Mycroft Holmes and the Edinburgh Affair Read online

  I folded and pocketed the paper, then opened the bottle of spirit. It didn’t smell off. But if someone had been here, maybe it could’ve been tampered with. With a sigh, I closed it again and put the glass back into the cupboard. There was another place I could get a drink. I had avoided the inevitable for too long, and even though I didn’t need his help to figure out the curious note, I was obliged to at least call upon him after all this time.

  It was time to visit my brother.

  “221b Baker Street,” I told the driver and jumped into the darkness of the cab.

  I saw a knowing glint in his eyes as he nodded, and a slight smile on his lips. The idea that he would be the one to bring a client to the illustrious detective, a client that might one day be turned into a popular narration by the doctor at his side, evidently delighted him. I was in no mood to correct the man, but even if I had been, there was no sense in it. Quite the opposite, in fact. Had the driver recognised the real me, there would’ve been entirely different consequences for him.

  From my townhouse it usually took about twenty minutes for a decent cab driver to reach Baker Street. I knew this by heart, even though I rarely made the journey. Not because I wouldn’t visit my brother, but because I usually started from the Diogenes. After a few minutes, the cab pulled into the road following the gentle curve of Hyde Park. I let my gaze roam across the white expanse, covered in several inches of snow. In the cautious rays of the winter sun, children were playing, watched over by their nannies. The horseshoes on the cobblestone sounded too loud for me to hear their laughter, but their joy was evident. It felt as though I had never left London, as the landscape looked exactly as it had a year ago - two snow heavy winters in succession - but in fact I had missed a whole year: a warm summer and my favourite days of autumn.

  I was thoroughly lost in thought as a knock on the door alerted me, and the blur of people, vehicles and houses outside the cab came into focus again. Apparently I had missed the usual signal on the roof, as the driver was already on the ground, opening the door.

  “We’ve arrived, sir,” the young man said.

  I placed the payment into his waiting hand and eyed him again. No, I hadn’t missed the knock on the roof, because it had never been carried out. The driver had wanted to see the face of the man, who was visiting the famous detective. Remember my features, so he might recognise me in one of Watson’s fantastic tales. I had to smirk.

  “If you’re looking forward to find my likeness in the Strand Magazine, I have to disappoint you. I’m not here to seek Mr. Holmes’ help for a case,” I told the driver, who simply shrugged as a response and climbed back on his seat.

  “A man can hope, can’t he?” He grinned and whipped the reins. “Good day to you, sir!”

  I nodded at him and then turned towards the house. 221b Baker Street. Utterly unremarkable from the outside, but a world of wonder on the inside - at least that’s what the public thought. Even I wasn’t immune to the reputation my brother had built. While I had never told him that particular fact myself, I was aware of both his silent acceptance and a grudging respect for my own achievements that he would also never voice. It was the most courteous of truces, which only siblings manage to achieve.

  The snow on the sidewalk was mostly cleared, so I could make my way to the door without any pitfalls. After ringing the bell, I received an answering bark from the other side of the entrance and immediately said a silent goodbye to my trousers. Had I but known...

  “Toby!” I heard Watson’s voice filter through the closed door. “Go back to Holmes!”

  There was another bark and then only silence, which made me hope that the creature had followed the doctor’s orders. For some reason, the canine had developed a liking of me, even though we had only met so very rarely. His love was shown by slobbering all over my shoes and the fabric of my trousers, which the ugly thing didn’t cease to rub himself against, as long as I was in his vicinity. It was as if he wanted to make sure that his hair would become a permanent part of my wardrobe. Why Sherlock kept borrowing this particular dog to aid his cases was something that no one understood but the man himself.

  Then the door opened to reveal Watson and the definite absence of a canine companion.

  “Mycroft!” He sounded overjoyed and flung himself forward to embrace me on the doorstep. “It’s so good to see you! Why didn’t you tell us you were back in London?”

