Mycroft Holmes (9 page)

Sherlock frowned, sat down again, and fell into a sullen silence.

“But before you get on with that,” Holmes added, “how about a nice round of boxing? It’ll put some color in those sallow cheeks.” Sherlock didn’t look any happier at the prospect. If anything, he looked less pleased.

“Have you not read, dear brother,” he said in that slightly annoyed cant that he always affected, “that ‘bodily exercise profiteth little’?” Nevertheless, he shut the book with a definitive
clap
and stood to depart without protest.

Holmes smiled.

Sherlock was rarely so amenable.

I have had an impact on him
, he thought, secretly pleased.

* * *

The two brothers faced each other within a rectangle of ropes set up on the main floor. Their hands were wrapped in strips of leather so musty that they threatened to turn to dust.

“Hands high,” Holmes commanded. “Elbows low, head moving. And for pity’s sake, chin down!”

As if to emphasize his point, he thwacked Sherlock on the jaw.

Sherlock put his chin down but continued to study his brother, as he had been doing since they’d first entered the gym.

“And now that you have solved my riddle,” he said, “I think it only fair that I solve yours.”

“And what riddle might that be?” Holmes asked.

“What, pray, is that fervor in your eyes?” Sherlock demanded. “Surely it’s not simply from buffeting me about. Is it some intrigue or other that disquiets you? Perhaps an undertaking having to do with human suffering, along with the possibility of circumventing it? If so, it would be the least inspiring subject I could imagine…”

“Speak less, box more,” Holmes said.

“…which leads me to assume that Georgiana has something to do with it. Did you not announce, some months back, that you are beginning to look at social inequities not as curiosities to be catalogued, but as wrongs to be righted?”

“It’s true,” Holmes said evenly. “I do owe that to Georgiana.”

“She has made you
weak
, brother mine,” Sherlock sneered.

Why, you ungrateful ninny!
Holmes thought.
Here, I solve your insipid crime, and you insult me?
He jabbed his brother a bit too hard on his exposed septum. Sherlock flinched—but was on the scent and would not be deterred, even by a cuff to the nose.

“Yes, perhaps it is love that…
aha!
You see there? You pursed your lips! As if not wanting some secret to escape.”

“I pursed my lips because I would like you to shut up and box,” Holmes said dourly.

“Nonsense, you are disquieted,” Sherlock shot back. “Discomfited. Why, I would even go so far as to say that this secret distresses you.”

“Rather than alliterate, kindly practice turning your body
into
the punch, not away.”

“I am turning away so you do not hit me!” Sherlock protested. Still, he was not about to let it go. “Wait,” he mused. “Has something gone awry with the sainted Georgiana?”

With that, Sherlock began to hum “La Donna è Mobile” from
Rigoletto
. Holmes was familiar with the opera, and knew precisely what Sherlock was inferring.

And he didn’t like it one bit.

“You
must
use height and reach to your advantage,” he said in a vain attempt to take control of the subject. “Utilize your entire body, not just your arm. Like this!” He demonstrated, catching Sherlock in the ribcage. The boy expelled his breath, but was again undeterred.

“Yes!” he gasped. “The problem is with Georgiana. Perhaps one of her street urchins is in mortal danger. Forced to use a present negative subjunctive when a plain old subjunctive would do!”

“You are insufferable.”

“So I’ve been told,” Sherlock said, “more times than I care to recall. Though I do, unhappily, recall each time.”

“Short uppercuts and hooks, short rights,
long
jabs,” Holmes said, trying to keep the conversation on track. “Not short jabs—and long everything else!”

“Tell me, Mycroft, why’d you appear today? Surely not for a boxing lesson. And why did you comment, as we strolled here, that you shall be ‘frightfully busy this summer,’ when I have not seen you in weeks? June, July, and August could easily slip by without my noticing your absence. What need would there be to announce it?”

