by Andrew Lane
‘Do we know enough to report this to the police?’ Sherlock asked. ‘We can’t investigate this place ourselves. Not now the Paradol Chamber know we’re here.’
Crowe nodded. ‘Both of us have been attacked. That’s good enough reason to get the police involved, an’ if we’re lucky they’ll find somethin’ incriminatin’ while they’re searchin’ the place for our attackers.’ He slammed his hand decisively on the table, making his teacup rattle against the saucer. ‘We might just have them!’
He sprang to his feet. ‘You’re goin’ to have to miss out on that Battenberg cake,’ he announced. ‘Let’s go back to Bow Street Police Station an’ make a formal complaint.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘Mr Crowe,’ Sherlock asked, ‘what’s happened to my brother. What’s happened to Mycroft?’
It was the morning after their adventure at the museum, and they were sitting at a breakfast table at the Sarbonnier Hotel, where Sherlock had stayed the last time he had visited London. Crowe had got up and left before Sherlock woke up, but as Sherlock came down for breakfast he was just re-entering the hotel.
‘The good news is that he’s been released on bail,’ Crowe replied.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that someone – in this case, the Diogenes Club – has stumped up some cash which has been deposited with the court. The court decides on the amount that needs to be deposited, an’ they make that decision based on how big a sum would dissuade a suspect from abscondin’. If your brother disappears before the trial – if there is a trial – then that money is forfeit.’ He laughed. ‘After all, if it only took five shillings to get out on bail, every criminal with a bit of cash would be out within half an hour, and most of them would go straight on the run.’
‘How much did it cost to get Mycroft out on bail?’
‘Ah believe the sum mentioned was five thousand pounds.’
Sherlock winced. ‘So where is Mycroft now?’
‘He’s in discussions with his solicitor, over a large breakfast at the Diogenes Club. Ah sent him a telegram telling him that you were safe, and that we would be here at the Sarbonnier. He may join us later.’
‘How did the Diogenes Club come up with the cash?’ Sherlock asked.
‘They apparently have a fund which members pay into which enables them to get legal advice and assistance.’ Crowe’s expression turned broody. ‘Strangely, ah don’t see his employers helpin’ out much. They’re maintainin’ a strict silence over the whole affair. Ah suppose they don’t want to be seen to be interferin’, bein’ part of the Government an’ therefore linked to the police force.’
Sherlock considered for a moment. ‘But that man we found – the one who attacked me under Waterloo Station. He admitted that Mycroft was set up. Someone else committed the murder.’
‘That’s a fact, but it’ll take the police a while to collect the evidence which clears your brother. The important thing is that the Diogenes Club’s solicitor can point them in the right direction.’ Crowe frowned. ‘What concerns me now is that the people who framed Mr Holmes are still out there, an’ we don’t know what their motives are or what they might try next.’
‘You think they might try to frame him for another murder?’
Crowe shrugged. ‘Can’t rule it out, but having been cleared of one – assumin’ he is – it’s unlikely that another one will stick. There’s a saying we used to have, back durin’ the War Between the States: once is happenstance; twice is enemy action. Even the police will recognize that. No, ah think we need to be prepared for somethin’ else to occur. Some other plot.’
‘So what do we do? How do we protect Mycroft?’
Crowe gazed at Sherlock for a while. His blue eyes were deceptively mild, but Sherlock knew they saw through everything. ‘You’re very loyal to your brother, ain’t you? Some kids your age would just let their elders get on with their lives, but not you. You want to protect him.’
Sherlock turned away so that Crowe couldn’t see the gleam of tears. ‘Father is in India,’ he said eventually, ‘and mother is ill. And our sister… well, she’s not in a position to help anyone. Mycroft is all I have, and I’m all he has. We have to look out for each other.’ He smiled, despite himself. ‘And you’ve probably noticed that he’s not the most active or agile of people. He needs help just to get from one side of the city to the other.’ He laughed. ‘I heard once that he’d been invited to a meal at somebody’s house, out in the countryside. Normally he wouldn’t accept social invitations, but the owner of the house had an exceptional wine cellar and their cook was renowned for the quality of her desserts, so he made a special effort. He got a hansom cab to the station, then got a train for an hour, then managed to find a cart at the other end to take him the five miles to the house. The final bit of the journey was a walk up a short hill to the front door, but he took one look at the climb and then just turned around and asked the cart driver to take him back to the station. He’s that kind of person. He’s phenomenally intelligent, but not practical at all.’
