Mycroft Holmes

by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

  Yet there they were!

  A tall black man with a sprinkling of gray at the sideburns of his otherwise ebony hair was supervising their unloading. After a bit of cajoling, that man—Cyrus Douglas—directed Holmes to Regent, the little tobacconist that employed him.

  Holmes had been frequenting the Regent ever since, and upon each occasion had felt the giddy elation of a child on Christmas morning. Yet, he could not recall a moment when he’d been so glad to see it as this one. His hands were red and swollen from holding the reins so long, and pain was cramping his legs.

  Twenty-one steps, he thought. Twenty-one steps, and we are inside.

  4

  GERARD PENNYWHISTLE STOOD BEHIND THE COUNTER OF REGENT Tobaccos, tortoise-shell lorgnette in hand. He was so short that, though he was fully upright, he looked as if he were sitting down, for the surface of the counter reached to the middle of his chest.

  He was going over the morning’s ledger, and the lorgnette was meant to overcome his myopia, presbyopia, and astigmatism.

  Ava Pennywhistle—a healthy head taller than her husband—was using a duster on the chandelier, though there wasn’t a speck of dust to be had. When the doorbell tinkled, both looked up and smiled, though Mr. Pennywhistle could see nothing beyond the length of his own arm.

  Mrs. Pennywhistle lost the smile the moment she laid eyes on Douglas.

  “Coo, love, what’s happened to you, then?” she said, hurrying over.

  Then she stopped short.

  “Ooof! And what is that aroma?” she inquired, dramatically waving the duster in front of her nose.

  Douglas attempted to explain, but Mr. and Mrs. P. fussed over him so much that he could hardly get a word in. The miniscule Mr. P. was holding onto the much taller Douglas as if he half-expected him to collapse like a soufflé to the floor, while Mrs. P. ran back and forth with what appeared to be an entire pharmacy of bandages, salves, and balms.

  Holmes observed all this with a bemused expression while doing his best to stay out from underfoot. He hung his now-spoiled topcoat on a hook, trying to forget what it cost, and allowed himself an exhausted but satisfied sigh.

  Almost everything in the store delighted him, from the grain mahogany of superior quality that comprised the shelves to the polished glass of the displays. An aromatic, nearly hypnotic scent wafted from every nook, for the selection of tobaccos—sheer heaven! Somehow or other, little Regent always managed to find those elusive brands that even larger stores—like Jimenez & Sons on Fenchurch Street—couldn’t ferret out, and could secure the best price possible for premium Cubans like La Meridiana.

  And if one cared for cigarettes—which he himself did not, though he wouldn’t disparage those who did—Regent carried La Honradez, with its intricate, colorful labels printed with the latest technology in the effort always to be one step ahead of the counterfeiters.

  Of course, the place wasn’t perfect. Holmes did not care for the new tin boxes that contained American cigars. In point of fact he was fearful that Regent was beginning to stock too many blends. But his deepest sigh of disapproval was reserved for a corner of the glass counter display filled with meerschaum pipes, made in Vienna by one Simon Schild, a meerschaum carver.

  They were all the rage that spring in St. James’s. And though Holmes really did think the world of his favorite little tobacco shop, he had to admit that it wasn’t above catering to the whims of fashion.

  He hobbled over to his personal cabinet. It was fairly modest compared to some others, as it contained only two hundred cigars: seventy-five Partagás, twenty-five formidable La Meridiana and an even hundred of his beloved Punch Habanas. He hoped to make the leap to a five-hundred-cigar cabinet, and if matters with his employ progressed as he anticipated, the goal should be easily achieved by the following spring.

  He chose two Partagás—appropriate, he thought, considering what he and Douglas had endured. The latter, his head now nicely bandaged, brought him a cigar cutter.

  “You’d best sit a while, dearie!” Mrs. P. called to Douglas. “We’ll enjoy some free time tomorrow—you’re in no shape to mind the shop today.”

  “Nonsense,” Douglas replied in his most soothing tone. “I am perfectly fit to work. It’s a beautiful spring day—you must take advantage of it.”

