Mycroft Holmes (5 page)

“You save your money, that I know—I am not the
only
parsimonious soul in the room. And when you purchased this fine little establishment, you hired trusted people of, shall we say, an
alternate
color to masquerade as the owners. Thus, you ensured that you would not find your cigar shop burned to the ground some unhappy morning.”

“You built your assumptions on such shoddy evidence?” Douglas exclaimed. “Very superficial of you, Holmes.” His tone was droll, but he was staring at his friend with unfettered curiosity.

“Naturally,” Holmes replied, smiling. “I’d be a fool to rely on that alone.”

“Well, if there’s one thing you are not, Mycroft Holmes, it is a fool,” Douglas responded. “One feels quite underdressed in your presence. Pray, enlighten me further.”

“Thank you, I will.” Holmes sat forward in his chair and narrowed his eyes. “Your employers do not have the aggressive manner an owner frequently employs in dealing with an underling. Indeed, they make eye contact with you whilst speaking, to the point that it seems as if they are waiting for nonverbal cues.

“Moreover,” he added as he ran a distracted hand through his blond hair, “the first time I met you on the London docks, and asked about that shipment of Cuban cigars that you were unloading, your response was much too specific. It required insights into the political turmoil that affects both affordability and availability, quite a neat trick for a mere hensman and clerk.”

With that, he folded his arms and sat back with what he hoped was an air of triumph.

Defeated, Douglas stared at the empty glass in his hand.

“I was always planning to take you into my confidence, Holmes,” he said, sounding contrite. “But I fear old habits die hard.”

Holmes nodded. “You are permitted to keep your secrets, Douglas,” he said. “But you must forgive me if I ferret them out. And now that you have admitted you are the owner, what shall we do about those ghastly meerschaum pipes?”

“They sell beautifully,” Douglas countered with a smile.

Holmes rolled his eyes, then returned to the topic at hand. “So. Was it your acquaintances who sent news of the vanishings in Trinidad, or was it your suppliers?”

“Both,” Douglas answered. “And once the suppliers confirmed the rumors, I had to take them seriously.”

“Well,” Holmes said crossly. “Before you disappear off the face of the civilized planet, allow me at least to determine whether or not any new reports have come in to the office of the Secretary of State for War. I shall rifle through in the morning.” He paused as a new thought crossed his mind. “And this evening, Georgiana and I are off to dinner,” he added. “Perhaps
she
has heard something.”

“Perhaps,” Douglas murmured, though his tone indicated that he wished to say no more about it. Holmes thought it an odd reaction to an offer of assistance.

“Are you suggesting that my asking her is futile?” Holmes said uncertainly, finishing his drink.

“Not at all, Holmes,” Douglas assured him. “I simply fear that, when she is around, your keen perceptions become woefully impaired.”

Holmes could feel the last sip of Armagnac burn his cheeks, tinting them an unbecoming shade of pink, as was happening with alarming frequency whenever Georgiana’s name was brought up.

“Is it true?” he said to Douglas after a moment. “Does love really make people so blind as all that?”

Douglas leaned toward his friend.

“There are three poisons to sound judgment,” he said, “love, hate, and envy. I do not see that you are much in thrall to the latter two, but I do ask that you be careful with the first.”

“I never suspected you of reading Petrarch,” Holmes teased. But indeed he
was
feeling rather vulnerable. He shook it off as nonsense—that combination of fear, exaltation, and exhaustion their little ordeal had provoked. He put out the cigar and rose to his feet, then slipped on his topcoat, and tried not to flinch again at its rather estimable odor.

He turned as he reached the door.

“Have you never been in love?” he asked in a voice that sounded entirely too plaintive.

Douglas stared into his empty glass again.

“That, my friend,” Douglas said, “is a story for another time.”

FUELED PERHAPS BY BRANDY AND BY A WALLET LINED WITH FRESH
cash, Holmes continued his uncommon spending spree. First, he splurged on a brand-new coat, not as costly as the old, to be sure, but handsome enough. Then, he rented a brougham when an ordinary hackney cab would have done.

Finally, he sent a messenger with a tip to guarantee a table at an exclusive West End restaurant with the reputation for a particularly hearty turtle soup. The entire affair would cost him as much as five guineas, but as this was the one-year anniversary of his engagement to Georgiana, surely it was worth every sou in his pockets.

On the way to fetch his beloved, Holmes stared out the window at the nightmare of London traffic, a bottleneck growing worse by the day. Roads built in the last twenty years, from Victoria to New Oxford Street, were already proving less than up to the task. There were so many carriages, carts, horses, mules—even the occasional team of oxen or flock of sheep—that getting across town in a timely fashion was all but impossible. Given the great number of Adam’s spawn in the streets, he had to assume that every house, hovel, tenement and pub in London must be deserted.

As his carriage lurched around and through the madness, Holmes was struck by a disconcerting thought.
Why wasn’t the War Office alerted to the disappearances in Trinidad? They could presage some tribal conflict, at the very least… What else is being kept from us?

The notion that Britain’s War Office might not have pertinent information sent a chill through him that began at the nape of his neck and traveled south, tightening his stomach with anxiety.

How absurd
, he thought.
I cannot take personally every mystery transpiring across the globe, or my career shall be quite short-lived.

Yet, in spite of his best efforts at rationality, he still felt very much out of sorts. When he could not eradicate the feeling, he chalked it up to the Armagnac. It brought to mind that line from
A Christmas Carol
, when Ebenezer Scrooge first laid eyes upon the specter.

