Those boys who’d been at Nickolus House the shortest time were the most suspicious, murmuring under their collective breaths that anything too good to be true certainly was, and that their new abode was “none other than an ’ouse of ’orrors” where terrible rituals were performed on innocent young lads in the wee hours.
Those who had been in residence longer took great umbrage at the scurrilous whisperings, arguing that if any “’orrors” were about, they had hitched a ride on the louse-filled rags of the newest recruits!
According to his brother George, Charles Fowler had not been sick a day in his life. So if no one had murdered him, then he had taken his own life, and was therefore not fit to be buried proper, and would be going straight to hell so that room in heaven could be saved for decent folk.
Douglas was devastated. He felt thoroughly responsible, for it was he who had set up the dominos to fall. After all, if he hadn’t gone to Dorset, leaving Capps in charge without informing him of Sherlock’s odd and occasionally misanthropic behavior, perhaps Capps would not have been taken so unawares, and would have noticed that a boy was missing.
Douglas was standing at the open door of Nickolus House, staring out into the yellowish morning fog and allowing it to cool him when he heard Sherlock’s voice behind him.
“I have not had the chance yet to compliment you. That was fine combat. Capoeira is similar to ju-jitsu, then?”
“What do you know of ju-jitsu?” Douglas asked, turning around and facing him.
Sherlock’s gray eyes were a similar shade to his brother’s but less brilliant, and made more severe by his darker brows.
“Only that it is Japanese,” he replied. “And that it involves utilizing your enemy’s momentum against him. The twins and I have borrowed elements in our own combat.”
“I see,” Douglas said. “No, there are substantial differences in form and content. Capoeira hails from Brazil and is much in favor in Trinidad. And though it is used as a method of self-defense, its base is dance, not combat. It is also thought of as a jogo, a game, so it can be cooperative and playful. Although you are correct that it features momentum. What do you want, Sherlock? For I know you did not come downstairs solely to compliment me.”
“We need to find out what the boys know, Mr. Douglas—”
“Sherlock, please. Call me Douglas. It will make me less prone to do something I might later regret.”
“I must speak to them, Douglas. I am the only one who can.”
Douglas sighed. “If you can promise to treat them like human beings and not subjects in an experiment.”
“Done.”
With that, Sherlock turned on his heel. Douglas watched him walk through the hall and wondered what he had just consented to.
* * *
Early that afternoon, Mycroft finally arrived by rented brougham at his destination: West of Scotland Cricket Club’s home ground of Hamilton Crescent in Glasgow. The Queen’s Park Football Club was on the field. They were just completing one of two back-to-back practices, while other members of the club, along with the odd spectator, watched from the stands.
Mycroft alighted and sniffed the air. The weather was certainly proving favorable, at least in terms of his plan.
From far afield, he set his sights on the Queen’s Park team captain Robert Gardner. The forward, at twenty-five, was but a year younger than he, though Mycroft could never hope to grow a beard that lush. Nor could he compete with Gardner on the athletic field, for he was, without a doubt, the best footballer on Scotland’s side.
A shame that Mycroft would have to undo all that good work.
He watched Gardner pat the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, walk off the field, take a seat and pull out his pipe. Before he had a chance to fill it, Mycroft chose a spot upwind of him, pulled out his own pipe, packed it, and took a long and leisurely puff, blowing the smoke into the crisp morning air, which dispersed it as an aromatic mist.
A moment later, Gardner tilted his head and stared directly at Mycroft. “What is that blend?” he called out.
“Virginia!” Mycroft called back politely, all the while feigning interest in two lads kicking the ball back and forth.
“Cannot be!” Gardner exclaimed. “For that is what I smoke, but it never smells like that!”
“It is not the tobacco,” Mycroft called back once more, “but the pipe!” Even Sherlock’s shag tobacco would taste passable, nestled within this bowl, he thought. He held up the pipe, and Gardner, now as curious as Mycroft knew he would be, rose and walked over to where Mycroft stood.
