At the front, marching high-kneed with an enormous, sparkly, bulbous red baton, was a wiry blond man wearing Victorian mourning clothes, an oversized fedora with a feather, and an expression of devout religiosity more suited to a cathedral choir. But even the trappings could not hide the sparkle of mischief that shone out from the green eyes, brighter than the flashes of sunlight off his oversized baton.
Those around the graveside panicked. The men clapped their hats on their heads; the women drew together. The priest, thinking to hurry matters along, raised his voice to declare, “Man, that is born of woman,” but quickly realised the futility of his effort. He snapped shut his book and stepped forward to protest.
Without effect. The band finished their tune and immediately launched into the next—rather, they launched into two different tunes. It took several bars before the players of one melody dropped out, scrambling to find their place in the dominant one. The blond man stood with his back at the brink of the hole and pumped his baton with great enthusiasm and no sense of tempo whatsoever. The young man who had been sent to stop them returned to the man with the sandy hair and spoke—shouted—into his ear. The man bent to listen, then threw up his hands and strode over to address the blond conductor, with no result.
The threescore similarly dressed latecomers looked around at each other, at the original mourners, and at the musical invaders. They seemed mightily confused.
The heavily veiled woman broke first. With the handkerchief to her face, she turned and ran, stumbling in her heels over the close-cropped grass until she reached a path, when her gait settled into a brisk march, head down. She had made it as far as the nearest tree when a hard-faced man stepped out and ripped off her veil. She struggled, got one arm free, and swung the hand at her assailant’s already bruised face with a resounding slap. He retaliated by shoving her face-first against the tree-trunk, grabbing her wrist, and fumbling with a pair of handcuffs.
The sandy-haired man saw what was happening and broke into a run to interfere; his young companion followed on his heels; the band, responding to the increased gesturings of the blond man, enthusiastically notched up its tempo and its volume.
As if a switch had been thrown, half a dozen of the original mourners were infected with the urge for rapid retreat. Five others followed on their heels. The look-alike men and women glanced at each other, at the coffin, and at the band before they, too, shifted away from the proceedings, slowly at first, then more quickly, until eighty-some people were fleeing the epicentre of the disturbance, like ants from a stirred nest.
The priest, torn between his congregation and his corpse, chose the living, abandoning the coffin to the brass band, its blond director, and the burly man who had ostentatiously smoothed his hair.
In a wide circle around the gravesite, the twelve hard-faced men had their hands full. A few of them managed to handcuff some of the look-alikes and were drawing them towards the grave. The band played on, loud and joyous and discordant. The burly man scowled at the bandleader, then turned on his heel, noticing the approach of several of his fellows dragging or shoving their protesting mourners. In the distance, the other two men had caught up the first assailant and his prisoner, whose luxurious black hair was spilling down around her shoulders. The younger man bent over the woman’s bound wrists while the older one directed a wrathful tirade at the man with the bruised nose and freshly reddened cheek.
It seemed that, in moments, these two would break into open violence. But before that happened, the man with the bruises cast a glance down at the sole remaining mourner. This time, the burly man’s hand was not smoothing his hair, but stretched over his head, open-palmed, waving sharply in a clear message to cease and desist.
The inward movement of the hard men and their prisoners slowed, then stopped. One at a time, the men bent to struggle with the handcuff mechanisms. The freed men and women, looking frightened, hurried to join their untouched fellows who had gathered at a safe distance. The larger group took them in, patting and touching their reassurance. Several of the women pulled off wigs that had been knocked awry; several of the men yanked at the ties in their stiff collars. When all their original members were reunited, they moved as one down the paths and out of the cemetery’s main entrance, where the original twenty-three mourners had long since fled.
When the band came to an end of the present song, it briskly launched into the first tune it had played on arrival. Now, green eyes blazing with the triumph of his rout, the blond Lord of Misrule brandished his baton in the air, stepped away from the gaping hole, and marched, high-kneed as before, across the grass in the direction they had come. The band jerked and trailed into his wake, motion making them play even more out of tune and off the beat. Some of the hard-looking men, now drawn together around the boxer, made as if to stop them, but the man made a cutting motion with his hand, then turned and walked away, stiff-spined with fury. The twelve looked at each other, then at the band, before turning to follow.
The band marched off. The woman with the handkerchief, weeping in earnest now, stumbled after all the others with her veil in her hand, a sad and solitary figure crossing a nearly deserted graveyard.
The two men who had loosed her from her captor came back down the rise, standing for a time beside the bare hole and its abandoned coffin, before even they turned to make their way towards the entrance.
The cemetery subsided into its state of calm Sunday afternoon peace.
The thrush on the high branch was moved to song, although the season for singing had been over for many weeks. His music spilled over the deserted cemetery for a long time before the approach of evening made itself felt, and he flew off in search of a resting place.
It was full dusk when the figure slipped away from the grand family vault.
Chapter 56
I found Holmes by the time-honoured method of strolling up the street and waiting for him to pounce on me. The familiar hsst came from the doorway of an antiquarian bookstore. It was not open for business, it being Sunday, but the proprietor was at work, his door propped open to counteract the drowsy effects of his accumulated centuries of wood pulp and printer’s ink.
