Mycroft and Sherlock

by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

  * * *

  Mycroft sat across from his brother in the hansom cab and marveled. What was that unexpected and unaccustomed mien to Sherlock’s expression? Could it possibly be joy? The very notion was foreign. And yet, there it was, clear as—well, as the nose on Sherlock’s face.

  The night before, Mycroft had tried to speak to him about dining with Ai Lin and her brother, but by the time he and Douglas had said goodnight, Sherlock’s bedroom door was closed, and the room beyond silent. He was no doubt exhausted after questioning the boys about Charles’s untimely death. And although nothing had come of his queries, his diligence and patience with the difficult youngsters had been impressive.

  Perhaps he might go into education, Mycroft mused. Sherlock’s admiration for that strange Professor Cainborn might come in handy, helping to persuade him in a career for which he had an obvious knack. Sherlock’s future could thus be set, and Mycroft’s two hundred pounds per annum for his schooling would have been put to good use, instead of fluttering down note upon note into a deep and dark abyss filled with smelly pipes, the screeching of cat gut, and those dreary agony columns.

  “You are smiling,” Sherlock said, turning towards him.

  “Am I?” Mycroft said without attempting to hide it.

  “Yes. Whatever about?”

  “Perhaps it is because I am quite gratified.”

  “I take it your mission for the Queen went well?”

  “Swimmingly. But I am not thinking of that. You outdid yourself at Nickolus House. That you are now permitting me to return you to your studies without protest indicates a newfound maturity on your part.”

  “Well. If I am the cause of your levity, I will gladly bear the weight of it,” Sherlock said. “In truth, I learnt a great deal from those poor unfortunates, having to watch that wretched boy die before my very eyes…”

  “Yes, I quite forgot you were in the room when he passed,” Mycroft replied. “And I in no way meant that I am gratified by his death, but for how you comported yourself throughout.”

  “Clearly, Mycroft. Whatever misunderstandings we may’ve had in the past, I do not think you ghoulish as all that. Still, the fact is, I have never seen someone expire before,” he went on. “I have been rather sheltered.”

  “You say that as though it were a bad thing. And yes, in a sense, you have been.”

  “With the exception of Mother’s chronic headaches,” Sherlock clarified. Then he swallowed and looked away.

  “Is there something you wish to tell me?” Mycroft asked.

  Sherlock sighed. “Mother has grown worse,” he said at last. “The years-long dependence on laudanum has now become an unquenchable desire for morphine. Father is turning a blind eye to it, as usual. He is like your friend Cyrus Douglas. If you threw him into Hades, he would be optimistic that he could climb back out, and take everyone with him!”

  “It grieves me to hear about Mother, but you are being unfair to both Father and Douglas,” Mycroft scolded. “Father always strove to keep a semblance of family for our sakes. Surely you cannot blame him. As for Douglas, it is clear you know him not at all. As a black man in white society, he has had to comport himself always in a way that is above reproach. And that means having to compromise at times.”

  “At all times, you mean.”

  “Again, you misread him. He is not the dupe you perceive him to be.”

  “Well, I have seen him do battle,” Sherlock said with a shrug, “and I admit he is more than competent in that arena.”

  “When was this?” Mycroft asked, surprised.

  “The men who had Charles Fowler, did he not mention it? He took them out singlehandedly. Well, practically so. I threw a punch solely because I was backed into a corner and had to swing or be murdered.”

  “He did not utter a word about it,” Mycroft said, frowning. “He tends not to speak of anything that might cast him in a favorable light.”

  “Which underscores my original point…”

  Mycroft sighed. “Sherlock, I cannot alter our parents’ marriage or our mother’s behavior,” he declared. “But I promise that I shall no longer threaten you with banishment to the country.”

  “For which I am grateful.”

  Mycroft heard Huan’s soft “Wooooaah,” and heard his fingers knock against the carriage as it slowed, indicating they had reached their destination.

