Raymond Barnett

Chapter One: May 25, 1944

His eyes restlessly seized the details of the Victoria Station scene outside the train window as they arrived, replaying the habit which had forged his brilliant career as the world’s first consulting detective. The young lady standing bewildered on the next platform, clearly a typist from the double line impressed into the velvet jacket just above her wrist, and—yes—hurriedly dressed to catch the train, from the mismatched boots incompletely laced. Girlfriend of a soldier with an unexpected pass for the day? Yes, here he was approaching and embracing her. And a Yank, yet, he saw with a grimace. What had he heard, the three problems with Yanks? They were over-paid, over-sexed, and over here. Indeed.
Ah! A violinist passing by, the worn indentation in the collar of his jacket proclaiming the wonted jamming of his instrument there. Let’s see—that will be his companion just behind him, another violinist with the tellingly indented collar. And there’s the cellist, the peculiar hunched left shoulder where he lovingly reaches around to finger the strings, combined with the quite powerful right arm for bowing. A string quartet? If so, where is the violist? He laughed aloud as the confirmation of his deductions emerged into view. Yes. Shepherding the baggage cart with the instruments, as befits the youngest member of the quartet.
Half a century beyond his retirement, the old man still enjoyed the game. He examined the porter pushing the baggage cart. Aha. Not many Victoria Station porters had been to China. That’s much more likely on the docks. But the tattoo just above the right wrist told the story, the trick of staining the fishes’ scales a delicate pink being quite peculiar to China. From habit he glanced at the man’s knees, confirming the worn material expected. Where had he last seen that type of tattoo? Yes. The case Watson had called The Red Headed League.
The old man sighed. He did miss Watson, even fifteen years after the old fellow’s death. Well. He was not utterly bereft of old friends, of course. There was still Mycroft. He only saw his brother once a year, to administer the physical for The Grand Experiment. But just knowing Mycroft was there, gliding steadily between The Diogenese Club, his lodgings opposite, and his office in the Admiralty around the corner in Whitehall—just knowing that was comforting. Mycroft, like England, survived, steady and dependable. Ninety-six years old, true, but thanks to royal jelly and The Grand Experiment he would have at least another decade, possibly two.
And there. The bulge of the pistol holster under the left arm of the vested Irishman whose eyes, like his, were always moving. Flanagan, the station security man. And there, and there, and there, of course more Yanks yet. Bloody Yanks, everywhere. Noisy, painfully young and naive, butchering the King’s English, looking all the world as if they were on a holiday rather than about to face Hitler’s seasoned killers just eighteen miles across the Channel. He blessed the obscurity of his retirement cottage on the Sussex Downs, mercifully spared the scourge of the boisterous, clumsy, swarming Yanks.
Only Mycroft could summon him back to London and the ubiquitous Yanks. “Come.” That part of last night’s telegram was clear enough. “Supply line or surprise?” That also was clear enough. Churchill and Eisenhower were trying to decide where to throw all these bloody Yanks, plus the Brits left after Dunkirk, against the Nazis. Like every critical decision of the last sixty years, Mycroft would be in the middle of it. “Supply line” dictated the Pas de Calais, the closest point of the continent, easy to transport the invaders and their material to. The Nazis knew this, and were dug in. “Surprise” dictated Norway or Normandy or Brittany, where the Nazi defenses were not quite so developed, but required lengthy supply lines and exposure to the infamous weather of the North Atlantic. Every Brit remembered how that weather had saved them from the Spanish Armada over three hundred years ago. You didn’t want to depend on the Atlantic weather.
No, all that about Mycroft’s telegram was clear enough. But the last sentence baffled him. “I smell a B-P.” Well. “B-P” could only refer to the last of the four cases Mycroft had bought to Holmes, the disappearance of the Bruce-Partington submarine plans that had shaken the Home Office in 1895. The plans had at length been retrieved from the hands of Hugo Oberstein, a German agent living in London. But everyone had submarines these days, and it was no news that the Germans were our enemy. Yet again. What was it that Churchill had once said? “I thank God that He put a body of water between us and the Germans.”
He heaved his 89-year-old body up out of the seat with a grunt, draped the satchel strap over his shoulder, and used his sturdy walking stick—a heavy Penang lawyer-- to steady him down the crowded aisle of the morning train from Sussex. No doubt Mycroft had felt some aches or pains, and wished another physical beyond the annual one Holmes had been administering for three decades. The old man’s satchel contained his medical kit in addition to the usual toiletries and change of shirts. Carefully he took the steps to the platform one at a time, and breathed a small sigh of relief as he felt the concrete under his feet.