Holmes had removed his cassock and lacy surplice, and set aside his piety along with the Book of Common Prayer. He physically jerked me inside and frowned at my funeral disguise, which was that of a dowdy young woman indistinguishable from any of Billy’s relatives. He commented on the effectiveness of the disguise, examined me for sign of injuries, berated me for driving away our foes before they could reveal their leader, and chided me for reducing the obsequies to a shambles—all of which were his way of expressing his pleasure in seeing me. The last of the accusations, however, I felt I should deny.
“That was not I, Holmes,” I protested.
He stopped. “It was not?”
“Well, not all of it.”
“Are you saying that Billy himself came up with the idea of having every one of his friends and relations who possessed vaguely the correct physique show up in identical dress?”
“Oh no, that was mine. The brass band was something else entirely.”
“Ha! The small blond man whom you introduced into the bolt-hole near Baker Street.”
“He spent more time there than I did, but yes. Was that disapproval I heard?”
He summoned a look of surprise. “Why should I disapprove? Clearly you had reason to permit a stranger access.”
Before I could respond, he turned to the antique antiquarian perched behind the counter and thanked him for the temporary use of his shop, then took me by the arm again to drag me towards the back. I shook off his grip—shook off, too, the fleeting memory of running hand in hand with Goodman through a dark forest.
“His musical interlude was, I will admit, remarkably effective,” he remarked over his shoulder. “I had not anticipated quite such a number of opponents, lying in wait for us.”
“Nor I. Holmes, where have you been?”
“First Wick, then Amsterdam,�
�� he said succinctly.
“Yes, Billy told me you were there, although he did not know why. Rather a long detour to London, was it not?”
“Damian was more comfortable when we ran before the wind.”
“Is he all right?”
“His shoulder is healing. I left him in the tender hands of a lady doctor.”
“You found a lady doctor in Amsterdam?”
“We abducted one from Wick.”
“Abducted? Oh, Holmes, do you think—”
“Needs must, Russell. Can you climb in that frock?”
I sighed. “Needs must, Holmes.”
The external ladder led to a flat above the bookshop, which by all evidence belonged to the bookseller himself. Holmes moved to the gas ring and put on a kettle, tossing my way a few details of the trip he and Damian had made, along with this doctor lady.
When I had unearthed a chair from a dozen ancient volumes and settled with my cup of tea, I returned to my question.
“When I asked where you were, I meant more recently. I expected to see you at the bolt-hole.”
“Life became rather more complex than I had anticipated.”
“You went down to Southwark,” I suggested.
“Either they are good or I am getting old, because I nearly handed myself to them twice.”
“If they got the better of Billy in his own home ground, they know what they’re doing.”
“And you?” he said. “Any problems on the way down from Scotland?”
“Ah. Goodman didn’t give you the letter?”
“Goodman is your blond friend? No, I received no letter.”
Of course not: Even I had needed a moment to see behind the priest’s disguise. I took another revivifying swallow of tea and began my report on the past eight days. Thirty seconds in, he interrupted.
“Brothers is alive?”
“The book, Holmes. Brothers had his death journal with him, probably in his breast pocket where the bullet hit. I thought it odd that the Orcadian police seemed only marginally interested in the site, but Lestrade confirmed it when I went to his house this morning—news had reached him of a fire and loud noise like a gunshot, but since there was no body, that was all he’d heard.”
“That does rather change things.”
“But I can’t see—” I jolted to a halt: I had not seen Holmes since Mycroft’s death, and his brief description of the week’s activities had skipped over that central event. I put down my cup and laid my hand over his. “I’m so sorry, Holmes. I read of it in The Times, on Wednesday. It was … couldn’t believe it.”
“Nor could I,” he said flatly. “And I’ve now wasted a week.”
“Holmes, I can’t see any relation between Brothers alive and Mycroft …”
“Dead? Brothers had help from within the government, either directly or purchased for him by others. I was operating under the theory that he came here under the auspices of a Shanghai crime cartel, who then lost control over him at the same time he lost control of his reason. If he is alive, it throws another light on our target, but in either case, we are facing a group with considerable resources: men in Holland and in Harwich, an insider in the passport office, twelve men this afternoon. Mycr—”
“A sharpshooter in Thurso,” I added to his list.
He raised an eyebrow, and fell silent. I told him all: Javitz; aeroplane; sniper; crash; wild man of the woods; telegrams and newspaper notices; five armed invaders, two of whom had been at the cemetery this afternoon; our trip to London; Javitz and Estelle. I told him what I had found in the apartment of the absent Richard Sosa, and what I had uncovered in Mycroft’s flat: a note from Lestrade; sixteen documents that could change the world; a key; and one letter with an anomalous capital I.
“Sophy Melas,” he said, when I told him the last.
“You know her? I mean to say, you know her from before, but recently?”
“We’ve met. And I knew that Mycroft had continued dealings with her, after she returned to this country. That was she at the funeral, in the veil.”