  I returned Watson’s gesture and patted his back in what I thought a friendly manner. “Greetings, Dr. Watson. I only arrived in the city very recently.”

  “Come in, come in! Mrs. Hudson is out right now, and we just returned ourselves half an hour ago,” he continued and all but pulled me through the entrance door before closing it behind me. “Holmes is upstairs and I just lit a fire. It’s so cold today... even Toby couldn’t find what we were looking for underneath the fresh layer of snow.”

  The galloping sound of tiny feet and claws on a hard wooden surface emerged from above and quickly grew louder. The infernal creature had heard its name and assumed it was a summons rather than a simple mention. It doubled over and all but rolled down the stairs, tongue already lolling out. Within seconds it put its mud-caked paws on my legs as it jumped up to lick my hand.

  “He still remembers you!” Watson beamed.

  “I haven’t been gone that long...” I sighed, but bent down to pat the dog’s head between its lopsided ears regardless, because I knew it wouldn’t stop pestering me until it got at least some attention. It produced a content ruff and backed down to sit next to my feet.

  “Toby!” I heard my brother shout in his booming voice, and not a second later the dog was off to scramble up the stairs again.

  “We were just about to give the dog a bath before returning him to Mr. Sherman. Holmes adores the animal, so he gets to clean up before him, even though we’ve all been up since the very early morning,” the doctor explained.

  I examined his clothing, which was even dirtier and in a worse state of disarray than Toby’s fur. The lower parts of his trouser legs were still wet in places and I could see mud splashed on them where his coat hadn’t be able to cover.

  “Visited a cemetery, then?”

  Watson blinked a few times, then simply shook his head and gestured towards the staircase. I fell into step next to him and climbed the stairs to the sanctum of 221b.

  “You’ve scarcely been in London for two days and already know about the case that we, ourselves, have only been informed of this morning?” He laughed. “I should’ve guessed.”

  “Oh, I know nothing about a case,” I admitted. “The mud on your shoes is mixed with quicklime. It seemed like the logical conclusion. Bodies gone missing?”

  “Yes. But Holmes can tell you more.”

  The door to the sitting room was open, and the aroma of burning wood drifted out into the corridor. I head Toby yip, and the sound of splashing water. It all felt so calm, ordinary and... right. Yes, that’s what I had come here to find: My brother back and well-adjusted in his life. The knot that I had carried with me, deep inside my chest ever since the whole ordeal, unravelled at the simple sound of Sherlock reprimanding the dog for not holding still. I was just about to enter the sitting room, when I felt Watson’s hand on my arm, so I turned and looked at him questioningly.

  “It really is good to see you, Mycroft. To have you back in London. Now that we’re all here, I finally feel like everything is alright,” he said quietly and gave me a warm smile.

  I returned it with an equal feeling of joy, surprised, but delighted at the way my sentiment was shared. Odd. Maybe my time with Gregorio had made me grow a little too soft.

  “I assure you the feeling is mutual,” I responded.

  Just as expected, Sherlock didn’t react to my presence, but continued to lather the canine creature with soap. Toby was now content to sit still in his bath, eviden
tly enjoying the warm water at last. The carpet beneath the bowl was soaking wet and I could already hear Mrs. Hudson’s complaints in my head. But that wasn’t my problem. Around the pair, the sitting room of 221b Baker Street was in the same state of controlled chaos as it had always been.

  The wall behind them was occupied by a large bookcase, overflowing with reference materials and collected papers, every wooden board in danger of breaking from the weight, only kept straight by the material stacked underneath. Piles of newspapers dotted the floor in front of it, some of them perilously close to the fire. If they were in any way organised, only my brother would know. The various surfaces were cluttered with objects that had either scientific or emotional value. Contrary to what some people might have believed, my brother was a very sentimental person and held on to many a keepsake from his cases and travels.