“Morning, Mr. Holmes,” boomed Flanagan.
“Mr. Flanagan. How observant of you to spot me.”
“Just doing my job, sir. But has it really been your customary year since your last visit to your brother?”
“And what a memory you have, on top of all your other virtues. Thank God you were not around half a century ago, or no one would have even noticed me.”
Flanagan roared and slapped Holmes on the back, not noticing how the old man staggered a bit.
“Eh, ain’t you the one, sir! But I’m hoping there’s no problem with the brother?”
“Insufficient data, Flanagin. All I know is that I am summoned.”
“Help you with your satchel, sir?”
“No thanks, Flanagan. Carry on, my man.”
Flanagan saluted, and his eyes resumed their restless wanderings over the crowd.
Emerging from the station, Holmes gazed down the tumult that was Buckingham Palace Road, noticing the string quartet just jamming themselves and instruments into one of the larger cabs. He usually walked to Mycroft’s place on the other side of the Palace. But enduring 45 minutes of the noise, exhaust, and rumblings of automobiles, lorries, and buses on the Road was beyond him today. How he hated internal combustion engines. As with the Yanks, he understood they had their advantages. Unlike the Yanks, one could readily do without them. He turned and plunged back into the station and made for the tunnels leading to the Underground. In 15 minutes he emerged from St. James station, and soon was shuffling across Charles II’s Birdcage Walk into St. James Park. The very trees and lake soothed him. He could hardly hear an internal combustion engine.
Soon he was over the bridge spanning the lake, a glance to the left confirming the news that Buckingham Palace had indeed been hit by one of the new V1 self-propelled German bombs. Damn Huns. But no serious damage, thank goodness. He veered right onto the diagonal path beyond the bridge, which led through the park to the Duke of York column on the other side of The Mall. In a few moments he paused as he surveyed the three sets of steps up to the column, took a deep breath, then mounted them slowly but steadily. He pulled his watch out of his pocket at the top, catching his breath as he pondered its message. The watch contained a considerable amount of gold and diamonds, a gift from the King of Sweden for services rendered many years ago.
“Saturday, 11 am. Mycroft will be in his chair at the Diogenes Club.” He walked the remaining length of Waterloo Place, and turned left onto Pall Mall, meaning to traverse the two short blocks to his brother’s private club on the street’s south side. But a bustle across the street caught his eyes. A small crowd had gathered around a bobby below a stone lintel announcing “Crusader House” between two marble columns. Holmes regarded the crowd with a guarded eye, looked carefully right and left, then crossed the street.
“Pardon. May I? I beg your pardon,” he muttered as he wound through the crowd to the door. He addressed the bobby blocking the entrance. “I’m meeting my brother today, who lives on the third floor here. Could you kindly enquire of the concierge if Mr. Holmes is in?”
The bobby stared goggle-eyed at him. Then he squinted and tilted his helmeted head. “You’re ‘ere to see Mr. Mycroft Holmes?”
“Yes I am. Is he here?”
The bobby turned and gestured the concierge over. “This ‘ere fellow says he’s Mr. Holmes’ brother and wants to see ‘im.”
The concierge, a thin fellow with sparse white hair, seemed agitated at this news. “Oh my. I’ll send for Mr. Holmes’ secretary, sir. Just a moment, please.” He dashed off toward the lift at the back of the foyer.
Holmes stood, breathing very lightly. He didn’t like this. And he didn’t know Mycroft’s new personal secretary, taken on not long after his visit nine months ago. He wasn’t allowing himself to think; insufficient data. Insufficient data, he repeated angrily to himself, as several hypotheses thrust themselves unwanted into his head.
The concierge reappeared from the lift, and turned to introduce the man behind him.
Holmes tottered, and would have fallen had the bobby not extended an arm to lean on. Mycroft’s new secretary was the ghost of John Watson.
“My God,” Holmes whispered as he gazed in shock at the man. Taller than Watson, perhaps. Muscular, it appeared, as Watson was not, though perhaps had been as a young man. But the hazel eyes and hair were the same, the same honest, straight-forward face amiably regarding the world.
The ghost stepped forward, and extended a flesh-and-blood hand with a wondering look in its eyes. “Mr. Holmes? Sherlock Holmes?”
Holmes took the hand, and nodded, too shocked to speak.
“How ever did you get here so fast? It can’t have been three hours since I sent the telegram.”
“Telegram? I received no telegram from you, young man. I received one from Mycroft last night, asking me to come here. I have come.”
“Last night? Then—you don’t know?”
