The Lammas Curse (3 page)

Sherlock had once described his
elder brother in those terms, and as Dr Watson helped himself to a
corona gordia from the humidor he recalled the description. Was
Sherlock being deferential or critical? Reverential of
unflattering? It was hard to tell with a man whose sarcasm came in
a monotone devoid of humour noir.

What else did Sherlock once say
about the brother who was his senior by seven years?

Some men looked at the world,
saw the suffering, and turned to God. My brother, Mycroft, looked
at the world, saw the suffering and knew straight off that an
omniscient and omnipotent Being could not possibly exist. He was
twelve years old when that truth struck him like a lightning bolt
in the same way that the apple struck Newton. He had never heard of
Diogenes or Zeno, but he soon made up for his ignorance. When the
Sunday sermonisers assured him that heaven was reserved for the
great and good and that the pagans, heretics and sinners of the
world would spend eternity in hell, he immediately decided hell was
the place for him. Better to burn with Hypatia and Plato,
Maimonides and Ptolemy, he said, than be bored to tears with the
most worshipful hypocrites, fornicators, looters and murderers of
their day.

Where Sherlock enjoyed physics,
chemistry and empirical treatises, Mycroft enjoyed reading
theological discourse because he liked to see the clever-dicks
tying themselves in knots. If man did not invent God, God would
have needed to invent Himself. That was the only hook on which all
theological proofs would be hung stated Mycroft, aged fifteen,
precociously at the family dinner table one Good Friday with the
local vicar as an honoured guest. On his headstone he wanted the
following engraved: Aliquid quo nihil maius cogitari posit. The
convoluted logic of that phrase appealed to his sardonic soul which
possessed humour noir in droves. But where Anselm was referring to
a Supreme Being, Mycroft understood that only one thing made the
world go round. Everyone thought it was Mammon – that was their
fatal flaw - but even Mammon genuflected before the one thing that
caused history to repeat ad infinitum. Think of any story ever
written, and those yet to be written, starting with the story of
the first man which was in fact a story about a woman. The Iliad,
the Odyssey, the Bible, Shakespeare, and every myth, legend and
book of wisdom since man put flint to slab tapped the same
vein.

Hence, he had decided at an
early age to rise above the dictate of humanity, not by denying it,
repressing it, or corrupting it, but by acknowledging it and
harnessing it. A man free from human entanglement could concentrate
his mind wonderfully; he could rise above tawdry humanity by
standing on the shoulders of all the numskulls who came before
him.

And yet, as with gods and men,
there existed inside him a conflicted duality. He was a Stoic and
an Epicurean, a Utilitarian and a Hedonist. He was neither
socialist, Marxist, communist nor capitalist, but he could be any
one of them when it suited him. He enjoyed fine food and good wine,
he was fleshy and bulky and larger than life, a bit like Oscar
Wilde minus the attention-seeking garb, dramatic gestures and
death-wish.

But as the delicious irony
called Life would have it he had become the embodiment of that
which he mocked: something a greater than which cannot be
conceived!

Lately, his eyesight had begun
to fade and he had taken to wearing a lorgnette for reading. The
frameless lenses, dangling from a gold cord when not needed, seemed
to magnify his limpid, grey, owlish eyes.

Sherlock once described his big
brother as gross, and physically Mycroft was indeed the antithesis
of his younger sibling, who had been gaunt, ascetic and athletic.
But mentally – now there was the crux.

Dr Watson had lived with
Sherlock for several years before he even discovered his friend had
a brother, and though he considered his friend a genius of the
first order, his genius suffered from an inferiority complex
compared to that of his polymath brother. Where Sherlock
experimented, researched, toiled and deduced, Mycroft simply knew.
He was a savant but not in one field as many savants are, but
across the spectrum of all knowledge.

“No need to feel abashed, old
boy,” continued Mycroft, noting the doctor’s embarrassment as he
proffered a box of lucifers. “I’ve heard she has impeccable
connections, and is uncommonly bright for a woman, that’s a rarity
worth capturing and nurturing.”

Dr Watson struck a lucifer,
puffed on his cigar and watched the end glow red. “No, no, I’m not
thinking of tying the knot again. It would be a betrayal of my dear
Mary. I could never think of replacing her no matter how beautiful
or bright the young lady to be, but, well,” he paused mid-sentence
and blew out the lucifer before redundantly tossing it onto the
flames.

