(Something I had read, days ago, teased at the back of my mind. That heap of papers in Sussex, it must have been, month after month of news items that blurred into one another. A murder here, a drugs raid there, given equal weight with a photograph of a hunt breakfast and a June excursion to the seaside… I firmly withdraw my mind from the direct approach.)
Also today, we should have to find the owner of that trim terrace house a short walk from three train stations. Whether Brothers owned it or let it, there would be paperwork-which could be why he had taken such care to keep Gunderson from knowing about it.
(An excursion to the seaside. But, not the seaside…)
Should I ask Holmes to review with Mycroft the crimes of the full moons? Perhaps the two brothers together would see a pattern I had missed.
(She died on a full moon, and I'd been reading the newspapers that week and come across something…)
My days in Sussex had, actually, been a lovely holiday, four entire days of solitude and bees, brought together, now that I thought of it, in Holmes' book. A man who retired at a remarkably early age from the busy hive of humanity that was London, resigning himself to the conviction that the person he called “The Woman” was lost to him, that his life was-for all he knew-sterile. He had disappeared, freeing me to enjoy the peace and the book and the skies-first the meteors, then that remarkable eclipse of the moon. What a pity he had been in the city, where the skies were no doubt too light-
(An advert! For a Thomas Cook tour, to the eclipse-but not to the lunar eclipse; why run a tour to something visible from one's back garden? That meant-)
I threw off the rug and padded down the hallway to Mycroft's study, impatiently running my grit-filled eyes across the shelves until I spotted his 1924 almanac.
I found the page, read it, and looked up to see Holmes in the doorway, summoned by my footsteps, or by my brain's turmoil.
“What have you found?”
“It may be nothing.”
“Tell me,” he demanded.
“Thomas Cook was advertising an expedition to Scandinavia-well, that's not important.” I tried to order my thoughts. “Holmes, it may not be the September full moon that Brothers is waiting for. Full moons enter into it, but I think he's picking off celestial events. The ram at Long Meg died on the first of May, the Celtic festival of Beltane. Albert Seaforth died on the night of the Perseids. Brothers may be aiming for the solar eclipse.”
“An eclipse? In England?”
“No, it's mostly Arctic. Parts of northern Scandinavia will see it, although it looks as if Bergen, Norway, might be on the very edge. However, Holmes, I-”
“When?”
I looked back at the page, hoping I had read it wrong, but I had not. “August the thirtieth.”
Four days away.
39
The Tooclass="underline" A Tool must incorporate all four Elements.
Beyond that, the Tool must be shaped by the Practitioner
to have a life of its own, both to draw in and to give out
Power The Tool must move the hand even as the
hand moves it.
Testimony, IV:3
HEAVY SILENCE PRESSED ON US. HOLMES STARED at me for the longest time before his eyes flicked down to the almanac, and he drew a ragged breath. His mouth was coming open as he turned to the door.
“Mycroft!” he shouted.
With a crash of feet on the floor, Mycroft Holmes woke to his brother's need. Within minutes, the telephone was summoning help from near and far. The voices of the Holmes brothers were soon joined by others, and I listened through the open study door as the complex machinery of Mycroft's department was seized and turned towards finding a pair of men, the younger of whom could possibly appear ill or intoxicated, with a child, age three to eight. Borders; ferries; telegrams: By seven-thirty, the sitting room sounded like a general headquarters on the eve of battle.
All the while, I sat at Mycroft's oversized desk, trying to order my thoughts. A part of my mind was occupied with drawing up a list of possible sites Brothers might choose that were within striking distance of Bergen: Viking country, whence the raiders had set off to conquer the British Isles; home of Woden, the Viking's chief god and a figure who occupied much of Brothers' image of himself.
But when I had made the list, I then pulled out a small-scale map of the United Kingdom and studied that, chin on hands. After a while, I put on some proper clothes and went down to ask the building's concierge for his copy of Bradshaw's time-table. I came back up and passed through the room, unnoticed by nine urgently occupied men, to settle again at the desk.
An hour later, I saw Mycroft, still in his dressing-gown, go into his room. Holmes was speaking on the sitting room telephone, but a minute later, silence fell for the first time since he had called his brother out of sleep. I heard the click of his cigarette lighter, and the puffing noise of pillows being arranged on the divan.
I went out and found Holmes sitting before the fireplace, staring intently at the cold stones. While the water was boiling for coffee, I went through the sitting room and gathered half a dozen empty cups, piling them up for washing. Absently, I toasted bread, and had managed to scrape half their burnt substance into the sink when Mrs Cowper arrived for the day. She looked in astonishment at the signs of turmoil and dishevelment where normally she would find a cup and one sullied ash-tray, then snatched open the oven door, releasing yet another cloud of smoke. I hastily retreated with my own ravaged toast to where Holmes sat.
He looked startled when I held a cup under his nose, and the long ash from his forgotten cigarette dropped to the carpet. “Russell, there you are. Ah, coffee, good. Did you see your letter?”
The morning post lay on the table near the door. A cream-coloured envelope bore my name, in an antique and slightly shaky hand. I carried it back to the divan and thumbed it open. It was from Professor Ledger, to whom I had given my address in London.
“Mycroft has arranged that all border crossings be watched,” Holmes was saying. “All international ferries and steamers will be searched, and all ports in northern Europe sent photographs of the two men, in case they've already crossed over. The same with aeroplanes-and harbour masters, in case he tries to hire a small boat. I fear we are closing the stable door on the horse's tail, and that they left the country immediately you saw them drive away from the walled house, but perhaps we can at least track where he has broken out.”
The housekeeper came in with a more recognisable breakfast tray, moving a table in front of Holmes' eccentric choice of seating. “Have something to eat, Holmes,” I urged.
He seemed not to hear me, so I took a slice of pristine toast, smeared it with butter and marmalade, and folded it in two, placing it into his hand. Absently, he took a bite, but kept talking.
“Steamers to Bergen leave from Hull, and Mycroft has two men on their way, with photographs. It shouldn't require delaying the boat, which is scheduled-”
“Holmes, may I say something?”
His grey eyes came up, and he looked at me for the first time. “Of course, Russell. What is it?” He took a bite of the toast, his body feeding itself while his mind was elsewhere.
“We may be on the wrong track.”
He swallowed impatiently, dropping the remains of his breakfast in the ash-tray. “Explain.”
“When we believed Estelle to be three years old, you thought it unlikely that a solitary man-Brothers-would risk burdening himself with an infant. And as you said, disposing of a small body is lamentably easy. However, we know that the child was alive as of Wednesday night. Which makes this important.” I handed him the letter.