  The expression on Mrs. P.’s face said that she was having none of it, but Douglas persisted, and she finally relented.

  “We’ll put out the ‘back in thirty,’” she said, “but we’ll make it sixty,” she added in a conspiratorial whisper, “so you can get yer proper rest!”

  “Oh, and do feel free to imbibe!” Mr. P. called out a bit too loudly, for he was never entirely certain of anyone’s location. “A few shots of the spirit’ll set you aright, put some color back in those cheeks!” Then, as he opened the door to his wife, he chortled, “You hear what I said, Mrs. P.? Color, said I. In a black man’s cheeks!” He repeated it for good measure so that they might enjoy a few more chuckles before it was done.

  Douglas watched as the two of them waddled down the steps and onto the street, and shook his head with bewildered affection. Then he turned to a row of fine old bottles and ran a finger across the labels, making it clear that he intended to pull something from an inferior brand.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Holmes said firmly, and he slapped his wallet on the counter. “We won a wager this day, and we have earned the right to enjoy the spoils of war.” With that, he pointed to a fifty-year-old Saint Christeau Armagnac.

  Douglas cast him a long look.

  “Who are you,” he said in somber tones, “and what have you done with my good friend Holmes?”

  “He’s still here,” Holmes declared. “Though a bit worse for wear.”

  Douglas pulled down the Armagnac. They chose two comfortable old leather chairs by the fire. He uncorked the bottle, sniffed it, and declared it to be perfect. Holmes lit their cigars, and Douglas raised a toast.

  “To the women of St. Giles, and their bloody good timing!” He looked at his friend with meaning, and added, “You are one lucky mobsman.”

  Holmes raised his own glass.

  “To Dickens, may the good Lord heal him,” he said. “And to Kingsley, and Mrs. Gaskell, and William Makepeace Thackeray!”

  “I will gladly toast authors,” Douglas replied, “but why those in particular?”

  “For the miseries they catalogue! They are the ones who led me to St. Giles, ‘with its nests of close and narrow alleys and courts… that have passed into a byword as the synonym of filth and squalor,’” he added, paraphrasing Henry Mayhew.

  “Everyone knows the perils of St. Giles,” Douglas huffed. “I don’t see what that has to do with…”

  “My dear Douglas,” Holmes interrupted. “You cannot possibly think that a half-dozen women, leaning out of six fourth-story windows, at the exact same time, did so out of coincidence?” He shook his head at such brazen folly, and took a sip of his Armagnac.

  “My dear Holmes,” Douglas countered, “how could it not be? The bulk of the residents of St. Giles cannot even tell the time. And surely Dickens and Kingsley, and Mrs. Gaskell, and even the formidable Thackeray never wrote of those women!”

  “No,” Holmes admitted, “they did not. But, if you will indulge me a poetic turn, I set out long ago, utilizing those authors as my guides, to explore our city, traveling to those places in which gentlemen hardly set foot—unless, of course, said gentlemen are given to perversions.

  “Which I most certainly am not.”

  “In that, we agree,” Douglas said in a tone so wry that Holmes wondered if he meant it as a slight.

  “In any event,” Holmes continued, taking another healthy sip of Armagnac and waving the glass like an orator, “how are we to protect our fair and, I grant you, occasionally foul city if we do not know its every highway and byway? So there in St. Giles, among other strange and mostly sad facts, I discovered that its women had the odd habit of casting out their slop at the same time eac
h day. Ten thirty-three in the morning, to be precise.

  “I went back two weeks running, then three months after, just to be sure, and then a year after that. So punctual are they that they have trained the local birds to fly in for their breakfast.” Holmes sighed as he took a pull of his Partagás. “Rich or poor, Douglas, we are all creatures of habit.”

  With that he sat back and awaited a reply, and perhaps a bit of applause.

  * * *

  “Stunning,” Douglas said. He held his own Partagás aloft, as if he’d intended to take a puff, but forgot midway. “Creatures of habit,” he murmured. And he stared into the distance, past the wall, past the street, across an unseen gulf.

