Mycroft Holmes

by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

  Huan nodded as if Douglas’s explanation were entirely sufficient.

  “May I introduce my dear friend, Mycroft Holmes?” Douglas continued. “Holmes, my good friend Huan.”

  The two shook hands.

  “You have hair like the sun, my friend!” Huan commented. “And eyes like the ocean in a storm!”

  Holmes was left speechless, for once.

  They stored the bags, then Huan pulled down the back of the gig. Holmes and Douglas climbed in. Nico the mule stepped gingerly through the plaza, then quickened his step the moment they reached the packed-dirt streets. Pillows at the back made the journey only slightly less jarring.

  And so it continues, thought Holmes as he held onto the sides of the contraption for dear life.

  * * *

  Port of Spain was nestled between low-lying green hills, with palm and mangrove and cacao trees in full fruit. One-story wooden shanties gave way to old mud-plastered Spanish ajoupas, some of which had seemingly crumbled into convenient dust to make room for a large, impressive Catholic church here, an elaborate Indian temple there.

  As they traversed the city, Holmes marveled at the whirlwind of civilizations, of conquerors alongside the vanquished. The sun was sinking into a fireball that streaked the sky crimson and mauve. He had to admit he had never seen a sunset to match it.

  From having perused the maps, he knew that the city proper was composed of eleven major streets in a straight grid that pushed from the foot of the Laventille Hills to the area that culminated in the Saint Ann’s River. But like a waterway with endless tributaries, the streets split off into alleys and courts and cutaways and everything in between, as if the very nature of the place would not allow for conformity but somehow had to unshackle itself from the grid. The people themselves ebbed and flowed, making no allowances for vehicles at all, but simply walking where they pleased.

  Huan turned in his seat and looked back at his passengers. “Everything here is done in the road,” he laughed as if it were a game. “Walking in the road, eating in the road, dancing in the road. Trinidad, she likes to play!”

  Even so, he seemed to know precisely which tributary to navigate so they might proceed with a minimum of fuss. In truth, he appeared to be as intimate with his own city as Holmes was with the London grid. And Nico was a bright-eyed young mule with soft, chocolate-colored fur. He needed next to no prodding, but seemed to discern what his master wanted even before Huan was fully aware of it.

  It made Holmes ache for Abie.

  I do hope Parfitt is taking proper care of him, he thought, though he had no reason to doubt it.

  His musings were interrupted when one particular building caught his eye. It was the color of a freshly plucked mandarin orange, with a courtyard and lovely fountain that reminded him of paintings he had seen of Madrid.

  He gestured toward it, but when he turned to Douglas to ask about it, he saw that his friend’s amber eyes had darkened. His skin looked sallow. He was glancing about, Holmes thought, as if unnaturally nervous.

  “The Cabildo,” Douglas said in response to Holmes’s gesture. “Former seat of the Spanish colonial government, before the British set up their own government.” Then he leaned forward and called out to Huan. “Why so few people in the streets, my friend? On such a lovely spring evening as this?”

  Huan shrugged and glanced back.

  “The douen, my friend,” he said loudly enough to be heard. “They have arrived, and they have set up house. They call to the children to come play,” he added for Holmes’s benefit. “And then the lougarou, they finish the deed. Twelve children found dead, their blood sucked from their little bodies!”

  “Twelve?” Douglas repeated in alarm. “I was told three.”

  Huan nodded. “Nine in the last week alone. The douen and the lougarou, they have been busy of late.”

  “Huan?” Holmes interjected. “You said the douen have been seen about. But seen by whom?”

  “Ah, I did not say they had been seen,” Huan responded. “You do not see them, only footprints in the sand. Made by little feet that move forward but face back.”

  “On sand…” Holmes repeated. “And are there other prints around those? Human feet, perhaps? Lines? Markings of any kind?”

  Huan shook his head. “Little backward-facing feet, is all…!”

