by Andrew Lane
‘You’re looking well,’ Sherlock said eventually.
‘You are being too kind. Either that or your observational facility has withered in the time you have been away. I am neither looking well nor feeling well. I fear I have the beginnings of gout in my right foot, and I may need recourse to spectacles in the near future. Or a monocle, perhaps.’ He looked Sherlock up and down. ‘You, however, have developed muscles in places where I had no idea that muscles could develop. Your eyes are washed out by all the sun that you have experienced, and your hair is unfashionably long. I perceive that you haven’t started shaving yet, which is a small blessing I suppose, but I cannot believe that it will be long before you will be sporting an unappealing moustache and a small goatee beard.’ He paused, considering. ‘I see traces on you of various ports of call – Dakar, Borneo, Shanghai, of course, and, if I am not very much mistaken, Mombasa and the Seychelles as well. The rough skin on your hands indicates that the Captain has allowed you to work your passage on the Gloria Scott, which is what Amyus Crowe and I had assumed would happen. Your general muscular development suggests a great deal of climbing, but the change in your poise, the way you hold yourself, suggests a different form of activity.’ He cocked his head to one side. ‘Gymnastics? No, I think not. More likely to be an Eastern martial art along the lines of karate or judo.’
‘T’ai chi,’ Sherlock said softly.
‘I have heard of it. I see from the calluses on the fingers of your left hand that you are still practising that abominable instrument, the violin, although I am unsure how, given that you left it at Holmes Manor.’ He shuddered slightly, the rolls of fat around his neck shivering like a disturbed blancmange. ‘I cannot tell, but I do hope that you have not picked up any tattoos on your travels. I find the idea of disfiguring one’s skin with a design that can never be removed abhorrent in the extreme.’
‘No, Mycroft – no tattoos. And, just to put your mind at rest, I have contracted no strange tropical diseases either.’
‘I am relieved to hear it.’ He suddenly reached out a hand and put it on Sherlock’s knee. ‘Are you . . . all right, Sherlock? Are you well ?’
Sherlock took a moment before answering. ‘What is the phrase that doctors use when conveying news to relatives? I am “as well as can be expected”, I suppose.’
‘You survived. That is what counts.’
‘Not unchanged, Mycroft,’ Sherlock said.
‘If you had remained at home in England then you would have changed anyway. It is called “growing up”.’
‘If I had remained at home in England, then some things would not have changed. Or at least, they would have changed in a different way.’
‘You mean Virginia, of course. Or at least, the burgeoning relationship between you and her. You obviously received at least one of the letters I sent.’
Sherlock glanced sideways, out of the window, before Mycroft could see the sudden gleam of tears in his eyes.
Instead of pressing Sherlock on the matter, Mycroft made a brief ‘harrumph’ sound, then said: ‘Before you ask, Father is still in India with his regiment. I have received a series of letters from him, so I know that he is fit and well. Mother is . . . stable . . . but her health is still fragile. She sleeps a lot. As for our sister – well, what can one say?’ He shrugged. ‘She is as she always is. I am afraid to tell you, by the way, that Uncle Sherrinford has had a bad fall. He broke an arm and several ribs. Aunt Jane is looking after him, but at his age a fall like that can accelerate the inevitable end that we all come to.’
Sherlock took a few moments to process the information. He felt a twinge of sadness. He hadn’t got to know his uncle very well, but he had liked the man. Sherrinford had embodied a kindness, a Christian morality and an obsession with research that had impressed Sherlock in the time he had spent at Holmes Manor.
‘What about you?’ he asked eventually. ‘Are you still living in Whitehall and working in the Foreign Office?’
‘Sherlock, I suspect I shall be living in the one and working in the other until the day I die. When you add the Diogenes Club, where I spend most of my lunchtimes and evenings, the three locations form a triangle which defines my life.’ He stared at Sherlock for a few moments in silence. ‘We should have a discussion some time about your future, but I have a feeling that we will need a geometric figure with considerably more vertices than a triangle to describe it.’
