Nicholas Meyer (7 page)

"Don't be angry," she said quickly, perceiving the flush which spread over my features. "I only meant that if we want someone to outwit Mr. Holmes, we must go to his brother."

Why ever hadn't I thought of it before? I leaned forward impulsively and kissed my wife upon the cheek.

"You are right," said I, rising. "Mycroft is the very man who can bait our trap. Even Holmes admits that Mycroft is his intellectual superior."

In my haste I had already started towards the door.

"Will you go there now?" she protested. "It is nearly ten. Jack, you have done enough for one day."

"I tell you there is no time to be lost," I replied, slipping into my jacket, which had hung before the blaze. "Besides, if I can reach the Diogenes Club before eleven I may very possibly find Mycroft still there. You needn't stay up for me," I added, kissing her tenderly once more.

Outside, I hailed a hansom and told the driver to take me to the Diogenes Club, where Mycroft was usually to be found. This done, I reclined on the cushions and listened to the clip-clop of the horse's iron shoes against the cobblestones as we drove through the gas-lit streets. I tried to keep awake, though in truth I was fairly done up.

Nevertheless, I had known Holmes, when on a case, to be capable of the most superhuman exertions. If I was unable to emulate bis brilliance, at least I could match his endurance.

I did not know Mycroft Holmes well. Indeed, I had met him only once or twice and that some three years earlier, when our paths had crossed during the unhappy business of the Greek interpreter. Indeed, I had been more than seven years in residence with Holmes before he mentioned having a brother, and the revelation astounded me as much as if I had learned the earth was flat. I was further amazed when Holmes indicated his brother's mental faculties were even keener than his own.

"Then surely," I said at the time, "he is an even greater detective, and, that being the case, how is it I have never heard of the man?" For it seemed impossible that another such brain as Holmes's could exist in England with no one remarking upon it.

"Oh," Holmes had replied airily, "Mycroft prefers to hide his light under a bushel, so to speak. He is very lazy," he added, seeing that I did not understand. "He would be perfectly willing to piece out a mystery if it did not involve getting out of his chair. Unfortunately there is often more to it than that,"

he chuckled, "and Mycroft abhors anything in the nature of physical exertion."

He went on to explain that his brother spent most of his time in the Diogenes Club, across from his lodgings in Pall Mall. The Diogenes was a club devoted to a membership that could not abide clubs. It contained the queerest and most unsociable men in London, and no member was on any account

permitted to take the least notice of another member. Save only in the Stranger's Room, talking was strictly prohibited.

I had actually dozed off when the cabbie opened the trap and, without looking down, announced in an off-hand way that we had reached our destination.

Stepping quickly across the street to the club's entrance, I gave the footman my card and requested that he send Mr. Mycroft Holmes to me in the Stranger's Room. He bowed stiffly and retreated upon my errand. Only a flicker of his eye-lids, half-closed in perpetual hauteur, gave me to understand that he thought my appearance irregular. I made a feeble attempt to straighten my collar and passed a rueful hand over the bristle on my chin. Fortunately, there was no need to remove my hat and comb my hair.

Though the custom was dying out even then, men—especially in clubs—often retained their hats

indoors.

After an interval of five minutes, the steward rejoined me, walking on padded feet, and, with a graceful motion of his gloved hand, ushered me forth and deposited me in the Stranger's Room, where I found Mycroft Holmes.

"Dr. Watson? I wasn't sure I should recognize you." He waddled forward and took my hand in his pudgy fingers. I have stated elsewhere that in contrast to Sherlock's gaunt physique, his brother was fleshy to the point of obesity. The years had not diminished his girth that I could detect, and he, for his part, observed me narrowly out of pig-like eyes lost in folds of fat.

"You have some urgent business that concerns my brother, I perceive," he went on, "for you have been traveling all day in his behalf—using hansoms, I should judge—and you have stopped briefly at Waterloo to pick something—or, no," he amended, "to pick someone up. You are very tired," he added, indicating a chair. "Please tell me what has happened to my brother."

"How did you know anything has happened to him?" I asked, sinking into the chair with amazement.

