Wormsley nodded. ‘I will remember that for next time. Excellent observational skills, Mr Holmes. Excellent indeed.’
Sherlock looked around. ‘We’re in public, you know? You can hardly drag me out of here, kicking and screaming, without anyone reacting.’
‘Oh, I think you underestimate the Russian ability to look away and not get involved.’ He laughed abruptly. ‘But just in case you wish to give it a try…’
He looked around the tiny cafe, and suddenly snapped his fingers.
Everyone in the cafe turned to look at him. There was no surprise on their faces. There was the look that soldiers give their commanding officer: patience while awaiting orders.
Sherlock stared at the two women across by the far wall. One was young, with brown hair pulled back beneath a headscarf, while the other was middle-aged and wore a fur hat. Miss Dimmock and Mrs Loran? He couldn’t tell, not for sure, not until the younger woman smiled at him and suddenly he could see the fine line of her jaw beneath her make-up.
The men – could they be Mr Malvin, Mr Furness, Mr Eves and the various musicians whose names Sherlock had never caught? The pit orchestra conductor, if it was him, had shaved his moustache off – or, more likely, removed his false moustache – but one of the men was tall enough to be him.
The man with the blotchy, potato-like face winked at Sherlock. He reached up and pulled at his puffy skin. Bits of it came away, like putty, and he peeled them off until his real face was revealed beneath: his red-veined cheeks and cauliflower-like nose. It was Mr Furness. ‘That’s a relief,’ he said. ‘Itches like hell! Theatrical putty, remember?’
Now that he was looking at their faces, he could see that the four children were actually Judah, Pauly, Henry and Rhydian, all bundled up against the cold, with dirt rubbed into their faces, false teeth in front of their own, pads in their cheeks to push them out and subtle make-up altering the lines of their faces. Pauly nodded at Sherlock; Henry just shrugged nonchalantly, as if this was an everyday occurrence.
Although he had worked out most of what was going on in a massive rush of deduction, Sherlock hadn’t anticipated this.
‘So what happens now?’ he asked.
‘Now,’ Wormersley said, ‘we just sit here, drink our tea and eat our pastries. The owner of the cafe won’t disturb us: he is being paid enough to keep out of the way. We stay here until Count Pyotr Andreyevich Shuvalov is dead and your brother has been arrested for the murder.’
‘But what does that accomplish?’ Sherlock asked. ‘Why go to such lengths to get Mycroft here in Moscow, and in the right place? Why not just kill Count Shuvalov yourself?’
Wormersley shrugged. ‘You have no idea how well – protected he is. He is never seen out in public, and when he travels he is always accompanied by bodyguards who have been with him for twenty years or more. They are fanatically loyal. When he travels he sends out several carriages in different directions, any of which might contain him. He is an important man, second only to the Tsar. No, believe me, we have tried. Many times. The only solution was to create a situation where we knew he would be alone in a place and at a time we knew about.’
‘But what’s he ever done to you?’
‘He knows about us. He knows, and he disapproves. He wants to stop us.’
‘And who are you?’
‘We are the Paradol Chamber,’ a voice said behind Sherlock.
The words sent a chill of fear through Sherlock.
He turned his head. Mrs Loran, the woman who had always been so kind to him, had crossed from her table to theirs. She was still smiling her sympathetic smile, bundled up in clothes that made her look like a Russian grandmother, but there was a hard glint in her eyes that Sherlock had not noticed before.
‘What is the Paradol Chamber?’ Sherlock’s voice was unsteady with fear and disappointment that, once again, an adult he liked and trusted had let him down.
‘An organization,’ she said. A club. A group of like – minded individuals. A state of mind. Perhaps even a nation without territory. All of these things and more. We are the people who see the way the world is going and who have decided that we don’t like it. We are the people who have decided to change the course of history.’
‘So the whole thing about the sale of Alaska to America, and the possibility that the Americans might default on the payments and the Spanish might step in and buy it? That was all false?’
She laughed. ‘No, it was all true. True, but largely irrelevant. Bait in a trap. The best lies are the ones that are mostly true. We just took advantage of a real political situation and set it up as bait for your brother. That, and the disappearance of Mr Wormersley here.’
‘And what about Mycroft? Why him?’
‘He was a convenient choice – a man who, although young, has become identified as being at the heart of the British Government. It will be difficult for your Prime Minister to claim that Mycroft Holmes was some kind of hot- headed idealist. I can’t imagine anyone further from hot-headedness or idealism than Mycroft Holmes. No, when Mycroft is identified as Count Shuvalov’s assassin then every government of the world will know that Great Britain has committed an act of state-sanctioned political murder. Britain will be a pariah nation. Nobody will listen to you any more. Your influence over world affairs will fade away.’
‘And that’s important to you? As important as getting rid of Count Shuvalov?’
‘We are the Paradol Chamber,’ Mrs Loran said simply. ‘When we do something, there is never just one reason. Each action that we take serves many different ends. It’s neater that way.’
Sherlock gazed critically back at Wormersley. ‘But why you? What dragged you into this whole thing?’
Wormersley glanced up at Mrs Loran as if seeking her permission to speak. She nodded.
‘I’ve travelled a great deal,’ Wormersley said, ‘and everywhere I have been I have seen people abusing each other, enslaving each other and hurting each other, all in the name of politics or religion.’ The distant expression on Wormersley’s face suggested that he was remembering other times and other places. ‘The world is descending into chaos. Somebody needs to step forward and take charge.’ He smiled, and the smile was dreamy and dangerous at the same time. ‘Imagine it, Sherlock – a world government! Not since the time of Alexander the Great has that been possible, and the world is much bigger now! I doubt that it will happen in my lifetime, but I can help make it possible – working for the Paradol Chamber.’
‘More prosaically,’ Mrs Loran said, ‘Wormersley was in prison in Japan. The Japanese don’t like outsiders. He would have been tortured and executed. We got a message to him, telling him that we would get him out if he would work for us.’
Sherlock frowned. ‘But there’s one thing I don’t understand. Mycroft and Count Shuvalov will end up in Shuvalov’s office, alone. What happens then? How does Shuvalov die, and how does Mycroft get blamed? You can’t pull the ice knife trick again, surely? The count isn’t going to stab himself
‘The ice knife was a useful trick, and a good rehearsal for some future assassination, but you’re right – we can’t use it again here. No, we have a different, plan, a better one.’
‘What is it?’ Sherlock asked.
‘We’ll leave that as a surprise, shall we?’ she said.
Sherlock shook his head. ‘Are all your plans this complicated? I know Mycroft got here, and was arrested, and is probably on the verge of being questioned by Count Shuvalov, but any number of things could have gone wrong at any stage. Mycroft might not have been released by the police, or he might have decided not to come, or he might have decided to make it an official visit under his own name, or Shuvalov might have decided to let someone else question Mycroft, or he might have questioned Mycroft in a cell – any of the links in the chain might have broken. The chances of this all coming right were astronomically low.’
‘Don’t think of it as a chain,’ Wormersley explained. ‘Think of it more as – oh, I don’t know – a fishing net. Each knot is a decision, but there are many ways of getting from one side of the net to the other. For instance, if Mycroft hadn’t been released by the police then we would have found legal advice for him, paid for by a well-known benefactor. We would have dropped clues – clues that would lead the police to evidence that would help to clear Mycroft’s name, although not too easily. We were surprised when you and the big American got involved, but it saved us some trouble.’ He shrugged. Although we had to try and get both of you out of the way at the museum, and then adjust our travel plans when it was clear that Mycroft wouldn’t travel without you. If Mycroft hadn’t taken the bait and headed to Moscow then we would have raised the stakes. Perhaps I would have sent him a personal message begging for help. One way or another – and many ways were planned – Mycroft would have come to