‘And you love him.’
‘He’s my brother. Of course I love him.’ Uncomfortable at the discussion of close personal feelings, Sherlock glanced at Crowe and asked: ‘Do you have a brother?’
Crowe’s face seemed to set into a hard mask. ‘Let’s not go there,’ he said, his voice sounding like two stones grating together.
There was silence for a while, as they ate their breakfast. Eventually Crowe looked around, and indicated a young waiter who was serving breakfast to a family nearby. ‘Let’s see how much you’ve remembered of what ah’ve taught you recently. What can you tell me about him?’
Sherlock considered. ‘I remember him from last time we were here.’ He looked the man up and down. ‘His uniform is slightly too short for him, and the trousers have been repaired several times. He has obviously been wearing it for a while without replacing it. Either his salary is low or he is spending it on other things. Although his shoes are new, and well polished, which contradicts the evidence of his uniform.’ Sherlock looked more closely at the man’s face and hair. ‘He is wearing Macassar hair oil.’ He sniffed. ‘Yes, I can smell traces of jasmine, orange and coconut. Macassar oil is not cheap: I presume, therefore, that he spends the majority of his salary on things that make him look attractive to women – hair oil, shoes and, I would guess, the clothes that he wears when he is not at work. That suggests he isn’t married.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s about it.’
‘What if ah told you that he has three convictions for pickpocketin’,’ Crowe said, ‘and has spent time in prison. Ah was told this by the doorman. The manager of the hotel took him on, as the lad is the son of his sister.’
Sherlock glanced more carefully at the waiter. ‘He is spending a lot of time near the father,’ he pointed out. ‘Perhaps he is looking for an opportunity to steal something from his pocket.’
As Sherlock watched, the waiter dropped a knife. With a murmured apology to the family, he bent to pick it up.
‘Watch!’ Sherlock said urgently. ‘I think he did that deliberately. He’s going to slip a hand inside the father’s jacket pocket as everyone is distracted by the knife!’
‘Actually,’ Crowe admitted, ‘he has no convictions for pickpocketin’ at all. Ah made that up. He sings in a choir in Westminister Abbey, although he is the manager’s nephew.’
Confused, Sherlock glanced back at the tableau at the table. What had moments ago looked like suspicious activity now looked perfectly innocent, as the waiter straightened up holding the knife.
‘Is that true?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Crowe said. ‘Ah made that up as well. Actually he stabbed a man in a fight in a public house last year, but the case was dropped due to a distinct lack of witnesses willing to testify against him.’
The same tableau – table, family sitting down, waiter standing over them, now took on a distinctly different look to Sherlock. The waiter now seemed to be holding the knife in a threatenin
g way, over the father’s neck.
‘That’s not true either, is it?’ he asked in irritation.
‘No,’ Crowe conceded. ‘Ah actually don’t know anythin’ about the waiter apart from what little can be observed from his clothes, his hair and his hands. Ah know nothing about his history. My point was that we all see something different depending on the labels we place on things, and those labels are based on what we know – or what we think we know. The trained mind will reject convenient labels and proceed using actual and deduced facts. The trained mind will also take advantage of the way other people make assumptions in order to guide them in particular directions, and to make them do particular things.’
Sherlock was about to question Crowe further on this interesting revelation that one person could manipulate another’s thinking just by the words they chose to use, when a familiar voice hailed them from across the restaurant.
‘Sherlock, Mr Crowe – might I join you?’
‘Mycroft!’ Sherlock cried.
His brother ambled across the restaurant to the table where they sat. He was looking as immaculately groomed as ever – perfectly pressed suit and waistcoat, hat brushed to within an inch of its life – but his skin was sallow and his eyes were the eyes of a man who had recently seen things that he wished to forget.
‘Mr Holmes,’ Crowe said, rising, ‘please, take a seat. Can ah get you a pot of coffee, or perhaps some tea?’
‘Tea would be excellent,’ Mycroft said, placing himself on a chair that looked entirely unsuited to take his weight. ‘Breakfast would be ideal.’
