The Mycroft Holmes Omnibus Read online

  The Mycroft Holmes Omnibus

  David Dickinson

  © David Dickinson 2014

  David Dickinson has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents

  Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published 2014 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Mycroft Holmes and The Adventure of the Silver Birches

  Mycroft Holmes and The Adventure of the Naval Engineer

  Mycroft Holmes and The Case of the Missing Popes

  Extract from Mycroft Holmes and the Case of the Bankers Conclave by David Dickinson

  Mycroft Holmes and The Adventure of the Silver Birches

  The rain started just after three o’clock. At first it was only a drizzle. As the minutes ticked past, it grew in force until it turned torrential by half past five as the workers of London began their journeys home. It poured off the sides of the buses. It hurtled down from the high buildings, overflowing from the gutters and sheeting down the walls and the windows. The prudent few raised their umbrellas but they gave little cover. The men with hats gained some protection but they soon felt the rain dripping down the backs of their collars. The bareheaded felt they were walking through a waterfall without end, a waterfall that bore them a grudge, a waterfall that wanted to turn them into bundles of soaked rags. Up Farringdon Road and Moorgate they trudged, along Poultry and London Wall on their way home to Islington and Hackney and places where the humbler people dwelt.

  Among the sodden, soaking, dripping mass of humanity there was a policeman, Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard, returning to his villa at Brickfield Terrace in Upper Holloway. Inspector Lestrade’s wife, Carrie, always referred to it as a villa when they were entertaining friends at home. Lestrade was not so sure. As he cursed the weather and waited for his bus, the Inspector was thinking of the meeting he had just left. It had been one of the most extraordinary meetings he had ever attended in his long professional career. It was held in the ornate offices of the Governor of the Bank of England in Threadneedle Street. Lestrade’s own superior officer, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was present, staring sadly at the carpet most of the time. Lestrade thought he would remember the conversation for the rest of his life.

  “Good of you to come,” said the Governor. “Pity about the weather. But nothing could be more serious than what we are here to consider this afternoon.”

  “Let me impress on you, Lestrade,” the Commissioner was looking at him severely, as if he were a schoolboy found smoking behind the cricket pavilion, “you must not breathe a word of this to any living soul. Not to your wife, not to your best friend, not even to your mistress, if you have one, which I rather doubt. Not a word.”

  Lestrade turned a bright shade of red at the mention of the word mistress. Was the Commissioner not aware of his regular attendance at the Presbyterian Church in Upper Holloway? Did he not know that he, Lestrade, was an elder?

  “What do you know about the currency, Lestrade?” the Governor was examining a large cigar as he spoke.

  “The currency?” Lestrade was puzzled. This was something so secret he could not mention it and it had to do with currency? “Pound notes? Coins? That sort of thing?” he ventured.

  “Pound notes are what concern us here. Notes of every denomination. Pound notes and their universal acceptance are one of the foundation stones of this great economy of ours, Lestrade. Without that confidence underpinning every financial transaction, we would be lost.”

  Lestrade wondered if he had strayed into an evening class by mistake. Whatever might be coming next?

  “We are convinced, here at the Bank,” the Governor had lowered his voice till he was virtually whispering, “that our enemies are trying to debase the currency.”

  Now he leant back in his chair as if he were a magician who had finally pulled the rabbit out of his hat.

  “Forgive me, Governor, I am just a simple policeman. I solve simple crimes. I know little of finance.”

  “Debasing the currency is quite simple once you have grasped the basics.” The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police had entered the lists at last. “Debasing the currency means lowering it in value. If you introduce enough forgeries into the system, the value of the pound will fall. Where once you paid for your groceries with a note from your wallet, after the lowering or debasing you might need a bucketful of notes. The result of debasing the currency is inflation. The value of the pound goes down, the prices in the shops are inflated, they’re blown up like balloons, they go higher and higher.”

  “So how are our enemies doing this debasing?” Lestrade felt that a couple of grisly murders in Shadwell might be preferable to this.

  “They’re doing it through forged banknotes, that’s what they’re doing,” said the Governor. “More and more are being introduced every week. We don’t know how it’s done or who the villains are. That is where you come in, Lestrade. You’ve got to find the forgers and the mastermind behind them. He must be the most dangerous man in Europe.”

  “What are the sources for your information, Governor? Surely they could tell you who the forgers are and where they operate from.”

  “There is little I can say on that subject. All I can tell you is that we have three reliable sources – a private bank in Vienna, an Anglophile moneylender in Munich, an anonymous tip off from the Casino in Monte Carlo.”

  “Would I be permitted to go and see these gentlemen?” asked Lestrade.

  “Certainly not,” replied the Governor of the Bank of England. “Before you go, could I just say that our experts at present have great difficulty deciding which notes are the forgeries and which are the real thing. There is only one machine in the land that can help and it is kept under armed guard in the basement of the bank here. I know that doesn’t help you much but it’s the truth.”

  It was still raining hard when Lestrade arrived home. He was preoccupied during supper, eating his lamb chops as if he wasn’t really there. What he found most difficult, as he wondered where to start his investigation, was deciding why he had been chosen. His friend and colleague Inspector Gregson would have been much more suitable.