“Curiosity is a good thing,” Holmes countered. “Pray be judicious about it, and not simply sarcastic. And breathe
out
when you punch. Eye your target. Chin
down
!” Holmes tapped Sherlock a little harder than necessary on his jutting chin, and Sherlock once again lowered it.

“Let us not forget that I am not, like you, ambidextrous,” Sherlock said.

“Not naturally, no,” Holmes said. “But you can practice to become so.”

“If that is an attempt to sidetrack me, it will not work. Summer is a slow season for the War Office, as even subversives need a respite now and again. Odds are, you won’t be ‘frightfully busy’ at all. So why say it, other than to excuse a long absence? Or to draw attention to it.”

“Nicely done,” Holmes admitted, though he sighed to himself. Why had he always been so keen on helping his brother develop his observational skills when he wasn’t at all certain that Sherlock would use them wisely?

Because his mind is a Stradivarius
, he quietly reminded himself.
He simply needs to pick it up and learn how to play it
.

“Now, think of everything,” Holmes said. “Odors, clothing, carriage… good God, why are your eyes darting about? I meant
my
carriage, Sherlock, how I comport myself. For pity’s sakes, keep focused!”

“Odors, yes,” Sherlock mused, sniffing the air. “Formaldehyde. Either you’ve been pickling mice, dear brother, or you’ve had a visit with a physician. You are hale, I take it?”

“Never better,” Holmes responded tightly. “What else?”

“Your hair smells faintly of tobacco. Or, rather tobaccos—surely more than can be smoked by one man, even you. Most likely that means long hours at the tobacconist, scheming something up. With your friend Douglas, or someone else?”

“I shall concede Douglas,” Holmes admitted. “Now put it together.”

Sherlock frowned, a movement that caused his nose to drop down toward his lips so that he looked like a perturbed hawk. “It’s not very sportsmanlike, this game you have played with me since I was a child,” he protested, “as you already know the answer.”

When Holmes did not reply, Sherlock’s frown deepened.

“Mycroft, can you not simply
tell
me?”

“Oh, for the love of heaven, don’t stand around
waiting
for me to hit you. Throw something, even if it does not land. And no, I will not ‘simply tell you.’ You need to work it out.”

Sherlock began to flail about, with little conviction.

“Very well,” he said. “In truth, you seem out of sorts. Sad, as if you’ve lost your wallet. No, not your wallet, something closer to your heart, although I strain to imagine what that could be, if not your wallet. And that new traveling coat,” he added, pointing his very vulnerable chin in the direction of the hook on which the coat now hung. “Dull but practical—bargain-priced, no doubt, light enough for the tropics.

“The tropics… Wait.
There
is something! The tropics, and Douglas, whose origins are in Trinidad. And… given Georgiana’s family background—yes! Something’s afoot in Trinidad, and that is precisely where you are heading. Mycroft, you have come to say goodbye!”

Just as Holmes swung, Sherlock lowered his guard. Holmes tried, but could not pull his punch in time. He hit his brother squarely in the nose. Sherlock buckled to his knees, and though he arose quickly enough, he was bleeding profusely.

This was not the impact I had in mind
, thought Holmes. He quickly unwrapped his hands, then reached into his pocket for a kerchief, which he proffered.

“Chin up,” Holmes instructed. “Chin up!”

“Chin down, chin up… kindly make a decision,” Sherlock snuffled crossly as he held the kerchief to his nose.

* * *

The boxing lesson thus terminated, the brothers walked across the main square to a cavernous dormitory that held 150 beds. Holmes could tell immediately which was his brother’s by the mess around it, as if someone had tidied the entire quarters to a fare-thee-well, but had forgotten one small spot for a decade… or perhaps three.

“The headmaster makes no mention of this?” Holmes asked, staring askance at the piles of papers, books, and curios jumbled there.

“Well, naturally he does,” Sherlock said. “Westminster holds thrice-weekly inspections—has done so for some centuries now, I believe.”

“Well then…?”

“This is all new, d’you see. I have added to it only since last night.”