  As they jostled along, Holmes rummaged inside his jacket pocket and pulled out the little clay feet. He opened his palm and pressed them into the soft part of his skin, “walking” them from pinky to thumb and back again—then he stared down quizzically at his hand.

  * * *

  The governor’s office wasn’t grand, but it had a certain charm. There were no interior hallways—each door simply opened up onto an arcaded front. And the second story, with its own arcaded walkways and backend balconies, provided shade for the offices below.

  Shade was a necessity. Even as the sun descended, and though it was April, the heat was impressive. By nightfall, as the streets were cooling down, the buildings would have absorbed all the day’s sun. Sitting inside would grow quickly so oppressive that the only businesses that stayed open past sunset were eating and drinking establishments, gambling houses, and houses of ill repute.

  But the governor’s office had been alerted that the secretary to the Secretary of State for War would be arriving on the Sultana on that specific day, and so—though they were past the point of their usual closure, the doors were still open to welcome Holmes in.

  22

  SIR ARTHUR CHARLES HAMILTON-GORDON, ALSO KNOWN AS LORD Stanmore, was tall, with wispy gray hair, a long, slightly crooked nose in an equally long, slightly crooked face, and a good-natured, hearty disposition.

  The son of a former British prime minister, he was too well bred to mention their battered faces. For that, Holmes was grateful, as it meant he had no need to explain. He and the governor simply greeted one another as though the obvious did not exist, and when Holmes introduced Douglas as his aide-de-camp—a lofty title, given that Holmes himself was little more than that to Cardwell—Hamilton-Gordon did not twitch so much as an eyebrow.

  There was a slight, black-haired man in his thirties—Holmes assumed he was the governor’s own aide-de-camp—who was not so charitable. He looked askance at Douglas, and when the governor requested a platter of biscuits and three cups of rum, the aide could not hold his tongue.

  “Three, your Lordship?” he asked, his tone making it clear that he did not approve of Negroes imbibing with their betters.

  The baron frowned, and turned to Holmes.

  “Has your aide other duties to execute at this late hour?” he inquired. When Holmes assured him that Douglas was at liberty, the governor smiled.

  “There you have it, Beauchamp,” he declared. “Three glasses. Gentlemen! Make yourselves at home.” He indicated two plush leather armchairs on the other side of his desk.

  Douglas and Holmes did as instructed, sinking into them with gratitude.

  * * *

  As they waited for the biscuits and rum, Douglas dearly wished Holmes would get to the reason for their visit—which was, after all, of some urgency. But Holmes and the baron had first to observe the niceties of their class—talk of the weather back in England, the state of the British pound, even the health of the Queen.

  If their toes were on fire, Douglas thought, they would still spend a quarter of an hour on polite chatter before reaching for the extinguisher. He sank deeper into the armchair, stared out at the enormous five-fingered tree that grew up and over the back balcony, and let it all evolve as it would.

  For the next few moments, Holmes and the governor spoke of Cambridge, their alma mater. The baron recounted that he had spent six years as Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick before his 1866 transfer to Trinidad.

  “The differences between this place and Canada are monumental,” the governor confided, “and I do not simply mean the weather. It seems that Port of Spain runs on graft. It is to be expected, I suppose. When a country
is poor, anything can be bought.”

  “Yes, we experienced a taste of that ourselves on the Sultana,” Holmes said cryptically. “We also hear tell of… supernatural occurrences.”

  “They are a superstitious lot, Mr. Holmes,” the baron exclaimed. “If we were to chase down every bogeyman that… aha, but here we are!”

  * * *

  His aide arrived with the tray of sustenance. The three men took their biscuits and rum, and toasted to Trinidad. The rum warmed Holmes’s belly, but it was the biscuits he craved. He ate one, then another almost immediately. Only sheer willpower kept him from making a complete spectacle of himself with the third.

  Douglas, he noted, was more circumspect.

  Both his age and his coloring have taught him patience, Holmes mused, watching the restraint with which his friend ate and drank—even though Holmes knew full well that they were equally famished.

