Mycroft Holmes (16 page)

The two of them were a cut-up, banged-up mess, with barely the strength to crawl onto their respective beds.

“One was named Rickets,” Douglas groaned.

Holmes nodded. He had heard the same thing. Then he noticed something on the floor, close by Douglas, and pointed to it with a shaky finger.

Douglas reached for it, picked it up.

“What is it?” Holmes whispered.

“A
douen
,” Douglas said. His voice sounded strangled.

His arm shaking from the beating he had endured, he held up the little plaster figurine.

It was of a child with empty eyes and backward-facing feet.

Holmes sighed. “So this is about you after all,” he said. “They are trying to frighten you!”

Douglas laughed weakly. Then he grimaced and laid a hand on a bruised rib.

“They know me poorly, then,” he said. “They assume I am African, but my people are half African, half Indian, or
dougla
—it’s the origin of our surname. Roughly translated, it means ‘bastard.’ I was not raised to believe in either
douen
or
lougarou
.”

“But dead children are understood in any culture,” Holmes replied.

Douglas nodded.

“Yes… it is what frightens my family,” he mumbled.

“Thus far, we have been poisoned and beaten, yet are no closer to the truth than when we first left London,” Holmes said back.

Then he groaned and shut his eyes.

NEITHER HOLMES NOR DOUGLAS POSSESSED A HOT-TEMPERED
disposition—both were sanguine in nature. And so they did not attempt to seek vengeance, as that would have been foolhardy. They understood that in order to be any use whatsoever for the remainder of the journey, their bodies must first heal.

At least, that was how Holmes comforted himself when he mourned all the time they would waste.

After discerning that they had neither broken bones nor torn ligaments, and that their eyes and brains were still safely ensconced in their skulls, they decided to set up defenses. First they confirmed that they had an empty chamber pot and enough water in the pitcher, then they dragged Douglas’s bed directly in front of the door to prevent easy access. From there, they gave themselves up wholeheartedly to the most important task at hand.

Sleep.

They slept so well and so soundly that watches were left unwound. Day and night merged—and in any case, there was no porthole in their room to tell them otherwise.

They arose from slumber only when necessary. Finally, Holmes regained enough of his senses to survey his surroundings.

“The
douen
is gone,” he noted in alarm, as he did not comprehend how that could be possible.

Douglas shook his head no, then stopped and grimaced with pain.

“Only in a sense,” he said. Dragging himself out of his bed, he rummaged around the floor near the doorway, then held up what remained of the little figurine. “When we moved the bed in front of the door, it was crushed,” he explained.

Most of it was powder now—all that remained were its two little ankles, with those feet that pointed in the wrong direction.

“There, you see?” Douglas said. “Not even evil spirits can survive our chaos.”

Holmes took the little feet and dropped them into his coat pocket, which hung over a chair.

“It’s not quite a good luck charm, Holmes,” Douglas opined, watching him.

“It is whatever we make of it,” Holmes countered.

Neither wished to sleep any longer, so with some difficulty they dressed. Too exhausted even to speak, each assisted the other with more onerous tasks, such as fitting arms into sleeves.

Then they stumbled outside, hoping the day would bring a respite to the violence that had transpired thus far.

* * *

Holmes’s head was pounding as they made their way to the deck. He dearly wished that the fault had been cognac and cigars, rather than blood, bruises, and bile. An arrogant sun stabbed his eyes, rendering him momentarily blind. When he dared to look out again, he discerned crowds of people, most with luggage at their feet.

“How long did we sleep?” he asked in wonder. But all Douglas could manage was a weak joke about Rip Van Winkle.

They peered past the assembled bodies. The
Sultana
seemed to be approaching a shore of some kind. Holmes had perused maps of all the islands they would pass on their journey, further studying whatever paintings, sketches, and albumen prints were available. Yet an actual landmass, in full and rapidly hastening color, disoriented him. No amount of squinting served to make it any clearer. So he took his best guess.

“Barbados…?” he offered.

But Douglas shook his head no.

“Must’ve passed that two days ago,” he responded. “We have entered the Gulf of Paria. You are staring at our destination. Port of Spain.

“Trinidad.”

Holmes marveled at the very thought. They had endured five days filled with storm and poison—then three, perhaps four, barricaded in their room…

“I had best get our bags,” Douglas said beside him, “as we are about to disembark.”

“You cannot carry them all,” Holmes objected. “Not in the state you are in. I shall go with you.”

Douglas held up a hand to stop him.

“Do we not attract attention enough with our battered appearance?” he muttered. “Add to that a white man in charge of his own bags, and we will find ourselves drawn, quartered, and thrown overboard.”

Holmes, still blinking furiously so that his eyes would adjust to the light, watched with some trepidation as Douglas hobbled off.

Then he saw something else that drew his attention.

Three of the “government types” he’d noticed that first night were standing nearby—not so close as to arouse suspicion, but close enough—and they seemed to be paying him particular mind. With them was the finely mustached American whose name he recalled as Adam McGuire.

By way of experiment, Holmes turned toward them a time or two, peering over their heads as if more taken with the approaching scenery. Each time he did so, they turned away, as if suddenly preoccupied with other matters. The moment they thought they weren’t being observed, however, they looked his way again.

He heard a woman shrieking.

