The Mycroft Holmes Casebook, page 26
Appetite had returned by breakfast time. Mycroft, freshly bathed and with a flower in his buttonhole, greeted Inspector Lestrade over a plate of eggs, bacon, kidneys and tomatoes followed by multiple rounds of toast. Lestrade was about to make a comment on his apparent return to health and appetite but he thought better of it. Just pretend he’s well again, he said to himself, who knows, perhaps he is. Carrie had always maintained that in a profession such as his, if there was a choice between speech and silence, silence was usually the better option. She had, on numerous occasions, thought of putting her husband’s name up for membership of the Diogenes Club, but had always resisted, saying to herself that the bloody man would never come home at all.
“This reconstruction at ten o’clock this morning, Mr Holmes,” Lestrade began. “Tobias tells me that you would like all the original participants to take part. Is that true?”
“It is indeed,” said Mycroft, through a mouthful of toast and the Majestic’s finest marmalade, “how rare it is to be able to have a reconstruction with the real people involved. Like Hamlet with the original cast. I dropped a note to the Duchess earlier this morning. She’s so vain I’m sure she’ll come.”
“Inspector Bramble has got his hands on some cheap pearls from a dodgy shop in the Lanes behind the hotel. And did I tell you yesterday, Mr Holmes, our friend Diamond Jack has disappeared? His family won’t say where he’s gone. Do you think that’s significant?”
“It could be,” said Mycroft, “I have wondered all along if this theft isn’t robbery to order, some unknown mastermind putting a price on the pearls being delivered to him. Theft by request, almost by mail order, if you follow me. I believe it happens more often than one might think with artistic goods of high value.”
“So where do you think the Romanov pearls are, Mr Holmes?”
“Why, Lestrade, it’s obvious, surely. The most likely place for them to be is here in this hotel. They have never gone away because the thieves have never been able to get them out of the building. Precisely where they are, I have no idea. We might get the answer this morning.”
Shortly before ten o’clock a bizarre assembly had gathered in the Fitzherbert Suite. There was a small crowd gathered round the doors and on the pavement outside, drawn to the event by the signs placed all over the public rooms of the hotel. The blinds and the floor length curtains were still open. Tobias had been appointed Master of Ceremonies. The two Inspectors and Mycroft were directly opposite the Duchess’s chair for the clearest view of the proceedings. The Duchess was wearing Inspector Bramble’s pearls. The butler come security man lurked some ten feet behind her chair, as before. He was rubbing his hands together in a nervous manner. The Head Waiter, imperturbable as ever, the wine waiter, shaking slightly and the Duchess’s personal waiter, grinning vacuously into the air, were alert at their posts, like fielders round the batsman at a cricket match. Lestrade was adjusting his chair to get a clearer view of the proceedings. Mycroft looked as though he was falling asleep. The key question, as Tobias had worked out early on, was who has the sponge with the chloroform. Neither Mycroft nor Lestrade were prepared to identify the bearer of the sponge until the last possible moment.
Shortly before ten o’clock Valentine Delaney closed the curtains with a dramatic flourish, as if he were master of ceremonies at the Music Hall. For now the lights stayed on in the Fitzherbert Suite. Mycroft whispered something into Tobias’s ear. The lights went out. It was dark, but not so dark that you could not just discern what was going on. Inspector Brambled coughed loudly into an enormous handkerchief.
“Mr Butler, sir, could you please use this to knock the Duchess out?” Tobias handed him the sponge, soaked in some strong liquid. The two Inspectors sniffed the air like bloodhounds on the scent. There was a struggle, with the Duchess, shouting loudly for help, trying to force the sponge away from her mouth. The butler cum security man was stronger. When she grew still, her security man began wrestling with the pearls around her neck. He had great difficulty freeing them from the Duchess’s throat. Eventually he drew a knife from his pocket and cut them free. The Head Waiter and the wine waiter were feeling their way across the tables and the furniture towards the doors out of the room. They did not seem to want to intervene in the theft of the pearls. This, after all, was what they had learnt in their rehearsals, that their job, above all, was to block the doors and make sure nobody could leave the room. The butler handed the pearls and the sponge to the Duchess’s personal waiter, who seemed to be expecting them. With his back to the Inspectors, the waiter shoved the sponge into the butler’s face as hard as he could. As the lights came back on the personal waiter placed the sponge very firmly onto his own face and held it there with his right hand. Both men passed out, one on the floor, the other across a chair. The tableau was identical to the one on the night of the robbery. Right down to the fact, as Lestrade bitterly remarked, that the wretched pearls were nowhere to be seen.
