“Again, you make my argument for me,” Sherlock grumbled. “Go off to the Queen, or what have you. I shall wait for the boy to have his bath, after which I wish to examine him. It may be that a few hours among these young derelicts will be advantageous after all!”
“Forgive me, Douglas,” Mycroft said, “this was a horrid notion. I shall of course remove Sherlock immediately; you shall not be burdened with him any further.”
Douglas glanced at his friend, his eyes vacant. He was holding a telegram he had just taken from his trouser pocket. Then he looked at Sherlock as if struggling to place him.
“In truth,” he said, “I… I could use him. Our teacher is ill and as it turns out, I cannot substitute, for I am called elsewhere. If he could teach the boys mathematics for a few days—”
“A few days?” Sherlock sputtered back, indignant. “Has the world taken leave of its senses? No indeed, Douglas, I categorically refuse!”
“Sherlock!” Mycroft said. “You will not speak to him in that manner! He is your elder; you are to address him as Mr. Douglas!”
“The entire concept of compulsory learning is daft,” Sherlock shot back. “And I shall not be abandoned here, wasting my breath on ruffians while Douglas goes off gallivanting!”
“You will do as you are told,” Mycroft responded stonily. “Or Huan shall take you back to the country and leave you there to rot. And if you think you shall find shelter at Downing think again. I shall demand a full restitution of tuition. You can go scrub floors at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, for all I care!”
Mycroft turned. “Forgive his insolence, Douglas—” he added, but it was said to empty air, for Douglas had left.
9
MYCROFT FOUND DOUGLAS IN THE HALLWAY, COAT BUTTONED and slipping on his gloves.
“There is a problem with a shipment?” Mycroft inquired. “How did you know?”
Mycroft shrugged. “It cannot involve Nickolus House, for the note came from Mr. P. As you were reading the telegram, I noticed his distinct handwriting on the back. Mr. P. would not have written about his own troubles or his wife’s, for I smelled the heady aroma of Regent Tobaccos on your coat, which tells me you saw them earlier this morning. And he surely would not have written “FOUND” on his own missive, so it had to come from elsewhere, albeit sent to Regent Tobaccos—which means it had to do with your business. And did you not send a rather large shipment to Sydney in the last several days? So there is not much else that could cause you such distress that you would leave your pupils in the hands of my brother.”
Douglas nodded. “The Royal Adelaide was on its way from London to Sydney with a full cargo of whiskey, gin and brandy, a good deal of it mine,” he confirmed in a haunted tone. “Last night, it ran aground on Chesil Beach in Dorset…”
“Were lives lost?” Mycroft asked.
“The telegram does not say. But without the funds from my business, Nickolus House cannot remain open. I must leave immediately to see what can be salvaged.”
“I would offer to help, Douglas,” Mycroft ventured. “But we are at a terrible economic crossroads in Britain at this moment. What if my prognostications are correct and you and I must make do for ten years or more? Collectively speaking, we are in this maelstrom to begin with because we have thrown too much capital at projects that show no quick returns; surely it would not do to continue in that vein. And however admirable this house, it burns money…”
“I said that it would live or die by my efforts, and so it shall,” Douglas replied firmly.
“On the other hand—” Mycroft began.
“No. Kindly do not make an exception on my behalf. For if I believe that Nickolus House exists solely on the basis of your rather reluctant charity, sooner or later I will despise myself and resent you—or you, me. And I cannot allow that to happen.” He went to the front door, then paused. “Goodbye, Mycroft,” he said. “Pray for me.”
* * *
Douglas rode an omnibus to Paddington Station and from there to Bristol to board a Somerset & Dorset train, all the while wondering how this calamity could have occurred. The Royal Adelaide was not some ancient plug but a well-appointed iron vessel. Her masts were hardy, her wire rigging solid, and she was under a fine captain, a man named Hunter with whom Douglas was casually acquainted.
Douglas had counted on the Royal Adelaide’s strengths so that his Scotch and Irish whiskey, his brandy and Plymouth gin would make it to Australia and earn a tidy profit. And yet, she’d gone no more than one hundred and fifty nautical miles before meeting her watery end.
As for goods on grounded vessels… people would swarm like vultures until there was nothing left. He recalled Victor Hugo’s words in Les Miserables: “If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.”
No, rather than blame others, it was better to move forward. If he could but recover one half of his cargo, he might be able to go on.
If not, then Nickolus House would become another in a long line of failures littering London’s slums.
* * *
With Charles Fowler and his younger brother George submitting to a good scrubbing and delousing, and two additional boys down with the croup, Sherlock found himself facing a classroom of sixteen undersized hooligans who eyed him with the sidelong glances of hyenas waiting to attack, and he cursed Mycroft under his breath for abandoning him to such a fate.
On the other hand, though he might not be able to outflank them, thankfully he could still outthink them. He simply needed their undivided attention—not difficult, considering all eyes were upon him.
He went to the window, holding his muscles loose but his posture upright, and let in a gust of air. Judging from the staleness of the classroom, this was a revolutionary move. Then he went back to the teacher’s desk but did not sit. Just as one would do with an unfamiliar animal, he avoided eye contact, observing instead some point on the far wall above the boys’ heads. Finally, he rapped his fingers lightly on the desktop to give them something to focus on, and to keep them slightly off balance.
“Wot’ve you done wiv ol’ Undershaft?” one of their leaders called out, his tone impertinent. He was a hefty lad with thick black hair and the icy blue eyes of a husky.
“He is no affair of mine,” Sherlock said with a shrug. “Care to see a magic trick? Simply shout out your names one at a time.”
At first they were ill tempered, clearly despising this font of authority hardly older than they, yet infinitely more fortunate. Sherlock could see their minds work. Would they give up the fight so easily? But finally curiosity outflanked their bloodlust, and the boys spat out their names, daring him to deliver on his promise.
They had called them out randomly, but Sherlock tossed them back in alphabetical order; then in reverse; and finally in the order of the numbers of letters in each.
It took the boys a moment to realize what he had done, and with what speed. Slowly, the older ones began to chortle amongst themselves, while the younger ones gauged their elders’ responses so as to calibrate their own.
“He knowed ’em afore!” argued the boy with the fierce blue eyes, while others argued back that even so, it was a neat trick.
While they were thus occupied, Sherlock observed their grins. French scientist Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne had experimented with electricity on his subjects’ faces to ascertain which muscles constricted involuntarily when smiling with genuine mirth, as opposed to a smile meant solely to disarm. While the large muscles on either side of the mouth—the zygomatic major—could be raised at will, people tended to forget the orbicularis oculi that encircle the eyes. When genuinely amused, those small muscles would tighten, pull down the brows and create crinkles at the corners of the eye sockets.
He was pleased to see that the orbicularis oculi of nearly every boy in the room was engaged.
“How high can you count?” Sherlock called out.
“A hunnerd!” the black-haired boy called
back proudly. “Us older ones, the younger, not so much!”
“Thank you, Mr. McPeel,” Sherlock replied—and he could tell from blue-eyed Joe McPeel’s expression that he was not used to anyone recalling his name, much less referring to him as “mister.”
Sherlock picked up his vielle and scraped at the strings, eliciting a sound like a yowling cat… then played a tune so pretty that all chatter ceased, and the boys stared at him, hypnotized.
“What is the difference between the first set of sounds and the second?” he asked and then answered: “Mathematics. There is a mathematical equivalent to every note that indicates the length of that note within the bar…”
A few more examples, and he let them discuss the revelations amongst themselves, something they’d clearly not been permitted by their Mr. Undershaft. Sherlock’s purpose was not merely to put them at their ease but to waste time: he had but a half hour to go before he could dismiss the class and check on Charles Fowler.
“Has anyone heard of geometry?” he asked when the discussion turned to ribbing and threatened to get out of hand.
“Nah!” a big ruddy boy shouted out good-humoredly. “We is h’ignorant as h’asses, guv!”
Over the boys’ braying laughter, Sherlock replied: “Then we’re in luck, Ducasse. For ignorance is curable, while stupidity is not.”
Picking up his short staff, he passed through a series of exercises that drew figures in the air, while naming the shapes’ geometric equivalent. When he asked for a few volunteers, the boys grew shy. They had been around too many men with clubs, nearly none with noble intent. But finally, the big, ruddy boy, Alvey Ducasse, along with Joe McPeel, rose to their feet.
“Splendid. Now. If I were to strike Mr. Ducasse on his solar plexus, here…”
“We calls that a gut, sir,” a boy named Baldwin shouted out.
“The gut, then,” Sherlock replied. “Thank you, Mr. Baldwin. Now. What geometric shape would I use if Mr. Ducasse’s body were turned in this manner, and I wished to strike him unawares?”
Alvey argued mightily that no one, ever, had struck him “unawares.” But once the boys had ascertained that the word did not pertain to undergarments, they fell all over themselves, vying for an answer. For this, they agreed, was useful “fer life as we lives it!”
For the first time in their brief existence, they were eager to put pen to paper. Especially when Sherlock had them factor in how near to a victim’s limbs, gut or head a swinging arc could get without turning said victim into pudding.
And so, the hour passed with but a few bruises, caused by Sherlock’s dutiful revelation of the boys’ errors in reckoning—though he kindly wielded the short staff at quarter speed, else there would have been infinitely more damage done.
“On the morrow, we shall go over momentum, a product of both mass and velocity, and how it pertains to street battles. And if we have time, we will cover chemical bonds. Just as males are partial to females, atoms are partial to each other. That is called chemistry. And, just as females are volatile and changeable, you will learn that chemistry is equally volatile and changeable, which makes it exciting, indeed. You are dismissed.”
The boys sat silent as tombs, mouths set to catch flies. Sherlock eyed them curiously. “Did you not hear me?”
Alvey raised a tentative hand. “We was wundrin’ if we could do some more, sir…”
“Your apprenticeships await!” Sherlock reminded them.
As the boys rose obediently and left the room, they’d been transformed from hooligans to frisky pups that had just bonded with a new keeper, and Sherlock wondered at his newly discovered power over adolescent boys. That he could outwit them was no surprise. The novelty was how quickly and how thoroughly it could be accomplished. His head jerked: the nervous tic that indicated he would mull it over at some future date, when necessity would perforce draw it out.
For the time being, he had but one goal: to inspect Charles and prove himself correct.
* * *
But when Sherlock reached the dormitory, he found only Charles’s brother George admiring himself in the looking glass on the inside door of a good-sized armoire. He was staring at his reflection as if he half expected it to walk off, leaving behind his pitiful old self.
George was wearing his brand-new clothes. His hair, which anyone would have sworn was the color of ash and spent cinders, was in fact a fine strawberry blond, slicked back with pomade to show off a rather agreeable little face with bright green eyes, though lines of worry were already chiseled into the forehead.
“Where is Charles?” Sherlock inquired. When the boy said nothing he went on: “Your brother? Where is he?”
George scratched at the unfamiliar white skin of his wrist, then wiped his nose with the back of his hand carefully, the way he assumed a gentleman would.
“Gone, sir.”
“Gone where? Don’t tell me they found a post for him already!”
George shook his head. “’E likes ’is nice new cloves so much ’e went to make ’is mates’ mugs go green with envy!”
As he spoke, George pointed to the window as the source of exit—then tore his eyes away from his own reflection long enough to turn and soberly assure Sherlock: “Not to worry, he’ll be back, ’e likes it ’ere!”
“Can you direct me as to where he’s gone?”
George shrugged. “Could be anywhere.”
Sherlock sensed the boy was lying. It wasn’t his tone or comportment; it was simply the boy’s state of being. For what in his existence thus far might have encouraged him to trust anyone—much less a stranger—with the truth of the whereabouts of his sibling?
Sherlock could have pressed the matter and perhaps gotten to the truth, but the little ragamuffin was as spiky as a porcupine. Not only would he not break him, but he risked injuring a future collaborator. He’d have to bide his time.
As George removed his jacket and lay it carefully on his cot, the shirt underneath rose just enough for Sherlock to notice several scars on his back. Sherlock motioned to the cot next to George’s. “Charles’s?” he asked.
The boy nodded. As George opened the armoire and hung up his brand-new jacket, Sherlock knelt down before Charles’s cot, not the least concerned that George was watching, and began to feel gingerly but methodically under the mattress.
“And your old clothes? Where are they?”
“Burnt, sir. Cuz a louses an’ suchlike.”
“I see. And tell me, what do you know of the punctures on your brother’s body?”
“Punches?” George repeated.
“No, not punches, punctures. Little holes.”
“Where, sir?”
“Well, between his toes, for example…” Sherlock replied, suddenly realizing that it would have been impossible for the boy to note any such thing.
Indeed, George replied, “I don’t know nuffink about it. But sometimes Charles spirits off an ’e don’t tell no one… but ’e always comes back,” George added with a slight catch in his voice. “An ’e always cares fer me, sir. Always.”
“Well. It is good to have a brother, is it not?” Sherlock said.
10
MYCROFT HOLMES COOLED HIS HEELS AT BUCKINGHAM Palace, in one of the dingiest of several small reception rooms located in the piano nobile and furnished in the Chinese Regency style.
During the Queen’s long mourning period for her beloved Albert, most of the palace had been shuttered, with entire wings left in disrepair. But he suspected that the general decrepitude was not the sole reason he’d been relegated to the least of the inner chambers. Two years before, he and Cardwell had insisted on changes to the War Office, including the basing of promotions on merit alone, rather than social standing or a purchase by the highest bidder. These changes had been bitterly opposed by high-ranking members of Parliament and senior Army officers, as nearly all had bought their way up the ladder and would thus no longer be able to sell their promotions the moment they retired.
The most vocal o
pponent had been the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces. Prince George, 2nd Duke of Cambridge—who also happened to be the Queen’s first cousin—had been set to keep matters as they were. And since Mycroft’s presence at the palace would surely be noticed, it appeared that the Queen did not wish to rub salt into her cousin’s still-open wound.
Mycroft sighed. From the time he had begun his professional life not four years before, he had already fallen on the wrong side of two cousins of the Queen.
That requires some skill, Holmes, even for you, he chastised himself, all the while hoping Her Majesty would run out of cousins before he ran out of royal toes to trample.
He looked at the play of gray light on the windowsill, the shadow drawing a vertical line down the red velvet flocked wallpaper. The bell in the tower of St. Stephen’s chimed the quarter-hour.
Her Majesty was fifteen minutes late.
Why in the world did he feel so out of sorts? Perhaps it was the fire in the hearth. It was much too hot; fit for a monarch of middle years plagued by the first throes of arthritis, not for a twenty-six-year-old man in the bloom of health.
Just when he feared he would combust into flame at any moment, he heard a noise behind him. He turned quickly, lest he be found with his back to the monarch. Victoria Regina was dressed in black from head to toe, save for a bit of white lace peeking from her cap and framing her jowly features. She was stout, with the disapproving scowl of a pug dog. And, from the way she walked—as if trying to levitate off the hard floor—he could tell that rheumatism was beginning to claim her feet. But within the whitened folds of her flesh shone eyes of the most vivid and piercing blue.
With a wave of her hand she dismissed her attendant, who closed the door making nary a sound, leaving the two of them alone.
“Forgive us, Mr. Holmes,” she said after Mycroft had bowed and kissed her proffered hand, “for not meeting with you in a more formal setting. But we cannot take the chance of being overheard, as what we are asking is of a delicate nature.”
Mycroft and Sherlock Page 5