Becoming Holmes (4 page)

Big Ben chimes five. More working-class folk are on the streets now: milk women, dustmen, charwomen, costermongers readying their wares on two-wheeled wagons, grooms driving horse and carriages, and humble people in the uniforms of the domestic service. Sherlock dares to sit for a moment on the steps of the Admiralty. The fog has not entirely lifted yet.

What will become of me when Mr. Bell dies? If young Lestrade can’t be my confidant, then who can be? Not a woman; I cannot put her in danger. It should be someone clever, though not as ingenious as me, for I must make myself smarter than the encyclopedias on the shop shelves. A man skilled in science, yes, with some courage, who would listen to me, ordinary but not too ordinary; loyal and dedicated to my cause, but with his own profession. I must be the boss
. An idea comes to him.
What about a writer? One who could record my cases, spread my fame, and frighten criminals. Doesn’t that make sense?
He balks at it.
I cannot do this for fame
. But then he reconsiders.
What if he wasn’t a real writer, just a direct man who can tell the truth?

Further thoughts are arrested by the sight of his brother waddling up Whitehall toward him in suit and cravat, tall top hat on his head, walking stick pacing the foot pavement, also deep in thought. A little pudgy and over six feet tall, he is the first respectable man Sherlock has seen.

“Mycroft?”

His older brother almost falls over at the sight of him.

“Sherlock? I … I …”

“You are early.”

“Yes, well, the early bird gets the worm, especially if such an ornithological creature is of half-Hebraic heritage and worms are not offered to him. What are you doing here?”

“You said you would host a visit from me.”

Mycroft glances up and down the street. None of his colleagues are in sight yet. “Yes, I did, didn’t I? I suppose you never
actually
send round your card first?”

“Shall we go in?”

“Well, perhaps … not yet. There is a lovely establishment nearby that will give us morning tea. Shall we?” He gestures down the street. Big Ben has not yet chimed six.

They are soon huddled together at a small table in an inn, all wood and cigar smoke and ale, uncomfortably close to one another. Sherlock loves to apply penetrating stares to suspects to break down their identities, but neither he nor his brother is given to looking into the other’s eyes. If the younger sibling is searching for someone with whom to commiserate, he has come to the wrong man. Mycroft is brisk in his manner and evasive of anything like warm emotions. He introduces the subject of their parents immediately, as if to deal with it and be done with it, mentioning that, statistically, they have been orphaned at an advanced age and have nothing to complain about. It makes Sherlock feel as though he has been acting and thinking like a coward. Still, he cannot shake his sense of impending doom, but he tries to control it.

“I must say that I am impressed with your ambition to be a professional fighter of crime.”

“You are?”

“Indeed. A career in the police department is admirable.”

“I will not be a policeman.”

“Pardon me? Surely this stumbling about on your own
and helping to collar the odd bad man independently is not a way to proceed professionally.”

Sherlock has revealed few details to him about his cases. As far as his brother knows, he was very much on the periphery of such investigations as the Whitechapel murder, the Rathbone kidnapping, and the Hemsworth-Nottingham affair.

“It was more than stumbling about.”

“But, Sherlock, you are a mere child.”

“I am sixteen years old. I am almost ready to become a professional.”

“No more schooling?”

“I am preparing for university. I hope to attend somewhere, and then return to London.”

“University? That will be tricky.”

“I have a plan, God willing.”

“God willing? Concerned about mortality at your age, are you, Sherlock?”

“One never knows.”

“But why do you need higher education? Surely police training will be enough for –”

“I told you, I do not want to be a policeman. I hope to be a detective.”

“Yes, well, the Force has a department for that now, you know.”

“A private detective, a consulting one.”

“Private? Consulting? Never heard of –”

“An irregular; I must do what others cannot.”

“You are ambitious, Sherlock.”

“And you are not?”

“I will do what a half-Jew must do to have influence. I will rise quietly and subtly, but rise nevertheless, at the seat of real power.”

“The Chancellor of the Exchequer?”

“To start with; then I will find my way upward in other departments even more important to our empire’s policy and security. But the Treasury, you know, is in charge of the money. Control that, and you control a great deal.” He smiles.

Mycroft had begun as an errand boy. Just as brilliant and ambitious as Sherlock, he intends to one day pull important strings from behind the scenes. Unlike his younger brother, he has no appetite for attention.

