We probably should have reminded everyone in the first chapter that, as usual, this collaboration is not Granada-based but rather based upon the Canon; which says nothing in DEVI about Holmes's drug habit or lack thereof, besides the fact that his failing health might have been aggravated by 'occasional indiscretions of his own'.

Holmes

"Have you even stirred from that spot since I left?" was the first thing to leave my self-pronounced personal physician's lips as he came in through the door, shedding his dripping coat and hat and standing his still-unfastened umbrella against the wall.

He avoided my gaze, choosing to concentrate solely on his task instead, though the fact that he was speaking to me meant that he was more upset than angry (truth be told, I had purposely goaded him earlier so as to have the entertaining diversion of an angry explosion – rather disappointing that his self-control had much improved over the years); so I left his cynical remark with no reaction and merely grunted, hoping he would cease to distract me from the lingering haze induced by my last injection of my seven-percent solution.

To my great astonishment, he did, merely rounding the sofa and the obstruction of my feet which stuck out over the side, and making his way to his desk, picking up the pen he had discarded earlier and plying it to paper without so much as a hint of further disapproval. Even the set of his shoulders, a usually tell-tale sign of tension to a keen observer, was relaxed.

Had I been in full possession of all my mental faculties and acuity, I might have made more of this somewhat unusual turn of attitude. As it was, I merely took advantage of the beautiful silence, and allowed myself to drift in the artificial stimulation of the drug and the relief it provided from the eerie voices of my own self-destructing mind.

The evening passed in this way, and without so much as a word from my friend as he took his dinner (of which I took no part) and then smoked a pipe while perusing a new medical text.

Finally, rising to his feet at last, he knocked out the ashes of his pipe against the fireplace and stretched his stiffening muscles. The lingering effects of the cocaine (unfortunately not lasting as long now as they had weeks ago) were leaving my system by this time, and I listened as the clock struck ten, the familiar creeping sensation of the black mood settling back upon me again, heavy and tangible as a mantle. Another day gone without any case to tax my abilities…it seemed to me this dry spell really would go on forever, and what sort of a life was that to endure?

"Turning in already, Doctor?" I asked, hoping to bait him a little if only for the sake of a break in the monotony. To my consternation he merely glanced at me, set aside his pipe, and picked his way across the debris littering the floor to the doorway.

"Good night, Holmes." was the last thing he said before stepping out onto the landing and closing the door behind him.

I sighed irritably and stared at the smoldering coals in the fire. It made perfect sense to me why night was a time when mankind felt the greatest despair, when everything became dark and indiscernible…when one was completely alone with one's self.

I certainly had no use for such thoughts, or such a ridiculous philosophy…nor a desire to linger on either.

I reached again for the Morocco case at my elbow, kept well within reach the entire day.

"Holmes…Holmes…for heaven's sake, man! Wake up!"

I jerked awake at the insistent tug on my shoulder, not wishing my head to be shaken quite so violently. Watson's scowling countenance met my gaze, his mouth set in a firm line of disapproval. I looked around, somewhat disoriented.

It was brighter than it had been…ah…morning. Not that it made a great deal of difference.

"What do you want?" I growled. Why in heaven's name if Watson disapproved so of the drug did he have to spoil the few hours during which I had no use for it?

There was no flash of anger on my friend's face, only the stationary scowl.

"While we are on the subject of my wants, I think it would be beneficial if you would clean your teeth," he muttered complacently. "Not that any other odor can linger in the stench of your tobacco, but I know that it would be a waste of time to try and convince you so I shan't try. You have a message."

He slapped an envelope down on my chest and also placed a cup of coffee at my elbow. So he was unable to entirely leave off his nagging…ha.

I watched, purely out of boredom, as he waded across the room again and proceeded to pull aside both of the window drapes in rapid succession, flooding the room with a horrid light.

That…was painful. I had to throw up an arm to shield my eyes from the sudden glare. So it was late morning then.

"Watson, that is deucedly bright!"

I heard him snort, burble something about it being a 'perfectly gorgeous day outside', and pick his way toward the breakfast table, heedless of my complaints and the painful rays that burned against my eyelids.

"One day, Holmes, I shall have to get you to read Bram Stoker; I think you would find his protagonist's characteristics frighteningly familiar."

"I hardly think garlic will be necessary in my case, Doctor. You were only just now extolling the virtues of the toothbrush, were you not?"

My companion merely snorted and returned to annihilating his breakfast. I pulled the afghan up over my head to block out the majority of the horridly cheerful sunlight and slit the envelope with the handle of the spoon I snatched from my coffee cup.

I was surprised but only mildly interested to see that it was on Whitehall notepaper; that thickness and watermark were unmistakable.

Then there was the fact that my brother's seal and the office address were upon the top of the paper.

Mycroft's handwriting when he is calm resembles that of a besotted ninety-year-old man with severe arthritis; when he is excited it comes closer to resembling ancient Phoenician hieroglyphics, so much so that upon more than one occasion I thought a note was written in code and promptly set off for the British Museum to decipher the message, what in actuality was merely an invitation to luncheon on the following Saturday.

In this instance, he evidently was somewhere in the middle of those two extremes, for the writing was legible but his letters occasionally dipped below the normally perfect invisible straight line he invariably wrote upon. He had been in a hurry, and slightly agitated.

That was promising, as nothing short of a bullet speeding his head-ward would induce my mountain of a sibling to move himself with any great velocity.

Sherlock, the note ran in its usual flowery verbosity, Have extraordinary case upon hand quite outside the usual channels. Believe it worth your while to stop by office to inquire, as I have not the time to go to you nor the proper agent to handle the business.

Failure to turn up within the hour will result in closer inspection of last year's income tax.

Regards,

M

I did not now whether to laugh or curse my infernal brother's terse impertinence. I settled for cursing, quite vehemently, when Watson yanked the blanket off my head and tossed it out of my reach.

"I am leaving for the consulting-room," he stated the obvious (for in the absence of any intriguing cases for us he had been spending time as a locum for a few old colleagues from St. Bart's), mashing his hat down upon his head – had he really bolted his breakfast that quickly? "Do attempt to move more than an inch or two whilst I am absent, eh?"

"Doctor, it appears that we might just have a problem upon our hands," I yawned lazily, stretching my legs out in front of me to their full considerable length. "Have a look at this."

I tossed the note in his general direction, whence it fluttered awkwardly around his waving hands as he tried to catch it, and finally landed neatly in his plate of half-eaten jam toast. My friend eyed the paper with distaste, lifting it with an unused fork, while I threw back my entire cup of coffee in one gulp, burning my throat and tongue quite badly but feeling more awake for the agony.

"Holmes, I've got at least two hours of patients ahead before the other locum gets there to possibly relieve me," Watson sighed wearily, tossing the soggy paper back to the table. "I shall have to meet you there."

"Eh," I waved haphazardly at him, lurching to my feet and fumbling to the table for more coffee…much more. "You remember the office, of course."

I received an affronted glare at the implication that I thought he might have forgotten, and an admonishment to brush my teeth, eat something, change, and shave (not in that order, I assumed) prior to entering the offices of a government official, before he snatched his medical bag, hefted it with a grimace over to his left hand to take the weight off his right leg, and then shut the door behind him. A moment later I heard the closing of the hall door and the jingling of a hansom pulling away from the house.

I ate the only piece of toast he had left me, forgetting to put jam on it until I was on the last bite and being in quite a temper for the next hour or so because of it. The hazy fluidity of the time I had lost in the last few weeks, most of which I barely if at all remembered in a desultory jumble of images and feelings of despair, had vanished with the sun and prospect of, if not an intriguing case, at least the pleasure of annoying my brother so badly that he accomplished nothing all morning.

Within thirty minutes, I had completed my toilette and absolutely shocked Mrs. Hudson when I came flying down the stairs for my coat and precautionary umbrella.

"Will you be wanting luncheon, then, Mr. Holmes?" the lady asked primly, eyeing me with a wary gaze as if debating whether or not I was in full control of my faculties. Truthfully, I could not blame her, considering the past few weeks.

"With any luck I shan't be back in time," I called over my shoulder, waving my stick at her askance expression and then shutting the door, setting off at a brisk pace toward Westminster and my brother's lesser-used Whitehall office.

Actually, Watson was quite right – it was a lovely day. Now I could only hope and pray that Mycroft's problem was nothing trivial…

Whitehall, particularly my brother's department, did not appear to be in any state of great emergency or even disarray, which was not surprising; more than once I had wondered if the British governmental officials would remain phlegmatic and take afternoon tea even as anarchists blew up their buildings directly under their feet.

My brother was apparently in a meeting and on no account to be disturbed, according to the young upstart of a secretary he employed, who looked askance at me even though he knew full well who I was. I was relegated to a corner chair in the outer office to await Mr. British Government's return, and spent the next half-hour fidgeting, absently scribbling unflattering doodles featuring the bug-eyed secretary, and in garnering irritated looks and one loud exclamation from said secretary when I attempted to light my pipe.

I was in a foul temper by the time my brother lumbered back into the outer office and tossed a bulging file upon the secretary's desk with a rapid list of instructions that set the little fellow to scribbling frantically, bobbing his head in servile obedience.

Mycroft waved a flipper at me and disappeared into his inner sanctum, and I followed close on his heels, shutting the door behind me.

"I was within the time specified," I clarified for him pointedly. "You were not."

"Experience has taught me that only rarely are you actually on time when I summon you, so I felt perfectly safe in meeting with the – well, with a visitor," he replied placidly. "And as you are indeed on time, I deduce from that and from the fact that your cravat has not been pressed in at least a week that you are not on a case at present."

I scowled and appropriated the most comfortable chair in the room, stretching my legs out in front of me. "Come to the point, Mycroft."

"Where is your friend the Doctor? No, you may not smoke in my office!"

I ignored the glare but not the admonition. "Supposed to be meeting me here anytime now; he's working this morning for some medico friend near Charing Cross. The reason for your note, Mycroft." I was rapidly losing patience with my plodding sibling.

"Honestly, Sherlock, must you always be firing on all cylinders?" My brother sighed ponderously, mopping his forehead; for the morning was warm already, this office with its large windows and the sun streaming through them even more so. "We have a situation, brother."

"You usually do," I answered, closing my eyes in a fit of boredom and slouching in my chair. If my brother wished to come to the point slower than any clergyman I had ever heard in religious service, then no amount of persuasion or prodding from me could accelerate his speech.

"It could very well lead to a serious economic crisis for the Empire."

I opened one eye in skepticism. "Over what?"

"Tea," Mycroft informed me with an absolutely serious expression upon his face.

I began to laugh, for he looked so perfectly sombre that one would think the Apocalypse were gearing up to explode upon London, so dismal did he seem. My amusement caused his eyebrows to knit and he leant across the desk with an expression of disapproval.

I was saved from a verbal raking across the coals when the door opened after a brief knock and Watson appeared, dropping his bag inside the door and looking weary as if he had been through an entire day already. I raised an inquiring eyebrow at him as he settled into the chair beside me, but he merely shook his head and leant back with a sigh, focusing on my brother.

"My apologies, Mr. Holmes; it's been a busy morning," he murmured breathlessly, mopping his brow even more than my brother was doing.

"Not at all, Doctor; it is good to see you again. Now, Sherlock, do cease that childish sniggering; this can be a very serious matter if allowed to escalate."

"Why, brother, if it is so serious but has to do with the foreign trade, can you not assign one of your own agents to the matter?" I asked sensibly.

"It is not quite that severe yet, Sherlock, enough to justify pulling a man off the issues with the Orient's spice problems at the moment," Mycroft growled. "I am to get the matter resolved by any means necessary, but I have not been given the manpower to do so."

"Then you're asking for my help," I nodded slyly. "Not giving me an assignment."

"I shall make it an official summons if I must, and blackmail you into doing it if I must," my brother retorted with heat. "You may choose to take the case the hard way or the easy way, it makes no difference to me."

I bristled at the infernal gall of my brother to behave in such a peremptory fashion, but before I could protest the treatment Watson, who had been watching the both of us like a spectator at a lawn tennis game, held up a pausing hand.

"Gentlemen, I apologise but I have absolutely no idea what either of you is talking about?"

"Tea," I told him succinctly, very much enjoying the mystified expression that came upon his face.

"Tea?"

"As in…what, Mycroft, Ceylon or Darjeeling or what?" I asked impertinently, leaning back in my chair and grinning at my puzzled friend.

My elder brother scowled darkly at my flippancy. "This is no laughing matter, Sherlock, and it is Darjeeling for the most part, Doctor."

Watson swallowed, his moustache twitching suspiciously, and his voice was carefully controlled as he voiced the sensible question of, "You…called Holmes in to settle a tea trade dispute?"

Mycroft sent me a longsuffering look as if to blame me for Watson's understandable skeptic attitude. "This is not a dispute, nor a petty setback in the trade, Doctor," he spoke patiently, though he was sighing rather loudly through his massive nose. "We are having a widespread problem with the tea trade from the Terai area – a massive outbreak of contaminated shipments, and we may have to cut off all trade there entirely if the problem is not resolved."

"Surely you don't think it's that serious?" I asked incredulously.

"When eighty percent of our supply comes from the black tea grown and produced in that area of the country alone? This is Britain we are talking about, Sherlock," Mycroft cried. "Not the States or the Continent, this is England. Do you understand what it would mean to the economy if we could no longer be supplied with our most common national drink from the Darjeeling area due to contamination?"

"Yes, I suppose it would be a crimp in the Empire's economy and foreign trade relations," I agreed, though I really could not have cared less about the matter yet; it was hardly interesting and certainly not my department. "You might suggest to the Trade Department that we invest in Sumatran coffee plantations?"

Watson coughed hastily to cover up his laughing, but my brother was not amused and said so in no uncertain terms. I became aware that his two watery eyes were rather uncomfortably boring a hole in my head.

"Why exactly did you come to me, brother?" I sighed at last. "Yes, it is a problem, I can see that…but surely it's a bit beyond both our reasonable scopes? Why contact me?"

"Because we have been able to trace the suspect shipments to one particular area, and they all vaguely, if steadily, form a rough outline with one particular plantation at its centre," my brother snapped, tossing a hefty paper list and a map with a crude circle scrawled upon it over to me. "See for yourself."

I frowned and caught the papers in one hand, leaning over so that Watson could see them as well. I still failed to see why he would be contacting me over so trivial (well, perhaps not trivial to the Empire, but trivial to a mind as brilliant as mine) a matter…wait…

I had been running my finger swiftly around the lopsided circle and then to the middle, and I suddenly halted upon a familiar name that now brought a wave of twenty-year-old memories back to flood my mind with their sharp nostalgia.

"Mycroft, surely you are not saying –" The very idea was preposterous. I had no doubt now that this was why he had called me in to investigate a matter that normally would be left in the hands of the locals.

"The diagram speaks for itself, Sherlock. That particular plantation there in the centre of that rough circle is suspect: not only because it is the hub from which the lines connecting shipments radiate, but also because it is the only plantation around that area that has not sent out contaminated tea shipments, apparently."

Watson squinted in the sunlight at the name of the owner, written beside the X indicating the location of the plantation, and read it aloud, glancing questioningly at me as he did so.

"Victor Trevor?"

To be continued.