‘I thought you’d already had breakfast with your solicitor,’ Sherlock pointed out.
Mycroft gazed solemnly at him. ‘If a law has been passed forbidding the consumption of more than one breakfast during the course of a morning then I am entirely unaware of it,’ he said. ‘In point of fact, my previous breakfast hardly qualifies for the term. The toast was damp, the bacon limp and the black pudding too crisp. The marmalade I will not even mention. I absent myself from the Diogenes for one day and the place starts falling apart. All that meal did was make me hungry for a real breakfast, which I trust is available here.’
Crowe signalled to the waiter to bring another plate of breakfast and a pot of tea. Mycroft followed his gaze and stared at the waiter for a moment. ‘Norway?’ he asked Crowe.
‘Finland,’ Crowe answered.
‘Yes, of course.’ Mycroft shook his head. ‘My short time in custody has thrown my logical skills somewhat out of balance.’
Crowe caught Sherlock’s eye. ‘Ah know ah said ah didn’t know anything about him,’ he said, ‘but that was also a lie. His family are from Finland – you can tell by the haircut.’
‘Why lie again?’ Sherlock protested.
‘It’s a strange fact in life,’ Crowe said, ‘that if an Englishman catches another man out in a lie, or even two or three lies, he assumes that the man will then tell him the truth. Something to do with a misplaced sense of British fair play, ah suspect. In reality, if a man has lied once then he is likely to lie repeatedly and often.’
Mycroft turned his gaze towards Sherlock. ‘I understand there was some… unpleasantness,’ he said. ‘Something to do with a bird of prey. Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine. What about you?’
Mycroft shrugged. ‘At least I can now say that I have seen how the other half lives, although I do not feel edified by the experience. My solicitor expects to have the charges withdrawn by this afternoon.’
‘Any idea why you were targeted in the first place?’ Crowe asked.
‘There are relatively few possibilities,’ Mycroft replied. ‘It is possible that someone was taking their revenge upon me for something, but I cannot think who or what. A more likely possibility is that someone wanted me distracted from events that were about to occur, or from something that was going to cross my desk and upon which I might have initiated action.’ He glanced across at Sherlock. ‘You will be aware that I work for the Foreign Office. The Government has many specialists in various fields, but I consider myself a generalist. Facts and speculations of all kinds cross my desk, and I look for patterns – for connections between apparently separate things. On such connections foreign policy is frequently made.’
‘Anything in particular strike you?’ Crowe asked.
‘I really should not discuss Government business outside the Whitehall enclave,’ Mycroft murmured. ‘Ah, here is my breakfast.’
The waiter placed the plate in front of him and whipped the metal cover off. Mycroft’s face broke into a smile as he regarded the array of food. ‘Splendid,’ he said. ‘A perfect arrangement, perfectly prepared. My compliments to the chef.’ As the waiter moved away, he continued: ‘Yes, as I was saying, I really should not be discussing Government business outside Whitehall, especially with a man whose allegiances are to another nation entirely, but I believe, based on my long acquaintance with you, that you can be trusted to keep a secret, Mr Crowe.’ He speared a mushroom with his fork and bit into it. ‘Ah, perfect.’ He closed his eyes and chewed. ‘Yes,’ he said, opening them again, ‘where was I? There are several international incidents which may pertain to this issue at the moment, but the one I believe has the highest likelihood concerns the recent sale of a large piece of land to your own country, Mr Crowe.’
Crowe raised an eyebrow. ‘Not caught up with that particular news item, Mr Holmes.’
‘I am not surprised: it did not make for many headlines. Let me summarize: sometime last year, a vast expanse of land was sold to the American government for the sum of seven million, two hundred thousand dollars, to be paid in gold. Strange how “expanse” and “expense” are only one letter apart. The tract was so large, I have worked out, that the price comes to about two cents an acre, which seems like something of a bargain to me. The land itself lies in the northwest of the North American continent, bordered by Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south.’
‘Who owned the land previously?’ Sherlock asked.
‘A very pertinent question. Russia, whose Empire is located just across the Bering Strait – which is what that part of the Pacific Ocean is called – was the previous owner, although there were and are a number of indigenous tribes.’
‘What is this place called?’
