I have shamelessly stolen the title for this piece from one of my favourite Who songs. Please, don't sue me!
Behind Blue Eyes
by
thedragonaunt
The sleek, black car glided to a smooth halt outside 221B Baker Street and the driver climbed out to open the rear passenger door. The elegant man in the grey three-piece bespoke suit and handmade shoes stepped out onto the pavement, carrying a tightly-rolled umbrella, strode across the path and let himself in through the black Georgian door. Once inside the hallway, he closed the solid wooden portal, muting the roar of the traffic on the busy Central London street. He turned and climbed the seventeen steps to the first floor then walked across the landing to the sitting room door. It was not locked and he pushed it open with the flat of his hand.
'Hello, brother dear,' he intoned to the deserted room then paused and listened for the petulant response, which he knew wouldn't come.
Looping the crook of his umbrella over the handle of the door, he crossed the rug, making no sound in his calfskin shoes but for the slight creaking of the floor board in roughly the centre of the room. He lowered himself into the easy chair which faced the windows, placed his elbows on the arms and steepled his fingers under his chin.
'Well, you may be interested to know that Claudette Bruhl finally found her voice,' he began, addressing the empty chair opposite. 'She has confirmed that the kidnapper showed her and her brother a photograph of you and told them that, even if they were rescued, you would come and kill them. Like Godfather Death, you would stand at their feet and they would both die.'
He took a sharp breath then exhaled, long and slow, before continuing.
'Apparently, it's one of Grimm's fairy tales in that book Moriarty sent her. Godfather Death is tall and pale and wears a long black coat. No wonder she screamed.'
The man uncrossed his right leg then re-crossed the other, picking a piece of lint from his jacket and flicking it away. Looking around the room, it was still just as his brother had left it – books arranged on the bookcase according to some unfathomable cataloguing system that only he understood, papers piled on the desk, cushions scattered on the sofa – but just a little too neat to be authentic.
There was evidence of cleaning. Mrs Hudson had been true to her word that she would continue to dust and vacuum, polish and mop, picking up items of ephemera and cleaning beneath them before returning them to the exact same spot – well, almost the exact same spot. There was the rub. Because the housekeeper who insisted she was just a landlady was inexorably drawn towards neatness and order, like a compass needle to magnetic North, so each time she cleaned she replaced items just that much straighter, that much squarer, that much more ordered.
But it was still recognisable as his home, with the pile of science journals stacked against the wall beside the door, the skull on the mantelpiece, the folding knife pinning unopened mail to the wooden shelf above the fireplace and the Union Jack cushion on the grey leather and tubular steel chair. He could just walk back in here and resume his life as though nothing at all had happened…
Were it not for the fact that he was dead.
That thought pierced the elegant man's soul like the thrust of a rapier. Yes, he was dead. His brother was dead. His last remaining blood relative was dead. He inhaled sharply again, tilting up his chin and closing his eyes, as if to shut out that awful fact. But there was no escaping the truth.
'Why, Sherlock? If only I knew why! I know we didn't always see eye to eye – hardly ever, in fact – but you always knew you could come to me, didn't you? You always knew how much I cared for you, about you?'
He stopped speaking because the pressure on his Adam's apple was so intense as to be physically painful. He swallowed twice to no avail and so placed his hands on the chair arms and pushed himself to standing then turned and strode into the kitchen.
The difference here was far more marked. There were no noxious substances distilling in any flasks, no mysterious liquids bubbling over a Bunsen burner and he knew that if he cared to open the fridge there would be no severed heads, no collection of thumbs, no Petrie dishes growing deadly cultures. In fact, all the horizontal surfaces were clean and bare and pristine.
He opened cupboard doors until he found a drinking glass then ran the tap until the water turned clear and cold before filling the receptacle and taking a good swig. Holding the glass in his hand, he hesitated for a moment before opening the door at the back of the kitchen and directed his steps past the bathroom door to his brother's bedroom. He opened the door and stepped inside.
Whatever his attitude to clutter in the communal parts of the flat, they most certainly did not pertain in the bedroom. In life, as now in death, this room had always been kept immaculately neat. Sparsely furnished, with just a large antique bed, a matching man's wardrobe and tallboy chest of drawers, a straight-backed chair and a standard lamp, there was not even a rug on the floor – just the broad, bare Georgian floorboards. On the wall to the right of the door was a framed poster of the Periodic Table and, above the bed, a framed chart illustrating the various holds and throws of the martial art of Bartitsu. There was no other decoration.
Scanning round the room, the man's eye settled on the half-glazed door to the bathroom. He was tempted to open that door and walk inside. Why, he wondered? What did he expect to find? Certainly no long-lost sibling hiding there, waiting to be discovered. Those days were long gone when he and his little brother would while away the empty hours of a wet summer day, playing hide and seek in the sprawling country house that they called home – that he still called home.
Long gone. Everything long gone.
He reversed through the bedroom doorway, closing the door behind him and returned to the sitting room, crossing to the left hand window and looking down on the street below. His car sat at the curb, the driver inside waiting patiently for his return or perhaps in Speedy's café, enjoying a sandwich and a cup of tea, knowing that his charge would not be requiring his services anytime soon.
This was where his brother would always stand, coaxing sublime melodies from that ancient instrument with an effortless ease at all hours of the day and night, heedless of the needs of others for regular hours and a good night's sleep. What he would not give to hear that music now, carved from the taut stings by a sweeping hand, wielding the bow like a weapon.
Dragging the chair out from under the desk, he dumped the glass onto the table top and crashed into the seat, crossing his arms on the polished surface and burying his face in the fabric of his jacket sleeves as his shoulders heaved with wracking sobs and the sound of his anguish disturbed the silent vigil of the empty room.
It was some time later that the man in the grey three-piece bespoke suit and handmade shoes, carrying the tightly-rolled umbrella, emerged from the front door of 221B Baker Street and turned to cross the pavement back to his car. He paused to allow a passer-by to proceed across his path, smiling politely and inclining his head, then strode forward and slid into the comfortable leather interior of the staff car, catching his driver's reflection in the rear view mirror, signalling for him to drive on with a steely glance.
And no one would ever have imagined what desperate depths of loss and loneliness lurked behind those clear blue eyes.
ooOoo