However, as Gunderson had intimated, there was no record of a man named Thomas Brothers entering the country-or purchasing a house, or buying a motor-car. Mycroft had set into motion a close search through the records, looking at any middle-aged male who had come into Britain during the two months before Gunderson was hired, but that would take many days.
“I also,” Mycroft told me, “took a look at our file for Aleister Crowley. Not, as you have said, that Crowley is directly related to this case, but I hoped it might suggest other avenues of investigation.
“There are certain points of similarity to Testimony, but I imagine those would exist between any two belief systems built around individuals who think themselves gods. One thing did come to my attention: Crowley was in Shanghai for a brief time, in 1906. He tells a story concerning a delay there that kept him from arriving in San Francisco, in April of that year.”
I looked up, startled. “The earthquake and fire?”
“He claimed that but for the Shanghai delay, he would have been there at the time.”
“You're suggesting that when Testimony says the narrator ‘preserved the mortal life of the Guide from flames and the turmoil of an angry earth,’ he is talking about Crowley and San Francisco?”
“It is one possibility. The other item of interest concerns the man's claim of a simultaneous meteor and comet. My informant at the Royal Astronomical Society suggests that, if we are looking for the birth date of a middle-aged man, the closest one may come is August and September of 1882. The Perseids were over by the time the Great September Comet was noticed on the first of September, but it reached its maximum brightness so quickly, it requires no great stretch of the imagination to claim that it was in the sky earlier.”
“So we could be looking for an Englishman of forty-two, who was in Shanghai in 1906. Perhaps you could-”
“-ask my colleagues in Shanghai to factor that description into their search.”
I was on the edge of asking when we might expect to hear from them, but bit back the question: Mycroft would be as attentive as I to the problem.
“One thing more,” he said. “Damian's finger-prints are not on the biscuit packet.”
“You had them? To compare?”
“Enough of them. If he touched it, he wiped it thoroughly before it was handled by at least three others. I am having the workers at Fortnum and Mason volunteer their prints, for comparison. One of the hands was small; I suggest it will match Yolanda's when we receive those prints. I will also see if I can get the prints from the walled house, for comparison.”
“Not Damian's,” I said. “Thank God for small blessings.”
I hugged to me that minor confirmation of innocence as I went to bed that night, and it helped me to sleep.
32
Magic (2): What does this mean, to summon, free, and
take into one's self? When a word is spoken, writ, burnt,
and stirred into water, this is simple Power, a child's
magic. But it contains a grain of the Truth.
Testimony, III:5
FRIDAY OPENED WITH A TELEPHONE CALL FROM Lestrade. Mycroft answered the ring at a quarter to seven in the morning, and I knew instantly who it was when his eyes sought mine. I went back to his study, and eased up the earpiece of the second instrument.
“-not believe that you have no idea where your brother and his wife are, Mr Holmes.”
“Chief Inspector, I am shocked that you would accuse me of lying to you.”
“I'll just bet you are. I want to know what Miss Russell was doing rolling a villain like Gunderson up in a carpet, and then running off before we got there. I want to know what connexion your brother has with Yolanda Adler. And I'd really like to ask how he knew we'd find grains of Veronal in Yolanda Adler's stomach?”
“Did you?”
“We did. Along with some nut pâté and biscuits washed down by wine.”
“Clever you. Have you had any luck in finding the men who left the house before Gunderson?”
“They abandoned their car in-wait a minute, how do you know about them if your brother isn't there telling you?”
“I have not seen my brother since Tuesday, Chief Inspector. I merely speak from what is already general knowledge.”
“I don't think so. Maybe I ought to bring you in for questioning.”
“Do you seriously think you have the authority to do that, Chief Inspector?” Mycroft sounded more amused than threatened.
Lestrade was silent, no doubt reflecting on the possibility of asserting any kind of authority over Mycroft Holmes. However, it is not always a good idea to point out a man's limitations.
“I may not. But I'm putting out a warrant for the arrest of your brother and his wife. They're concealing vital information, and I won't have it.”
He banged down the phone. When I went back into Mycroft's sitting room, he was looking at the telephone, abashed.
“A new experience for me,” I remarked, “being wanted by the police.”
“I'm sorry, Mary. I should have known that remark would tip him into spite.”
“I'm not sure it will make a lot of difference; he was looking for us already.”
“If Sherlock is arrested on his way home, I shall have some explaining to do.”
“Holmes will manage.”
“If he does not manage to evade them, I shall have the dogs of the press on my door-step.”
My first stop that morning was at the Save the Soul Prison Reform group, to look at their list of would-be reformed criminals. The police had not been there yet, which made my job easier, even as it convinced me that they were interested only in Damian Adler. The group's director was a thin, pale man with trembling hands and a wide clerical collar; I gave him a description of the black-haired man with the scar.
“Oh yes,” he fluttered. “Reverend Smythe, I remember him well, he was so eager to help, made a most generous contribution, and met with a number of our former prisoners with an eye to employing one of them.”
“And did he?”
“I believe so. Yes, I recall, it was Gunderson. Not the first time we've seen that poor man through here,” he confided sadly, then brightened. “But then I haven't seen him since then, so perhaps he has found his way at last into the light of reason, pray God.”
I didn't have the heart to tell him.
Nor did I let him know that there was no record of a Reverend Smythe on the books of any British church body.
Friday afternoon, a positive storm of information battered the door of Mycroft's flat.
Albert Seaforth, subject of Holmes' telegram, turned out to be an unemployed schoolteacher from York, fired in late May when one of his students told her parents that her Latin teacher had made advances. He had been found the previous Thursday morning, sitting upright against a standing stone, looking out over a desolate portion of the Yorkshire moors. His wrists had been slit; the knife was still in his hand.
“When did he die?” I asked Mycroft, who rang me from his office with the information.
“Approximately a day before.”
“He'd been there for a day and no-one noticed?”
“The only neighbours are sheep.”
I looked at the notes I had made while on the telephone: Seaforth. Fired 19 May. Knife in hand. If this man was another victim, it confirmed a pattern of marginally employed individuals.