Mycroft Holmes Read online

  Georgiana smiled sadly. “Why, my love, have you not heard? ‘Girls ought not study at all, for it leads to mental illness.’”

  “Georgiana, if you are joking…” he replied.

  “Yes, my dear,” she said. “Yes, I am joking, but I am also in all earnestness. It is only a matter of a few orals before I finish. I have been faithful and diligent, surely Girton will allow latitude for a family emergency.”

  “Then I shall go with you,” Holmes declared, stepping aboard.

  “No.” She laid a hand on his arm, on that same bicep that, moments before, he had been so proud to have her touch. “The people of Trinidad believe in demons and spirits,” she said. “The world of the unseen. Something has shaken them! They will not talk of such things to most of our sort, but my family’s workers have known me since birth, they trust me—and so may confide in me in a way that they cannot with others, even my parents.

  “Your presence would do no good, and could actually do harm. Besides, this will allow me to speak to my father of our engagement. You know how I longed to do it in person, rather than by post.”

  “Yes, but to put yourself in harm’s way…” he protested weakly.

  “Mycroft, please.” Georgiana seemed to be growing impatient with him. “I am simply going back to see my family to ascertain that all is well! Why, just this year, we women have been given the right to keep our own inherited property, and our own earnings. Surely we can be trusted to travel on our own accord.”

  “Let me at least accompany you back to your flat,” Holmes offered helplessly as she recited her Hampstead address to the driver. But she shook her head.

  “No,” she replied. “No, I could not bear it. If you do not leave now, I shall lose my nerve.”

  “Then I shall never leave,” he said.

  Georgiana kissed him lightly on the lips. Then she took a cameo brooch of herself from her purse and pressed it into his hand. It was small, carved in lava, and set in silver.

  He stared at it as if he could not quite believe it was real.

  “This was to be a surprise for you tonight, in honor of the one-year anniversary of our engagement,” she murmured. “Now it shall be a keepsake ’til I see you again. You have the address of our plantation outside Port of Spain. You must promise to write to me each day without fail.” With that, she turned. “Driver, go!”

  Holmes dropped the cameo into his pocket and stumbled out of the carriage. He heard the cabman click his tongue, heard the wheels rumble, and then watched as the carriage followed the Thames for a few hundred yards before it turned a corner and was out of sight.

  After that, if forced to do so, Holmes might have remembered hailing a second cab, this one unlicensed, for it was the first to come along. Of giving the soused and sour-smelling driver the address of Regent Tobaccos. Of alighting more or less in one piece at the destination, then walking inside.

  In truth, he felt no part of his own well-ordered life until he found himself sitting in his favorite chair, where he finally felt comfort at the familiarity of it all.

  It was half past seven. He heard Douglas announce to the Pennywhistles that they could end their shift a half-hour early. He saw Mrs. P. holding firmly onto Mr. P. so that his poor eyesight would not cause him to stumble into the furniture. The couple bid their goodnights and then strolled off arm in arm, Mrs. P. leaning into Mr. P. as if it were he who was forging the path for her, and not the other way round.

  An old couple still in love, Holmes mused.

  He watched Douglas as he waved goodbye, lowered the front door shade and flipped the “Open” sign to “Closed.”

  * * *

  Given how poorly Holmes seemed to be faring, Douglas opened a bottle of Trinidad rum. While he swizzled it with syrup and Angostura bitters, he endured various permutations of “I cannot believe Georgiana would do something so foolhardy!” After that, he listened quietly as Holmes came up with a scheme that seemed every bit as foolhardy as anything Georgiana could possibly concoct.

  “I shall go to Port of Spain, and you shall go with me,” Holmes declared as if it were already a fait accompli. “I shall travel as a representative of the Secretary of State for War, and you shall be my trusted assistant.”

  “I shall be no such thing, Holmes,” Douglas said aloud—though in his mind he was calculating how he could possibly leave his business for six weeks, to check on his family’s well-being.

  “What is it that I am drinking?” Holmes frowned mid-sip, though the glass was already half drained.

  “Never you mind, it’ll put some hair on your chest,” Douglas replied. “Drink up.”