  There was no clean way to segue into the subject of Ai Lin and her brother now. He would have to come out with it.

  “We have been invited to dinner on Wednesday,” Mycroft said.

  “By whom?”

  “A lad by the name of Dai en-Lai Lin is quite taken with your boxing acumen. Do you know him?”

  Sherlock shrugged. “Of him. He is fond of ‘western style’ boxing and a good enough sort. But simply everyone is trying to befriend him. It is considered de rigueur to have an Oriental friend, since they are still so rare in England. However did you meet him?”

  “I met his sister Ai Lin at a local chemist’s,” he lied—for he did not wish to divulge that he had passed through the doors of a herbalist: he would never hear the end of it. “When I gave my surname to the owner,” he said—another lie—“she heard it, mentioned her brother’s admiration for you, and extended the invitation.”

  Sherlock, Mycroft knew, had not a prurient bone in his body. Relations between the stronger and fairer sex interested him solely if they were the subjects of an agony column.

  “And I fear I have taken a liking to his sister,” Mycroft added.

  “You and an Oriental woman?” Sherlock asked. “Old Cardwell will be so pleased he will have you burned in effigy on Pall Mall.”

  “Will you come?”

  “On one condition. I will want a detailed account of your visit to Dr. Bell, for I have a few hypotheses that need validation.”

  “Done,” Mycroft said.

  He looked out at Edwardes Square, a line of simple terraced homes built around a large central garden. The sky overhead, which had been gunmetal gray, was now thick with black clouds so low they were like the lid to a kettle, close in and claustrophobic. In that garden were Sherlock’s two friends, Eli and Asa Quince, battling it out with their short staffs, their sand-colored hair plastered to their foreheads, their coats discarded on a damp patch of grass. When they heard the carriage, they both paused mid-strike and waved, and this time Mycroft was pleased to see that Sherlock waved back.

  Though the two were nearly indistinguishable, Mycroft could tell them apart.

  “Aside from tiny differences in their physiognomy, one of the twins is slower,” Mycroft said as Sherlock was exiting the carriage. “Only by a second,” he added, “but still. And see how he holds his staff? There is something uncertain in his grip, as if—”

  “Quite,” Sherlock said quickly, balancing vielle case and short staff, and Mycroft went silent. No doubt Sherlock had already done a thorough study of the twins; there was nothing he could say that his brother had not already noticed three times over.

  “Shaving kit?” he asked instead, and Sherlock patted his jacket pocket. “If you need anything,” Mycroft added, “send a note to St. John’s Wood. Huan will collect them once per day.”

  “Thank you,” Sherlock replied, “but I plan to study.”

  “I envy you your learning, Master Sherlock,” Huan said, the perennial smile on his face masking the gravity of his words.

  “Goodbye, Huan, goodbye, brother,” Sherlock said.

  Sherlock waved at the carriage as it departed, a display of brotherly affection and courtesy that left Mycroft deeply unsettled.

  21

  SHERLOCK CONTINUED TO WAVE UNTIL THE CARRIAGE WAS well out of sight. Then, rather than join his two friends waiting expectantly for him on the grass, he sprinted away from Edwardes Square as fast as his two feet could carry him. He raced through Kensington and across the wintry heart of Hyde Park, discomfited by the close call he’d endured.

  How tedious family could be! The last thing he
needed was Mycroft sniffing about regarding the twins. His brother was entirely too perceptive; another few minutes and he would have guessed yet another secret that Sherlock preferred to keep to himself.

  On the other hand, Mycroft had a blind spot when it came to matters of the heart. This weakness was not relegated merely to the late Georgiana—although he had certainly squandered enough time and emotion there—but to family as well. Any talk of Mother, Father, or even Douglas, whom Mycroft regarded as kin, created a smokescreen that hobbled his elder brother’s formidable powers of deduction.

  Love is Mycroft’s Achilles heel, Sherlock thought. And bringing up their mother had been a masterstroke. Though it was a bit of an emotional bloodletting, even for him, it kept his brother where he wanted him—in his pocket—as he readied for his first bona fide adventure.

