There was a moment’s silence, when the air crackled with intensity between the two men, and then they exchanged knowing smiles.
“This Watson business intrigues me,” said Mycroft Holmes some moments later, when they had lit their cigars. “I have until now kept out of your dealings with Sherlock, but I do think it is time I introduced myself to his friend Watson. I’m sure you’d welcome my views on him and this marriage business.”
“Well, I don’t suppose it would do any harm,” observed Moriarty, non-committally. “I know that I can rely on your discretion.”
“Implicitly. Now, as it happens I have a little business I can put Sherlock’s way. A fellow called Melas, a Greek interpreter, who lodges on the floor above me, has become involved in some intrigue and came to me for help. I think I see the matter clearly, but playing detectives is not a game in which I’m interested. I could throw this morsel Sherlock’s way and thus create an opportunity to meet Watson.”
Moriarty chuckled. “Oh, my dear Mycroft, you had it all worked out before you arrived this evening: a fait accompli.”
Mycroft returned the chuckle. “Touché, Professor. Now you are reading my mind.”
FROM THE JOURNAL OF JOHN H. WATSON
After a virtually sleepless night, I came down to breakfast the following morning somewhat bleary-eyed. There was no sign from the friendly demeanour of Sherlock Holmes that we had exchanged heated words the night before. He had an enviable facility for isolating moods and arguments, invoking a kind of emotional amnesia that forbade him the need to dwell on past upsets and allowed him to get on with his life.
“I heard you stirring, so I’ve sent down to Mrs Hudson for your breakfast. It should be here in a trice.”
“Thank you,” I said, and sat opposite Holmes at the breakfast table, most of which was covered with the pages of various newspapers. From this mess, he extracted a note and waved it aloft. “We have a case, unless I’m very much mistaken,” he declared.
“Oh?”
“This is a note from my brother, asking—”
“Your brother?” I cried, shaking my tired head. “Did you say your brother?”
“I did.”
“You never told me that you had a brother.”
“The occasion never arose. His name is Mycroft, and he is my senior by seven years. We rarely see each other, except when business brings us together. He helped me with funds when I first came to London.”
“But what does he do?”
“Ah, well, all that is a bit vague. He has an extraordinary faculty for figures, and officially he audits the books in various government departments, but I believe his responsibilities go somewhat further than that. I well believe he has the ear of the Prime Minister when certain situations arise.”
“Why have I never heard of him?”
“The powers behind the Government are never well known, Watson. Don’t be naïve. However, he is well known in his own circle. At the Diogenes Club, for example.”
At this point, our conversation was interrupted by a discreet knock at our door and the entrance of our landlady, bearing my breakfast and a fresh pot of coffee.
“There you are, Doctor,” she said, placing the dish before me, “and make sure you eat it all up. You’re looking decidedly peaky this morning,”
“The Diogenes Club?” I remarked, after Mrs Hudson had left us. “What on earth’s that?”
Holmes laughed. “It is the queerest club in London, and Mycroft one of the queerest men. When he’s not working in some government building somewhere, he can be found in the club.”
“But what sort of club is it?”
“There are many men in London who, some through shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellow man. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of these individuals that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubbable men in town. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other. Save in the Strangers’ Room, no talking is allowed under any circumstances. My brother was one of the founding members.”
“And for what reason does he frequent the club? Shyness, or misanthropy?”
“We talked last night of my wariness regarding emotions and forming any kind of attachments. Apart from yourself, I have no other friends. Mycroft shares this belief to a much greater degree than I. He was born to be solitary. He alone satisfies his own needs for company and stimulation.”
“Pardon me for saying so, but he sounds most odd.”
Holmes laughed. “Not at all. He is not really odd. You will find him the most amiable fellow when you meet him.”
“I am to meet him?”
“This morning at eleven. He has a case for us, and he specifically asked me to bring you along.”
“Really?”
“See for yourself.” He threw the note to my side of the table, where it narrowly missed landing on my fried egg and bacon.
The notepaper was headed: The Diogenes Club, Pall Mall. The note, written in neat copperplate, read simply:
Sherlock,
Call around at eleven today. I will see you in the Strangers’ Room. Bring your associate Watson with you. There is a matter which may interest you.
Mycroft.
It was just striking the hour of eleven when Holmes and I entered the Diogenes Club. Holmes cautioned me not to utter a word as he led me into the hall. Through the glass panelling I caught a glimpse of a large and luxurious room in which a considerable number of men were sitting about in cavernous chairs, reading newspapers. Holmes showed me into a small chamber which looked out on to Pall Mall, and then, leaving me for a while, returned with a companion whom I surmised must be his brother.
Mycroft Holmes was a much larger and stouter man than Sherlock. In fact, his body was absolutely corpulent, and he moved with the elegant slowness that fat people are forced to adopt because of their weight. However, there was something about his concentrated expression that was remarkably similar to that of his brother. Mycroft’s eyes, bright behind a pair of pince-nez, seemed to retain that faraway, introspective look which I had only observed in my companion when he was exerting his full powers.
“I am glad to meet you, sir,” said he, extending a broad flat hand, like the flipper of a seal. “I gather you accompany my brother on his investigations.”
I nodded. “It is a pleasure to meet you also.”
“Now that the pleasantries are over, let us get down to business. You have a case for me, Mycroft,” remarked Holmes, in a cold brusque manner.
Mycroft glanced across at me and smiled. He took snuff from a tortoiseshell snuffbox and inhaled it noisily. “Not a man to stand on ceremony, my brother, Doctor Watson. A case, Sherlock? Well, I suppose we might call it a case. Certainly, it is a singular matter.”
It was entertaining to me to see how this giant of a man treated his brother with a kind of light-hearted tolerance, as though he were a hungry schoolboy anxious for his tea. I saw that in Mycroft I had another colourful character to add to my Baker Street world, which was forming very nicely, ready to be fictionalised.
“Well?” said Holmes, slapping down his gloves impatiently on the table. “Let me hear the facts.”
In reply, Mycroft scribbled a note upon a leaf of his pocketbook and, ringing the bell, he handed it to the waiter.
“I have asked Mr Melas to step across,” said he. “He lodges on the floor above me, and I have some slight acquaintance with him, which led him to come to me in his perplexity.”
In the end, the affair was a slight one and required little detective work on behalf of my friend. Indeed, it was rather a clumsy matter, which I may very well delete from any collection of Holmes cases that I create. As it turned out, the main culprits escaped the grasp of both Holmes and the law.