  Everybody said Gregson was clever. Nobody ever said Lestrade was clever. Dogged, people said. Determined. A British bulldog. But not clever. As he thought of where he might find help, Lestrade regretted yet again the departure from London of that extraordinary consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, with whom he had co-operated on a number of difficult cases in the past. But Holmes had gone to keep bees in Sussex. Lestrade had an address for him. He had written to him before, he would write again before he retired for the night, but Holmes never replied to any correspondence. Only last Christmas he, Lestrade, had been sent a small monograph, privately printed, entitled ‘Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen.’ And on the title page an ironic message. ‘Alone I did it. Behold the fruit of pensive nights and laborious days, when I watched the little working gangs as once I watched the criminal world of London.’ And Sherlock Holmes’s great friend Dr Watson had returned to his medical practice. There was no-one outside the force he could turn to. It was only after supper, taking his customary glass of port with his pipe that inspiration came to Lestrade. He slapped his hand on his thigh and exclaimed:

  “Mycroft! Of course! Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s elder brother!”

  “What was that, dear?” Carrie Lestrade looked up from her knitting.

  “Nothing, dear, nothing. I was daydreaming, that’s all.”

  *

  “Inspector Lestrade! How nice to see you!”

  Mrs Hudson, who had been Holmes’s and Watson’s housekeeper
at 221B Baker Street, had come to look after Mycroft Holmes in his rooms on Pall Mall.

  “And you, Mrs Hudson? Keeping well are you?”

  “I can’t complain, Inspector. Mr Sherlock sends me a pot of honey on my birthday every year! Mr Mycroft got your note, he’s waiting for you.”

  “Lestrade,” the bulky figure of Mycroft Holmes rose slowly from his chair and shook him by the hand. “I’m glad to see you have recovered from the gout, Inspector. And I observe that you have recently finished painting the walls and ceilings of your house and transferred your weekend attentions to your garden.”

  “How on earth,” Lestrade began, but Mycroft cut him short.

  “My dear Lestrade, we have no time for idle gossip. Suffice it to say that when a man has gout he puts as much weight as he can on the heel of his shoe or boot, to ease the pressure and pain on his toe. The heel of your right boot is more worn than the left. So I deduce you have been treading heavily to assuage the pain of the gout. There is a faint hint of white paint in your hair above your left temple and a small sliver of earth under the nail of the index finger of your right hand. Really, my brother and I have always been astonished that other people seem unable or incapable of making these elementary deductions. However, to work. You mentioned forgery in your note. Pray tell me all you know of this matter.”

  Mycroft Holmes was seven years older than his brother Sherlock. The few who knew them both said that it was Mycroft who had the greater intellectual powers. Where Sherlock was thin, Mycroft was plump. His waistcoat, Lestrade observed, was a couple of sizes larger than it had been at their last meeting. He was taller than his brother, an imposing six feet three inches. And he had contracted psoriasis. Psoriasis appears as raised red patches of skin covered with silvery scales, sometimes on the head and neck, sometimes as red blotches all over the body. Dr Watson always described it as the itch and scratch disease. Every now and then Mycroft would rub the side of his scalp or his neck and a small cloud of white flakes would land on his shoulders. If he forgot to brush them off, as he often did, he began to resemble a man caught in a minor snowstorm, the flakes piling up in drifts.

  Officially Mycroft’s position inside the Government machine was that of an auditor. Over the years his role had been expanded until he had an oversight and an overview of all departments of state. As his brother put it, he was the one man capable of seeing how different areas of policy would interact, so that he was, from time to time, the British Government. He listened quietly to what Lestrade had to say.

  “They have trouble telling the difference between the fakes and the real thing,” he said sadly when the Governor’s closing remarks were relayed to him. “There have been whispers about this, mind you, just whispers, one from New York last autumn and a hint, a scintilla of a murmur from Frankfurt this Easter. But it never came to anything.” Mycroft formed his hands into a steeple, fingertips touching at the top and stared out at Pall Mall beyond his windows. His eyes, which were of a peculiarly light, watery grey, had a far-away, introspective look as if he was exerting his full powers. He thought for a couple of minutes, scratching his head a couple of times.

  “That’s it! That’s it!” he said suddenly and sprang to his feet. “Well, it’s not really it, but it’s something!” For a man so large he moved remarkably quickly. The walls of his handsome room were lined with bookshelves. The back wall had wider shelves and contained an extraordinary melange of notebooks, files, folders, overflowing cardboard boxes, yellowing newspapers and old diaries. Into this chaos Mycroft plunged and began ferreting about at top speed.

  “Mrs Hudson’s always asking me if she can tidy this lot up, Inspector. I keep saying no because I’d never find anything again if she did. Is this it? No. How about you?” This question was addressed to an envelope that had once been white. “Yes? It is. Now then.