  * * *

  Sherlock reached his first destination, the Metropolitan Railway Underground station—at the junction of Baker Street and Marylebone Road—with two minutes to spare. George had recalled the word “mansion.” The entire circuit from the Moorgate stop to Mansion House yielded twenty-two stops, not counting a detour to Hammersmith. But if one simply rode from Baker Street—Charles’s last word before his death—to Mansion House, the end of the line, then there were only sixteen stops.

  Was it possible that Charles had been getting on the Tube at Baker Street and disembarking at each stop to collect whatever it was, then clambering back on board for the next?

  Would someone then be waiting for Charles at Mansion House—the sixteenth stop? And would that someone be “Gin”?

  Staring at the ceiling all night long, the trajectory between Baker Street and Mansion House had been his simplest guess, and one he kept returning to.

  Was Baker Street particularly convenient to whoever was leaving the ‘collection’? Certainly it was convenient for Charles, as he could easily reach it on foot, both from his chimney-sweep job and from the storehouse, and make the rounds from there.

  Sherlock descended the broad staircase and was immediately accosted by the sepulchral chill of the Underground station platform below. It was not simply frigid but murky: a sputtering gaslight above his head was impotent against the fog of steam that permeated the tunnel like a leaden cocoon.

  But the cold and dark made little difference: even under the frigid hand of winter, Baker Street Station was awash in chattering humanity, every one of them waiting for the train. It arrived with a vibration on the rail, grinding brakes, and a belch of steam, sulfur and coal dust that rose and then clung to the ceiling in diaphanous gray spider webs.

  Sherlock waited patiently for the noisy group of travelers to jostle on board, from those ensconced comfortably in the gaslit first class—where the ceilings were so tall that a six-foot man could easily stand without removing his hat—to those holding on for dear life in the open carts of third, their scarves wrapped about their mouths and noses to shield them from wind and soot.

  Another vibration, another huge exhalation of steam and grit, and the train departed.

  He waited to see if anyone lingered—like him, searching the platform for some ephemeral treasure—but no. There was no one. He was alone.

  For the briefest moment, he had the platform to himself, though he could hear the next round of passengers chattering away at the top of the stairs like so many magpies. The weather above might be damp and threatening, but the ventilation shafts below did not prove adequate to the smoke and fumes being disgorged by train upon train. And so most people preferred to wait for the last noxious belch to dissipate before descending the dank stairs, to be forced to stand in a shivering huddle in the catacomb-like cold for the next train to arrive.

  Each time, he had a few blessed moments between waves of humanity to hunt, though he had no idea what for.

  The fact that Charles did his collection with a quilted cloth bag with compartments could mean there was a sequence; or it could mean that the items were fragile.

  Whatever they were.

  Sherlock walked the length of the platform repeatedly while observing his surroundings: paper advertisements glued to the wall, lovers’ initials carved into benches, refuse in the corners… though there was a dearth of the latter. Londoners were inordinately proud of their Underground, their “train in a drain.” Sherlock was not clear why scurrying like rats beneath the surface of the streets should be a boon to humankind. But people who without a thought cast refuse from windows onto a cobblestone street dating back a thousand years, seemed aggrieved to deposit so much as the ash from a pipe in the tunnels.

  No, the items would not be left on the ground. Too likely that someone would sweep them up, or that some well-intentioned biddy would complain, bringing unwanted attention to the whole endeavor.

  He directed his gaze upwards, to the walls and archways. Just as a new group of passengers descended the stairs for the next train, and he was making his third sweep of the platform, he spotted something. Behind the fourth bench from the entrance, three Oriental symbols had been etched into the wall. The markings were small: no more than an inch in circumference.

  Sherlock drew closer and saw that there were other symbols beside those three, but they had been defaced beyond recognition.