Gardner’s own clay pipe had teeth marks on the tip and burn marks on either side. Impatient, Mycroft thought, and chockablock with anxiety.
Gardner stashed his pipe in his trouser pocket and eagerly took Mycroft’s in his right hand, staring down at it pensively while stroking his lavish beard with his left.
“Never seen its like,” he said, marveling.
“I had it made for me,” Mycroft lied. In fact it had been a thank you from the Queen for the “Ascot incident,” as she referred to it. From Prince Albert’s own collection: gold grade, made of virgin acorn, with a thick ivory band around its stem. One of a kind and obscenely expensive.
But Gardner did not need to know that.
“Try it,” Mycroft offered.
“Why, so I can mourn it all my days?” the other man laughed.
“Perhaps you can have one made,” Mycroft suggested.
“A year’s salary would not be sufficient,” Gardner replied.
“Be my guest,” Mycroft offered again. “I insist.”
As Gardner eagerly packed his borrowed treasure, Mycroft motioned toward the field, where Gardner’s teammates were completing their practice. “Were I a gambling man, on whom should I wager?” he asked, altering his cadence and timbre to better match Gardner’s own. Nothing like a familiar sound to put one off one’s guard.
Gardner lit the bowl, took a satisfied pull and said on the exhale: “Marvelous, never had its equal.” Then: “Always on Scotland, Mr.…”
“Holmes. Aye, it is the stronger team,” Mycroft agreed.
“Though I admit we came together with some difficulty,” Gardner amended. “At the last moment, some of our best men abdicated.”
Mycroft silently congratulated the Queen on her success.
“I ask,” Mycroft said aloud, “because I was of course prepared to bet on Scotland. A goodly sum, in fact.”
Gardner, admiring the pipe in his hand, said: “Yes, I would have imagined.”
“And the weather shall favor you…” Mycroft continued. Gardner stared dubiously skyward.
“Oh, it is not raining yet,” Mycroft explained, “but by tomorrow morning a drizzle will become a storm. There will be no respite for the next three days. By the time you take the field, your team—lighter and smaller than England’s—will have the clear advantage. For the first half, at least. Until England regains her sea legs, as it were.”
Gardner grinned. “You made your fortune predicting the weather?”
“Something like that. International shipments demand that one know when and where storms are likely to hit. But, as I said, I was prepared to bet on Scotland.”
“What put you off?” Gardner asked, for the first time curious about something besides the pipe, though his gaze was reluctant to leave it.
“To be frank? Your goalkeeper,” Mycroft said with an appreciable sigh. “Oh, he has talent, no doubt. But he knows only how to work the goal line. I never once saw him narrow the angle. Does he ever attempt it, I wonder?”
“I have pled with him repeatedly to do so!” Gardner exclaimed. “But players form patterns, Mr. Holmes, and he has formed bad ones…” Gardner took a worried pull off the pipe and stared out at the field.
“Aye. A shame that he, and not you, is tasked with keeping the ball out of the net,” Mycroft added. “And your being ambidextrous is a great aid at the goal line, for you are equally strong on both sides. Whereas
in your current position, it is not much of an advantage.”
“How do you know I am ambidextrous?” Gardner asked, frowning. “Is it that I stroke my beard with my left hand?”
“No. Because you sometimes light your pipe with lamps; it is clear from the scorch marks. But whereas a right-handed fellow would most often light it on the left, and a left-handed fellow on the right, your pipe is burned equally on both sides. Now. You will have been given a natural advantage by the rain,” Mycroft went on. “But you must take the whip hand and claim a position that, judging by your dimensions and maneuverability, will greatly benefit the team. If not, that natural advantage will go to waste.”
Mycroft could see in Gardner’s eyes that he had thought of the move before, almost to distraction. But Gardner had made his bones as the best forward in football.
Would the goal line serve him as nobly and as well?
“The goal line,” Mycroft said quietly, “could be your best legacy.”