  “This is the first thing that comes into my mind when you speak of bank notes and forgeries, Inspector. Here we have three brief newspaper accounts. Roach, aged thirty-two years, drowned in a sailing accident in the Lake District two years ago. The body was never found. Fettiplace-Jones, forty, fell out of a Channel ferry, remains never discovered, February last year. Browne, fifty, disappeared between his home in West Dulwich and the local railway station, never seen again, six months ago. Can you guess what all three had in common, Inspector? They all worked for Watermans, the Government printers. Watermans make all the currency notes for this country and most of the Empire too. All three were intimately involved in the design of bank notes and the machinery needed to produce them.”

  “God bless my soul,” said Inspector Lestrade, watching as if hypnotised while Mycroft Holmes brushed another collection of white flakes of skin off his shoulder onto the floor.

  “And there’s worse to come, I fear, much worse.” Holmes resumed his position, staring intently out of the window for a couple of minutes.

  “You will remember, no doubt, Lestrade, the Napoleon of crime, Moriarty, Professor James Moriarty, who caused my brother such trouble and ended up at the bottom of the Reichenbach Falls. And then there was his confederate, Colonel Sebastian Moran, whose exploits and demise were described by the good doctor in ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’? There is another such villain abroad today, a master of crime more evil and more sinister yet.” Mycroft Holmes paused again. “I fear we may be dealing with the Count!”

  “The Count, Mr Holmes? Which Count?”

  “Count or Graf von der Stoltenburg, Christian name Wolfgang, and a wolf in wolf’s clothing if ever there was one!”

  “Has he been involved in forgery before?” asked Lestrade who had been taking notes of the various names as they came up.

  “God knows what he has or has not been involved in. He was the brains behind the attempt to steal the Faberge Eggs and the Crown Jewels of the Tsar of all the Russias a few years back. I believe he was involved in the great swindle that caused the downfall of two leading finance houses in Frankfurt. He served in the German Army for some years with great distinction. He probably enjoyed killing people. When he left the Army he took a platoon load of men with him, engineers, linguists, street fighters of every description. All of them are now in his service, ready to return to the colours whenever he summons them. It is as though he is running a private army.”

  “Where would you like me to start?”

  Mycroft looked at his watch. “I have to go to an emergency meeting about Dreadnoughts with the Chancellor of the Exchequer in ten minutes. Then I need to look at some papers in the Foreign Office and consult some of my opposite numbers in the Chancelleries of Europe. We are a small and secret band, we government auditors, but a group with much knowledge that is not in the public domain. One of my colleagues is in the habit of referring to it as ‘The Underground Library’. You must move fast, Lestrade. I suggest you go to the last known addresses of Roach, Fettiplace Jones and Browne. See what you can find. If they have been kidnapped or forced against their will to work on these forgeries their relatives may know if they are alive. The relatives will certainly deny it but their demeanour may tell you a different story. And the Count once had a London house, twenty-six Chester Square. Could you see if he is still there? He sometimes used his mother’s maiden name rather than his own, Von Hoffmenstahl. I shall see you this evening at my club. I am always there from quarter to five to twenty to eight.”

  *

  Holmes padded slowly down the stairs from his first-floor flat. Mrs Hudson was polishing the door knocker as he went past, oblivious to his housekeeper and his surroundings. He crossed the road and made his way to the Government offices. Over the years, as his importance grew, so did the size of his office in the Government Offices Great George Street. It was larger than that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer now, looking out over the inner courtyard. Mycroft had one of the largest desks in Europe at his command. It was over twelve feet long and was permanently covered in papers. It was the official equivalent of the back wall of his apartment. At the centre and at t
he two ends were bowls filled with Turkish Delight to oil the machinery of Mycroft’s mind. He organised the dispatch of a long telegraph message to Germany. He wrote to the Minister of the Interior in Berlin, a key member of the Underground Library, called Tycho von Wilamowitz Mollendorff, who replied that as far as he knew, the Graf was not in Germany. Von Wilamowitz Mollendorff was, however, able to speak to the vast schloss in Silesia which served as the Hauptquartier or Headquarters of the Count’s private army on the telephone. Mycroft remembered that von Stoltenburg owned over half the coal in Silesia. The Underground Library man in Berlin relayed the news that the Graf was away on business and nobody knew when he would return.

  The third and final call, this time by telephone, was to Thierry Bastien-Tinville, a leading Paris banker. For once, the Frenchman had no fresh intelligence about the whereabouts of the Count. Sitting quietly in the corner of the office, reading some Government documents, was Mycroft’s assistant, a young man called Tobias. In many ways he was the opposite of his master. Where Holmes was tall and corpulent, Tobias was short and pencil thin. While Mycroft’s eyesight was still first class, Tobias peered at the world through thick glasses. Tobias was born into a family of schoolteachers in Shakespeare’s home town of Stratford-upon-Avon. Most parents read bedtime stories to their children. Tobias’ parents, Hilda and Arthur, read him the multiplication tables in a sing-song voice. The little boy would drift off to sleep to the musical lilt of seven sevens are forty-nine, seven eights are fifty-six. By the time he was six they had reached the twelve times table. They just kept going. At the age of twenty-one Tobias graduated as Senior Wrangler in Mathematics – top of his year – at Cambridge and went on to join Mycroft at the Government Auditor’s office. There was only one passion in Tobias’ life: Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. By the end of the season he could tell you every single result and who had scored the goals.