  The only thing out of place was a large stain on the dining table, with an alarming purple colour, and I noted that no objects were positioned on, or near it, despite the lack of free space anywhere else. I... no, I didn’t even want to know what had happened. The rest of the sitting room was exactly like I remembered it, only so much more complete for my brother’s presence.

  Dr. Watson once again played the gracious host, instead of Sherlock, and offered to take my coat, which he placed on a hook next to the door. My hat and scarf followed, and just as I divested myself of my leather gloves, Sherlock lifted Toby from his bath onto a waiting towel. He then looked briefly at me and nodded. An acknowledgement of my presence, nothing more, but it was given without the usual scrutiny or question. I was content to wait until he finished his task and took a seat in his armchair, which wasn’t quite as comfortable as my own at the Diogenes, but adequate nonetheless. Watson busied himself by pouring a measure of scotch for me and we raised our glass in silence, before we both took a large sip. At least here I wasn’t afraid of the spirit being poisoned.

  The dog was soon dry and seemingly content, as he rolled himself up and laid down in front of the fire, only to quickly fall asleep, as his low snoring indicated.

  “You’ll have to excuse me for a moment,” Watson then said. “I really need to change out of these trousers.”

  “Of course,” I answered and he left through the sitting room door to adjourn to his own room.

  The poor man. Probably chased around graveyards all morning, and then a dog is given priority over him. Sherlock reached for his own glass and indicated for me to keep sitting in his chair, after I offered to let him take the seat. He flopped down in the armchair usually reserved for Watson and let his head fall back, legs stretched out so far that his feet came to rest between mine.

  “So, you’ve taken to grave robbing now?” I asked amusedly and swirled the amber liquid around in my glass. “A bold choice of career. Be thankful that our parents aren’t around anymore. I don’t know how I should’ve broken the news to them.”

  “Your sense of humour is still as abysmal as ever, Mycroft,” he said in his low voice, tiredness apparent, even if I hadn’t seen him slump in the chair. “We were called out in the morning. Someone all but dug out the whole graveyard on Drury Lane.”

  “Don’t tell me... St Martin-in-the-Fields?”

  “The very same.”

  “That’s not a graveyard anymore. Hasn’t been for some years now.”

  “Yes, they’ve decided to convert it into a public park, small as it may be. There was the matter of layers upon layers of bodies in the ground, and how to relocate at least the top-most ones, so that a proper garden can be planted.”

  “And now someone has taken care of the problem, I take it?”

  Sherlock shifted in his seat, sat more or less upright and put his head in his right hand, elbow on the armrest. He looked at me with his piercing gaze and bright eyes, as if I had posed a puzzle that he was determined to figure out. I was glad to see no remnants of the broken man, whom I had carried through the Sahara, remain. His clothes were muddied and his hair was in disarray, but that did nothing to diminish his sharp, attentive gaze.

  I could barely even see the scar he had brought home from Egypt, which was running down his cheek, across his lips. It had already started to heal wrongly when we picked him up. One last gift from Moriarty that would stay with him forever. Outwardly, this seemed to be the only mark the ordeal had left on him, but I knew better. Only his three rescuers knew about the scars that had been burned and cut into his back in the form of the hieroglyphs that take on the meaning of ‘Horus’. Apparently it had been the cultist’s way to designate him as proper sacrifice.

  We had never talked about it, and I had the feeling we never would.

  “Taken care of the problem, indeed. How they managed to uplift the whole, frozen cemetery in one night had the policemen baffled, so they called on me and Watson. If they had proper, working eyes, they would’ve seen the dried footprints of at least seven different men leading away from the place. Even with their own, clumsy prints on top,” Sherlock grumbled and I smiled in response.

  “It’s impossible that the men weren’t seen in this area of the city, even if they worked in the dead of night,” I concluded and made my brain gather the required information about Drury Lane. “That particular graveyard has a rather bad reputation. Though there have been no new burials for quite a while, it has a history of body-snatching... people digging up fresh graves to sell the corpses to medical schools. That particular stain will be hard to remove. You don’t want to be involved with that sort of people, so you turn a blind eye.”