Mycroft Holmes was rubbing his hands together. A slight smile of satisfaction played across his features.
“Good, Lestrade, very good. I think you may arrest the butler come security man and the Duchess’s personal waiter when they come round. Shouldn’t be long.”
“Was that sponge soaked in chloroform, Mr Holmes?” cried Lestrade. “Like the original one?”
“It was, I’m afraid. No point in having a reconstruction unless it’s as realistic as possible, is there?”
“Well, I never,” Lestrade began,
“But, Mr Holmes, where are the pearls?” Inspector Bramble was now standing next to the Duchess’s chair, looking round at the tables and chairs surrounding him.
“Which ones?” said Mycroft. “The Romanov Pearls or the Brighton Pearls?”
“I don’t know,” said Inspector Bramble, “you tell me.”
“Come, Mr Holmes, you’re playing games with us,” said Valentine Delaney. “I’m the manager of this hotel. I’ve a right to know and to know now.”
Mycroft padded over to the Duchess’s table. “Very well,” he said. “I should say that I have no idea if my theory is right or not. I would remind you of my brother’s comments to Dr Watson in The Sign of Four: ‘How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ The waiter grasped that he could not put the pearls in his pocket, which may have been the original plan. He would be searched at the door, or shortly afterwards. He knew that he must try to divert suspicion away from the butler and himself, so he applied the sponge twice over. Now look carefully at the contents of these two tables here. The Duchess’s table has salt, pepper, a sugar bowl, an ornamental candelabra and various knick knacks. The table next door, being for eight persons rather than two, has the same collection, only in considerably larger sizes. So granted these choices, gentlemen, where might a man conceal the Romanov Pearls?”
Mycroft picked up the sugar bowl from the Duchess’s table and emptied it over the tablecloth. Nothing came out except cubes of sugar. He sighed. The two Inspectors looked at each other with a look that said ‘he’s mad as a hatter’. Valentine Delaney looked like a man about to call the police until he realised he already had them less than ten feet away.
Mycroft emptied the larger bowl which was nearly full. Lying across the tablecloth, concealed among the sugar cubes, were two sets of pearls.
“It seemed to me,” said Mycroft, “that under the pressure of the reconstruction, our two friends would behave as they had done the first time.”
Valentine Delaney led a round of applause.
“Do you mean to say,” cried Lestrade, “that the bloody pearls were here all the time?”
“I do,” said Mycroft.
“Well, I never,” said Inspector Bramble.
There was a groan as the Duchess began to come round. When she saw the Romanov pearls on the table in front of her she stared at Mycroft for a moment or two and then fainted clean away. The butler and the Duchess’s waiter were arrested after recovery and taken off to the cells for questioning.
Readers of Dr Watson’s stories will recall that Mycroft’s younger brother Sherlock never claimed credit for success at the end of a case. He always gave the glory to Lestrade or his colleagues Inspector Gregson or Inspector Hopkins. In the case of the Romanov pearls, however, this was not so.
Half an hour after the discovery Valentine Delaney summoned a meeting of hotel guests, staff and police officers in the ballroom. Champagne on the house was served on the sprung floor beneath the great chandeliers. The hotel manager thanked the guests for their patience at this difficult time. He thanked the hotel staff for working through the interruptions to their routine and the inconvenience of police searches of their rooms and property. He thanked the police and, in particular, Inspector Lestrade. That officer, after a brief word with Tobias, was having none of it. He marched to the front of the room and addressed the gathering.
