The Star of India (11 page)

I
awoke to the smell of coffee. I could tell by the height of the pale autumn sun that it was late. Thinking Holmes had no doubt been up for hours, I went downstairs, only to see the table set and Mrs. Hudson pouring coffee.

“Mrs. Hudson! I thought you were in Cornwall for another week.”

“I decided to cut my holiday short. Mr. Holmes needs me more than my sister does right now,” she said gruffly, though I knew the affection underlying her words.

“I can’t argue with that,” I said, sitting at the table. “Where is he, by the way?”

“He’s gone out,” she replied, pouring me a cup of coffee. “Now, how do you want your eggs?”

“I’m not very hungry,” I said moodily.

“Now, Dr. Watson, there’s no need to punish me or yourself for your mistake,” Mrs. Hudson said sternly.

“Holmes told you, did he?” I said, still feeling sulky.

“Yes, he did, and it could have happened to anyone. Now, how do
you want your eggs?”

I suddenly had to laugh. “It’s good to have you back, Mrs. Hudson.”

“I don’t see what’s so funny about it,” she said, and trundled off to the kitchen.

After breakfast I rummaged around the room, looking for something which might tell me where Holmes had gone. Sitting on the couch was a copy of that morning’s
Telegraph,
opened to the classified. I scanned it eagerly for another entry from the ubiquitous Mr. Fermat, and I was soon rewarded. “From Mr. Fermat to Mr. Shomel,” it read. “My knight has gained ground but I have left my rook unprotected.”

I put down the paper and pondered these words. I could make neither head nor tail of it, though I have no doubt the meaning was clear to Holmes and Moriarty. As I was trying to unravel the meaning, Mrs. Hudson entered the room.

“Inspector Lestrade to see you, sir. Shall I show him in?”

“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Hudson.”

Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard was a slight man who wore his vanity uneasily, like an ill-fitting suit. The impression was of a man who wasn’t sure whether or not he really believed his own presentation of himself. He was given to huffiness, easily insulted, and more than a little pompous. Like so many people, he was intimidated by Sherlock Holmes’ superior intelligence, and resented the fact that he had so often needed the great detective’s help in solving his cases. Nonetheless, there was something touching about the man, a certain childlike innocence in his ferret-like face.

He entered the room and when he saw I was alone his face expressed disappointment mingled with unmistakable relief.

“So Mr. Holmes isn’t here?” he said.

“No, I’m afraid not. Can I help you, Inspector?”

Lestrade sat wearily on the couch.

“I’ll just wait here for Mr. Holmes, if that’s all right with you. What time do you expect him back?”

“I really can’t say. I don’t even know where he went.”

Lestrade sighed and twisted his hat in his hands.

“It’s a bloody nuisance,” he muttered, and I didn’t know if he meant Holmes’ absence or the matter Lestrade had come to see him about. There was a pause and then he said, “I got a message from Mr. Holmes last night regarding the death of that poor deformed chap he knew—”

“Oh, yes, Wiggins.”

“Nasty piece of business, that... looks like he was strangled. How was it Mr. Holmes knew about it?”

I wasn’t sure what Holmes had told Lestrade, so I deflected his question.

“Oh, you know Holmes—there’s very little that goes on in London that he doesn’t know about.”

I said nothing about his theory regarding the return of Professor Moriarty, feeling that the divulgence of such information was best left to Holmes himself. Right now I wasn’t even sure I believed it myself. In the light of day—even a gray London day—it seemed only a remote possibility.

Lestrade picked up the Persian slipper which held Holmes’ tobacco, looked at it, put it back down on the table, and sighed deeply.

“Would you like something to drink?” I said.

He looked at me hopefully. “Thanks all the same, but it’s a little early for that, don’t you think?”

“I meant tea or something.”

His face fell. “Oh, right; of course—tea would be very nice, thank you,” he said unconvincingly.

“I’ll just see to it with Mrs. Hudson,” I said, and left him to his own
devices for a few minutes while I consulted with Mrs. Hudson. She was in her kitchen, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, pounding away at some pastry dough, flour flying in all directions.

“Yes, yes—I’ll get to it right away,” she said when I made my request for tea. I was suddenly so happy to see her safe and sound at Baker Street once again that I had an impulse to kiss her on the cheek. When I did, she looked at me with a startled expression. “
Really,
Dr. Watson,” she said, flustered, but I could tell she was pleased.

When I returned to the sitting room Lestrade was pacing the floor restlessly. “This came for you while you were downstairs,” he said, handing me an elegant, cream-colored envelope. It was addressed to Holmes and bore the letterhead of the Diogenes Club.

“Isn’t that the name of his brother’s club?” said Lestrade. “You know, that place for strange fellows who go there to avoid talking to one another?”

“Yes, it is,” I answered, tucking the envelope into my jacket pocket.

“Right; I thought so. It’s a bit odd, a place like that, if you ask me... but then the more you work at a job like mine the more everything begins to look odd after a while. What’s his brother’s name again?”

“Mycroft.”

“Right. What’s he up to these days?”

“Well, I don’t know. Holmes says he is a creature of habit. He rarely speaks of his brother.”

“Strange, that, with both of them living here in London, don’t you think?” Lestrade gave a dry little laugh. “But I suppose Mr. Holmes isn’t exactly what you’d call a family man, eh?”

“No, I suppose not.”

Mrs. Hudson entered with the tea, and Lestrade tucked into the plate of Scottish shortbread with gusto.

“Not bad, these,” he said, his mouth full of crumbs. “I believe Mr.
Holmes once told me his brother was involved in the government in some way.”

To say that Mycroft Holmes was “involved in the government” was like saying that the ocean was “involved in water.” Sherlock Holmes— not a man given to overstatement—had once told me that Mycroft
was
the government. According to Holmes, his brother’s capacious mind consolidated and coordinated policies of all the various departments, and that very little happened at a national level without the input of Mycroft Holmes. He was like a giant reasoning machine sitting at the very center of government, which turned slowly round him like a wheel on its axis.

Lestrade and I made our way to the bottom of the teapot and through a second plate of shortbread. Finally Lestrade stood up and brushed the crumbs from his trousers.

“Well, Dr. Watson, I’d best be going now. Tell Mr. Holmes, if you would, that I came by. I’m afraid I don’t have much news about the case. My boys are out trying to find that Stockton fellow that Mr. Holmes says is involved, but it’s as though he’s disappeared into thin air. Also, we brought that parrot over to the Yard. Mr. Holmes seems to think there’s something to what the bird says, though to me it sounds just like idle chattering.” He took another gulp of tea, set his cup down, and put on his coat wearily.

“Well, thank you for the tea, Dr. Watson, and I’d appreciate it if you’d ask Mr. Holmes to contact me if he has any more information.”

“I will, Inspector.”

Lestrade had not been gone long when the door burst open and Holmes entered. His face was cut and bleeding, and he was holding his left arm.

“Holmes!” I said, rising from my chair.

“Steady on, Watson; I’m all right,” he said, though he didn’t look it.

“What happened, Holmes?”

He walked somewhat unsteadily to the fireplace and sank down in his usual chair.

“I managed to play the part of the hound but I got a bit stuck in the role of the fox at the end. No matter, though—I found out what I needed to know.”

“Where have you been?”

Instead of answering, Holmes glanced at the copy of the
Telegraph
which still lay open upon the table.

“Ah, I see you have been doing a bit of sleuthing on your own, Watson—”

“Never mind about me; what happened to you?”

“Well, since you evidently have read the entry from Mr. Fermat, I should think you might deduce, Watson.”

“Holmes, this is no time for games,” I said, fetching my medical kit from the corner. “Would you
please
just tell me—”

“Very well,” Holmes said a bit huffily, “if you insist. I supposed that whatever Moriarty had in mind, he was luring me into a trap of some sort; the trick was in sensing it ahead of time and acting accordingly.”

“You could have at least taken me with you,” I said, hurt at being excluded.

“There was no time,” Holmes replied. “That can wait, Watson,” he said in response to my attempt to clean his wounds.

“No, it
can’t
wait; I will do it now,” I said with unaccustomed force, whereupon Holmes shrugged and submitted to my ministrations. “Whatever it was he had planned, it evidently worked to some degree,” I said as I applied iodine to the cuts and bruises on Holmes’ face.

“Moriarty’s fatal flaw is his vanity, Watson, his intellectual arrogance. He could have misled me entirely, but he could not resist putting the solution just within my grasp, for the sport of it.” Holmes lifted the newspaper from the table. “You see, in deciphering this message, there
were many potential meanings, for a rook is both a castle and a type of bird.”

“Yes, so it is.”

“However, it is also slang for a swindler, or one who cheats at gambling. I happen to know that one of Moriarty’s agents—George Simpson, remember? In all likelihood, it was he who kidnapped Mrs. Hudson—”

“Yes, I remember. Hold still, please.”

“Well, this Simpson is an inveterate gambler. In fact, it is his constantly accruing gambling debts which keep him in thrall to Moriarty. In any event, I know that Moriarty does not like to keep anyone in his confidence, but that Simpson comes as close as anybody to being his right-hand man, so to speak. Therefore, I concluded that Simpson is the rook referred to in the cryptic message. So I decided to pay a visit to Mr. Simpson at his favorite gaming establishment.” Holmes winced as the iodine stung his abrasions. “They often gamble through the night, and I arrived just as the game was breaking up.”

“And what did you hope to find there?”

“Exactly what I did find, Watson: Moriarty’s next move.”

“And what is that?”

“Well, I persuaded Mr. Simpson through the rather crude use of fisticuffs to reveal a key bit of information: The theft of the jewel is part of a larger blackmail plan—”

“Oh, that reminds me: Inspector Lestrade was here earlier.”

“Oh, yes; I tipped him off about Stockton being behind Wiggins’ murder.”

“Oh, and this came for you,” I said a little sheepishly, suddenly remembering the note from the Diogenes Club. I took it from my jacket and handed it to Holmes, who opened it eagerly and read it.

“So,” he said after a moment, “they have come to Mycroft for help. Things must be dire indeed, because now Mycroft has come to me.”
Holmes folded the note and put it in his pocket.

“By the way, did you tell Lestrade of Moriarty’s reappearance?”

“No, I thought I would leave that to you. To be honest, I doubted whether he would believe me.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Holmes. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? His resurrection, as it were, is almost biblical. Instead of Christ who’s risen this time, though, it’s Satan who has risen after the Fall. Do you know your Milton, Watson?”

“It’s a bit rusty, perhaps, but I did read him in school,” I said.

“‘The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.’

“Moriarty lives in his own private hell, Watson, and he has spent his life trying to bring others into it with him, because one can get lonely in hell.”

I thought this was rather uncharacteristically philosophical of Holmes, and I said so. He shrugged.

“Perhaps so. But I have had many years to think about this, Watson, and I hope you will indulge me in a little philosophizing.”

“Certainly, Holmes; certainly.”

He rose somewhat stiffly from his chair.

“I think a bit of late lunch at the Cafe Royal is in order, and then we will pay a visit on my brother.”

M
ycroft Holmes was such a creature of habit that you could set your watch by him. His routine was sacred, and it never varied: He spent the day at his office in Whitehall and then at exactly 4:45 he made his way to the Diogenes Club, where he was to be found until 7:40. The club is just opposite his rooms on Pall Mall, and it was to this august establishment that Holmes and I made our way after fortifying ourselves with the grilled lamb at the Cafe Royal. Holmes ate as though he hadn’t eaten all day, which I have no doubt was the case.

It was exactly 5:57 when we entered the Diogenes Club, that extraordinary establishment where London’s most antisocial men gather to indulge in their mutual need for seclusion. It had been some time since I had been to the Diogenes, and yet, as soon as Holmes and I entered the front hall, I remembered our first visit there some years ago. Nothing had changed. There was the same tomblike silence in the front hallway, the same elegant glass paneling through which I could see the large and comfortable reading room. I even fancied that the very same men were sitting in leather armchairs reading their papers. I followed
Holmes into a small antechamber looking out over Pall Mall. The room smelled of ancient leather and books.