"Gregson?"
No answer.
The voice tried again.
"There's some ginger-chews."
Gregson opened one blearing eye under the watery starlight, and spared Lestrade's professionally friendly advice with the withering look he felt the runt deserved.
"No," he gasped, "thank you."
"They really do help with the sea-sickness. It isn't just a superstition." Lestrade tried again. "It's kept me from disgracing the deck every time."
"Thank you…no."
"All right then." Lestrade shrugged as if a helpless assistant wasn't a problem. "What do you think?"
Privately, Gregson groaned bile into himself. He lifted his head up to peer over the top of the black sea-boulder resting into the soft sands overlooking the elaborate cluster of small buildings and supplies. Lamps gleamed the dull, fitful flame of oils that did not have their origin in anything as clean or efficient as coal-oil. Probably burning parmacetti1 or something worse.
"That boat-house…well…is that what I'm looking at?"
"Just a moment." There was a quiet snick of brass metals as Lestrade pulled his tucked-in field glass out of his pocket. "Where?
"Ten-o'clock position." Gregson closed his eyes. Beneath his cheek gouged the agony of tiny barnacle-shells and the salt-stench of the sea. Somewhere in the fuss of the sea-spray, a flock of gulls whined and carried on. Gregson wondered what they were on about when there were no nearby lighthouses to keep them awake at night. His mumblings conveyed as such.
"They're already stirred up because we're not the only ones landing." Patterson had overhead. The lean man's hollow face turned to the black lump in the distance that looked like the stone manor of the baronet. "Hartley says they've been getting visitors for the past week. A few guests at a time…all men."
"Well I just wonder what that means." Gregson grumbled.
"Sarcasm," Lestrade said mildly. "How long will it take to walk out of this cove and into the fringe of things?"
"Not too long." The older Loseth--Hartley--again made an effort to be understandable. "A half-hour perhaps."
"The last time I was here, they were in a foul temper." His younger brother added. "An important guest was invited, but he couldn't attend…something about on a big-game hunt in France."
"Must be boar," Lestrade grunted. "Well, it's one less guest to worry about and we can think of it that way." He straightened the muffler about his neck and shook the dew from his cloth cap one last time.
"You don't look but a bit peaky," Gregson said when they fell in the end of the line, Patterson leading after the older Loseth.
"If there's something important going on, and it's about Moriarty's gang…then Moriarty's agent will be here too. You can take that wager." Lestrade put his hands deep into his pockets so he couldn't toy with them.
"I wouldn't take that wager if a roasted goose was offered with it." Gregson shot back. "Where there's rotting carcasses, there's vultures."
"Keep your eye on Patterson." Lestrade muttered. "I think he's ill."
"There's something wrong with him." Gregson agreed.
They all fell silent by consensus; it was not completely safe to be idly talking, even if they all appeared to be fish-laden workers trying to get home at the end of the day. Rope netting creaked between the brothers, and they were all beginning to smell like scales and offal.
Streat smelled odd; it reminisced of Dartmoor with the sea on all sides. Like a tiny moor, mist rose from the earth and caught wraiths in the patches of moonlight that escaped the strange cloud-curtain. It gave Gregson the impression they were far from alone, or spied upon by the dead. That led to thoughts of the bog, and the grim secrets that could be hiding under their feet.
Gregson's imagination was far from poor. Still, he knew when it could be a handicap to his work. Lestrade's lack of imagination was probably an asset in times like this, he mused gloomily. The runt merely had on his usual dogged look. Did he even think ahead to the what-ifs? So far he only pulled out his spyglass and gave the isle its quick pass-over every minute or so.
Hartley Loseth suddenly tripped, and that quickly he sank up to his ankle in something soft. Patterson was there to support his weight as he pulled out.
"I'm sorry," the bigger man looked as sheepish as a boy caught with flowers. "I always get a little clumsy on land."
"Clumsy by nature, brother." The younger Loseth butted in.
"No harm." Patterson finished the matter in a very quiet voice.
They slowed their pace. The bogs were not nearly as shallow as some places in Britain…but then, how were they to know how deep they truly were? Gregson was already wishing they were back on the mainland. He would have preferred to find work in the thick of a fish-market than deal with much more than this.
"Look."
Lestrade had stopped to peer at a shape that looked about like any other boat-shape on the waterline. Gregson hesitated for a moment as the small man passed over his glass. He took it, careful of the fact that the glass drew light to the eye.
"That's fancy enough for a man like Quimper. Just stops short of being a pleasure-craft." Lestrade muttered.
"You're right." Gregson felt his heart skip. "It's a yacht of some sort…but who'd have cause to bring a yacht over here unless it was a gentleman?"
