Chapter 5
Author's Notes: Thank you Elsie Cubitt (you got it!), Masked Phantom, and Hermione Holmes. I am SO sorry for the delay in updating. It's been almost a month, and I've been busy, then on holiday, then blocked. I just saw a brilliant play set in Victorian London, called Dear Boss, and it has inspired me somewhat. Prepare yourselves for some shocking developments and plenty of angst. As well, I WILL post that long-awaited monograph soon.
The face of London was changing. Automobiles now encroached on the streets that formerly teemed only with horse-drawn carriages. Electrical lights illuminated the nighttime darkness instead of flickering gas lamps. The fogs weren't as heavy, and the Georgian townhouses of Pall Mall showed more of their intended whiteness as Beatrice walked along. What had not changed, however, was the population that shared these streets. The men, in spats, tails and top hats, dwarfed her slight figure on the sidewalks. It being lunch hour, many of the civil servants, their pale faces flushed with the outside air, were hurrying to the park or to the numerous cafes and bistros to eat their midday repast. Beatrice was headed in the opposite direction, to the dark, cramped offices of her brother-in-law.
Barely managing the stairs in her long, narrow skirt, she ducked breathless into the room, adjusting her gloves and hat. Mycroft made an awkward attempt to rise in greeting from his leather chair, but abandoned the effort as soon as she had acknowledged his courtesy. With a wave of his hand, so similar to his younger sibling, he gestured her to sit across from his desk.
"I assume you have informed my brother of your intentions to aid us in this case?" he asked Beatrice archly, fixing her with a look worthy of a public school headmaster.
"I am glad you did not inquire if I asked his permission," Beatrice laughed with a toss of her head. "Holmes has ears, and he heard what I said to you the last time we met."
"But he does not know you are here?" Mycroft pressed.
"No," Beatrice admitted. "How can he? He is on a ship bound for America, and who can tell how long it will be before we hear from him?"
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The ship, one of the Cunard line, was equipped with every luxury, but not every luxury was intended for every passenger. As Sherlock Holmes arose from the deck chair on which he had been trying vainly to dispel the endless monotony of an Atlantic passage, he made his way to the edge of the deck and looked down upon the steerage deck. Huddled upon it were humans of every colour, swathed in standard-issue ship's grey wool blankets. There were women with babes in arms, and men upon whose faces was imprinted a lifetime of suffering. They had come up for air, certainly, but there was another reason. Today was the day the ship was scheduled to dock in New York City. An air of anticipation hung over the ship as porters prepared for the landing, and passengers peered eagerly into the grey mist to catch a glimpse of the fabled metropolis. On the steerage deck, the cares on the faces seemed to be assuaged by hope, which played cruelly across their features, only to be replaced by familiar worry.
Holmes turned his head toward the prow of the ship, and his keen eyes sighted something looming on the horizon. He was not alone, for soon a crowd had gathered, and it was only his superior height that allowed him to see beyond as vague outlines clarified into recognizable shapes. The ship's great engines slowed to a gentle hum and the vessel glided through the choppy dark waters toward port. As the bronze colossus in the harbor neared, Holmes turned his gaze back toward steerage. The passengers were standing, and it was to them, the huddled, wretched, masses that the great lady seemed to beckon hope and redemption. To him, she seemed to warn of vigilance against those who would snuff out the light of justice.
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Mycroft frowned and his mouth thinned into a line of displeasure.
"It will not do," he said, "for me to put my brother's wife in danger."
"No it will not," Beatrice agreed readily. "That is why you will do everything in your power to ensure my safety." She leaned forward and gave Mycroft a glimpse of that winning smile that erased the years from her visage. "It is only what your duty demands."
Mycroft winced. "Very well," he said and pressed a small button on the corner of his desk. The button was connected to a heavy black cord, which transmitted a buzzing noise to a far room, barely audible through the walls. The sound summoned a young man, who entered the room noiselessly and stood expectantly, his hands clasped behind his back.
Mycroft nodded toward him and said, "Beatrice, this is Sherrinford." Beatrice, who had turned in her seat to look at the visitor, whipped back around to Mycroft, her face the very picture of shock. "My elder brother's daughter's son," Mycroft added by way of explanation.
Beatrice looked at the young man again. To be sure, there was a resemblance. He had the same shoulders and hawkish features, though softened somewhat by a youthful plumpness. He wore his hair long, as was then the custom, and it framed his high forehead, though he lacked the sharp widow's peak that characterized the faces of his two great-uncles. All in all, he reminded her very much of another young man, now some years his junior, though of an earlier generation.
"Sherrinford, this Beatrice Holmes. She is the wife of my younger brother, Sherlock."
The young man stepped forward and clasped Beatrice's outstretched hand. "How old are you?" she asked.
"Five and twenty," he answered plainly.
"His grandfather Sherrinford was seven years my senior," Mycroft explained, "and this is the issue of his eldest daughter. It was thought that he would make a good career in the Ministry, and so I have kept him close to me. It is his job to meet people and then report to me."
"How convenient," Beatrice remarked in a near-whisper, for she was still studying the young man's features intently.
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As a mere visitor to the republic, Holmes was not privy to the pleasures of the Immigration Hall on Ellis Island. Instead, he was ushered into an office and given papers to protect his anonymity. Mycroft had not been remiss in arranging a meeting with the American ambassador, and after some discussion, it was arranged that Holmes should receive diplomatic immunity as long as he was guaranteed by the English embassy in Washington. The friend of a friend, it seemed, was also a friend; or perhaps it might be more appropriate to say, an enemy of an enemy was a friend. The situation was rather ambiguous still.
Stepping outside, Holmes braced himself in the salty air. He had his documents, and money, but no destination other than a vague direction to the nation's capital. It was Holmes' experience that fate always intervened at that liminal moment just before an action has been decided. Today was no exception, for as Holmes exhaled into the misty spring air of New York, he was suddenly greeted by a familiar face.
"Might I point you in the direction of the train station, Mr Holmes?" a smiling man with eager blue eyes said quietly at his elbow. The man in question tipped his hat slightly, and said, "The name is Murdoch. Your wife wrote to me, and suggested I meet you here."
Holmes was flooded with the memory of that summer day in the south of France, and the recently bereaved young constable they had met in the cloister of the monastery. He remembered the satisfied smile that had played on Beatrice's lips as he conversed with Murdoch about criminology, and imagined a similar smile on her lips as she wrote a letter to far-off Canada. No matter how far away he was, it seemed, he had friends; Even if the friends were corresponding with his wife without his knowledge.
A/N: Following Baring-Gould's chronology, Holmes was born in 1854. Mycroft was then born in 1847, and an elder brother (called Sherrinford after the early name for Holmes) I have made also be seven years older, thus born in 1840. His daughter, if she was born circa 1865, would have given birth to Sherrinford the Second in 1887. We therefore avoid answering the pesky question of who inherits the Holmes estates after Sherrinford the First, and do answer the question of why two men whose family backgrounds obviously could afford excellent education had to work for a living. Good old primogeniture.