Gardner stared at him the way people often did when they thought he had read their minds, instead of simply deducing their needs and motives.
“If I have correctly predicted the weather,” Mycroft concluded, rising, “I might have correctly gauged your position as well. Oh, and a dab of Indian arnica will do wonders for the arthritis in your right foot. And the wear on the welt of your left shoe indicates a standing posture that puts pressure on your little toe—too much pressure, I’d say,” he concluded. “Within three years it will be an issue.”
Once again, Gardner stared at Mycroft, this time as if a second head had just sprung out of his top hat, while the latter hurried off with a wave.
“Mr. Holmes!” he heard Gardner say behind him. “Your pipe!”
“A gift from me to the best future goalkeeper in Scotland!” Mycroft called back.
Scotland would tie the game, of course. Which Gardner and his teammates would see as a loss.
Mycroft felt sorry for him, for he genuinely liked Gardner. He would have felt worse, had he not believed that he’d make a better go of it by moving to the goal line.
In any event, the Queen would have her zero-sum game, and bloodshed would be avoided.
Now all he had to do was go to the station, board the Scotch Express, and return to Nickolus House, where he would persuade Sherlock to accept the dinner invitation with Dai en-Lai Lin and his marvelous sister.
He could not reveal a possible tie between Ai Lin, the older Chinese gentleman, and Cainborn. He would have to feign being smitten and ask Sherlock for a favor.
He sighed, for it was not far from the truth.
18
DOUGLAS SAT AT THE KITCHEN TABLE AND WENT THROUGH a familiar ritual of counting small but pertinent blessings whenever the world seemed completely out of sorts. His feet might have felt as broken as old pottery but they were, at last, mercifully dry. He had gotten a few hours’ sleep between last night and this. And though he’d only had time to swallow a crust of bread and a slice of cheese, it was nourishment all the same. His scratched eye was beginning to heal, and the rescued bottles of liquor were safely back in the warehouse of Regent Tobaccos. He had been able to save Nickolus House from ruination.
Not to mention that he held, at long last, a steaming cup of tea in his weary hands. And that his dear friend Mycroft Holmes, freshly arrived from Scotland, was seated across from him, his own tea untouched.
“What of Charles’s interment?” Mycroft asked, interrupting Douglas’s musings.
“I have managed to make arrangements,” Douglas replied, “for a decent burial. A small church in Haslemere has agreed, provided I can send them his body. And provided they find no signs of foul play upon his person.”
“Needle marks are no matter?” Mycroft asked, his eyebrow raised, and Douglas shook his head.
“Its use breaks no earthly laws, so the less said about it, the better, I suppose. But now tell me of the task the Queen presented you. Is it something you are able to discuss?”
“Oh yes. It has to do with the football match between England and Scotland,” Mycroft said. “One that no one is to win. It was a simple matter of weighing the players’ strengths and weaknesses, and attempting to make things more… equitable. I may need a favor from the Queen at some juncture, and I wish her in my debt…”
With that, Mycroft suppressed a yawn, and Douglas smiled. “But you no longer find them worthy of you,” he said.
“To what are you referring?” Mycroft asked.
“The stratagems. The manipulations, if you will,” Douglas clarified.
“No,” Mycroft agreed, “I do not. The ‘means,’ which used to fascinate me, no longer do. Only the ends matter now. Whether or not I succeeded in my goal, Her Majesty shall be pleased, but it is not worth another thought, not compared to what you have endured. Tell me about these nautical addicts you discovered in Dorset…?”
Douglas nodded. “I suppose the similarities between those two sailor boys and young Charles were so striking that it seemed to presage something more sinister,” he said, all the while hoping he did not sound dotty. “And although I have acquiesced to Sherlock’s help in the matter of Charles,” he continued, “and am grateful for it, I have as yet withheld informing him about the sailors.”