"I seem to recall that when Quimper wrecked the Hyssop to stage his death the first time…the crew joked he asked for a first-class lifeboat." Lestrade's eyes flashed sparks in the worsening darkness. "But that ship…that thing is a bit pricey for him. He likes his quality, but…that's flash. The man has too much pride to show off his possessions or his wealth like that."
Patterson said it first: "Military, d'you think?"
Still, Lestrade hesitated.
Gregson answered. "Military types are supposed to demonstrate their standing, and if they don't they're a disgrace."
"We need to be very careful then." Patterson dropped his voice, he was so rattled. "The military is only the first-cousin to the Foreign Office."
"I know…" Gregson nodded at the patiently-waiting Loseths. "Gentlemen, instead of taking us straight to the tradesmen-docks, can you take us over to the finer establishment?"
-
Mycroft Holmes was not pleased to see the missives on his desk. He ignored them for the moment—a single glance told him just how very un-earthshattering they were—and settled into the precision of his late supper.
It was not until after the stolid simplicity of his roast beef with grain mustard that he felt obligated to tend to the small stack of papers.
He selected one seemingly at random.
A moment later his eyebrows were laddering up his forehead.
Alone and with no one to witness, the big man sighed, as if the Leviathan would make such a noise, should it rise out of the Biblical depths and obey the call of its stern maker.
"These are deep waters," he thought. "Deep and turbid. And Sherlock is not fully aware of them yet."
He took the paper (its brothers forgotten) and took to the padded chair between the fireplace and the book-rimmed corner of the sitting-room. Behind his head, the Shelf Clock ticked the end of another day.
For a moment, the man looked indefinably weary. He certainly did feel it.
A madman pursuing one's brother in the forests of France might be a terrible prospect for any man…even though he had faith that Sherlock was more than a match for him on his own ground. The problem was…how much of it was his own ground?
He would feel gratitude…much gratitiude…once Sherlock was able to return home. But for now it was a waiting game, and to wait until he would be able to ensconce himself safely in Montpellier.
Montpellier.
Once Sherlock came to that city…few powers would be able to approach him.
Montpellier.
-
"Look, sir." Boggs Loseth nodded. "That warehouse-dock there. They seem a bit interested in getting that done quick."
"So they are." Gregson grumbled. He had to concede to Loseth's sharper night-vision, as well as his familiarity with what felt like every half-inch of the isle.
On the other side of the comforting shield of piled-up sacks of corn, the party of five watched the human traffic flow in and out, up the gangplank and into the depths of the yacht.
Now that they were less than twenty yards from the craft, they could see many tiny pin-points of light against the windows. Whoever was manning the yacht…they did appear to be alert if not paranoid.
"All right. Patterson, you get off to the side behind those barrels." Gregson nodded to the barrels in question. They resembled a small sea-wall in the way they were piled half to the sky outside the sloping warehouse. "Lestrade, I want you to cover him." Lestrade made one of his strange little smiles and put his hand over his hip-pocket where his iron was kept.
"Hartley, Boggs, stick with me and circle the other side. We're not here to arrest anyone just yet; we need to know how dangerous it is first, before the reinforcements get here."
"Reinforcements, sir?" Hartley Loseth looked taken aback. He and Boggs Loseth looked at each other. "They've got reinforcements?"
"No, we do. Don't ask questions. Do as you're told—"
Lestrade was turning his head to mark the slim, dark shape of Patterson slipping through the maze of dark shapes. Something happened at the corner of his eye. Hartley was lifting a gun in his hand.
"Judas!" Lestrade had time to bark, and twisted back as he reached for his own gun. There was a shot at close range, an explosion at his head…and silence.
"You bastard!"
Gregson saw Patterson's body lurch forward, like a doll's yanked forward on strings—and fall into the sea with a graceless splash.
He did not surface.
In the slow-motion of a nightmare Lestrade collapsed on his back over the pounded grey sand of the warf. His eyes were open and unseeing into the moonlight. Trickling black liquid ran across one open eye without blinking.
He's dead, Gregson decided coldly. All evidence pointed to the fact.
Boggs Loseth was lifting his own barrel and for a slender second, that tiny barrel-hole with its bottomless black centre encompassed Gregson's entire world in the fitful moonlight.
But his hand was already rising on its own volition, and the world flared outward in the flame of gunpowder and lead. Boggs stared at him in the uncomprehending surprise of a dead man, and as the detective watched, the glassy-eyed corpse slowly tilted backwards
Men were screaming.
Gregson heard them.
Men were screaming.
They were coming this way.
1 Sperm whale oil. A mangling of pronunciation that goes back to Shakespeare. The average Victorian would have deliberately preferred parmaceti to spermaceti