“The only one in tears,” I said. Then, distracted from my train of thought, I asked, “I saw the Prime Minister there, but who was the grey-haired man with the entourage?”
He gave the name of a high-ranking but painfully introverted Royal, commenting that Mycroft had assisted the man some years before. Other mourners had included Sinclair, head of the SIS, and Vernon Kell, the man in charge of the domestic Secret Service. Not, apparently, Peter James West, nor Richard Sosa.
“And of course Lestrade was there,” I added.
“You went to his house, you say?”
“I let myself in during the wee hours, and found him waiting.”
“I imagine he was well pleased.”
“Well, I didn’t want to wake his family. And he ought to have a better latch.”
“Did his note alone lead you to believe a visit to his house would not be a trap?”
“It didn’t strike me as his kind of ruse. Besides which,” I added, “it was three in the morning and I’m a lot quicker than he is. I thought it a reasonable risk.”
“As, too, breaking into Richard Sosa’s flat.”
“The only indication that I was there was a small ivory carving I knocked to the floor when I moved the curtains. I put it back, but I can’t be sure I had the precise place. If there was one—Sosa seemed an odd mixture of great caution with slips of carelessness.”
“Which might make one wonder, were not most criminals apprehended because of a moment’s carelessness.”
“So, Holmes. What next?”
“This pilot of yours: Will he keep the child—will he keep Estelle safe for another day or two?” I was glad he’d finally come around to his granddaughter.
“Captain Javitz is a determined and honourable man, and he and Estelle get along like a house afire. And he’s a bit embarrassed at one or two recent displays of weakness, which means he’ll be scrupulous about guarding her. As for Goodman, I’m not sure what he’ll do. The last I saw of him—other than at the head of that awful band—was at the bolt-hole this morning. He’s like a jack-in-the-box, always popping in and out. Later I saw that he’d taken the letter I’d written to you, giving details about this past week—I thought I should set it all down in case Lestrade decided to arrest me. I put the Sussex address on the front, and stamps. I hope he remembers to put it into the post.” And to seal it first.
“You have doubts?”
“It is beyond me to predict what the man will do. He’s an extraordinary creature, like something from another world.” Time enough later to tell him what I knew of the man’s history. “Perhaps we’d best go back to Baker Street, just to be sure. I’ll need a change of clothes, in any case; it might as well be from there.”
“A man who cannot be trusted to post a letter is someone you trusted with the bolt-hole?” He did not sound angry, merely curious.
I could not explain my confidence in this odd man, not even to myself.
“I had to do something with him, Holmes. Billy was out of the equation, most of our friends are known, Mycroft’s flat felt exposed, and I didn’t want to risk an hotel. When you meet him, you can decide if I’ve compromised the place too badly.” And you have five other bolt-holes, I thought but did not say.
“Very well, let us go now. There will be rough garments there, I believe.” He picked up the tea-pot and cups, returning them to the sink.
“Rough?” I repeated to his back. I did not care for the sound of that word. “Why do we need rough garments, Holmes?”
He turned in surprise. “Oh, if you wish to retain the frock, by all means, do so, Russell. I merely assumed you would prefer more practical garb for the purpose of grave-digging.”
Chapter 57
Holmes, no,” I protested, trotting after him down a passageway that would have been dark even were it not coming on to evening. “You can’t be serious. Grave-digging?”
“How else are we to know who lies there?”
“Why would you imagine it is anyone other than your brother?”
“I tried to get into the mortuary yesterday night and was told the coffin was already sealed. When I pressed the man, I learned that they had received the coffin in that state on the Thursday morning.”
“Is that unusual, when embalming is not required?”
“I …” He could not answer: Either he did not know, or it was not unusual.
“I’m surprised you didn’t break in then and there.”
“I would have, but there was never a time when the building was empty. Who would have imagined mortuaries were so incessantly busy?”
“Holmes, I think you’re being unreasonable.”
“You said yourself, you couldn’t believe Mycroft was dead.”
“That was a figure of speech!”
“Well, mine was not. When I see his corpse with my own eyes, I will believe, but not before then.”
I had found it difficult to use the words death and murder when talking to Lestrade that morning, but this went far beyond any mere aversion to hard truth. In another man, I would have assumed that brother-worship had taken an alarming turn and required physical intervention and a long period of quiet conversation. But this was Holmes, after all: Despite his age, I doubted I could tackle him successfully.
So I kept silent and did my best to keep up with him.
The streets behind Marylebone Road appeared deserted—these were, after all, office blocks, and it was a Sunday evening—but Holmes paused for several minutes at the top of the street so we could survey all of the doorways and windows. When he was satisfied, we made a swift detour through a service entry, came out next to the bolt-hole’s entrance, and in moments, we were inside and invisible.
But not before I had spotted something odd on the ground just outside the entrance. “Wait, is that—” I reached for it and said, “Holmes.”
“Quiet,” he shot back, standing rigid inside. I drew breath, and discovered what had attracted his attention: the odours of cooking, highly unlikely here.
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