Mycroft Holmes (27 page)

Douglas scanned it with disgust.

“It says nothing,” he muttered darkly. “The usual ‘we hope your family is well and your business is thriving’—certainly not the sort of information one would torch a house to quell…”

He paused, and frowned, squinting over the letter.

“Although this,” he mumbled, “I have no notion of…” Then his voice trailed off, and his frown deepened.

“What is it?” Holmes pressed.

Douglas translated:

“‘Men of genteel but profitable employment, whom we have not seen in two decades or more, are now at our ports—’”

“What does he mean, ‘at our ports’?” Holmes interrupted.

“Caracas,” Douglas said distractedly, then continued. “‘And they are wishing to repurchase merchandise at its former market value.’” He paused, then said, “What sort of merchandise could he mean?”

Holmes suddenly leaned forward in his chair.

“What is it…?” Douglas asked, eyeing him curiously.

“Dear heavens, Douglas. Keep reading!” he sputtered.

“Why? What do you infer from this?”

“Come, come, man—I grant that your supplier is being diplomatic to the point of cryptic, but, having worked in a war office, I am well versed in cryptic,” Holmes exclaimed. “I am certain that the poor sod is too frightened to do more than hint.”

“Frightened of what?”

“You know perfectly well what—”

“
HOLMES!
”

Douglas thundered his friend’s name so loudly that Emanuel, lying in his bed, twitched and snorted, before drifting off to sleep once again.

“Whatever is the matter?” Holmes bleated.

“You must keep me apprised as we go along,” Douglas blurted out. “God’s teeth, man, you can make
anyone
feel like an idiot.”

“Apprised?” Holmes stammered. “Why, of course! You needn’t bellow, we
are
partners in this, are we not?”

Douglas leaned across the table.

“Perhaps it has not been made sufficiently clear to you,” he countered tersely, “but someone has burned down my home to destroy
this
!” He waved the letter inches from Holmes’s face. “This endless litany of ‘we trust your family is well,’” he continued, “has cost my family and myself dearly. So, if you discern something of worth, pray tell me without a trace of smugness.” He sat back and crossed his arms at the waist. “Because at the moment I cannot bear it.”

“Smugness?” Holmes replied. “I am not
remotely
smug! But does ‘genteel employment’ suggest nothing to you?”

Douglas took a moment to breathe. He acknowledged to himself—not for the first time—that arguing with Holmes was useless. That he’d do what he would, and heaven take the hindmost.

“Genteel employment,” he mused. “I suppose it reminds me of ‘the genteel trade’.”

“There you have it!” Holmes declared.

Douglas blanched.

“You are referring to slaves?” he asked, incredulous, as if the very notion might spring out and bite him. “You think that slaves are the ‘merchandise’ of which they speak?”

“What
else
could they be speaking of?”

“Holmes,” Douglas said, as evenly as he could manage. “I realize you are given to far-fetched notions…”

“All of which have been proven true thus far,” Holmes reminded him.

“But
this
letter hails from Venezuela. The slave trade has been banned there for twenty-six years.”

“Nevertheless, we are on to something,” Holmes insisted. “Pray, keep reading. I have an inkling that this is the first major opportunity we have had.”

THE SEVENTH MISSIVE, HAILING FROM PORTUGAL, SUBTLY
confirmed the one from Venezuela. It was more overt, referring to the slavers as “men of the genteel trade,” and it ascertained that, after a good long absence, they’d suddenly begun appearing openly at various ports of call that had once been part of their routes.

“‘Employment in the Caribbean is scarce, as you are aware,’” Douglas read, “‘and merchandise tends to stay put.’” He looked up. “I assume that means ex-slaves continue to work for their former owners, there being no other work to be had.”

Holmes, who was fanning himself with letter number one, nodded.

“‘In exchange for a moment’s distraction, merchandise is appropriated for three hundred British pounds per unit,’” Douglas read.