A sharp intake of his breath. “Know? Know what?”
Watson’s ghost looked right and left, then took Holmes’ arm and drew him out of the crowd, into the foyer a bit.
“Mr. Holmes, I have the sad duty to inform you that your brother is dead, sir. He died in his sleep last night.”

Chapter Two

Holmes tottered again, reaching out to steady himself with a hand on the nearby column.
“Mycroft? Dead?”
Watson’s young ghost nodded.
“But, but—” he stammered. It wasn’t possible. And not just because of the royal jelly that had kept his brother and himself impossibly spry and active well into their eighties and nineties. Nor because Mycroft had easily passed Sherlock’s physical examination just nine months ago. No, it was more because it was impossible to imagine England and its empire persisting without Mycroft. He had outlasted a queen, three kings, and dozens of prime ministers, always in the very center of every decision of import. He was the constant that glued everything together, for Sherlock personally as well as for the empire. Mycroft couldn’t not be here. You could no more imagine Mycroft not here than Westminster Abbey, or St. James Park, or Victoria Station, or—
Holmes pulled himself together with an anguished cry. He had a duty to Mycroft. Something was amiss here. Mycroft’s telegram, then his death perhaps hours later.
He stared hard into the eyes of the young Watson. “How did he die, young man?”
The young ghost shrugged his shoulders. “He was 96, sir. His body just gave out, probably his heart.”
Sherlock’s eyes remained locked on the amiable eyes of the ghost. Like Watson, also, in not being able to imagine evil.
“What is your name, young man?” he demanded.
“Watson, sir. John Watson.”
“You bear a striking resemblance to my own late colleague, Dr. John Watson.”
“Not surprising, sir. I am his grandson.”
“Indeed. Most interesting. However, I wish to see Mycroft. Mycroft’s body, I mean. I am his brother, after all.”
“Sir, the physician has not even arrived yet to pronounce him dead. It being Saturday, everything is taking longer—“
“I shan’t block access to my brother’s body by the officials. I want to see his body,” he said, his voice rising in volume perhaps a bit. “I must insist.”
Young Watson hesitated a second, then nodded. He turned, and motioned Holmes into the lift, which rose to the third floor.
Holmes exited the lift, turned right, and walked to his brother’s bedroom without waiting for directions or permission from Watson. As he opened the door, he spoke back to the young man. “You will understand, of course, that I’d like some time alone with my brother’s remains. I shan’t be long.” He shut the door without waiting for a reply.
Holmes stared at the door for some seconds, steeling himself. He gently placed the satchel on the floor, then he turned.
Mycroft lay in bed, his enormous girth rising majestic and solid. One look at his face, though, told all. The sparkling eyes, the animated expressions, the playful eyebrows below the massive forehead—all still. Gone. Forever.
“Mycroft,” he said in a broken voice, his throat tightening. A deep breath. “Mycroft, I shall mourn you later, old fellow. You understand, I know, and approve. We must see what has happened to you.”
He paced around the bed, eyes tracing every detail of the scene. He pulled the covers back, and unbuttoned the silk pajamas, letting them fall to either side of the chest. What was that about his skin—it was, what? Bluish. Yes. Certainly far from Mycroft’s normal, royal jelly-induced pink skin of a seeming 50-year-old. So. Cyanosis. From asphyxia, most likely. A dozen scenarios producing asphyxia exploded into his head, and were just as suddenly banished. Insufficient data. This was for gathering data, not analyzing it. And he didn’t have much time.
He pulled his magnifying lens from its hiding place within the broad head of his Penang lawyer. Rapidly he traversed Mycroft’s body, checking for bruises or the prick of a syringe, particularly into the major arteries. Nothing on his torso or arms. Nothing on his legs. He partially rolled the body over, and checked the dorsal aspect. No, nothing. A quick perusal of the soles of his feet and hands, the top of his head. Nothing.
He peered through the lens into Mycroft’s open eyes. He had never known them not to be dancing, but today they were empty and still. He closed his own eyes as his throat began to tighten again. “Later, you fool,” he reminded himself. Pupils normal. He gently pulled the eyelids over the sightless orbs, and could not refrain from caressing the eyes and forehead.
“Old fellow,” he murmured.
He lifted the legs, then one arm, and the other. Rigor mortis relatively advanced. So death at least, what? Six hours ago, more probably nine to twelve. That would be sometime between eleven last night and five this morning, probably last night. He found himself reluctant to drop Mycroft’s arm, and gently straightened the fingers of the clenched fist. As he did so, something dropped from the fist onto the cream linen sheet. He held his breathe as he reached for it and picked it up. Small, though heavy. Dark grey, in the shape of a small truncated mountain or volcano.