“Thank you very much for your kind words, Mr Delaney,” he began. “But I would like to put the record straight.” It may be a case of Mycroft Redux, Tobias said to himself, it’s also the triumph of the Ferret from Holloway. “We have a saying in the Metropolitan Police, my friends. It was there when I joined as a trainee constable many years ago now, and it will be there long after I retire. It’s quite simple, really. Give credit where credit is due. That’s what I intend to do right now. The credit in the case of the Romanov Pearls belongs not to me or the Brighton Police but to a man who came among us as an invalid in convalescence, but who would seem, thank God, to have regained his powers and be well on the way to a full recovery. Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to raise your glasses to Mr Mycroft Holmes!”
After the toast there was a cry from the back. “Three cheers for Mycroft! Hip Hip Hoorah!” As the last cheer died away, Mycroft bowed low to the assembled company and beckoned Tobias to follow him out onto the sea front.
“Before we go, Tobias, I’d like to take a walk down the pier to that bandstand where you had your conversations with my brother and Mrs Hudson and heaven knows who all else.”
“Of course, sir,” said Tobias, wondering what was coming next.
Mycroft stood beyond the bandstand and leant on the railings, looking out at the seagulls circling round the girders and the grey waters of the Channel.
“You have done well, Tobias, very well. I congratulate you.”
“I don’t understand, sir. What do you mean?”
“You know perfectly what I mean, young man. I am very touched by your concern and all the trouble you have taken.”
“I beg your pardon, sir. I don’t understand.”
“Even when I wasn’t myself, Tobias, I was aware that somebody was trying to jolt me out of my lethargy. Somebody was looking for the trigger, the device that would restore me to health. There was my brother with the Baker Street Chess Cup, Mrs Hudson threatening to close down my apartment, disaster at the Diogenes, the letter from the dreadful Count and all the rest. It took you some time to find what would really work, but you were behind all the ploys and you got there in the end.”
“All those things happened perfectly naturally, sir. It didn’t take anybody to prepare them beforehand.”
“The thing is, Tobias, the attempts came too thick and too fast to be credible as accident or happenstance. And you made a couple of minor mistakes. Quite soon I was on my guard.”
“Really?”
“The letter from the Count, Tobias. I do not believe that was genuine. It was written, I am fairly sure, by a female hand, possibly the writing of that pretty dark haired chambermaid you have been talking to. Your own script is all too familiar to me. And I think youthful exuberance got the better of you. I do not believe that the Count, not even the Count, would put The Fatherland at the top of his letter as if that were his home address. Deutschland uber Alles at the bottom, possibly, Fatherland at the top, No.”
“What else, sir?”
“Well, the letter from the Diogenes Club was a creditable effort. I have been suspicious of that secretary for years now. But the problem is this. The letter was typed on a machine with a damaged lower leg on the K and an M that is out of alignment and only makes a faint imprint on the page. The same machine with the same faults types the menus and other written material in this hotel. A gallant effort, Tobias, but you must remember in your future service with me that typewriters can tell you as much as a man’s handwriting.”
“I see.”
“One last thing, Tobias, and please don’t think that I am not grateful. The letter from the Foreign Secretary. It rang very true but then I remembered that you have read a large number of Granville’s letters since you joined me. True or false?”
“Well, sir, seeing that he is always very busy, I sent him a draft to be amended or changed as he wished.”
“And did he change it? Granville, I mean?”
“He didn’t change a word, sir.”
Mycroft laughed. “Well done, Tobias! Well done indeed.”
“I was doing my duty, sir, all the way through. In my view there is only one way to look at these recent and rather singular events.”
“And what would that be, pray?”
“Why, sir it is just this. Truly the Romanov Pearls are pearls of great price. They have not been cast down before swine. They have brought you back to life.”
If you enjoyed The Mycroft Holmes Casebook you might be interested in Doctor Watson’s Casebook by Patrick Mercer, also published by Endeavour Press.