“Yes, I can see why you might,” Mycroft commiserated, “as my brother would wish it to presage something more sinister, which would be far from pleasing to either of us. But surely you are not suggesting an epidemic of drug deaths, based upon but three subjects?” Mycroft continued. “Your sailors died of exposure. And Douglas, I realize we are in a boys’ school and so must maintain some decorum, but surely ten o’clock at night is a more fitting time for brandy or cognac than for tea.”
“Let me see what I can ferret out,” Douglas answered, rising.
In the back of a cupboard he found a bottle of inexpensive Spanish brandy. Casually wondering whose it was, and lacking proper snifters, he poured a few fingers into two water glasses and placed them on the table, trusting that Mycroft would be charitable enough not to comment.
Then he sat again and took a sip of his drink, wishing it would provide the comfort he so needed. Instead, it soured his stomach instantly. Liquor poured over precious little food and sleep was clearly no curative.
“When I made mention of something sinister, I did not intend more than a tenuous tie to this household,” Douglas said, pushing the glass away. “But you know well what has happened in the past several years. Britain now has eighty treaty ports, involving many foreign powers, all with rights to travel and trade within China, she be willing or not. And opium has once again become such a scourge that it is alarming the very people who made great fortunes from it. We shall soon be back to the numbers of addicts that our elders saw some thirty years ago.”
“Yes, Douglas, I am aware,” Mycroft said. “But we cannot undermine what has been a very good source of revenue for Britain, especially now. We have fought wars over opium; wars that we decidedly won. Three formidable countries agreed with us as to our rights. Which makes the banishment of opium rather like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.
“And even if I believed it is the scourge you seem to think it is,” Mycroft continued, “may I remind you that there are addicts of all types, from tobacco to single malt Scotch whiskey. There are those who use too much, and those who use sparingly; surely it is a question of moderation! One cannot single out the poppy as a demon and leave the others be—not until we have proof positive that it is as deadly as you seem to think.”
“‘Nobody will laugh long who deals much with opium,’” Douglas said, quoting Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an Opium Eater. “‘Its pleasures even are of a grave and solemn complexion.’”
Mycroft took another sip of brandy and, grimacing a little, chased it down with a sip of lukewarm tea. “Please do not misunderstand,” he amended. “I do not wish to return to the time when ninety percent of Chinamen under the age of forty were addicted to the opium that we impo
rted from India; it wreaked havoc across an already beleaguered land. Given your time aboard ship and at various ports, you have surely seen many more addicts than I.”
“A few,” Douglas said softly.
“But still,” Mycroft insisted, “commerce is commerce. Not to mention that France, Russia and the United States fought alongside Britain to gain the two treaties that forced China to also cede Hong Kong and surrounding territories to us, an unfathomable treasure. What are we to say to those partners now? ‘Never mind’? Oh, I concede that it has destabilized the Qing government, but trust me, Douglas: now is not the time to lose such a mighty source of revenue. So, might we put aside our differences and return to the business at hand?”
“Only because I realize that I cannot alter your thinking as yet,” Douglas replied.
“For instance,” Mycroft said, “it gratifies me that you have allowed Sherlock free rein to question the boys. It must mean he comported himself like a gentleman in his care of them. He taught them well, did he?”
Into the fire, Douglas thought, for he had said not a word about Sherlock’s unorthodox methods of instruction.
“Oh yes,” he replied aloud. “Lessons in mathematics and chemistry I am sure they will not soon forget. I take it you have no interest in his interrogations?”
“I?” Mycroft exclaimed, gray eyes crinkling with feigned offense. “I am as interested in the tedium of individual lives as Sherlock is in deducing whether I live on a civil servant’s salary or on a king’s ransom. Unless that poor boy’s death has implications for Queen and country, it is no matter for me.”
“Forgive me, but you have been saying that quite a bit.”
“Queen and country?”
“No,” Douglas said. “What I mean is, more often than not you now avoid any involvement in matters that do not pertain directly to you. It is a tendency that does you no favors, as you have a touch of the hermit crab in you…”
Mycroft laughed. “Come now, Douglas, I am not as retiring as all that!”
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