‘I’m not sure I like the idea of being defined by any shape, Mycroft. As far as I can see, my future is amorphous. Shapeless.’
‘You will need to earn money somehow. You will need to live somewhere. Thought must be given to these things.’
‘But not now,’ Sherlock said.
‘I agree. Not now.’ Mycroft reached up with his walking stick and rapped it against the roof of the carriage. ‘Driver! You there! Take us back to the hotel.’ As the carriage lurched off he looked back to Sherlock. ‘I have taken rooms at the local tavern. The beds sag but the food is acceptable. I trust you do not object to spending a night or two here before we return to England?’ He paused for a second, and when he spoke again his voice was uncharacteristically hesitant. ‘You are coming back to England, aren’t you?’
Sherlock nodded. ‘I am,’ he confirmed. ‘I have been to sea and come back. I don’t want to make either a habit or a career out of it.’ Just to provoke his brother a little he added: ‘Maybe I’ll join the circus next – for the experience.’
‘There are some experiences that can be taken on trust,’ Mycroft said. ‘That is one of them.’
As the carriage clattered away from the harbour, and into the town, Sherlock asked: ‘How exactly did you know when the Gloria Scott would be arriving in Galway? And if it comes to that how did you know that it would be arriving in Galway? There are other ports where we might have docked.’
‘Ah.’ Mycroft shifted uncomfortably. ‘You have, as is your wont, arrived straight at the heart of the issue. There is a job here that I need to do, and I need your help to do it.’
CHAPTER TWO
Galway was a small town with plenty of character. As the carriage clattered along the winding cobbled streets, past shop fronts and taverns, past women in shawls and men in rough corduroy jackets and flat caps, Sherlock kept having to remind himself that he was home – well, nearly home – and not in some far-flung foreign port.
Mycroft was silent for a while after his admission. He seemed to be avoiding Sherlock’s gaze, and instead stared out of the carriage window with a pensive expression on his face.
‘I must confess,’ he said eventually, ‘that I have not told you the entire story.’
‘You surprise me,’ Sherlock murmured. He had already worked out that there was more to Mycroft’s presence in Galway than his brother had revealed.
Mycroft glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. ‘What exactly do you mean?’
‘You once told me that you rarely do anything for only the one reason. You consider it lazy and wasteful of time and of resources.’ Sherlock gazed at his brother, who was attempting to keep a fixed expression of supercilious amusement on his face and failing. ‘I know that you hate travel, and that you hate having your normal routine disturbed. I would have expected you to send someone else to meet me – perhaps Rufus Stone.’ He paused, considering. ‘In fact, now that I come to think of it, Galway is not a port I would normally have expected the Gloria Scott to visit. I recall that we were originally scheduled to make landfall in Liverpool, but the Captain’s plans changed. In fact, I remember that he had a visitor, an Englishman, when we docked at Cadiz. They had a meeting in the Captain’s cabin. Shortly after that he said that we would be changing our itinerary.’ Sherlock felt a small bud of anger begin to unfold in his chest. ‘Mycroft, did you ask the Captain to change his course and call in at Galway just because you had other business in Ireland, in this town, and it was convenient for you to combine your trip here with meeting me and checking that I was all right?’
Mycroft stared at S
herlock for a few moments without speaking, and then said: ‘Well done. I see your mental faculties have not withered to compensate for the obvious over-development of your body. Yes, I have known for a while now that there was . . . let us say an event . . . in this area that I would be obliged to attend at this time. I had been tracking the course of the Gloria Scott homeward by means of various agents I have in ports around the world, and predicted that you would arrive in England at roughly the same time that I had to be in Ireland. I cabled one of my agents and told him to meet with the Gloria Scott when it broke its journey in Cadiz and talk with Captain Tollaway. He offered the Captain . . . well, let us say a small but not insignificant amount of money to change his plans slightly, to dock here, in Galway, and to try to arrange things so as to arrive here at a particular time.’ He raised an eyebrow at Sherlock’s expression. ‘You are angry, I perceive.’
‘Yes, I’m angry.’ Sherlock tore his gaze away from his brother and stared out of the window. ‘I thought for a little while that you had made the effort to come all this way on my behalf, because you had missed me, not because I could be moved around like a pawn on a chessboard because it suited you.’
‘I confess,’ Mycroft said heavily, ‘that I did not take your feelings into account when I made my plans. That was a mistake. I am sorry. Please accept the fact that I am more than happy to see you, and that, had it always been a part of the Captain’s plan to stop at Galway before continuing on to Southampton, I would have done my best to have been here to meet you regardless of any other plans that I had. It merely made things more . . . convenient . . . for me to combine separate events into one.’
‘I’m glad that I could help,’ Sherlock murmured bitterly.
The carriage pulled up in front of an ornate hotel. A doorman moved to help Mycroft and Sherlock get out.
‘I have been staying here for a few days,’ Mycroft said as he levered himself out of his seat. The carriage tilted alarmingly as he moved. ‘Fortunately we will be relocating to Cloon Ard Castle, out along the coast road in an area known as Salthill, this afternoon.’
‘For your job.’
‘Yes, for my job.’
‘And am I entitled to know what this job is, or should I just wait patiently until you have completed your work and we can go back to England?’
‘I will tell you everything over lunch.’ Mycroft stepped to the pavement and the carriage rocked back on its springs. ‘I promise.’ He glanced up at the carriage driver. ‘I will not be needing you for a few hours, but please pick us up at four o’clock this afternoon, on the dot. I will have luggage. A lot of luggage.’ He glanced at Sherlock. ‘We will need to get you several sets of clothes, a decent pair of shoes, a carpet bag and some toiletries this afternoon. We cannot have you looking like an itinerant sailor for the rest of your life. I have taken the liberty of contacting a local tailor. He will attend us this afternoon with a range of suits in various sizes. I had considered bringing some of the clothes that you had left behind at Holmes Manor, in Farnham, but I worried that you would have grown out of them.’ He stared at Sherlock as Sherlock descended from the carriage. ‘I see that I was right.’
A table had been set aside for Mycroft in the restaurant area of the hotel, and the maître d’hotel escorted them across the nearly empty room. When they were seated Mycroft said: ‘The lobster for me, I think. Sherlock, I can recommend the turbot.’ When Sherlock nodded he added, ‘And a bottle of Montrachet.’ The maître d’ made an apologetic motion with his hands. ‘Sancerre?’ Another shrug. ‘Bordeaux?’
‘I’ll have a pint of whatever local beer you stock,’ Sherlock said, surprising himself.
‘And I suppose that I will have the same,’ Mycroft murmured unhappily. As the maître d’ moved away, he added, ‘I wish that the climate of Ireland was more conducive to the cultivation of grapes. As it stands, the constant dampness favours only the growing of hops, potatoes and mushrooms. I understand that the enterprising locals have found a way to make a strong spirit from potatoes. It is called “potcheen”, and I am informed that it is as much use as a fuel for lamps and a means of removing varnish from furniture as it is as a drink. So far they have failed to produce an alcoholic beverage from mushrooms, but they are an inventive people. Give them enough time and they will succeed.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I have often thought that the measure of a good drink is how well it lends itself to being used in cookery. Just think of beef in red wine, chicken sautéed in brandy or champagne trifle. I fear that if you tried to marinate a chicken breast in potcheen it would dissolve in moments.’ He glanced at Sherlock. ‘Beer, eh? You are growing up, and not in a direction of which I necessarily approve. I suppose we can blame the company you have kept for the past year.’
Sherlock took a moment to look around the restaurant. ‘Sailors are rough folk,’ he said eventually, ‘but at least they are honest in their dealings. They say what they mean and they mean what they say.’
‘Unlike me?’ Mycroft inquired. ‘I suppose I deserve that rebuke. So, while we wait for the wonders of the kitchen to appear, tell me all about your voyage. I am agog to hear the details.’
‘Didn’t your agents give you a full account? I’m not sure there is anything I can add to their reports.’
‘Don’t get snippy, Sherlock. You have been through a life-changing experience. I want to know all about it.’ He paused momentarily. ‘Actually, my agents did mention something about a murderously feral child and a plot to blow up an American naval vessel, but I would rather hear the details from you. It seemed so fantastical.’
Sherlock spent lunch telling Mycroft everything that had happened to him on the Gloria Scott, in Shanghai and in the other ports that the ship had visited. Mycroft sat and listened, interrupting every now and then with a pertinent and focused question. As Sherlock recounted the story of his life-or-death struggle with Mr Arrhenius he could see that his brother was getting increasingly tense.
‘Storms I had expected,’ he murmured as Sherlock finished his story. ‘Scurvy, perhaps. But this . . . this I had no idea about. You are fortunate to have survived.’
‘Now it’s your turn,’ Sherlock prompted. ‘What are you doing here, and what is it that we are expected to see when we arrive at the castle? Some kind of diplomatic meeting?’
Mycroft shook his massive head. ‘What do you know about spiritualism?’ he asked.
Sherlock marshalled his thoughts. ‘It’s the belief that when people die their spirits – their souls, if you like – live on in some immaterial form, and can be contacted by someone appropriately sensitive here on earth. I believe that these sensitive people are called “mediums”. The spirits of the dead supposedly live in a place that’s not exactly heaven, but is more like another plane of existence that we can’t see and that they can’t describe. I know there have been mediums who have claimed to contact famous dead people like Shakespeare or Mozart, and given new plays, or new musical compositions, by them at meetings called “séances”. There’s a lot of table tapping and the use of wooden boards with letters around the edge which the spirits can supposedly use to spell out messages.’
‘You sound sceptical,’ Mycroft said. ‘I approve.’
‘It’s difficult not to be. As far as I am aware there is no absolute proof that these mediums actually can contact the dead, and the kind of messages that come back from the other side are quite generic – the dead are apparently pretty happy, most of the time, and a bit vague about what they do when they’re not making contact with the mediums. And, of course, the mediums take money from the people who attend the séances, which means that the entire process is vulnerable to fraud. It’s a particularly unpleasant form of fraud as well – trading on the grief of the recently bereaved in order to make money.’
‘Do you believe that spirits live on after death?’ Mycroft asked as their main courses arrived.
‘I know that I don’t believe in ghosts,’ he said finally. ‘I had to think about that quite seriously in Edinburgh
, over a year ago, when Gahan Macfarlane was using theatrical make-up to get people to think that reanimated corpses were committing crimes on his behalf. He wanted to frighten the locals so they would let him get on with things. I remember speaking to Matty about it.’
‘I would think that young Matty believes in ghosts. I find that either the poorer or the richer a person is, the more likely it is that they will believe in the unexplained. Those of us who are fortunate to have an adequate but not excessive amount of money tend to be more sceptical. Or perhaps either excessive bad luck or excessive good luck in life means that people seek explanations that lie outside the ordinary.’
‘Matty told me that he has seen some things in his life that he hasn’t been able to explain in any other way than by resorting to the idea of ghosts. As for me – I worry about the simple things, like the fact that they are supposed to be able to walk through walls but they don’t fall through floors or stairs, and the way all ghosts seem to lose their minds after death. They might be great conversationalists in life, but as soon as they are dead they seem to resort to groaning and moaning and clanking chains to get their point across. Why only come out at night – why not walk about in daylight? It doesn’t make any rational sense. And,’ he added, ‘from a personal point of view, when I die the last thing I want to happen is that I’m forced to hang around the place where I died with no aim other than to scare people. If anything of my character or personality lasts after death then I want to be able to move around, travel a bit, and visit some places I haven’t seen before.’
‘Like the centre of the earth?’
Sherlock gazed quizzically at his brother.