“Cleanliness is next to godliness…” Holmes began, but Sherlock wasn’t paying him any mind. He had somehow located his tin of shag tobacco, and was rolling himself a cigarette.

“You did well, by the way,” Holmes said. “Not with the boxing, perhaps, but with the deductions. I must admit I was impressed.”

Sherlock lit the cigarette and exhaled a cloud of acrid smoke. “And what, in your estimation, am I to accomplish with such gifts? Eh? Become a detective? An Inspector Bucket? Is that how you perceive me, dear brother?”

“If you refuse to take a compliment—” Holmes began, but Sherlock interrupted.

“I have no qualms with compliments, when I hear them. That was not one.”

Cigarette in hand, he dove into various piles of detritus, avidly searching for who-knew-what.

Glancing about, Holmes spotted a document that stood out from the rest, and lifted it up. The pages were so yellowed and stained, the text so faded, that the only thing he could even make out was the Latin phrase,
nullius in verba
. Roughly translated, it meant “Take no one’s word for it.”

He was about to dispose of it in a proper trash bin when Sherlock prevented him.

“Halt!” he cried. “I might need that.”

“Need it? You can’t even
read
it!”

“Precisely,” Sherlock said. “I thought I might experiment with different ointments and tinctures to see if I could bring up the ink again… aha!” This last came as Sherlock dug into a mound with intent, and pulled out a fine old walking stick.

Holmes stared at it. “Father’s walking stick!” he said, trying to keep the accusation from his voice.

“Correct,” Sherlock said. “Mother is ill again—‘medicated’ is the genteel term, I believe—and Father is avidly ignoring it. This,” he said, indicating the walking stick, “is his appeasement, for want of a proper wife.”

“Be quiet,” Holmes countered quietly. “She
is
our mother.”

“On occasion, yes,” he shrugged. “Then there are the more frequent occasions when she is nothing of the kind. Though she
has
taken to heating the mixture herself—I am told that cooking reveals a maternal instinct, of sorts.”

With that, Sherlock tossed the stick to his brother, who caught it on the fly.

“Bon voyage, brother!”

Holmes shook his head no. “Father gave it to you. Taking it is the last thing I would want.”

“Nonsense. The last thing you would want is to lose a limb, or to perish in some freakish manner in a foreign land where hospitals are appallingly ill-equipped.”

Holmes sighed, silently conceding the point. In truth, he didn’t want the blasted thing at all. He considered it cumbersome, if not downright pretentious. On the other hand, it was a touching gesture by a younger brother from whom touching gestures were all but unheard of. And so he accepted it graciously.

“Thank you,” he said with a slight bow.

“In exchange,” Sherlock continued, “you shall endeavor to keep a mental record of your adventures. Mind, however, that it slant toward individual peccadilloes, and not some larger ‘view of humanity.’ Or, God help us, political intrigue, governments falling—that sort of thing.

“As to my walking stick,” he added as his brother made ready to depart, “it is to be returned to me in one piece. As are you yourself, of course,” he added.

Well
, mused Holmes, as he shut the door behind him.
Though my well-being was most definitely an afterthought, he spoke of it, nonetheless. It is progress!

It seemed a most agreeable start to his journey.

WAITING AT THE LIVERPOOL DOCKS WAS THE
SULTANA
. THE
3,500-ton steamer boasted three masts and an iron hull, and could accommodate 200 first- and second-class passengers, with another thousand shoehorned into third class. She was agile, able to reach speeds of thirteen knots, and was “majestic in countenance”—or so claimed the advertising graphic clutched in Holmes’s hand.

Now that he was actually about to board, he had to admit that the plaudits seemed accurate enough.

She is built to impress, from the height, thickness and strength of the bulwarks; to the heavy wheels and pinions connecting it to its steam-power; to the immense blocks and tackles hooked to the rigging; to the vast efficiency and force with which the passengers’ heavy trunks are run up by machinery into the air, and then lowered rapidly into the hold.