  Holmes peered down at it with distrust, but did just that.

  “Give me your word that you shall think about it, at the least,” he amended. “For I am resolute.”

  “And what of Cardwell? He has agreed?” Douglas asked, referring to Holmes’s superior.

  “He shall,” Holmes thundered, “once I am done with him!”

  Douglas sighed. “Very well, then. If you can persuade the Honorable Edward Cardwell, then you might be able to persuade me.”

  “That would be too easy a win,” Holmes countered, “as you were already contemplating the journey.”

  “Yes,” Douglas admitted, “but not with you. I have found that dragging a white man around Port of Spain tends to muck up the works.”

  “Not to worry, Douglas, there shall be no dragging involved,” Holmes assured him. “I shall not embarrass you in the land of your birth.” Then, smiling a little, he lifted a hand. “As a matter of fact, I give you my solemn promise as a gentleman that I shall pull my own weight every step of the way!”

  Douglas briefly considered dissuading his friend. But he remembered all too clearly what it was like to be young and desperately in love—what that did to the mind and the soul. And because it was an unpleasant, even excruciating memory, Douglas decided to say nothing, though he sensed—as perhaps Holmes could not—that this particular adventure might not be destined to end at all well.

  8

  EDWARD CARDWELL DRUMMED HIS FINGERS IMPATIENTLY ON HIS desktop and stared out the window of his Cumberland House office. Pall Mall was filled with people strolling by—the whole of the human race represented, it seemed, on this one street. He could hear the horses’ hooves clopping along, and could see them toss their manes as if they knew that spring had finally come, even to London.

  Yet here he was, in his large, musty office, waiting for a subordinate who’d failed to do his duty as required.

  It was enough to make his digestion go sour.

  As the Secretary of State for War, Cardwell had for the better part of a year now relied on his man Mycroft Holmes to bring in the morning’s reports and to pinpoint the world’s trouble spots with the deadly accuracy of a champion archer. And young Holmes, with his strange, steel-gray eyes and that shock of dark blond hair, was usually as punctual as the great clock of Westminster itself.

  What in the world could be keeping him this morning?

  Cardwell yawned, revealing several blue spots on his tongue. In truth, he hadn’t eaten or slept well in three days, not since Oxford’s unfortunate loss to the much inferior Cambridge. How on earth the Oxford crew could lose after nine solid years of wins, he had no notion, but it had injured his digestion all the same—even more than his assistant’s tardiness.

  Hellfire and damnation, Holmes…

  He tapped the nub of his pen against his bottom teeth, and raked his other hand through his silver hair, which was already standing this way and that, as if a great wind had blown through it. He tugged at his fulsome muttonchops, fiddled with his speckled bow tie, cleared his throat, and tried to keep his growing temper in check.

  Cardwell could bear many hardships, heaven only knew, but a change in schedule wasn’t among them.

  “Holmes!” he called out, full-voiced this time.

  * * *

  Holmes was bent over his desk, feverishly completing a chart. To his left was a
window that overlooked Pall Mall. In front of him stood the closed door that led to Edward Cardwell’s spacious but rather dreary office, and hovering nervously above him was Cardwell’s junior clerk and errand boy, seventeen-year-old Charles Parfitt.

  He could feel Parfitt’s eyes on his back, could hear, by the boy’s breathing, that his mouth was slightly agape.

  If not quite a friend, Parfitt was Holmes’s ally. It was Holmes who had secured him the post to begin with, thanks to the prompting—one might say the goading—of Holmes’s landlady, Mrs. Hudson. For Parfitt was Mrs. Hudson’s nephew, one of a baker’s dozen all birthed by one sister and “her no-’count souse of a husband,” to use Mrs. Hudson’s own words. Thus, when Cardwell had expressed the need for an errand boy and junior clerk, Holmes had placed Parfitt’s query at the top of the pile.

  What was more, Holmes had neatly cured Parfitt of his stammer. When Parfitt had first come aboard, the entire office would hear Cardwell thunder, “Get on with it, man!” each time the lad was in the inner sanctum. Holmes had taught Parfitt to picture the words in his head before saying them, thus lessening the stammer.