“‘You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!’”

“Sir?” the cabman called out inquisitively. “Is you be wantin’ sumfin’, then?”

“No, no!” Holmes replied—mortified to realize that he had been quoting Dickens aloud. “Carry on!”

He sighed.
What is the matter with me?
He could only hope that this last thought, he had kept to himself.

He leaned his head back on the seat and was gratified to note that it did not, as in lesser carriages, stink of pomade, sweat, and old perfume. Thus appeased, he tried to think of something more edifying.

Georgiana immediately sprang to mind.

Just her name created an image so clear that she could have been sitting beside him. Blond, with cream-colored skin, pink cheeks and sparkling blue eyes, Georgiana Sutton was the quintessential English rose. Nothing about her hinted she’d ever been outside of London proper, or had endured any jostling about at all. But in fact, beneath that very proper British exterior, she possessed something of the exotic. She had been born and bred in Port of Spain, where her ancestors had resided for more than 200 years, and where her parents still ran the family’s large—and by all accounts prosperous—sugar plantation.

Holmes recalled with pleasure the day of their engagement.

Georgiana was wearing a peau-de-soie dress the color of fallen leaves, cinched at the waist, her hair done up high. He had pulled the ring from his jacket pocket, declaring his intentions. She had looked down at it and drawn a breath, her eyes brimming with tears.

“Oh! How lovely!” he recalled her saying.

“From South Africa,” he’d confided. Then, to her astonished look, he’d explained, “Indian mines are close to failing these days, my love. In a few weeks’ time, this African cache shall become public knowledge and Cape Colony awash with prospectors. But for the moment…”

That is when he had slipped the diamond onto her finger.

“…it helps to be a secretary in a war office!”

He’d assumed this little bit of knowledge would delight her, but she had remained silent, pondering the ring, studying it. He wondered if perhaps she thought it wasn’t up to the quality of Indian gems, and if he should hint as to its worth—though he could not imagine how to do so without sounding vulgar.

“Cape Colony, you say?” Georgiana murmured.

“Yes, dearest. So far, the bulk of the diamonds has been found on land owned by two Dutch farmers, surname de Beer…”

She’d looked up at him then, eyes shining, as if she’d just had the most improbable, the most beautiful thought in the world.

“Mycroft!” she said. “Wouldn’t it be exciting to invest in a diamond mine?”

He had laughed.

“Dearest,” he’d said. “You of all people should know that I am not given to speculation when it comes to money. Even on so-called ‘sure things.’”

“Yes, but this one time,” she’d replied. “It seems a certain bet, and think of the good we could do with the earnings.”

He had taken her in his arms.

“Georgiana,” he’d murmured, brushing his fingers across her cheek, “perhaps I am too ordinary, or perhaps too risk averse, but that is something I cannot bring myself to do.”

A shadow crossed her face, just for a moment, one that had given him a small shudder.

“My dearest,” he had assured her, “I cannot promise you a terribly exciting life, but I can promise that you shall be greatly loved.”

He took her hand and turned it palm up. On the band, engraved in the gold, was the outline of a small key.

“There you have it,” he’d said. “The key to my heart.”

She had thrown her arms about his neck that day. Her tears and embrace were all he’d needed.

The following week, when Holmes had informed his brother Sherlock of the engagement, the lad had looked down his long nose.

“She hails from Port of
Spain?
” he had sniffed, one eyebrow cocked as if Holmes had just confessed that his betrothed worked as a heaver on the London wharves.

“Georgiana is better educated than many of her peers,” Holmes protested. “A year at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, now a transfer to Girton!”

“Girton! So terribly
avant-garde
!” Sherlock had opined.

Yes, it was true—Girton dared to teach men’s subjects such as Latin, Greek, and mathematics to the weaker sex. And though it pained Holmes that Georgiana was, in certain circles, frowned upon as a libertine for pursuing an education at all, he was proud of her nonetheless for daring to venture forth in that manner—and proud of himself, too, for holding such progressive views.

He told Sherlock as much, making it clear that he would abide no foolish talk when it came to Georgiana. But Sherlock could be like a bloodhound on the scent.

“She is pretty too, I’ll wager,” his younger brother muttered, spitting out the word “pretty” as if it were a pejorative. “Marrying a pretty girl is the height of folly. You shall never have a moment’s peace.”

But his brother was wrong. Holmes was sure of it. Georgiana was pretty, yes, but she was no femme fatale. Men did not swoon at her feet. Yet though they might not vow to die for her, several had vowed to live for her—and she had rejected them all, choosing
him
.

Now he was determined to spend the rest of his life ensuring that she would never for one moment regret that decision.

Then again, this day’s small luxuries will have to last a while
, he thought with a sigh. His first and most important duty in Georgiana’s regard was to save for their future home, for they could not marry until that was secured.

Within eighteen months, he would have enough for a terrace in Pimlico, with perhaps two maids, a cook, and possibly even a coachman. Once their future children were born—Holmes was hoping for three: two boys and a girl—they would relocate into one of those new, semi-detached villas in St. John’s Wood, with their own small gardens, and bathrooms that were being constructed as separate rooms altogether.

Thus strengthened by his musings, Holmes dared to peek out the window of the cab again, only to notice a beggar with his hand out. The carriage was snarled in traffic, and Holmes could easily read the wretch’s sign: