singing my fate to the ears of a sniper; the helmeted constable on the corner may as well be a “hard man” with a very different view of London from my own.
Brave new world, that has such creatures in it.
In this strange London, I found that I looked forward to seeing Robert Goodman again, a small and cheerful man in whose blood moved the ancient forests of Britain, who rescued three fallen mortals from the hubris of a flaming sky-machine, who took joy in simple, silly things and looked on modernity as a jest, who overcame vicious armed men with the prank of a taut tree branch.
I spotted him sitting cross-legged on the lawn, grass-stains on his cousin-in-law’s knees, coat shed, shirt- sleeves rolled up, playing mumblety-peg with four young girls while their mothers looked on with a peculiar mixture of fondness and dubiety. They were as disappointed as their daughters when I made him fold away his lethally sharp pocket-knife and come away with me.
I was not certain that Goodman’s woods-awareness translated into city streets, but leaving the park, I was wary enough for the both of us, glancing in the reflections of polished windows, stepping into various shops to study autumn fashion or newly published titles while looking out of the windows at passers-by-and even more carefully, at those who did not pass by. I saw three uniformed constables and two private guards in mufti, but try as I might, I could see in the area surrounding Mycroft’s flat no police presence, and no “hard men.”
When we had been in the vicinity for twenty minutes, I stepped into a passage called Angel Court. Three steps to a doorway, and we were gone.
“Stand still,” I whispered into the damp and echoing darkness, feeling along the wall for the box of matches. My fingers found them; light flared, then settled onto the candle in its glass-shielded holder. I lifted it high to light our path through the narrow labyrinth to Mycroft’s flat.
At the far end, I set the candle on its ledge and took up the key from its invisible resting place, sliding the cover from the peep-hole that showed Mycroft’s windowless study. The low light he kept constantly burning showed enough to be certain the room contained no intruders.
I slid the key into its concealed hole and breathed to Goodman, “There’s no one in the room directly inside, but I can’t speak for the rest of the flat.”
“I will go first.”
“No,” I said.
“If they take me, what does it matter? If they take you, others will suffer.”
He meant that Estelle would suffer. I said, “Very well, but don’t turn on any lights.” I turned the key and put my shoulder to the wall. The bookshelf moved, and I stood back to permit him entry. Once inside, he pushed the hidden door nearly shut. Through the crack I watched him walk on silent feet across the carpet and out of the room.
My mind began to count the seconds as I waited, one hand on the door to pull and the other set to turn the key.
And waited.
He made a thorough job of it, and had time to look under beds and inside wardrobes before he reappeared, chewing an apple. I breathed again-disappointed that Holmes was not there, but relieved no one else was. I pushed the door fully open and stepped into the familiar book-lined room.
“What are we looking for?” He was curiously examining the shelves, which were as idiosyncratic as those of Holmes-although where the younger brother’s shelves were devoted to crime and art, Mycroft’s concentrated on crime and politics.
“Mycroft tends to keep his business to himself,” I said. “I know where his office is, more or less, and I’ve met his secretary, but I don’t even know the name of his colleagues. A desk diary or address book would be nice. What I’m hoping for is a hidden safe. Which, being Mycroft, may well be concealed behind a less-hidden safe.”
Goodman flashed me his young-boy’s grin and clasped his hands behind his back, turning to a contemplation of the walls.
Most men conceal personal valuables in a bedroom, professional treasures in a study. Mycroft would only choose those sites if he had decided on a double blind, but trying to outguess Mycroft would set one on the road to madness: One might as well flip a coin.
I knew this study, the guest room, and the sitting room reasonably well, and thought that over the years, I might well have caught some indication of a hidden safe in one of those rooms. Instead, I would begin with Mycroft’s bedroom.
But not before ensuring our security. I walked through the flat to the dining room, intending to jam one of the chairs under the front door-knob, and there saw an envelope with my name on it, propped against the fruit-bowl in the centre of the table. Battling an urge to look around me for a trap, I picked up the envelope and tore it open:
My first reaction was less reassurance than a feeling that I had just seen a predator’s spoor: I made haste to take a chair to the front door and work it into place. But with pursuers thus slowed, I read the words again, more slowly. Lestrade had proven himself generally competent and thoroughly tenacious, but he had never evinced the cold cunning needed to lay a trap under these circumstances.
It was the underlining of the words that pushed me towards accepting it at face value: Three words, using a considerable pressure on the pen, suggested a degree of urgency, even desperation.
I read it a third time, then folded it away and returned to my search.
In his bedroom, I was unprepared for the powerful sense of Mycroft’s presence that washed over me. For a moment, my large, complicated, terrifyingly intelligent brother-in-law moved at the edge of my vision.
Then memory crashed in, and I found myself on the chair in the corner, blinking furiously, swallowing hard against the lump in my throat.
Mycroft Holmes was not a loveable man, but to know him-to truly know him, every unbending, impatient, haughty, and self-centred inch of the man-was to respect him, and eventually, reluctantly, to love him. I loved him. The thought of him dead in an alley filled me with rage. I wanted to find the man who had done that and rip into him, for making the world a less secure, less blessedly interesting place. But first I wanted to sit and weep.
This was an age of the death of gods.
I stood and brusquely wiped my face. I had no time for the distraction of tears. I forced myself to open drawers and search the backs of shelves, to pull up carpets and quietly shift furniture. I examined the underpinnings of his remarkably stout bed, pawed through the unwashed laundry in his basket, and lifted the lid of his toilet’s cistern. I emptied his bathroom wall-cupboard of medicines and felt the boards, knelt by the bathtub and felt the tiles, stood on a chair and felt the light fixtures.
Then I did the same in the guest room.
In the study, I found Goodman sitting in a chair in the centre of the room, looking at one of the walls. He might have been in a gallery studying an Old Master:
“I had a thought,” I said, and took the work-lamp from the desk, transferring it to the plug nearest the bookshelf entrance and carrying it into the dim passageway. I held it up so its beam fell onto the bricks, new on one side, ancient on the other, searching for any anomaly. A moment later, Goodman’s hand came into view and he took the lamp from me, holding it so I could continue my search unencumbered.
Twenty minutes later I had reached the edge of the light’s beam, having found nothing but walls.
I returned the lamp to its place. “Well, it was just a thought.”
“There’s something odd about this shelf,” Goodman said.
I looked at him in surprise. “Very good. Not many people would notice.”
Mycroft had contrived a hidden recess the size of one of the shelf spaces. Now I unloaded the books and felt around for the slightly protruding nail head towards the back, which freed the back to drop forward into my hands.
