The Game

eyebrow on me.

We hadn’t done this particular exercise in a long time, but I had sufficient experience with Holmes’ ways to know what his action signified.

“You wish me to play Kim’s game?” I asked.

“The boy himself called it the ‘Jewel Game,’ but yes.”

It was a test of one’s perception, first of seeing, then of committing to memory. I was tired, and I couldn’t see what this had to do with my question, but obediently I began to recite.

“Three mismatched collar studs; a nubbin of India rubber; two paper-clips, one of them Italian; the cigar- band from Mycroft’s cigar; a gold pen nib; the button that came off your shirt two weeks ago that you couldn’t find, so that Mrs Hudson replaced all the shirt’s buttons at a go; the stub end of a boot-lace; a seed-head from last summer’s nigella; a penny, a halfpenny, and a farthing; two pebbles, one black and the other white; a tooth from a comb; and one inch of pencil.”

He smiled then, and headed back into the bedroom. “You and O’Hara will find you have much in common, I think.” When I protested that he hadn’t answered me, he put up his hand. “We shall have many days of leisure in which to recount fond tales of derring-do, Russell. But not tonight—we have much to do before we catch that train. And, Russ?” I looked up to find him outlined in the doorway, a pair of patent-leather shoes in his hand, his face as grim as his voice. “Make certain to pack adequate ammunition for your revolver.”

Chapter Two

We rose from our brief rest to a world of white, and the news that the trains to London were badly delayed. Nonetheless, we had my farm manager Patrick put the horses into harness and take us to the Eastbourne station, where we found that indeed, the London trains were not expected to reach Victoria until late in the afternoon. I glanced at my hastily packed bags and tried not to look too cheerful.

“That does it, Holmes. We shall have to wait until next week.”

“Nonsense. Off you go, Patrick, before you end up in a drift over your head.”

I shrugged at my old friend, who touched the brim of his cloth cap and picked up the reins. Holmes had already turned to the station master, a lugubrious individual long acquainted with this particular passenger’s idiosyncrasies, and, I thought, secretly entertained by them. Very secretly. “Are the telephone lines still up?”

“Not to London, Mr Holmes.”

“What about the telegraph?”

“Oh, aye, we’re sure to get a message through by some route or another.”

The two went off, heads together. I looked at the trunks, gathering snowdrifts to themselves, and took myself inside out of the cold.

A couple of hours later something intruded upon my attention: a pair of shoes gleaming at me over the top of the book I’d snatched from Holmes’ shelves on the way out the door. I blinked and straightened my bent spine to look up into my husband’s face. His grey eyes were dancing with amusement.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Russell, I am constantly filled with admiration at your ability to immerse yourself in the task at hand.”

I closed The Riches of Mohenjo-Daro and rose, in some confusion, only noticing when I was upright that the trunks had been brought in and arranged at my side, long enough ago that the snow had not only melted but dried as well. What was more, a tea tray someone had set by my other side bore a half- empty cup and a half-eaten biscuit. I could taste the biscuit in my mouth, but I had no recollection whatsoever of having consumed either.

“Glad I amuse you, Holmes. What have you arranged? An aeroplane journey to Marseilles? A sub-marine boat to run us to Port Said?”

“Nothing so exotic. The delay is due less to the quantity of snow than it is to something on the tracks the other side of Lewes. All other trains, though slow, are still getting through. Mycroft has arranged for the Express to wait for us in Kent.”

I looked at him with astonishment. “I should have thought a sub-marine boat easier to arrange than the delay of a train.”

“The Empire is but a plaything to the whims of Mycroft Holmes,” he commented, glancing around for a porter.

“The Empire, yes, but the Calais Express?”

“So it would appear, even with the Labour Party bearing down on the horizon.”

Not that the catching of it was a simple thing. It meant boarding an east-bound train, one of those locals that pauses at every cattle shed and churchyard, and which cowers in a siding every few miles that an express may thunder past in majesty. Not that anything much was thundering that day; I began to suspect that even Mycroft’s best-laid plans might leave us stranded in the middle of Kent.

Still, I had a book.

Either through mechanical problems or through some deep-seated class resentment of the driver (he’d probably cast his ballot for the incoming Socialists), our train stopped well short of the assigned station. This expression of class solidarity (if that is what it was) became somewhat derailed itself when Holmes summoned many strong men to haul our possessions over the slippery ground, to the puzzlement of the local’s passengers and the huge indignation of those on the Express. Class warfare at its most basic. Holmes did, however, tip the men handsomely.

The instant we had spilled into the waiting train it shuddered and loosed its bonds to steam furiously off for Dover. I understand that mention was even made in the next day’s Times of a puzzling stop in the wilds of Kent for a hasty on-load of essential governmental equipment. Mycroft’s decrees were powerful indeed.

The entire trip to Marseilles carried on as it had begun, rushed and uncomfortable. And dreary—it was on that train that we read of the death of the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould, an old friend of Holmes’ whose problems on Dartmoor had occupied our early autumn. Then the Channel crossing was rough, so rough that I spent the entire time braving the sleet-slick deck rather than succumb to sea-sickness, reaching Calais with nose, hands, and toes not far from frost-bite. Paris was flooded, its higher ground packed with refugees and their bags, the train crowded and all the first-class sleepers occupied by fleeing residents. We spent Friday with an aged Italian priest and his even more aged and garrulous sister, both of whom exuded clouds of garlic. The rain and snow persisted, slowing the journey so much that I began to doubt that we would actually arrive before the steamer had departed, but in the end, the boat, too, was held (for the train as a whole, not merely for the two of us), and when we reached the docks, our possessions were hastily labelled and carried on, divided between cabin and hold. We scurried up the ice-slick gangway in the company of a handful of other train passengers, slipping almost apologetically onboard the sleeping boat, witnessed only by P. & O. officials and, I thought, one or two other sets of eyes in the higher decks, their presence felt but unseen in the darkness.

Once in our cabin (this, at any rate, had no priest in residence) I crept into bed, praying that exhaustion would take my body into sleep before the pitch and toss of the boat asserted itself. To my relief, such was the case: The steam-roller of the past fifty-four hours rumbled over my recumbent body, and my last memory was of Holmes wrestling open the small port-hole, letting in a wash of frigid air scented with salt, and nary a hint of garlic.

I woke a long time later to a more subdued sea, a pallid attempt at sunshine, and the ting of a spoon against china. When I reached for the bed-side clock, my hand knocked against the water carafe; after a moment Holmes came through the doorway with a cup of tea in each hand. He set one on the table, and sat down on the other bed with his own. It was, I saw, nearly noon.

The tea had the bitter edge of a pot that has sat for a while, but it was still hot, which told me that Holmes, too, had slept late, and was only on his second cup. I slurped in appreciation, grateful that the bed wasn’t tossing beneath me. When the cup was empty, I threaded my glasses over my ears so I could see my partner.

“I suppose I shall be spending the next two weeks being force-fed some language or other?” I asked.

“Hindustani is the common tongue of the north, used by all traders. You won’t find it difficult.”

“Before we begin, I want to know more about this O’Hara person.”

“Not a ‘person,’ a young gentleman, despite his history and lineage. A sahib.”

“But he was only a lad when you knew him.”