He stared at Holmes.

“So past owners are asked to identify not only the former slave, but his or her whereabouts, so that the slavers may kidnap them—to the tune of three hundred pounds per head. Three hundred per head…” he repeated, whistling.

Abruptly he rose and began inspecting Emanuel’s drawers and shelves.

Holmes stared at him askance for a moment.

“What the
deuce
are you searching for?”

“Ah, thank heavens,” Douglas gasped. From out of the recesses of an otherwise bare shelf, he pulled out a little brown burlap pouch of shag tobacco, along with a sheet of yellowed rolling papers. The tobacco was nearly as old as the straw in the old man’s mattresses, but Holmes was every bit as glad to see it as was Douglas to have found it.

Both men rolled it up quickly, set it afire, and inhaled greedily.

“Brilliant notion, Douglas,” Holmes complimented him after a long exhalation. “Helps one to think.”

“It never occurred to me that you might need assistance in that regard,” Douglas replied. “In any case, with the sugar and cocoa trades struggling, three hundred British pounds per head would, unfortunately, be wildly tempting to just about anyone.”

He took a puff of the cigarette and exhaled the acrid smoke.

“On the other hand, it makes economic sense only to the seller,” he mused. “Half of the twelve million slaves ‘imported’ from Africa were brought here, to the Caribbean. That’s quite a bit of ‘merchandise’ for the slavers to repurchase, and for an awful lot of money. Imagine how long it would take to contact every former slave owner in—”

“Six years,” Holmes interjected.

“Beg pardon?”

“It would take six years to contact them all.”

“So you are saying they began this process six years ago?” Douglas ventured.

“I said no such thing,” Holmes exclaimed, “and they are certainly not planning to kidnap six million former slaves. No, if they receive an affirmative from even one in one hundred previous owners…”

Douglas shook his head no.

“I realize maths is your forte, Holmes,” he declared, “and not necessarily mine, but that is still sixty thousand former slaves they would be proposing to pay for, and then kidnap—which would be a chore in and of itself. And while it’s true that some people consider the Negro expendable,” he continued, “sixty thousand human beings vanishing into the ether may attract a bit of notice.”

“Yes,” Holmes admitted, “the monetary sum would be sheer folly, and the logistics of the kidnappings? Untenable, as you said. So, while our discovery is certainly momentous in nature, what we need now is direction.”

Douglas stared down at the last envelope. It bore no postmark.

“Perhaps it contains a map,” he suggested, only half joking. He tore it open, but there was no map inside, and no letter. Instead, there was the gleaming illustration of a steamship, with the words “seeds and machinery” penned above it in a printed hand that neither man recognized.

Holmes looked it over.

“It seems self-evident that the slaves would be transported by ship,” he said. “That isn’t the sort of revelation we need. And there’s nothing here to indicate what the final destination would be.”

“‘Seeds and machinery,’” Douglas quoted. “Any ship that carries seeds and machinery, regardless of the other cargo, is protected as a commercial vessel and is immune from search and seizure.”

“That is a fact,” Holmes acknowledged.

At that moment, they heard a hiss.

The old stove had finally burned its fuel down to embers.

“Thank heavens,” Holmes declared, eyeing it with mild contempt. “I never thought I’d mourn the London chill.”

“Have we been sitting for so long?” Douglas marveled. He rose and checked his pocket watch.

“Nearly midnight,” he confirmed.

Between the soot and the cigarette smoke, the room was shrouded in fumes.

“I realize that opening the window is impossible,” Holmes said, “but perhaps we can open the door.”

“At
this
hour? Not worth the trouble,” Douglas responded, “as we would be consumed by mosquitos and gnats. Besides which, I shall not be responsible for Emanuel’s catching a draft.” With that in mind, he walked over, removed a blanket from a second mattress, and laid it on top of Emanuel’s thin one—then resumed his perch across from his friend.