  “Mr. Holmes?” Hamilton-Gordon was staring at him curiously. “The note I received from Mr. Cardwell mentioned that you wish to visit the French Creole section of the city.”

  “Yes, but, uhm…” Holmes managed to choke down his third biscuit. Then he pulled out the envelope that Captain Miles had given him.

  “Forgive me,” he said to Hamilton-Gordon. “Before we discuss my plans, this was entrusted to us with some urgency. We were asked not to open it until we reached you. Do I now have your permission to reveal its contents?”

  The baron looked at it quizzically.

  Then he turned to his young aide.

  “That will do, Beauchamp,” he said.

  The three waited until Beauchamp walked out, shutting the door behind him. Then Holmes tore open the envelope. Inside was one sheet of paper, and on that sheet were hand-written eight names.

  Holmes recognized the first five immediately, from the calling cards that the men had used to reserve their places at the Sultana’s dining room table. He said as much.

  “I assume the other three were aboard, as well,” he continued, “but did not make their presence known. Might they be known to you? Perhaps they are criminals of some sort.”

  The baron stared at the names. Then he walked to his desk and opened a drawer, removed a file, and compared Holmes’s names with a list in his hand.

  Finally, he shook his head.

  “If they are miscreants,” he declared, “they have caused no trouble here.”

  Holmes noticed Edward Dedos—Three-Fingered Eddie—among the governor’s list of criminals. There was also a Rickets, a Peter Rickets, but no others he recognized. So he turned his attention back to the list he had been given. There was something peculiar about the names…

  The governor perused his list again, and compared it to Holmes’s. “We have no records of them at all,” he declared.

  “That is because they are not criminals, merely businessmen,” Holmes murmured. Whereupon he picked up his list, quickly tore the names into strips, then positioned them in a new order.

  As Douglas and Gordon looked at them curiously, Holmes explained.

  “You see there? The first letter of each first name forms an acronym for the famous American vice president and seditionist, Aaron Burr. My hunch is that none of these men knew the others by sight before they embarked. Once they put down their calling cards in the grand saloon, any interloper would quickly be ferreted out, as his first name would not fit the acronym.”

  “Aaron Burr?” Douglas repeated. “An American vice president who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel? Why pick him, of all people?”

  “I am assuming,” Holmes said, “that the names came first, that they are not pseudonyms. They would have utilized Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, if it fitted.”

  The governor cleared his throat.

  “Forgive me for pointing out an error in spelling, especially at such a crucial juncture, but…” He placed his finger between “Adam McGuire” and “Richard Nelson,” then continued. “Burr spelled his first name with two ‘a’s, not one,” he said.

  “Quite so—” Holmes began, when he was interrupted by a hard knock upon the door.

  “What is it?” the baron called out impatiently.

  His supercilious aide peeked in.

  “All apologies, governor, but it is a matter of some urgency.”

  Holmes quickly gathered up the names and placed the pieces back in the envelope. The governor motioned Beauchamp inside, and the man handed him a note.

  “From the chief of police in Port of Spain,” he said by way of explanation.

  When the governor read it, he turned as white as a sheet.

  “By h… heavens,” he stammered. “Not half an hour ago, your good captain, James Miles, was trampled in the streets by a runaway horse. He is, I am aggrieved to report, deceased!”

  Holmes and Douglas glanced at each other.

  “I most solemnly assure you,” Hamilton-Gordon went on nervously, “that this sort of thing never transpires on our fine little island. The drivers here are kind, considerate…”

  “I noticed as much,” Holmes assured him as he and Douglas rose to their feet. “I am sorry to say, governor, that there is a conspiracy afoot. Have we your permission to interrogate a pickpocket, currently being held at the jail by the docks?”

  “You have but to ask, Mr. Holmes. And whatever you discover, you may count on our full support,” Hamilton-Gordon announced, waving his hand in an arc, indicating his entire office.

  Holmes and Douglas moved for the door.

  “Perhaps we might issue a guard, to ensure your safety,” the governor suggested.

  Holmes shook his head.