  “You state the obvious.”

  “Merely explaining the situation.”

  Sherlock scoffed. “To whom? The dog?”

  “If that’s what you want to call Dr. Watson.”

  My brother let his eyes roll in a way that might as well have been audible.

  “Apologies. I didn’t want to interrupt...” Watson said, stepped fully into the room and reached for his glass. He had changed his trousers and now wore a pair of strangely colourful slippers - not unlike the ones my brother kept his tobacco in. It made for an interesting, if unexpected contrast.

  “Watson was already briefed on the situation along with Inspector Gregson and his minions this morning,” Sherlock explained.

  “I take it the dog didn’t produce the results you hoped for.”

  “Toby tracked the scent to the place they had concealed the wagon in. After that, he lost the trail in the heavy morning traffic,” Watson said, and I could see the creature’s ears rise attentively as his name was mentioned. “We then decided to return to Baker Street.”

  I hummed. This was intriguing. There was no need to follow the exact path of the transport wagon, for if we could deduce the reason why anyone would want to steal such a large number of partly decomposed bones, we would be much quicker in finding them. The look on my brother’s face told me that he had already embarked on the same course of reasoning. But what was more important, was that he had been on it for at least a few hours, without result.

  We sat in silence and contemplated the situation. The only noise came from the dog, who rose from his place in front of the fire to curl around my feet instead, head on the precious leather. I wasn’t about to send the animal away in front of my brother, because there was a slight annoyance in his gaze.

  “There’s absolutely no reason for someone to steal these body parts,” Watson finally concluded and shook his head, having taken a seat on the edge of the dining table, precariously close to the purple stain. “What would you need them for? Surely if they wanted to sell them to a medical researcher, they would need fresh ones!”

  It seemed like Watson had stumbled onto the same line of thought. I was reasonably impressed. Then again, he was very familiar with this sort of thing, closely related to his profession. But we didn’t have the luxury to devote more time to the problem, as the doorbell sounded and cut the doc
tor’s questions short. Toby gave a short ruff and settled back to lie across my shoes as Watson started for the door.

  When he had left the room, I looked at Sherlock with - for once - undisguised fondness. There was something about seeing him back in Baker Street that made me feel jubilant. It was quite extraordinary. First my brother frowned at me, as if judging my emotions, then he gave me a small smile.

  “I am quite glad to see you back in London, Mycroft,” he said quietly and raised his glass. I mirrored his gesture, and we grinned in that same conspiratorial way as we always had since we were children.

  “Ah, Inspector Jones,” Sherlock then stated, just before said man entered the sitting room. “New developments?”

  From my seat in Sherlock’s armchair, I had a good view of the door and saw the inspector walk along with hasty steps. He took off his hat and opened his mouth to address my brother, then stopped so suddenly in his tracks that Watson ran into him with a loud curse.

  “By Jove, my good man! Can’t you watch where you’re going?” he exclaimed from the hallway.

  “Mycroft Holmes?” Jones asked cautiously. “How...?”

  “I took a cab to 221b Baker Street, Dr. Watson let me into the house and then I walked up the stairs.”

  Jones shook his head. “No... no, that’s not what I mean! How could you know I’d look for you?”

  “Look for me?” I frowned and exchanged a quick look with my brother. “Surely it’s the service of the only consulting detective in this room you require.”

  “No, I mean yes,” Jones took a few steps into the room and placed his hat on the table, evidently not noticing the menacingly purple stain, as the item landed right in the middle of it. “I was sent here to call upon Mr. Holmes, but also to find you... the other Mr. Holmes.”

  The other Holmes. Always the other.

  “Pray tell, why would I be required?” I raised one eyebrow. Jones was several steps too low on the ladder to know about my real work. As far as he was concerned I worked in an extremely normal and boring government office. Yes, he did know that my real appearance was very different from Watson’s tales of fancy, but that’s where we had drawn the line.