Mycroft wasn’t used to getting
things wrong and felt momentarily flustered. He almost barbecued
the ends of his fingers as his lucifer burnt down. He dispatched it
quickly to the pyre. “A glass of fire-water, old boy?” he said,
holding up a crystal decanter of whiskey by way of invitation to
join him in a nightcap, grateful that fizzy French champagne would
not be called for after all. It always gave him gas. “I seem to
have misinterpreted you, pray, go on.”

“Well, this young lady claims
to be the daughter of Sherlock Holmes.”

“Ah! Another one!” chuckled
Mycroft, handing his visitor a tumbler of golden elixir, before
parking his substantial derriere on some leather padding that knew
better than to protest. “That makes three this year, seven in
total, but of course, you have come here tonight because you are
taking this one seriously.”

“That’s just it. I don’t know
whether to take her seriously or not.”

“What makes this one
different?”

“For starters, she’s not a
nutter. She doesn’t appear deluded or mad. Secondly, she’s not
after money. She’s quite wealthy in her own right. And finally,
well, she has these mannerisms that uncannily mimic Sherlock.”

“Such as?”

“She has large hands for a
woman with astonishingly elongated fingers which she steeples
whenever she is cogitating.”

“You described that mannerism
in your books. She could merely be play-acting according to
script.”

Dr Watson grimaced
thoughtfully. “Yes, I guess so, but when she speaks I hear Sherlock
in every word that falls from her lips.”

“I see.”

“And sometimes when I aim a
glance, not a studied look, mind you, I see Sherlock. It’s
something in the set of her mouth or her eyes or the way she holds
her head. I cannot put my finger on it but it is there all the
same. It has happened more than once. The only significant
difference is that she does not disdain society. She does not
regard humanity as a scourge to be endured.”

“Just as well. What is condoned
in men is rarely tolerated in women. Does she play the violin?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Is she addicted to
cocaine?”

“No, er, well, I don’t think
so. There has not been any indication of it so far.”

“At least she is not adhering
to scripture too scrupulously. How old is she?”

“Twenty-four.”

“That puts her birth at
1875.”

“Yes.”

“You failed to mention her
name.”

“Countess Varvara
Volodymyrovna.” Dr Watson enunciated the name like a schoolboy
reciting a line of alphabetic alliteration. Mycroft’s bushy brows
moved north, which was something of a coup. According to Sherlock,
Mycroft was not a man who was easily surprised.

“She is not a British citizen,
then, but Russian.”

“Ukrainian.”

“That’s twice I have been wrong
tonight. Russians would of course say Vladimir not Volodymyr. Who
does she claim as her mater?”

Dr Watson took a sip of golden
ambrosia to lubricate his voice-box, or perhaps to defer the moment
and score another coup. “Irene Adler.”

Mycroft was not taken by
surprise a second time. His lips formed a cynical smile as he
puffed on his cigar. “Ah, another reason as to why you came to me,
old boy. Let’s see now. Miss Adler was born in 1858. That would
have made her 17 years of age at the time of the birth, and 16 or
17 at time of conception. And Sherlock would have been four years
older. That puts him at 20 or 21. He would have completed his
degree at Cambridge and found himself cast adrift, the ivory tower
behind him and the mean streets of London before him, drifting
aimlessly through the fog of endless boredom, dabbling in opiates,
not yet settled on a vocation, not yet stumbling upon his metier.
It is not improbable that in the clutches of the cocaine demon he
may have conducted a hazy liaison with a young woman as he briefly
trod the theatrical boards, possibly someone working as a pretty
chorus girl or stage actress prior to recasting herself as a diva
with the Warsaw Opera, whereby he fathered a child of which he knew
nothing. And there’s no escaping the fact that Miss Adler has the
singular honour of being the one and only woman who has ever
rattled my little brother.”

“Yes,” concurred Dr Watson with
a resolute nod of his head, “in fact, to say he may have been
secretly infatuated with her would not be stretching the point.
After that incident at Reichenbach Falls I was trawling through his
papers and in a secret compartment of his desk I found a photo of
That Woman, yet I would not have described her as the most
beautiful female who ever crossed the threshold of 221B Baker
Street.”

