Mycroft Holmes (13 page)

And that icebergs were particularly impervious to steam whistles.

* * *

Holmes, too, was not asleep—at least not in the healthiest definition of the term. Rather, he was very nearly comatose.

And hallucinating.

“Moral insanity.” That was what Sherlock had spoken of—the idea that some humans were devoid of the common thread of human decency. The words wove in and out of his consciousness, along with the mutes who’d been standing guard over the house of the dead, and that false sailor spitting out the wrong side of his mouth.

Moral insanity.

That particular form of madness, Holmes knew, consisted of a morbid perversion of natural feelings. It was a
manie sans délire
—a mania, without delirium—that deprived the subject of the sorts of ethics most people would consider constant. It was a state in which intellectual faculties remained unaffected, while emotions were so profoundly damaged that patients were carried away by “some furious instinct.”

An instinct so fierce that the destruction it wreaks is incalculable.

This bleak thought was followed by images—
lougarou
sucking children’s blood, mutes laughing soundlessly as they stood watch over the dead, their teeth blackened, their mouths opening up like a grave, threatening to swallow up Holmes and all he held dear.

THAT FIRST NIGHT OF THEIR VOYAGE WAS AN IMPOSSIBLY LONG
one for Douglas. His instincts for survival, given everything he had endured in his life, were quite strong, as was his nose for small problems that could easily turn deadly.

That nose had been twitching since they’d first come aboard.

What in the world are we in the midst of?
he wondered, and not for the first time.

“The key to my heart…” he heard Holmes mutter in his sleep.

He is dreaming of her
, Douglas realized as he stretched his long body on the cot to try to get comfortable.

He had met Georgiana a handful of times. Each time she’d struck him as the sort of girl whose prettiness masked a fierce intelligence, and an equally fierce determination. Their first meeting had been at the London wharf.

Douglas had just returned from a harrowing voyage, much like the one they were enduring at present, with storm upon storm granting no reprieve to passenger and sailor alike. He was tired and filthy and in a hurry to unload the latest shipment when, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a well-heeled young man and a rather stunning blond hurrying toward him. She was so slight and so pretty that she looked as if someone had painted her, and then set her as a lark in the incongruity of those drab and dreary docks.

Having no reason whatsoever to speak with them, he returned to his labor until the young man stood in front of him so that he could no longer be avoided, and pointed to a crate of Cuban cigars.

“Where in heaven’s name did you find
those
?” He spoke the words with such wonder that he might as well have been referring to the Holy Grail. “They are
Principe de Gales
, are they not?” the fellow added in a tone that was very nearly accusatory.

“They are indeed,” Douglas said with a smile and a slight bow of the head.

The young man was about to say something else when he was cut off by his companion’s delighted laugh.

“Port of Spain!” she said, just as eagerly. “Is that where you are from?”

Douglas confessed that it was so.

She held out her hand for him to shake, an action Douglas found both unusual and endearing, as she was ignoring both the color of his skin and the dirt that covered it. That was when he noticed the jumbie beads bracelet that she wore under the sleeve of her ruffled white blouse.

The young woman caught him staring, but she just laughed again—the easy, bright laugh of the young and carefree. It made him melancholy—not for her, but for something he had lost…

“I’ve had it since I was a child,” she said, interrupting his thoughts, “and am loathe to give it up.”

Douglas nodded.

“Had one too,” he confessed. “Wish I had it still, for they remind me of home.”

The young man introduced himself as Mycroft Holmes, and the young woman as Georgiana Sutton. They chatted for a short while longer, and Douglas gave the young man the address of his little tobacco store. He suggested that Holmes stop by, and he would put a few
Principes
aside just for him, whereupon Holmes looked as delighted as a child at Christmas.

They left, and Douglas went back to work.

From that point on, Holmes had visited at least thrice weekly, taking in all the knowledge Douglas had about cigars. Now that Douglas thought about it, Holmes could recall every word that was said, down to the smallest jot and tittle. He had absorbed in a handful of weeks what it had taken Douglas years to glean and digest.

Some three months later, Holmes brought Georgiana into the shop to announce their engagement.

“Douglas would have been my best man, were it not for… a certain luck of the draw,” Holmes had told his fiancée. Then he’d added, rather mournfully, “As it is, I suppose I shall have to make do with Sherlock.”

* * *

“Georgiana!”

He heard Holmes toss in his berth and call out her name.

Holmes was so very tender with her, treating her as if she were made of the finest crystal and liable to shatter at any moment. To Douglas’s mind, however, she didn’t seem inclined to do any such thing. She seemed equally careful with Holmes, however—squeezing his hand, being the first to laugh when he said something witty, or listening intently when he waxed eloquent—sometimes at great length.

She seemed blissfully unaware of his tendency toward superciliousness, yet she was no shrinking violet. She spoke her mind both well and forcefully. She was the sort, Douglas mused, who believed the entire world could be saved, if one only went about it with intent and resolve.

She and Douglas frequently spoke of Trinidad—something they held in common, though Georgiana came from wealthy planter stock and Douglas’s family, while literate, was poor as dirt. Over a glass of brandy or two, Douglas had given her and Holmes a few morsels about his upbringing.

“It was only my putting out to sea at the age of twelve, learning by hook and by crook to make a living, that allowed my family to survive at all, and even, eventually, to thrive,” he’d explained.

“We are not so different, Mr. Douglas,” she had replied—and what she’d said next had remained with him ever since. “You come from slaves. Well, so do I. My great-great-great-grandfather and his bride migrated from Britain to Trinidad in 1640. Though they were white, they became indentured servants, doing hard labor for five long years. She did not survive it, and he did.

