Mycroft Holmes (30 page)

* * *

The daguerreotype showed a group of thirty or so Africans in an idyllic island setting, posed on the sand in three rows. The first row was comprised of children, most between eight and twelve—an age where they could begin to earn their keep. They were smiling and appeared to be well cared for.

The second consisted of florid young women with strong thighs and good hips, nearly all of childbearing age. And the back row featured men, solidly constructed and able-bodied, with their arms slung about each other’s necks and grinning at the camera obscura, as if they had just enjoyed a spirited game of rounders.

Behind them, in the gleaming water, was moored the very same steamship featured in the flier that had been slipped into the unmarked envelope at Emanuel’s house.

Holmes turned to the back of the pamphlet—and felt his legs go limp. He sat down hard at Beauchamp’s desk.

It was another daguerreotype, this one of a handsome couple standing side by side and smiling at the photographer: Georgiana and the American, Adam McGuire. The advertisement read:

BEG RESPECTFULLY TO INVITE THE ATTENTION OF ALL INTERESTED PERSONS

For the past Four Years, Adam McGuire, Esquire, and Miss Anabel Lynch, an Educated Woman, have Served as the New Countenances of the Trade. They and other Investors Hailing from the Four Corners of the Globe, from Luxembourg to the United States and from South Africa to Timbuktu, Solicit Your kind Participation in Same.

(Meetings shall take place in London at prearranged and agreed-upon times.)

Holmes shook off the horror he felt.

“Luxembourg,” he said aloud. “And South Africa.”

Douglas came to stand behind him and stared over his shoulder. He noticed the likenesses of Georgiana and McGuire.

“There they are,” Holmes murmured. “The faces of the ‘new slavery.’”

“I am profoundly sorry, old friend,” Douglas replied.

Holmes marveled how often, on their journey, words had proved lacking, but how—in the last analysis—words were all that people had to try to comfort one another. How strange it was that the mere knowledge of Douglas’s friendship mitigated the pain somewhat.

“I understand why Luxembourg should prove suspicious,” Douglas said, changing the subject. “But why South Africa?”

Holmes recounted Georgiana’s keen interest in the diamond mines on land owned by those Dutch farmers, the de Beers.

“One year ago, on the day of our engagement,” he concluded, “it seems that she was…” He paused there, for the truth was entirely ironic. “…otherwise engaged. Clearly, she used the knowledge I’d given her for the cause—”

They heard a rattle at the door. Someone on the other side was turning the doorknob, but to no avail.

They had been discovered.

Then, the pounding and pushing began, along with imprecations in Russian. Douglas quickly stowed the books in their original bookcase, locked it again, and moved for the balcony.

On impulse Holmes grabbed a ledger entitled “Waterways 1580 to Present,” and followed Douglas out. The two threw themselves over the railing and onto the tree, clambering down as quickly as they could—only to find two of the three pasty-skinned security guards waiting for them at the bottom.

BY THE TIME HOLMES
’
S FEET HIT THE GROUND, HE WAS SO
undone that he could barely face this new and deadly challenge. He would have liked nothing better than to raise his hands in defeat, but the Russians did not seem to be interested in prisoners, but rather victims.

Douglas was to be their first. After a brief scuffle, he had dispatched one guard with a forceful kick to the throat; but now his partner seemed intent on making him pay for that infraction. He had a gun pointed at Douglas’s temple.

“You die!” he raged, his hand shaking.

That flair for the dramatic was the pause that Holmes needed. In a split second he unsheathed the walking stick, revealing a long, sharp knife. With his last burst of energy, he raised it up and charged at the man, stabbing him through the chest with such force that it pushed him backward against the five-finger tree and impaled him there.

Holmes stared, immobilized by what he had just done.

By then the guard on the ground was beginning to recover his senses. With one move, Douglas yanked the long knife out of the Russian’s chest. The body fell to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

Douglas then spun the knife around and pointed it at the prone guard’s throat. The man froze, then lay flat on the ground with his hands upraised.

“Go,” Douglas commanded, stepping back.

No translation was needed. The guard stumbled to his feet and ran off.

Holmes just stood there glued to the spot, still clutching the portion of the cane that formed the sheath. He watched the blood trickle from the open wound in the dead man’s chest. His eyes were open and seemed to be staring at Holmes, their gazes locked.

Douglas grabbed him by the arm, and dragged him away.

* * *

By the time they’d reached the horses, Holmes was pointing back at the dead guard and trembling.

“Why in heaven’s name did you pull out the knife?” he whispered to Douglas. “The man might’ve lived if you hadn’t.”

“He was already dead,” Douglas asserted, “and you know that as well as I. When I removed the blade, blood did not spurt out, because there was no longer a heartbeat to propel it.” With that, Douglas wiped the blade on his horse’s blanket and handed it back to Holmes—who fell back and refused to accept it.

“No, I do not want it!” Holmes protested. His voice choking. He began to mount. “I never wish to see it again.”

“Nonsense,” Douglas stated. “You must have a weapon, and this is as good as any.”

“And I tell you
I do not want it
!” Holmes insisted.

“Now you are giving in to histrionics,” Douglas declared with an upraised eyebrow. “You are not unacquainted with death—what has possessed you?”