  Trying to keep his excitement in check, Sherlock ran his finger over them. In the tunnels, damp, smoke and dirt would quickly work together to dull the edges. But these cuts were clean and fresh.

  Did the artist know that Charles was dead? Or were the various parties of this enterprise kept in the dark about the identity of the others?

  Is someone even now waiting impatiently at Mansion House for Charles to arrive? he wondered.

  Sherlock sat down on the bench, looking out casually at the clusters of passengers ready to board the next train. He had little competition for a seat. With trains arriving every few minutes at the height of traffic, there was little need. The bench was his.

  He stretched out his arm along the back. Then, feigning he was holding a small knife, he mimed scratching out a symbol.

  No one would notice. No one would pay it the least mind, given a few easy stipulations. Clearly the artist was male, as any female would have called attention to herself, had she dared to drape one arm along the back of a public bench. And whoever he was, he would have to know the symbols well enough to be able to make them quickly, and without benefit of eyesight. Which meant he was almost certainly Oriental. But with so few Orientals in London, how many would be able and willing to take part? Who recruited them? Were the symbols to be merely looked at, or memorized? Or were they perhaps to be copied? And if to be copied, why not just create an original list and be done with it?

  And how could Charles Fowler, a boy functionally illiterate, participate in any of the above tasks? And why on earth would he need a bag, much less a padded one?

  It seemed laughable.

  Sherlock waited for another interval when no one was watching. Then he laid his head on the bench, peering at the symbols. Growing bolder, he lit a match and looked even more closely.

  Finally, utilizing the scissors from the shaving kit, he meticulously copied what he saw, scratching each little carving on the only repository he had—the back of his vielle—all the while wondering what poor sot of a detective he was to not bring along even a notebook and pen.

  Vibrations under his feet alerted him to the arrival of a train, as another group of people hurried down the stairs to meet it.

  He sat up, brushed the coal dust offhis trousers and, wrapping his scarf about his nose and mouth, queued up to climb aboard the third-class carriage to his next destination.

  * * *

  Sherlock stepped off at Edgware Road station and looked for the most likely spot for a carving: quiet but not isolated, which would draw too much attention to the artist. He almost immediately found the spot and the carvings he sought using these criteria, quietly rejoicing that his theory had proven correct thus far.

  He once again transferred the carvings to his vielle
and boarded a train, disembarking at the next station, Paddington. Having no roof, it was well lit and the air more agreeable. It was also busier than the previous stations. Not only were hawkers extolling their wares, but there were many more travelers coming from the main overground station. And though Sherlock quickly spotted the Oriental symbols—this time gouged into a bench itself, rather than on the wall behind it, and with older ones defaced—he could not get to them. A man of middle years in a yellow overcoat, matching cap and red cravat had his foot firmly planted not one inch away as he smoked his cigar and heartily admired the cacophony of life all around him.

  Sherlock observed him, gauging the man’s tension, any possible fear, any unusual alertness or wariness indicating that things were not as they seemed. Satisfied that he was an ordinary sort and not part of a heinous cabal, Sherlock ruffled his hair, tore the pocket of his coat and pulled at the lining of his left trouser leg so that it hung tattered over his shoe. He wiped soot residue from the wall on his forehead and cheekbones, and the edges of the shirt that Mycroft had given him Easter last. He tore off a few buttons while he was at it. Then he picked up the vielle and started to play a truly execrable tune, his dark eyes soft and pleading as he appealed to the crush of humanity nearby to lend him a kind ear and a generous hand.

  It was as if he had detonated a small explosive in their midst. The man in the yellow overcoat did not care to be subjected to discordant beggars and could not flee for his train fast enough. A top hat wreathed in cigar smoke was the last Sherlock glimpsed of him before he boarded. As for the other passengers, anyone who had even an inkling of curiosity quickly backed away from Sherlock, lest they be compelled to toss a coin into the open instrument case at his feet, thereby tacitly approving of the squealing and grating emanating from his strange five-stringed instrument.