Here was Holmes's sibling indeed.

"Pooh," Mycroft waved an enormous paw. "I have not seen you these three years and then it was in the company of Sherlock, whose doings I know you chronicle. Suddenly you pay me a visit at a time when most married men are at home with their wives, and you arrive without your alter ego. It is an easy matter to suppose that something is amiss with him and you come to me for help or advice. I can see by your chin that you have been about all day with no opportunity to shave again, as your beard demands.

You are not carrying your medical bag, though from your own statements in print I know you have resumed your practice. Therefore I conclude that your arduous business is connected with your visit to me this evening. The date of the visitor's stub projecting from the pocket of your ulster informs me that you have been on the platform at Waterloo today. If you had been there to collect a parcel you would not, of course, have needed to go further than the luggage room, for which, I believe, no visitor's pass is required; therefore you were at the station to meet someone. And as for the hansoms which have been carrying you about all day, your beard and haggard expression proclaim that you have not been home; yet your Ulster is dry and your boots are clean despite the inclement weather. And what other mode of transportation can effect this paradox so well as that which our Mr. Disraeli calls the gondolas of London? You see, it is all quite simple. Now tell me what has happened."

He drew up a chair opposite to mine, giving me time to digest my astonishment, smiled kindly, and offered me a drink. I shook my head.

"You have not been in touch recently with your brother, then?" I asked.

"Not for more than a year."

This did not seem strange to me, though most people would have thought it odd that two brothers living in the same city, with no quarrel betwixt them, should have kept so totally apart. But the Holmes brothers were the exception, not the rule, as I had good reason to know.

Cautioning Mycroft Holmes that my tidings were not pleasant, I told him of his brother's condition and how I proposed to remedy it. He heard me out in dejected silence, hanging his head lower and lower as I spoke. When I finished, the pause which followed was so long that for a moment I wondered if he had fallen asleep. A deep rumbling sigh almost persuaded me that he had, but it was followed by his head coming slowly up until his eyes were level with mine once more. Behind their piggy look I saw pain.

"Moriarty?" he repeated at last, huskily. I nodded.

He cut me off with a weary wave of his hand. "Quite so, quite so," he murmured, then lapsed again into silence, staring at his finger ends. At length, with another sigh, he heaved himself to his feet, and spoke with animation, as if attempting to throw off the depression into which my news had plunged him.

"Getting him to Vienna will not be easy," he agreed, going to the door and pulling the bell-rope, "but it should not be impossible, either. In order to do so we must merely persuade him that Moriarty is there

—there and waiting for him."

"But that is precisely what I have no idea how to accomplish."

"No? Well, the simplest solution is to induce Professor Moriarty to go to Vienna. We'll need a cab, if you please, Jenkins," Mycroft Holmes said over my shoulder to the steward who had responded to the bell-rope's summons.

He was silent during our nocturnal journey to number 114 Munro Road (the Hammersmith address

provided us by the professor's card), except that he enquired about the Austrian specialist and asked who he might be. I explained in some detail about the article in
Lancet
, and he responded with a grunt.

"Sounds Jewish," was his only comment.

I was getting a second wind, and having Mycroft—and Mycroft's brain—enlisted in my cause did

much to restore my spirits. I was tempted to ask him about Professor Moriarty and the tragedy he had referred to, but I held my tongue. Mycroft was clearly preoccupied with the present plight of his brother; there was something in both their natures that seemed to preclude such presumption, even in a friend, and I was certainly no intimate of Mycroft's.

I fell to wondering, instead, how we should persuade Professor Moriarty to comply with our bizarre request. Surely we will never induce the timid tutor to surrender his post and leave for the Continent all at once. He will demur; worse, he will whine. I turned to my companion with the object of

communicating my misgivings, but he was craning his head out of the window.

"Stop here, cabbie," he directed quietly, though we were still some distance from our destination.

"If the professor was not exaggerating," Mycroft explained, forcing his bulk out of the cab, "we must be on our guard. It is essential that we talk with him, but it would not do to reveal our visit to Sherlock, should he have chosen this night to stand vigil."