Holmes glanced over his shoulder at the corpse. Crumpled at the base of the tree, it was no longer staring at him.

“I have never killed a man before,” he confessed.

“I see,” Douglas replied quietly.

“I do not want the knife,” Holmes insisted again, and Douglas nodded.

“I understand,” he said. “But do try and recall that you used it to save my life.”

Holmes hesitated a moment longer.

Then he took the knife and placed it back in its sheath.

* * *

Later that night, a despondent Holmes sat at the long table in the Chinese section. This time, the dumplings and liquor did nothing to quench the emptiness in his belly. Not even a good cigar—Douglas had managed to pick up a handful of
Fundadores
from one of the Chinese traders—could ease the ache he felt.

And for once, it had nothing to do with Georgiana.

Douglas was right, of course. The deed had had to be done. And he had seen death—plenty of it—not only working for Dr. Bell, but simply by way of being a Londoner.

Of course, though one could argue that England was a civilized country, there had been public hangings for most of Holmes’s life—they hadn’t been banned until he was nigh on twenty years of age. And there were poor unfortunates who occasionally dropped dead in the streets from cold, or hunger, or disease.

Yet he had never been the cause of another human being’s demise.

I am barely out of adolescence
, Holmes reminded himself in what sounded suspiciously like Douglas’s voice.
And have lived a rather sheltered existence.

“Holmes?” he heard Douglas say, speaking beside him. “What do you think?”

“Of what?” Holmes asked.

Douglas and Huan had been sitting to his right and discussing what their next steps might be. Huan had departed without a sound, but Holmes had begun to grow accustomed to members of the Harmonious Fists appearing and disappearing with uncanny speed, even if it meant a rather wanton disregard of protocol.

“Should we investigate the islands in question?” Douglas began, though without much conviction. “After all, we know where they are located.”

“You mean
go
there?” Holmes said, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “The two of us, in our present condition, against what is undoubtedly an army?”

“Might I remind you,” Douglas parried, “that the Harmonious Fists are ready and willing to fight on our account? In all, they comprise more than three hundred fighting men. And there are the Merikens…”

“The Americans?” he repeated, puzzled.

Behind him, a woman’s soft voice corrected him, one he knew all too well:

“Not the Americans, my love,” she said. “Merikens.”

Holmes turned around.

Huan and Little Huan were holding Georgiana between them. Or rather, they were holding her upright, for she looked so frail that she could barely stand on her feet. Her rosy color was gone. Her lips were cracked and dry, but she tried to smile as she met his shocked gaze.

“Merikens,” she repeated in a voice that was a wisp of what it had once been. “Colonial Marines. I thought for certain you’d have heard of them.

“Then again,” she added, “I suppose no one can know
everything.
Not even
you
, my dearest.”

IN THOSE FIRST FEW SECONDS THAT HE STOOD BEFORE HER,
Holmes conjured up his entire lifetime yet to come. The three children he’d always dreamed they’d have. Their small but lovely terraced home in Pimlico, and if all went well, St. John’s Wood. The Christmases and Easters and birthdays they would celebrate as a family. The flaxen-haired, rosy-cheeked grandchildren he’d someday bounce upon his knee.

All of it blown to smithereens in the span of a heartbeat.

How slight a thing will disturb the equanimity of our fair minds
, he thought, although he could not recall, at the moment, who had written those words.

Austen, perhaps? Or Dickens?

One thing was certain. Georgiana, that slight and delicate thing, had always disturbed the equanimity of his mind. And this day was no exception. But, God’s bones, how frail she looked—how weak! Her skin was the color of… what? Even ivory seemed too dark an assignation, and snow too robust, too cheery, parchment too yellow.

She is of the palest gray
, he realized.
The color of tombstone
. But on the heels of that thought came another.

Do not pity her
.

She deserved no pity, he knew that—not so much as a solitary glance her way. And yet, he could not help but look at her—though he sincerely hoped that this look did not appear so bare and wounded as it felt to him from the inside.

Thank heavens I am no longer mad with grief.
That had been excised by the deaths of innocents and miscreants alike, by the many mishaps he and Douglas had endured at her hands. What he felt at the moment was more akin to a dull pain, as if he’d been hit unflaggingly in the same spot for so long that it no longer felt a part of him.

Then, surprisingly, he began to move toward her.

No, Holmes!
he thought fiercely to himself.

How, then, was he within inches of her, gazing into her eyes as if he were some poor, hapless serpent that she had charmed? Those eyes were still so lovely—fathomless, guileless.

“
Search
her!” he heard Douglas say behind him. “If you do not, I shall.”

He was about to protest, but one glance back dissuaded him. Douglas’s expression communicated, in no uncertain terms, that his dear, kind, and closest friend was easily capable of killing her with his own two hands. And so while Huan and his son held her upright, he did as he was instructed. He gently patted her down.

“She is not armed,” he mumbled to Douglas. Then he asked Huan, “Where did you find her?”

“She found us,” Huan responded. “She begged us to bring her to you.”

Little Huan confirmed his father’s words with a solemn nod.

Georgiana raised her hand and placed it lightly upon Holmes’s arm, as she had the last time he had seen her. And as usual, he felt that absurd desire to please her. Then he noticed the jumbie bracelet on her right wrist.