Extract from Doctor Watson’s Casebook by Patrick Mercer
Doctor Watson’s War
Chapter One: 221b Baker Street
It was the smell of the place. The rooms that I'd agreed to take at 221b Baker Street with my new acquaintance, Mr Sherlock Holmes had been agreeable enough, close to the centre of Town, to the libraries and the hospitals where I studied, and the clubs where I could eat adequately. They were clean, warm and we were well looked after by the housekeeper, Mrs Hudson. But they smelt. They smelt incessantly and almost unendurably. They smelt of the damned chemicals that Holmes kept there, the chemicals with which, when he wasn't scraping away on his bloody violin, he tinkered all the time. Now, I can hear you asking, 'what sort of a medical man is it who can't abide the smell of chemicals? Ain't they the tools of his trade, don't he smell them all the time when he's in the laboratory and won't he get so used to them there that he don't notice them?' And I'd answer, 'yes, in the lab they're fine, because that's what you expect to smell'. But it's outside the lab, when they're somewhere you don't have to smell them that they bring back the ghosts.
Particularly ether. That strange, thin, acidic smell that gets into your clothes and your hair and sticks up your nostrils and, whilst it’s meant to deaden pain, tells you that there's a devil of a lot of it that you're just about to impose on someone else or have inflicted upon you. And that's why Baker Street could be unbearable; Holmes kept ether by the gallon and the place reeked of it. And the last time that I'd smelt ether out of its natural habitat held bad memories, bloody bad memories. That chemical smell was combined with the stink of hot canvas, the canvas of the dressing station of the 66th Regiment in a corner of hell. A dressing station is meant to be a place of help, succour and recovery, a pretty rough and ready place of recovery, I'll grant you, but not the blood-soaked charnel house that it became in late July a couple of years ago, just a few days after we'd marched from the banks of the Helmand into that godforsaken desert.
And those couple of years had been difficult. It wasn't the bullet in my shoulder that was the problem; not at all. That came out as good as gold in the hospital in Kandahar leaving me, I know, jerky with my left arm and a little hunched, but none the worse. No, it was the scar on my mind. I know others have seen things just as bad - I can remember those old Crimea and Mutiny boys whom I met when I was a lad, the poor old files who, even if they had all their fingers and toes, jumped a league when something went bang. They couldn't seem to concentrate on much and, so often, could be found flogging matches with their ribbons pinned to their chest and a faraway look in their eyes, not much good for anything else. Indeed, it was their stories and their case studies that got me so interested in medicine in the first place, never expecting I'd become a subject for some other sawbones to whet his appetite upon one day.
But, it wasn't bangs or loud noises that lit my fuse. No, it was odd things, the high-pitched cry of a newspaper seller, the sort of screech that you hear from a certain type of working girl which passes for laughter: unusual human noises. A particular note or timbre could bring all that yelling and shouting back to me as the tribesmen closed in, their steel flashing as bright as their eyes, blades hacking and stabbing till there wasn't a blind thing left alive around me. And even now, even two years later, such noises could still set off a sort of numbed panic or rip me shivering from sleep. So, I withdrew, I know I did. I tried to keep such things from my mind, I tried not to read the newspapers, I shunned my friends from the Regiment, even Private Bowler who's been with me throughout that ghastly time, from Kandahar to Gereshk and back again. Even loyal, decent, brave Bowler who'd slung me across the back of a mule when I was bleeding like a slaughtered sheep and protected that native girl like she was his own sister: even Bowler. I just wanted to rub all those memories out, to screw up the piece of paper upon which the wretched, painful story was written and to throw it in the fire.
How I misjudged the man with whom I chose to share those less than fragrant rooms in Baker Street. When Stamford first introduced me to him in the hospital laboratory - all set about by ether-like smells, please note - and Holmes had straight-away observed that I had the mark of Afghanistan upon me, I'd laughed and tried to ignore it. Why would he know, how could he know? It must have been a lucky guess. But I'd no sooner settled into our quarters and the smell had begun to settle on me, than the subject came up again. Holmes had already impressed me with his powers of deduction, his wonderful empathy, what he called his intuition, then, to illustrate the point, he'd volunteered how surprised I'd looked when first we'd met and he'd immediately linked me to Afghanistan. He explained the train of thought went through his mind - I'll remember it always:
