Mycroft Confessions, Truth, and Lies

A. Confessions

It is not the custom of the Holmes men to confess their feelings to anyone. Confessions can be revealed. Secrets exposed to one's own detriment. I, of all people, know how such information can be used to gain an advantage over another. I have used it myself. I do not do this because I want to, but because I am compelled to by Her Majesty. And because anything that lowers my efficiency may put the Nation at risk.

The mind is pure and elegant, whereas emotions...they are messy, inefficient things. I pride myself on never letting my emotions influence my decisions or my actions, and this has not been a problem for me until now. More and more I find myself distracted. It is a weakness. For someone in my position, you might even call it a 'sin'.

I am assured that you have been sworn to secrecy. Even so, I wish to remind you that this conversation has been given the highest Top Secret rating, and that to reveal anything that I say to you will result in a charge of treason. A charge that can still, even in our modern age, result in life imprisonment. That being said, let us begin.

My brother, Sherlock Holmes, is dead. I caused his death. Indirectly it may have been, and it was not my intention, but it was my fault. It was the result of a horrible miscalculation on my part. A mistake that set in motion a cascade of failures. A tragedy that I found myself unable to stop. And the fall of one Holmes precipitates the fall of another.

In order to understand my part in this story, you must first understand what it is that I do. I am the Hub of the British Government. It is a job that I have created myself. My talents are ...considerable, but for the most part they are invisible. There are buildings in this very city filled with banks of computers where analysts input fact after fact to try to create simulations of the world so that they can predict what might happen. I can do this offhand. Given sufficient data. Correct data. I can predict the actions of rival governments. Pinpoint areas of conflict. Decode complicated strategies. All of the ministries report to me. I store this data in my City of the Mind. Row upon row of cubbyholes holding the minutest of details which wait until I need them. You see, computers may crunch numbers, but they have no intuition. The most powerful computer cannot match the insights that can be gained by the human mind.

This story began over two years ago when I received an file marked personal.

Surveillance report: Sherlock Holmes Status: Grade four – active

Alert - Change of address

Official registry – Sherlock Holmes old address:
221C Baker street London NW1 6XE England.

New address:
221B Baker Street London NW1 6XE England.

"Hardly a move." I laughed, "He hasn't even left the building." I was about to turn to the next page, when I noticed the rest of the entry.

221B Baker streets Residents:

Mr. Sherlock Holmes

Dr. John H. Watson

"Dr. John H. Watson? Who?" I wondered "Sherlock has a flatmate?"

Sherlock's last two flatmates had been totally unsuitable. Neither one could have past the simplest security screening. Luckily they also could not long last in the company of my eccentric brother. No one could, not even me. I once offered him living space here in our ancestral home. I cannot tell you how relieved I felt when he rudely turned me down.

Well, I immediately began to investigate this Dr. John H. Watson. I searched Sherlock's list of known associates. The list is, as you may guess, incredibly small. Many of these persons have...arrangements with me to provide information about his actions and whereabouts. There was no Dr. Watson on the list.

I recognized Dr. Watson's previous address. It was military housing. A search of the military database brought up five Dr. John Watson's in the London area. Three were deceased. One Dr. John C. Watson was in the navy. The other, a Dr. John H. Watson, was formerly a captain in her majesty's army, retired with an honorable discharge. I called my secretary Phillipa, and I had all of the reports on Dr. Watson on my desk within the hour.

I flipped through the files rapidly. "Trained at Barts, graduated with distinction, very nice. Joined her majesty's army, wounded in action in Afghanistan, medical discharge, psychiatric counseling. Interesting. Why would Sherlock choose such a man as a flatmate? God knows he has no great love of government service or those who choose it. This man seems to be a straight arrow. A Queen's man. The sort of man that I would have chosen to watch over Sherlock, and he would have tossed him out on his ear. A soldier no less. What could have possibly convinced Sherlock to choose a soldier as a flatmate?"

Flipping through the military file again. I noticed that his discharge papers listed the return of all supplies including a gun. However, the gun returned had a different serial number than the one issued.

"How had no one noticed that?"

His psychiatric record was most interesting. The hand was firm and quick, a woman's. The latest record, dated the previous day, read:

He has trust issues. Doesn't seem the type to make friends easily.

"So he has at least one thing in common with Sherlock."

Will not open up about his experiences in the war. Medical examination shows that he should not feel pain in his leg, but he has a psychosomatic limp brought on by the trauma of his military experience. Diagnosis PTSD.

"Curiouser and curiouser."

Have recommended he start a blog to record his experiences, but he resists. He isolates himself, and represses his anger. For these reasons I have put him on watch. Unless he learns to open up and trust someone, he could turn on others, or even commit suicide. Recommend continued counseling until further notice.

"Interesting. So my brother has chosen to move in with an armed, homicidal, repressed, angry military doctor. How typical."

I stabbed the intercom.
"Phillipa, get me a couple of cars. I want to have a private meeting. The warehouse should do. And tell Agnes that I need her."