  “You have just described my family in Trinidad,” he added.

  Douglas wasn’t a man given to easy confidences—nor did Holmes himself accept them easily—but their unusual friendship had just been shaken by adventure, and then stirred by fine spirit and cigars. So when Holmes showed interest, Douglas went on.

  “My relatives are creatures of habit,” he clarified, “who write me faithfully each week…”

  “Your parents?” Holmes interrupted.

  Douglas shook his head no.

  “My parents died some years ago,” he said quietly. “No, I have an older, widowed sister, two young nieces, and three cousins who are like my siblings, in that we grew up together. As I was saying, they write me faithfully each week. But now it’s been more than a month since I’ve heard from them.”

  “That is worrisome,” Holmes said, for lack of better. He could hear elements of Douglas’s native tongue woven through his West London clip, like a jaunty spot of crimson on a somber black suit. Holmes hadn’t heard that Trinidad cadence in a good long while, so seldom did Douglas relax.

  What a world we live in, he mused, where a good man like Douglas cannot find a moment’s ease…

  “They are frightened,” Douglas continued, and Holmes’s curiosity was piqued. “Or rather, were frightened, the last I heard.”

  “Of what?” he asked, pouring them another.

  Douglas nodded his thanks and took a goodly swallow, while Holmes tried not to calculate the cost per drop—though of course he knew precisely what it was.

  “Some of the locals have… now, I know it seems odd, Holmes, but they have disappeared. They might be out fishing, or mending their nets, and then they simply vanish.”

  “One? Two? How many?”

  Douglas shrugged. “Ten near my village.”

  “Ten?”

  “But not just my village. I’ve heard that it is happening up and down the coast. I’d say fifty or more are gone, in all.”

  “Fifty?” Holmes took a moment to digest the number. “Fifty people disappeared? What on earth do the authorities say?”

  “What would they say about fifty Negroes disappearing?” Douglas laughed, though he was not amused. “Good riddance, I suppose.”

  His expression soured. “And there is something else. Three children were found dead, the blood drained from them.”

  “What?” Douglas’s words shook Holmes out of his mild and pleasant stupor. “Who in the world could do such a thing?”

  “The villagers believe it is a lougarou…”

  “A… a werewolf?” Holmes stammered, then quickly amended. “No, wait. In the Antilles, a lougarou is thought to be a giant mosquito that sucks the blood out of children—is that not the case?” he added out of politeness, though he knew perfectly well it was.

  Douglas nodded, then he sighed.

  “There is more. The lougarou have… ‘companion demons,’ if you will. The douen. According to legend, they are children who died before being baptized, and are therefore condemned to walk the earth forever on little backwards-facing feet.”

  “An ugly fate,” Holmes muttered. “Not to say impractical.”

  “Whatever the cause, the killings seem to occur along the waterfront. People are staying well away from the water’s edge. By now I am so concerned for my family’s well-being that I am considering going.”

  “Going? Going where? You cannot mean Port of Spain. Nonsense, my good man, think of the journey! Eight or more days there, the same to get back—provided you get back at all. And in any case, what would your employers say?” Holmes asked, allowing a certain edge to creep into his tone. “I cannot believe Mr. and Mrs. P. are prepared to lose you for so long.”

  He saw in Douglas’s expression that these last words had hit their mark.

  Douglas flinched. “You smug little sot,” he replied, inhaling a last sip of Saint Christeau. “How’d you know?”

  Holmes took another long drag of his cigar.

  “I am not a little sot,” he protested. “I’m quite nearly as tall as you, though I grant I’m seventeen years younger…”

  “How did you know?” Douglas insisted, enunciating each word.

  Permitting himself a slight smile, Holmes leaned forward and peered at his friend.

  “You worked on freighters that shipped sugar and tobacco to the British Isles. Since you speak fluent Spanish as well as Portuguese, it’s a safe assumption that you used those stretches of time to form ties in each of the best tobacco-producing countries.” He leaned back and took another drag, exhaling the smoke at a leisurely pace.