  He had even prescribed the calendula oil mixed with sandalwood that had brought his skin eruptions to heel. Parfitt proved to be quite the passable-looking young chap, once his skin condition cleared up.

  The diminutive clerk returned the favor by being bright and eager to learn. He made it a habit to read through some of the more tedious correspondence that came into the office, then pass on to Holmes only what was pertinent. Parfitt proved himself to possess a keen nose for chicanery. Under more felicitous circumstances, Holmes was certain that he would have made a good magistrate.

  As it was, he was the only one of thirteen siblings to be employed at all, and he owed it all to Holmes.

  “Mr. Holmes, please…” Parfitt begged with an anxious whisper.

  “Do you have the research on Trinidad I asked for?” Holmes muttered, looking up. The lad nodded and handed Holmes a sheaf of papers.

  “Holmes!” the unseen Cardwell thundered, this time to the sound of his fist smashing onto his desk. It was the sound Holmes had been waiting for. He had set Edward Cardwell to simmering, and now the man was at a full boil.

  So he put the finishing touches on his chart, rose from his desk, and followed young Parfitt into the inner sanctum.

  * * *

  “Terribly sorry for Oxford’s loss, sir,” Holmes said the moment he stepped through the door, thus effectively establishing the subject while giving Cardwell the first jab of pain meant to unsettle him further.

  Cardwell blinked away surprise, then his sorrow.

  “Injured my digestion for a full day and a half, I guarantee it,” he replied. “You do not follow crew, I take it?”

  “Not really, sir, no,” Holmes responded. “But the news is everywhere.”

  It is not a complete lie, he reasoned. Then he stood there, fumbling through the sheaves of paper in his hand, allowing Cardwell plenty of time to grow impatient yet again.

  “Well, Holmes?” the man demanded.

  “Yessir?” Holmes blinked at him innocently.

  Cardwell sighed. “Holmes. Are you quite with us? Have you given further thought to our discussion of yesterday afternoon?”

  “Oh that, sir. Yes, sir, I have,” Holmes said. “But I must point out that you have already made such wonderful strides in this arena. You have abolished flogging the soldiers, you have abolished the receiving of bounty money for recruits, surely no one can expect more from you than—”

  “Nonsense!” Cardwell rose to his feet, planted his hands on his desk and leaned over it, the better to be heard—though Holmes assumed he could be heard perfectly well the entire length and breadth of Pall Mall. “It is unreasonable for men to serve, with no notion into whose regiment they are going, or into what county or district,” he asserted. “To be away from their homes, family, and friends for years at a time. And to be horsewhipped for good measure.

  “No! It will not do,” he continued. “And what’s more, I am the only one at liberty to say what is enough and what isn’t, and I shall not be satisfied until we alter general military service inside of this calendar year. All I ask of you is an idea—a small notion—as to how we might bring this about.

  “Would that be too much to ask?”

  “Yes, sir,” Holmes responded. “I mean no, sir, it is not, which is why I took it upon myself to… well if you’ll permit me, this might be what you would propose.” With that, Holmes handed Cardwell the chart he held in his hands.

  “What’s this, then?” the older man asked, picking up his spectacles from his desk and peering through them.

  Holmes explained what Cardwell could see with his own two magnified eyes.

  “By utilizing county boundaries and population density,” Holmes said, “I have divided Great Britain into sixty-six brigade districts. Every line-infantry regiment would become two separate battalions. These two battalions would share a depot and a recruiting area. Then, while one battalion serves overseas, the other remains in country to train. If the area is populous enough, we could form a third battalion—a militia, if you will…”

  “A militia?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Cardwell stared down at the chart in wonder.

  “How long have you been toiling at this, Holmes?” Cardwell asked, his voice suddenly small.

  “A while now, sir. Since early morning, I’d say.”

  “Since early… morning?” Cardwell repeated. “You are referring to this morning?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I see. Well, I… I will have to give it some real consideration, Holmes. Some real consideration indeed. You may have just propelled the military, lock, stock, and barrel, into the next century. I must say that I am… impressed.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Holmes did not depart.