“Mycroft, old boy. Mycroft, why are you presenting me with a barnacle, my dear brother?” he said softly, wonderingly.
Noises from the hallway. He jerked up, pocketing the barnacle, and quickly scanned the rest of the room as he buttoned the pajamas. Table tops, as he remembered them. He crossed to the desk. Tidy, sparse of material, as usual, at least on a brief perusal. Bookshelves—what was that untidiness there? Why, there was a volume shelved upside down, and askew. How odd. Utterly unlike Mycroft. He turned the volume right side up. The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, by Charles Darwin.
“Just as odd as a barnacle in your fist, old boy,” he murmured. He quickly reshelved the book as footsteps approached the door. He sat, and adopted a mourning position, hand hooding his eyes.
The door opened, and an older gentleman bustled through it. “Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Holmes. I am Dr. Thornberry, and must insist on being the first to examine the body.”
Holmes looked up. “I quite understand, and appreciate the few moments I had with my brother—my late brother, I mean.” He stood, and shook hands with the physician.
“Forgive my making an exception to procedures, Dr. Thornberry. May I enquire whether I might be able to see the results of the autopsy?”
The physician raised his shaggy white eyebrows. “Autopsy? We generally do not perform autopsies on routine deaths due to old age, sir. The man was, what—96 years old, I understand?”
“Indeed. Although, in my day, when any senior member of Whitehall died, it was routine to perform an autopsy, as a matter of course.”
“Well, Mr. Holmes, that was quite a while ago, and in these modern times, we are not so suspicious, I suppose.”
“Well. Strange. Might I request one?”
“You may request all you want, but you must understand we are at war, sir, and the new bombings are ramping up casualties again. I cannot say whether we can spare the personnel or the time for an autopsy.”
“Ah. I suppose I understand.” Suddenly Holmes staggered, and grabbed hold of the physician, slumping against him in such a way to push him towards the door.
“Dr. Thornberry, sir. I feel faint. The shock. I...” He staggered again, and uttered a swooning wail.
“Smelling salts, sir,” Holmes croaked. “Please! Some ammonium carbonate!”
“In my bag downstairs, Mr. Holmes. Sit down on the bed here, and I’ll retrieve them,” the physician pronounced, and bolted out of the room.
No sooner had he cleared the door than Holmes bounded up and shut it behind him. With a cry of satisfaction he noted the key in the lock, and twisted it. In a moment he was at the bed with his opened satchel.
“Sixty seconds, you think? My apologies, Mycroft. The old fool won’t do his job, so I’ll do what I can in his brief absence. No time for a liver biopsy, of course, but a sample of your blood will tell volumes, old boy.” As he talked he pulled a syringe out of the satchel, and rummaged around in it for a vial. “Thank God I imagined you might be wanting an early physical, dear brother. Everything I need is at hand.” He triumphantly pulled a vial from the bag, uncorked it, placed it on the side table, and eagerly bent to the inert arm’s brachial artery with the syringe in his hand.
“Damn. No blood pressure, of course. The arteries are worthless.” He stood, and closed his eyes. “All right. What now? Ah! My apologies again, Mycroft. I shall have to go straight into your heart. All for a good cause, my friend.”
He leaned down, located the appropriate spot between the third and fourth ribs on Mycroft’s left, then plunged the needle deep into the thoracic cavity. He set the needle, and pulled back on the plunger. Yes. A stream of blood was sucked up into the syringe. “And see how dark it is, Mycroft. Yes, cyanosis for sure.” With hands only slightly trembling he pulled the needle out of Mycroft, directed it into the top of the vial, and depressed the plunger. He jammed the cork into the filled vial, and swept both vial and syringe off the table into the waiting satchel when the first fist pounded on the door.
“Let me in, sir! I demand you—“
Holmes abruptly opened the door. “How ever did you manage to lock the door on your way out, Dr. Thornberry?” he enquired. He staggered a bit as he remembered the cause of the good doctor’s hasty exit. “Have you the ammonium carbonate, sir? Bless you, sir! Ahh! Yes. Ahh! I believe I am quite myself again, sir, thanks to your quick thinking!” He brushed a relieved hand over his forehead, and uttered a feeble laugh.
“Yes, well, harumph,” barked the doctor. “Now if you’ll allow me, sir.”
“Quite. Of course.” Holmes glanced back at his dead brother, etching the scene into his memory. One last look around the room. Then he left and never saw Mycroft again.