“For his troubles, my ancestor was given ‘freedom dues.’ Ten British pounds, plus ten acres to farm. It forms a portion of the land that we still own to this day. It was from those humble beginnings that my family built its fortune.”

Douglas had nodded.

“Yes,” he said, and he frowned. “Similar to the forty acres promised to American slaves, some five years ago.”

“Well, that doesn’t seem to be going as promised,” Holmes commented. He looked ready to say more when Georgiana interrupted him.

“Surely the
intent
is there,” she had said. “I loathe the idea that ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions.’ What do we have, after all, but what we intend?” She paused, looking thoughtful. “Then too, most of what we value—from the Great Pyramids onward—was built on the backs of the poor and the vanquished. I do wonder what society would be like without the blood, sweat, and tears of those forebears…”

* * *

Now, lying in a too-small berth across from his very sick friend, Douglas felt an unpleasant tingle at the pit of his stomach. He wondered just where Georgiana was. Had she taken an assumed name? Could she be hiding aboard the ship?

And if so, whatever for?

I am too exhausted to ponder it now
, Douglas decided with a yawn.
It shall have to wait ’til morning.

He finally drifted off to sleep to the sound of Holmes’s fitful snoring.

* * *

When Douglas awoke the following morning, the first thing he did was to check on his friend.

Holmes was still asleep, but not pleasantly so. He was tossing and sweating, though the room was far from warm. He opened his eyes only long enough to ask for the carbolic acid, which Douglas mixed with a bit of water and brought him. Holmes slathered it on his cheek with little finesse, as if his hand were a mitt.

“Be careful,” Douglas said, taking back the dish, “or you’ll use it all up.”

Holmes began to mumble.

“Can’t feel my extremities at all…” he said.

Then he promptly fell asleep again.

* * *

For four full days, Holmes remained thus, wanting nothing but a sip or two of water, and the carbolic acid. When asleep, he continued to agonize in his dreams about Georgiana.

During his years at sea, Douglas had seen seasickness in all its permutations, even masquerading as a bad influenza now and again. And with the ship still pressing through a mighty storm, this was no time to try to rally Holmes. All told, it was best to let him sleep on.

Douglas himself did little besides read. He was grateful that he had packed Alexandre Dumas’s
The Fencing Master
, mostly to practice his French, as well as
Oliver Twist
, though he knew it nearly by heart. Every so often he would wet a rag and place it upon his friend’s burning forehead and quote Dickens’ immortal lines to himself.

“The worm does not work more surely on the dead body, than does this slow creeping fire upon the living frame…”

When Douglas did venture out, the decks were empty, and the sick were hidden behind locked doors. Everyone else aboard seemed to be as ill as Holmes, and this assuaged Douglas’s worries for his friend. Still, if the symptoms were to persist for another day, Douglas would be forced to call the ship’s physician, regardless of any feeble protestations to the contrary.

* * *

On day five, the
Sultana
at last hit a patch of good weather. The pitching finally ceased, the sun shone intermittently, and people began to venture out, gaunt and sallow, but alive.

Yet Holmes was no better. The few sips of water he permitted Douglas to pour down his throat turned immediately to sweat. He mumbled incessantly and incoherently, and he snorted most unbecomingly, as if he were breathing underwater.

Armed with a list of Holmes’s symptoms, Douglas went to pay a call on the physician. But when he got there, both the ship’s doctor and his assistant were otherwise engaged. He spoke with the former’s secretary, a hearty fellow of fifty or so.

“They’re making the rounds,” the man said. “No telling when they’ll be back.” He had an accent that Douglas could not place. Possibly Australian. When Douglas gave him their room number, the fellow took it, staring down at it as if it were hieroglyphics.

“I’ll pass it on,” he said dubiously, “but with nearly three-quarters of the passengers down, the doc may not get to ’im ’til the morrow.” He looked up at Douglas. “Please pass along my best to your employer, beg him be well!”

Though it was said in good spirits and accompanied by a hearty slap on the back, Douglas was in no mood.

If begging him to be well would do the trick
, he thought crossly,
I wouldn’t need a physician.

On his way back, Douglas passed by a cook’s assistant and importuned him for some bread and a pat of butter, along with a cup of tea. For the bulk of the journey, Holmes had missed all five meals normally served on a ship—breakfast, luncheon, dinner, tea, and supper. Though breakfast had long passed, Douglas hoped it would tempt him into sitting up, at the very least.

After a few moments, the scullion returned with a tray, garnished with a frilly serviette. The bread was stale, the tea was lukewarm and bitter, and the butter more than likely colored lard, but the man was kind, giving him what he had on hand.

Douglas had nearly reached the companionway when he noticed a strange sensation, or possibly a lack thereof. The very few times he’d been out and about, he had fought unease, waiting for the inevitable moment when someone would confront him with a, “Say, who d’you think you are, wandering about like this?”

But this morning, he did not feel that prickle at his back, that sourness in his gut. He’d finally found an answer for the challenge of “wandering about like this.” Looking down, he realized to his chagrin that it was the tray that did it. Carrying the tray marked him once and for all as a manservant.

He continued on his way.

As he crossed beyond the companionway, Douglas walked past the slats that separated the rest of the
Sultana
from the so-called ’tween decks. If the “above-ground” passengers looked bad, then the poor souls who’d had to endure these catacombs looked positively wretched. They were poking their heads up like so many scraggly, starving moles.

Douglas handed a little boy a bit of Holmes’s bread. He was no more than five, and wearing what looked to be a collection of rags. He stared at Douglas with wide, suspicious eyes, snatched at the crumb with a tiny claw-like hand so tough it could have been made of leather, and then disappeared once again into his hole. Immediately ten other children took his place, and the resulting uproar forced Douglas to retreat.