A/N: Part 1 of the promised conclusion...

From Book girl fan: One lace glove.

Our ship's departure through the snowstorm was difficult. I had not been on the sea since I was a young man, the last time having been with Sherlock and our parents to visit French relatives. The bobbing motions of our ship made me feel nauseous and I tried, in vain, to distract myself with paperwork in my cabin. I was not one for travel, but Sherlock did have a tendency to draw me out of my normal habits.

That, I corrected myself, was not actually fair. I had hoped to use Sherlock to fill a gap in our intelligence, a boring job for him but a necessary one for the British government, and it was hardly his fault that I had misjudged the danger.

There was a knock at my cabin door.

"Yes?" I put my papers to the side as one of the bridge members from our skeleton crew opened the door. "What is it?"

"Sir, we've just picked up two lifeboats." He hesitated a moment as I surged to my feet, but pressed on, "Passengers say they're from The Friesland sir. She's sunk."

Over the next few hours we picked up more lifeboats, including one that carried what I was told were members of a Dutch criminal syndicate and another that carried the injured Captain. Fortunately we had thought to bring a Doctor and nurse with us, and the poor man was quickly seen to in a private cabin whilst the criminals were placed in the brig.

The crewmen who had been assigned to row across the different lifeboats filled me in on what had happened - that the Captain had been shot, the engines had been stopped, and it had all been part of a plot led by Mr Hendriks the First Mate. Doctor Jones had figured it all out-

"No, no," an engineer had interrupted at this stage of the story. All the civilian passengers had been squeezed into cabins below decks, and everyone else stood around with hot soup and blankets discussing the events of the past day. It was just as well to have more eyes on the ocean, now night had truly fallen; we were still two lifeboats down. "He was Doctor Watson, you know the one who writes the Sherlock Holmes stories? That's what Mr Dekker said."

"Oh right! Doctor Watson then, he figured it all out," the first man corrected himself, then stopped again. "Wait, so that man with the broken foot, was that Sherlock Holmes?"

"Broken foot?" I echoed in some alarm. "Was he alright?"

"I saw him come up top just before our lifeboat went out," a man from the latest lifeboat piped in. "He looked a bit rough, but Doctor Jones or Watson or whoever he was, was giving him a once over."

If Watson was with him, that boded well. "And Doctor Watson figured out what was going on?"

The men started to talk rapidly in their native Dutch, clearly in disagreement about something.

"Sorry," one of them finally turned back to me to say. "None of us are sure. It was Mr Dekker who organised everything."

"And he is?"

"One of us, sir," the first engineer who had interrupted spoke again. "He led the capture of the criminals, while Mr van Es got the passengers organised."

I frowned; I still didn't understand where van Es fit in all of this. "Has Mr Dekker been picked up yet?"

"He would have gone on the last lifeboat. He'll know more than we do."

Our Captain shouted across to us - another lifeboat had been sighted - and everyone scrambled to help. I knew I would be of little help, so waited until there was more news of Sherlock and the Doctor.

I didn't have long to wait for the final lifeboat, but it didn't bring the conclusions I hoped for. As it drew closer I tried to spy Sherlock or the Doctor, but neither man was immediately apparent. It was clear, however, as they winched it upwards, that the passengers on this boat were far more bedraggled than anyone else had been.

"Are there any Doctors aboard?" The first man off the lifeboat called out in a strident, carrying voice. I assumed this was Mr Dekker. "We have an injured man here!"

Then I realised why I hadn't spotted Sherlock beforehand. He was bundled up in an assortment of blankets at the centre of the lifeboat, pale and still. Under Dekker's orders he was swiftly hoisted up and taken below decks to be seen to by our Doctor stirring a little as he was lifted, which I took to be a good sign. I made to follow after him, but of course he was not my only responsibility, so I turned to Dekker instead. The Dutchman was damp and shivering, although a warm blanket from one of the cabins had just been thrust upon him.

"Mr Dekker? I am Mycroft Holmes."

A spark of recognition came into his eyes. "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter?"

I had about as much love for the Doctor's stories as Sherlock did, but in this instance it was useful to bypass useless introductions. "Doctor Watson, where is he?"

A dark shadow passed over his face. "He and Mr van Es were lowering us from The Friesland into the sea. But just as they got started, there was a gunshot-"

"A gunshot?" I had thought, from what had been said, that van Es could be trusted. "How, if they were the only two aboard?"

He shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. We fell the rest of the way, most of us into the ocean, and when we finally had everyone back on the lifeboat, it was dark. We had drifted away, too far to see The Friesland."

I swallowed past a sudden lump in my throat. This couldn't be...

"We couldn't go back. Everyone was too cold from the ocean to waste time and your brother had hit his head again in the fall. There were too many lives at stake." He lowered his gaze. "They were good men, van Es and Watson both. I'm so sorry."

I patted his shoulder in a clumsy reassurance, unable to speak, and left him to catch up with his fellow crewmen. I would ask for further details later; for now I needed to see my brother.