It came from behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder. It was the fashionable dowager who’d complained of the storm. Her chatelaine bag was tied securely to her belt, as was the norm—but she was holding it so that all could see that the bottom had been cut.

“Empty!” she cried aloud. “My money, my jewels… gone!”

A few puzzle pieces suddenly snapped into place.

He looked around and spotted the ship’s purser. Though not far off, he seemed to be unaware of this kerfuffle. His gaze was up and to the right, and his mouth was working ever so slightly.

Making good use of his walking stick, and trying not to wobble, he propelled himself in the man’s direction, and then slowed.

Would a purser be anxious to mark the words of a disoriented young man, covered with scabs and dried blood?
he wondered.
Not likely
.

He would have to impress him first.

“I do not mean to disturb whilst you are tallying the crew’s pay,” he began.

The purser looked startled

“How’d you know…?” he started to ask.

But Holmes could not respond. He was fighting for air as if he’d swum across deck, instead of walked.

“Jostled about a bit, are we?” the purser asked kindly. “Might you be needing assistance, then?”

Holmes rethought his strategy. Perhaps it was best to get right to the point.

“Here… aboard, is a boy of fifteen or so…” he began, trying to force air into his lungs. “This boy… referred to himself as a duffer.”

The purser frowned. “Duffer?” he repeated. “And however’d you come to be aweer of this fact?”

“I… it would take too long to explain,” Holmes said. “Please. You see that woman there? Her purse was cut, her jewels and money taken.”

The purser hesitated only a moment. Then he pulled out a whistle hooked to a cord about his neck, blowing it loudly.

“
Pickpocket aboard!
” he bellowed. All the men within earshot immediately patted their pockets to ensure that their wallets were where they had left them. But Holmes’s eyes were trained on three men in particular.

Satisfied in his assumptions, he gave the purser a description of the boy so that he could recount it for the security detail.

“Oh, and might you recall an elderly woman,” he asked, “dressed in mourning clothes, being pushed about in an ornate carriage by an Indian nurse?”

The purser shook his head no. “But if she be an invalid, she’ll be at the front of the line by now,” he replied, and he pointed to the moveable railing where the gangway would be set for disembarking.

Huffing like a locomotive, Holmes pushed past the crowd until he saw the old woman at the railing, her Indian assistant by her side. Upon reaching her, he walked behind her wheelchair, carefully extended his hand to the back of her neck, unclasped the plum-sized locket, and pulled it into his palm. Then he opened the locket, ran his pinkie inside, and drew out a dusting of ash.

At this juncture, both the servant and the old woman had realized there was something amiss, and stared up at the young gentleman whose face was yellowed by healing bruises.

“It seems your consort… has had an impromptu burial at
sea
, madam,” Holmes wheezed. “I am afraid this is what is left of him.” With that, he flicked the bits of ash from his pinkie into the receptacle again before dropping the locket onto her lap.

The old woman opened her mouth to speak, or to scream—but by this time Douglas was at Holmes’s side. Upon seeing him, she opened her eyes wide, just as her mouth clamped shut.

“Come along, Douglas,” Holmes said imperiously.

He turned on his heel and strode off. Douglas followed suit, though he managed to call back over his shoulder.

“Dreadfully sorry for your loss, madam!”

WITH NEARLY EVERYONE CLUSTERED UPON DECK AND WAITING
to disembark, Douglas and Holmes found a quiet spot inside the grand saloon. They took a moment to catch their breath, and then Douglas spoke tersely.

“I am quite unsettled that I am once again forced to ask this question,” he said, “but what on earth was
that
about?”

“I have much to tell you,” Holmes replied with a smile. “But first, what do you infer?”

“Aside from the fact that you can be an insufferable ass?” Douglas shot back.

“That aside, yes,” Holmes replied equitably, folding his thumbs together, his index fingers tapping against each other.

“I
infer
,” Douglas said, “that the elderly woman was in mourning.”

“Brilliant!” Holmes teased.

“Given the Indian motif on her bag, and the nationality of her attendant, that her dead husband was a British military man stationed in India,” Douglas added. “And when he died, she had him cremated in the Indian fashion.”

“Very good. Thus far, you would do any schoolboy proud.”

“I
further
infer,” he continued, parrying the insult, “that she had his ashes placed in that ghastly piece of ‘mourning jewelry’.”

“Precisely—though you neglected to mention that she was in her second mourning,” Holmes clarified. “The nine-month period following the first. In the second mourning, one may still wear black, and may appear in public without a veil. Though normal jewelry is still not permitted, one may wear mourning jewelry, receptacles into which some portion of the deceased is placed, including snippets of hair and fingernail parings.”

“And you Englishmen call us savages,” Douglas muttered.

“Her husband’s ashes were safely ensconced therein,” Holmes went on, “until someone emptied said contents onto my kerchief, along with bits of hair and fibers—the latter taken directly from our assailants, most likely with their consent. After which, someone—perhaps the same person, possibly not—replaced the now-empty locket inside her stateroom before anyone could be the wiser.”

“And how’d you know the ash did not spew out of the furnaces?”

“Because there was too much, and it was too evenly distributed. The wind is not so fair-minded as all that. No, Douglas, as you are well aware, there are only so many ways to dispose of a body on a ship this size.”