‘The Russians called it Alyeska,’ Mycroft replied, ‘but the American government have apparently settled on the Department of Alaska as a name.’
‘So we’ve got a land sale,’ Crowe said. ‘Happens in America all the time. Ah own quite a parcel of land myself in Albuquerque, which some acquaintances are managing for me while ah’m away. What’s the big deal?’
Mycroft sighed. ‘The “big deal”, as you call it, is that the sale may not have been entirely legitimate.’
There was silence around the table for a few moments as the other two took in the importance of what Mycroft had just said.
‘How can that be?’ Sherlock asked eventually. ‘Surely the Russian and American governments have legal advisors who check over the details in the contracts?’
‘It’s not so much the validity of the contract, more that no payment has yet been made, which renders the actual sale legally dubious.’
‘The question,’ Crowe said thoughtfully, ‘would be – does anybody else want Alaska? If not, the point is moot, and the Russians will just have to whistle for their money.’
Mycroft transferred a piece of black pudding on a fragment of fried bread into his mouth. For a minute or so he ate contentedly in silence, with a blissful smile on his face.
‘This is where it all becomes rather sensitive, and rather personal,’ he said eventually. ‘I have, for some time, had a “man” in Moscow. I say that he is my man because although his salary and expenses are paid for by the Foreign Office, he reports directly to me and to nobody else.’
‘I presume that you mean he’s there pretending to be one thing while actually doing something els
e?’ Crowe asked.
‘He is there as a journalist, and rather a good one, but in addition he provides me with intelligence on what the Tsar and his court are up to.’ Mycroft sighed, and pushed his plate away. ‘Going through my recent communications this morning – the ones that came in while I have been indisposed at Bow Street Police Station – I found two pertaining to this man. The first was from him, telling me that he had solid information that the Spanish Ambassador to the Court of Tsar Alexander II had made a counter-offer in excess of ten million US dollars for Alaska, to be paid immediately – in gold – on signature of a treaty. The second communication was from one of the British diplomatic staff in Moscow. They informed me that my man, my agent, had disappeared.’ He lifted his teacup to his lips, then lowered it again. ‘The Tsar has a secret police force as well as his normal police force. They are known as the Third Section of His Imperial Majesty’s Own Chancellery – not a very catchy title, as titles go, but very Russian. The man in charge is Count Pyotr Andreyevich Shuvalov. I met him in France, a few years back. We got on well. No matter – Department One of the Third Section deals with political crimes, Department Three with foreigners. I very much suspect that my man has fallen foul of one of those Departments and has been taken in the night.’
‘Tsar,’ Sherlock said to break the ensuing silence. ‘Is that like a king or emperor?’
‘In a sense,’ Mycroft responded, heaving himself out of his own dark thoughts. ‘Although it is, in another sense, untranslatable. It derives, oddly, from the Latin “Caesar”.’ He shook his head. ‘The Russians are strangely formal when it comes to titles and so forth, even more so than we are in England. The most recent diplomatic correspondence I have seen from the Tsar’s court started off, as I recall -’ he closed his eyes ‘- “We, Alexander the Second, by the grace of God, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, of Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod, Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan, Tsar of Poland, Tsar of Siberia, Tsar of Tauric Chersonesos, Tsar of Georgia, Lord of Pskov, and Grand Duke of Smolensk, Lithuania, Volhynia, Podolia, and Finland, Prince of Estonia, Livonia, Courland and Semigalia, Samogitia, Belostok, Karelia, Tver, Yugra, Perm, Vyatka, Bulgaria and other territories; Lord and Grand Duke of Nizhni Novgorod, Sovereign of Chernigov, Ryazan, Polotsk, Rostov, Yaroslavl, Beloozero, Udoria, Obdoria, Kondia, Vitebsk, Mstislavl, and all northern territories; Sovereign of Iveria, Kartalinia, and the Kabardinian lands and Armenian territories – hereditary Lord and Ruler of the Circassians and Mountain Princes and others; Lord of Turkestan, Heir of Norway, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, Stormarn, Dithmarschen, Oldenburg, and so forth, and so forth, and so forth”.’ He opened his eyes again and took a deep breath. ‘The salutation was longer than the rest of the letter. You will not be surprised that most diplomats do not relish being sent to Moscow. They have to memorize all this.’