“Beauty is in the eye of the
beholder,” reminded Mycroft, flicking cigar ash onto the fire, “and
let us not forget That Woman was possibly the most beguiling. It is
possible Sherlock remembered her from their first encounter, either
liminally or subliminally. What else do you know of her
background?”

“Miss Adler or Countess
Volodymyrovna?”

“The latter.”

“She claims her mother gave her
up without even naming her. She claims her mother simply gave her
over to one of her lovers, Count Volodya Volodymyr. I believe he
was a native of Odessa. The Count died when she was still quite
young. She didn’t mention what age. She was subsequently raised by
the Count’s unmarried sister, Countess Zoya Volodymyrovna.”

“Ah, Countess Zoya, now there’s
a name I recognize, an adventurous woman with a penchant for
attracting powerful men, immensely wealthy in her own right. The
young lady in question inherited her aunt’s estate?”

“Yes, and that of her
step-father too.”

“Mmm, yes, that would make the
young woman extraordinarily rich.”

“She travelled extensively with
her aunt and, shortly after the aunt died from a snake bite while
they were in Australia, she married an Australian.”

“Name of?”

“Jack Frost. But his real name
was Darcy Droitwych. They were married for three years and lived in
Melbourne. He was twenty years her senior. He became crippled
following a horse-riding accident and later killed himself. She
inherited his estate too. After becoming widowed, she decided to
come to England to seek out her family roots. That’s the reason I
came here tonight. She has expressed a desire to meet you.”

“Has she, indeed?”

“I could introduce her if you
like. I know you do not permit women to darken the doorstep of the
Diogenes Club but I believe your lodgings are just across the
road.”

Mycroft pushed to his feet and
moved his bulky frame with surprising suppleness to the large,
Georgian, sash window that gave onto Pall Mall. He didn’t say
anything for a moment but gave his concentration over to the window
shutter, closing it against the swirling fog filling the street
like smoke from a flueless fire trapped inside a darkened room.

“I have moved lodgings since we
last met. I now reside permanently upstairs. I have the topmost
suite under the dome. It offers a spectacular panorama of London. I
must show you some time. It is reserved for the president of our
modest little club and since our last titular head recently shook
off his mortal coil the baton has passed to me.”

“Congratulations, Mycroft.
President of the Diogenes Club sounds like a high honour. I know
you were one of the six founding members, although, I hope you
don’t mind my saying, I never pictured you as a committee man.”

“I’m not, and I’m not exactly a
President either. But you know how these things go – the more
modest the club, the more pompous the title. It is actually Grand
Master or
primus baro
. You should think about joining. I can
put your name up for consideration if you like.”

“Oh, no, the Micawber Club
suits me very well. I feel quite at home there. Thank you, none the
less. And getting back to the Countess – perhaps Claridges would
make for a suitable rendezvous, or Brown’s Hotel which always seems
more discrete and the electric lighting not quite so harsh on the
retina.”

Mycroft moved back to the fire
and tossed his cigar end onto the flames. “Let me do some research
first. I can check into her background and confirm the details you
just imparted.”

“Yes, of course,” agreed the
doctor tactfully. “That would be the best way to go.”

“You trust this young
woman?”

Dr Watson weighed the question
carefully yet still failed to answer confidently. “Up to a point. I
can’t help thinking of that saying about keeping your friends close
and your enemies closer. I thought it might be safer for all
concerned to keep an eye on her.”

“A wise strategy. What is your
personal opinion?”

“Personal opinion?”

“Like, dislike, that sort of
thing.”

“Well, she’s not like anybody I
have ever met - like and dislike are such pedestrian epithets,
descriptions of lesser mortals. There’s a joie de vivre about her
that is undeniably infectious. Once she gets an idea in her head
there is no stopping her. And she takes sleuthing seriously. I get
the impression it is not merely a game or way to pass the time or a
means of allaying boredom but an innate calling. In that regard she
reminds me of Sherlock most of all. She pursues loose threads with
fervour and has a genuine knack for following several leads at the
same time. When she learns to master the emotional side of things
she will be formidable.”