They sink into silence and find it difficult to know what to say to each other. Despite what they have in common in terms of brains, drive, and blood, there is little they can share when it comes to small talk. They sip their tea awkwardly, seeking the bottom of their last cups.

The little man who dreams of killing Sherlock Holmes is approaching, making his way to work well ahead of arrival time, as he has been told to do. He is thinking about his boss. “He ’as big plans this time, ’e does, biggest ever,” he murmurs out loud. “There’s something behind it that ’e is keeping from me. There’s a murder ’e is planning too, very soon, I figures. But ’e won’t let me do it; ’e’ll let Crew. Fat pig.”

Back at morning tea in Whitehall, Sherlock offers his older brother a question to kill the final few moments of their get-together.

“And so, how goes the business of the Treasury?”

“In the black, my boy, and running like clockwork. Speaking of which, I must be getting back.” He gets to his feet.

“And
you
, Mycroft, how are you making out in your own particular corner there?”

“Everything according to plan; I have my own office now.”

Mycroft drops a few coins on the little table and ushers Sherlock out the door. The bell tinkles as they leave.

“So, no worries?”

“No, Sherlock, none, though I cannot say that for all my colleagues.”

“Oh?”

“There have been a few surprising dismissals of late.” They turn the corner into Whitehall Street and walk at a brisk pace. The magnificent Treasury building nears, tall and long, pillared and elegant. “And the dismissed have been replaced by especially surprising chaps.”

There is still half a block to go.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, one young man, whose qualifications I must say I doubt, has been placed in a rather delicate and powerful role at the Treasury for a new employee. He shall have some
say over funds allocated to the London police; this, right off the hop, to a neophyte. I find it bloody dangerous.”

“Curious.”

“Indeed,” Mycroft frowns. “His superior is an elderly man, and this young fellow is one of several who could have his position soon! He could exercise some control over our police force within a year or so.” Inwardly, Sherlock is smiling, enjoying his big brother’s evident jealousy. They say nothing for the next minute, their pace increasing, Mycroft’s walking stick leading them quickly toward the Treasury’s front steps.

“Ah!” he says suddenly, looking away just as Sherlock is hoping he will extend his hand to shake good-bye. He lowers his voice. “There he is! The very man!”

Mycroft is motioning with a nod of his head to someone walking briskly up the wide stone steps. It is barely seven o’clock, so this fellow is obviously ambitious too, almost as driven as one Mycroft Holmes.

Sherlock looks across at the man. He is very short but wears a pin-striped suit with cravat, a black bowler hat, black hair greased back underneath, and new spectacles glistening in the mid-June morning sun. He sports black kid gloves, sparkling black shoes, and carries an expensive umbrella, though there is little evidence of threatening rain. The suit is slightly ill-fitting and somehow hangs uncomfortably on him. It is almost as if he were wearing a costume. The little man notices that he is being observed. He turns and looks directly at the Holmes brothers. When he does, Sherlock nearly collapses.

It is Grimsby!

3
HIS WAY IN

T
he boy is too stunned to say another word to his brother. He takes Mycroft’s hand and shakes it, not even hearing his farewell, then stumbles away. He needs to talk to someone he can trust about this,
now
. There is only one person in whom he can confide.

But will Sigerson Bell even let him back into his shop?

The apothecary is actually waiting at the door, peeking out the window, then pacing, wringing his hands, aghast that he actually thrust his dear boy out the door, literally kicking him in his arse. He is praying for his return. “I should not have been so cantankerous! So curmudgeonly! So supercilious!” he mutters. The sight of the boy through the bulging latticed windows nearly makes him jump up and down. He flings open the door. Sherlock has been wondering if he should knock. They begin apologizing to each other simultaneously. It arrests them into silence. The old man looks longingly into the boy’s eyes and immediately sees something there, a light trying to emerge under the sadness.

“Aha!” cries Bell.

“Aha?”

“You are stimulated by something!”

“Yes, well, something decidedly odd has happened,
very
odd indeed.”

“Step into my laboratory and we shall converse!”

Moments later Sherlock has reacquainted the old man with just exactly who Grimsby is and the fact that he now appears to be employed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to help oversee funds allocated to the Metropolitan London Police. The apothecary knows that Holmes deeply despises the little street thug, and not just because he is his great enemy’s lieutenant.