  “Is there anything else?” Cardwell inquired.

  Holmes nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said. “There seems to be a looming storm in Trinidad.”

  “A what?”

  “Looming storm, sir. In Trinidad. Port of Spain, specifically. The emerging Negro middle class seems to be articulating a national ideology, just as we are promoting the indenture of Indian workers.”

  “Bloody bad timing, that,” Cardwell grunted as he sat down again, though his eyes were fully on the chart.

  “Yes, sir. And with the Indian population on the island now hovering at twenty-five percent, plus new immigrants from China, the white minority is becoming quite jittery.”

  “An incipient revolt waiting to happen, you think?”

  “Possibly. Now they—the white minority, that is—are divided among English Creole, faithful to the Crown, and French Creole, who might begin to question why they should be subject to a British queen at all.”

  “There you are! Did I not say an incipient revolt waiting to happen?”

  “Yes, sir, you most certainly did.” Holmes watched Cardwell rise to his feet once again, only this time he began to pace, one fist in his hair, the other rubbing at his muttonchops.

  “We must nip this in the bud, Holmes. The last thing we need is another West Indies Federation on our hands—four million people suddenly deciding they are no longer subjects of Her Majesty. Or Jamaica, five years back. How many rebels did we have to execute?”

  “Four hundred, sir.”

  “An excessive use of force,” Cardwell said solemnly. “Still, the Crown must preserve its territories.”

  “Yes, sir.” Holmes knew that he had to tread carefully with this next move, as its only relevance was to push Cardwell further into high dudgeon. “And of course, with that French Creole problem in Trinidad,” he said, “should France spar with Prussia and prevail…”

  Cardwell’s great eyebrows shot up nearly to meet his hairline.

  “France! Over Prussia?” he cried.

  “I only mention the remote possibility of—”

  “Never, sir. Never! �
��Though on the face of it, Britain must remain neutral, I for one shall not lose a wink of sleep if noble, patient, deep, pious, solid Germany should weld itself into a nation over the objections of vaporing, vainglorious, gesticulating, quarrelsome, and oversensitive France.’”

  Cardwell, done with quoting Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, stared daggers into Holmes, as if daring him to continue.

  “What I am suggesting, sir,” Holmes began, looking properly chastised, “is a diplomatic scout-about to Port of Spain. A steamship leaves the day after tomorrow. Perhaps someone could…”

  “No, no, no—not ‘someone,’ Holmes,” Cardwell said. “This requires delicacy. Tact. Who governs Trinidad at the moment?”

  Holmes consulted his documents, though he had no need to.

  “Baron Stanmore, Sir Arthur Charles Hamilton-Gordon,” he said.

  “Hmm. Name sounds familiar. Oxford man?”

  “A Cantabrigian.”

  “Ah. As are you, Holmes. I know now whom to send.” And just like that, Cardwell was seated again, pen in mouth, tapping his teeth, scattering blue blotches. “You shall travel as my secretary, of course. That should provide you cachet. And do take along a valet of some sort, courtesy of this office.”

  As Cardwell bent over his work, Holmes smiled to himself.

  “Oh, and I shall importune my dear friend Sir James Clark to give you a thorough going over,” Cardwell muttered as he wrote. “Physician to Prince Albert and all that, retired now.”

  “Too kind, sir,” Holmes protested. “But…”

  “Tut, Holmes. As a representative of Her Majesty’s Government, we cannot have you traipsing about in ill health.”

  Holmes’s smile disappeared.

  Moments later he hurried out of Cardwell’s office, and almost immediately encountered Parfitt. The boy’s eyes were wider than ever.

  “Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Holmes?” Parfitt inquired.

  You can learn to exhale through your nose, Holmes thought crossly. But what he said was, “No, Parfitt. That is, yes. I shall be leaving for Port of Spain the day after tomorrow. Kindly make the necessary arrangements on the West India and Pacific Steamship line bound for Barbados. Do not put me ’tween decks, for pity’s sake, but take care that the cabin is economically priced. No view, nothing fancy, room for two.