  “Please do not take offense,” he said. “But at the moment, I am afraid the only ones we can trust are in this room.” He indicated the three of them, while clearly omitting Beauchamp, the aide who glared at them from the corner.

  * * *

  In the back of the cart, as the sky changed from violet to cobalt, the men’s internal organs were once again rearranged by the jostling about. Douglas turned to Holmes.

  “So tell me why Aaron is missing an ‘a,’” he said.

  “Because one name is not on the list,” Holmes responded. “Someone whom they all knew by sight, so there was no need.”

  “Anabel Lynch?” Douglas guessed, though he didn’t see the point.

  Holmes nodded.

  “The boy mentioned her specifically. Remember when he cried out, ‘I done all you ast’? The men might’ve been the ones who paid him, but it was she who gave him his marching orders. He did it for her, Douglas. He did it for love.”

  “You assume all those men knew her by sight,” Douglas said. “You think she is the one who gathered them there?”

  “I would not go so far as all that,” Holmes said with a shrug. “Perhaps it’s simply that there aren’t that many women involved in… whatever this is.” He frowned, then continued. “Now all we can do is to see what the boy tells us.”

  “If anything at all,” Douglas added pessimistically—for the mystery seemed to him to be deepening.

  * * *

  The West India Regiment’s barracks was a crumbling limestone building. Large Xs in red chalk were scrawled here and there. Douglas explained that it had been marked for demolition, and a police headquarters would be put up in its place.

  “So where does Port of Spain hold its detainees?” Holmes asked.

  “There are still a handful of cells here and there, maintained for those awaiting transfer to various prisons around the island,” Douglas explained.

  “And security is lax?” Holmes inquired.

  “Everything on the island is lax,” Douglas said.

  While Huan and Nico waited in the street, the two men entered the barracks’ dank little outer office. A gas light in the corner flared out what little illumination there was. The moment they stepped inside, a bored bailiff eyed them drily.

  “If you seek the boy, he is gone.”

  Holmes was about to ask how he’d know whom they sought, but Douglas sho
ok his head, as in don’t bother.

  “Port of Spain is a city,” he muttered under his breath, “but when it comes to gossip, it is the smallest of small towns.”

  “Gone?” Holmes asked the bailiff. “Gone where? Was he transferred?”

  The bailiff, with a pockmarked face and a permanent scowl, was seated behind an ancient desk that bore countless gash wounds upon its surface, along with a smattering of papers upon which a pair of handcuffs served as a paperweight, and a plate with what appeared to be the remains of a meal of chickpeas. He calmly finished picking his very white teeth with the pointed ends of a pair of scissors, wiped the blades on his trousers, stabbed them into the desk, and burped loudly.

  “Bail,” he said.

  “Someone provided bail?” Douglas repeated. “And who might that be?”

  The bailiff shrugged.

  “Not my never mind.”

  In a flash, Douglas stood over him, his hand hovering over the scissor blades.

  “We have come a long way,” he purred menacingly. “We are tired, hungry and cross. I suggest you give us a bit more information than that.”

  The man stared up at Douglas.

  “You are threatening me, mon?” he asked blandly.

  “Assume what you wish, mon,” Douglas replied, his look filled with meaning.

  “You talk fancy for a local boy,” the bailiff began. Scooping up the handcuffs that lay on his desk, he started to rise when he inadvertently glanced toward the door. His eyes registered surprise, along with a hint of alarm.

  Douglas and Holmes followed his gaze.

  It was Huan. He stood in the doorframe, grinning—one hand raised in greeting as if to the room at large. Then, with a shy bow, he ducked out again.

  Without altering his expression a whit, the bailiff sat down. Then he turned his gaze upon Douglas and nodded pleasantly.

  “Chestnut hair,” he said. “Fine mustache, nice looking, strange talking.”

  “Strange talking?” Douglas said. “American, perhaps?”

  The bailiff held up one finger. Then he balled the hand into a fist, and drove it into his solar plexus. This elicited a second, even larger burp.