“I’m astonished he can breathe at all,” Holmes quipped. “Or that we can.” Nevertheless, he rolled a second cigarette, marveling how good the rancid tobacco tasted, despite the burn.

“Any thoughts?” Douglas asked, indicating the letters.

Holmes shrugged.

“One or two,” he said. “Why would the slavers suddenly feel at their leisure to wander about their former ports of call?” he asked, and then he answered his own question. “I posit that their goal,” he began, “is not numbers at all. Think of it, Douglas—once a man is willing to entertain the
notion
of selling a human being, never mind actually doing so, in a country where such activity has been declared illegal, he becomes complicit.

“At this juncture,” he continued, “it seems likely that enough former owners have entertained the notion—or perhaps taken actual money—that the slavers feel safe to wander about their former hunting grounds.”

“Let me be sure I have it correct,” Douglas said. “You posit that they never actually
intended
to kidnap ex-slaves in such high numbers—that the purpose of kidnapping is to keep ex-owners quiet and complicit. Their intent, in other words, has always been to import slaves from slave-trading countries, where it’s much less costly.”

“Precisely,” Holmes said.

“But surely the ex-owners are not fools,” Douglas protested. “Surely they have done their own due diligence and have discerned whether or not those slavers have the resources to purchase all those slaves. That would require an awful lot of money in the bank, Holmes.”

The latter nodded. “True, but in the latter case, the resources are simply a front. A wealthy investor puts up money, knowing he won’t have to spend it all. The slavers kidnap just enough ex-slaves here and there to keep the locals complicit and therefore docile. In the meantime, our villains simply wait for an opportune time to import slaves en masse, and for much lower sums, from countries that still trade, moving them through the ports of countries that still allow slaving ships to dock at their shores.” He counted off on his fingers: “Puerto Rico, Portugal, Brazil—”

“Yes, yes,” Douglas interrupted impatiently. “Thirty countries worldwide, so quite a few to choose from. With a looming war in Europe, and the United States busy with its own recovery, the slavers simply have to wait a few more months. No one will be paying this the least mind.”

He flicked nervously at his cigarette. “But why come here?” he wondered. “Why Trinidad?”

Holmes shrugged. “Oil,” he speculated. “And coal.”

“But the Amerindians are already serving as very cheap labor for both,” Douglas countered.

“Nothing is cheaper than free,” Holmes replied. “In any case, it is hard to fathom that men would go to all this trouble for oil, or even coal…”

“…or caulking.”

“You are referring to Pitch Lake?” Holmes asked.

Douglas nodded. “Most of the ships in the area purchase the sludge as caulking material.”

Holmes put out his cigarette and plucked some errant tobacco from the tip of his tongue.

“And not a peep about any of this at the War Office,” he exclaimed. “Which certainly unsettles me, though it does remind me—when we hail to Port of Spain once again, we shall have to go by the post office. I sternly charged Parfitt to send me anything of pertinence.”

“Little Huan is collecting the post for the Chinese district,” Douglas said. “I shall ask him to collect your letters, as well.” He looked distracted, and frowned. “The most pertinent question remains. If this is all true, can anything be done? Can these people be stopped?”

Holmes shrugged again.

“Britain has no jurisdiction over slave-trading countries at all,” he said somberly.

“And escape would be a constant threat,” Douglas added. “How do the slavers manage it? It’s not like the days when nearly every country had its own slave trade, and freedom was prohibitively distant.”

“Where can they locate land that is at once safe from mutiny
and
beyond the reach of national laws?” Holmes asked.

Douglas shook his head.
Yet another dilemma
, he thought,
on an endless list
.

* * *

As Holmes inhaled a few more puffs, he suddenly recalled something Mrs. Sutton had said.

“Mr. Sutton, God rest his soul, decided to go a different way, purchasing land off the coast…”
He sifted her words through his brain—

And then it came to him.

“Douglas!” he practically shouted it. “
Islands!
”