  “You save your money, that I know—I am not the only parsimonious soul in the room. And when you purchased this fine little establishment, you hired trusted people of, shall we say, an alternate color to masquerade as the owners. Thus, you ensured that you would not find your cigar shop burned to the ground some unhappy morning.”

  “You built your assumptions on such shoddy evidence?” Douglas exclaimed. “Very superficial of you, Holmes.” His tone was droll, but he was staring at his friend with unfettered curiosity.

  “Naturally,” Holmes replied, smiling. “I’d be a fool to rely on that alone.”

  “Well, if there’s one thing you are not, Mycroft Holmes, it is a fool,” Douglas responded. “One feels quite underdressed in your presence. Pray, enlighten me further.”

  “Thank you, I will.” Holmes sat forward in his chair and narrowed his eyes. “Your employers do not have the aggressive manner an owner frequently employs in dealing with an underling. Indeed, they make eye contact with you whilst speaking, to the point that it seems as if they are waiting for nonverbal cues.

  “Moreover,” he added as he ran a distracted hand through his blond hair, “the first time I met you on the London docks, and asked about that shipment of Cuban cigars that you were unloading, your response was much too specific. It required insights into the political turmoil that affects both affordability and availability, quite a neat trick for a mere hensman and clerk.”

  With that, he folded his arms and sat back with what he hoped was an air of triumph.

  Defeated, Douglas stared at the empty glass in his hand.

  “I was always planning to take you into my confidence, Holmes,” he said, sounding contrite. “But I fear old habits die hard.”

  Holmes nodded. “You are permitted to keep your secrets, Douglas,” he said. “But you must forgive me if I ferret them out. And now that you have admitted you are the owner, what shall we do about those ghastly meerschaum pipes?”

  “They sell beautifully,” Douglas countered with a smile.

  Holmes rolled his eyes, then returned to the topic at hand. “So. Was it your acquaintances who sent news of the vanishings in Trinidad, or was it your suppliers?”

  “Both,” Douglas answered. “And once the suppliers confirmed the rumors, I had to take them seriously.”

  “Well,” Holmes said crossly. “Before you disappear off the face of the civilized planet, allow me at least to determine whether or not any new reports have come in to the office of the Secretary of State for War. I shall rifle through in the morning.” He paused as a new thought crossed his mind. “And this evening, Georgiana and I are off to dinner,” he added. “Perhaps she has heard something.”

  “Perhaps,” Douglas
murmured, though his tone indicated that he wished to say no more about it. Holmes thought it an odd reaction to an offer of assistance.

  “Are you suggesting that my asking her is futile?” Holmes said uncertainly, finishing his drink.

  “Not at all, Holmes,” Douglas assured him. “I simply fear that, when she is around, your keen perceptions become woefully impaired.”

  Holmes could feel the last sip of Armagnac burn his cheeks, tinting them an unbecoming shade of pink, as was happening with alarming frequency whenever Georgiana’s name was brought up.

  “Is it true?” he said to Douglas after a moment. “Does love really make people so blind as all that?”

  Douglas leaned toward his friend.

  “There are three poisons to sound judgment,” he said, “love, hate, and envy. I do not see that you are much in thrall to the latter two, but I do ask that you be careful with the first.”

  “I never suspected you of reading Petrarch,” Holmes teased. But indeed he was feeling rather vulnerable. He shook it off as nonsense—that combination of fear, exaltation, and exhaustion their little ordeal had provoked. He put out the cigar and rose to his feet, then slipped on his topcoat, and tried not to flinch again at its rather estimable odor.

  He turned as he reached the door.

  “Have you never been in love?” he asked in a voice that sounded entirely too plaintive.

  Douglas stared into his empty glass again.

  “That, my friend,” Douglas said, “is a story for another time.”

  5

  FUELED PERHAPS BY BRANDY AND BY A WALLET LINED WITH FRESH cash, Holmes continued his uncommon spending spree. First, he splurged on a brand-new coat, not as costly as the old, to be sure, but handsome enough. Then, he rented a brougham when an ordinary hackney cab would have done.