I nodded and told the driver to wait for us where he stood, no matter how long it took. I pressed a shilling into his palm to ensure that he did so, and promised him yet another when we returned. Then Mycroft and I set off quietly down the deserted streets for the professor's residence.

Munro Road was in an undistinguished neighbourhood of two-storey dwellings with stucco fronts and unbecoming little gardens. At the end of the street I saw white smoke rising into the night air and clutched my portly companion by the sleeve. He looked in the direction I indicated and nodded.

Together we stepped into the shadows of the nearest dwelling.

Standing beneath the only lamp on the street, Sherlock Holmes was smoking his pipe.

Edging our way closer in the shadows and crouching there, we quickly perceived that the situation was an impossible one. As long as Holmes was planted squarely opposite the professor's front door, we could not hope to enter unobserved except by a diversion; what that diversion might be we neither of us could imagine. In low whispers we held a brief consultation. The strategy of retreating to the street behind the house and entering through the back door was raised, but several arguments militated against such a ruse. There would certainly be a fence to climb, and Mycroft was obviously incapable of such gymnastics though they would not be beyond me. Even if he did master the fence, and even allowing for us to calculate the correct house in the darkness, there was still the locked back door to contend with; the inevitable commotion that followed our entry would unavoidably attract Holmes's attention.

Unexpectedly the problem was solved for us. Looking back again at the figure of my friend standing in the yellow glare of the lamp, I saw him knock the ashes from his pipe against the heel of his boot and saunter down the other end of the street.

"He's leaving!" I exclaimed in an undertone.

"Let us hope he does not intend coming back to pursue his watch," Mycroft muttered, gasping for breath as he rose and endeavoured to dust off his knees. His girth would not allow his hands to reach them. "Quickly, now," he said, giving up the effort, "we must accomplish our errand without further delay."

He struck off in the direction of the house. I stood still, watching the now distant figure of my friend in the darkness; it seemed to me that his very back—straight and narrow in his Inverness—looked lonely and forlorn.

"Watson, come on!" Mycroft hissed, and I followed him.

Rousing the inmates proved simpler than we expected; Professor Moriarty was up, his attempts at sleep having been poisoned—not for the first time—by the knowledge that Holmes was standing beneath his window.

He must have seen us approaching, for the door was opened before Mycroft's hand had reached the knocker. Moriarty, in night-shirt, cap, and faded red dressing gown, peered at us with near-sighted, sleep-hungry eyes.

"Dr. Watson?"

"Yes, and this is Mr. Mycroft Holmes. May we come in?"

"Master Mycroft!" he ejaculated in startled surprise. "Why—"

"Time is of the essence," Mycroft interrupted, smoothly reassuring. "We wish to help you as well as my brother."

"Yes, yes, of course," Moriarty agreed hastily. "Please follow me quietly. My landlady and the maids are asleep. It would not do to wake them."

When we had entered, Moriarty gently closed the door and shot the bolt.

"This way." He picked up the lamp he had deposited on the hall table and led us up the stairs into his rooms. They were reminiscent of his dressing gown—complete, but slightly worn.

"Pray do not turn up the gas," Mycroft requested, seeing that the professor was about to do so. "My brother may return, and it is essential that he not notice any change in your window."

Moriarty nodded and sat down, signing to us with a distracted wave of his hand to follow suit. "What is to be done?" he asked desperately, for there was that in our grave faces that gave him cause to feel the matter was at least as serious as he had supposed.

"We would appreciate it very much if you would depart for Vienna in the morning," Mycroft began.

*5*—A Journey Through the Fog

It is not necessary to relate here what inducements we offered that night to the unfortunate mathematics instructor—what bribes, what threats, what teasings and cajolings we employed to make him serve our turn. I had not supposed Mycroft Holmes possessed such eloquence as he displayed on that bizarre occasion. Moriarty protested at first, darting little ferret-like glances from one to the other of us, his blue eyes pale in the light of the single turned-down lamp. But Mycroft convinced him. I did not know then what power the bulky giant held over the little scarecrow, but it was to Mycroft he deferred.