to commence, the Queen excused him from the Royal Presence and he resumed his seat next to his friend.