A Case of Insanity

Chapter Eight

After the discovery of my missing ticket, I had an uneasy journey back to London. I told myself I was worrying unnecessarily; after all, one may lose things without the charge of mental deterioration being laid at one's door. And it was only a ticket – at his worst, Holmes had misplaced whole days without any memory of how he had filled them.

I consoled myself with the thought that if it was evidence of anything, then it must surely be the advance of old age. How long did I have, I wondered, before I became a credible imitation of that familiar figure of popular fiction, the kindly absent-minded family doctor, forever losing his stethoscope and always finding it tucked away in his hat?

I walked the short distance from Charing Cross across Trafalgar Square to Pall Mall and the Diogenes Club. Mycroft Holmes was in residence, so I was told, but not accepting visitors. I asked the valet if he would inform Mr Holmes of my presence, as I was expected. The fellow grimaced and replied that disturbing the gentleman when he was in 'one of his black humours' was more than his job was worth, but seeing as it was me and he knew my face of old, he would take the risk. When he returned, he wore a nervous smile and I was informed that Mr Holmes was waiting for me in the Strangers' Room.

Upstairs, I found the chamber empty, save for the corpulent figure of Holmes's elder brother standing in the bow window, as he had been at my last visit four days ago. As before, he had his back to me, his gaze turned to something outside. His hands were clasped behind him and clutched between the fleshy fingers I thought I detected a glimmer of white – a letter perhaps. His welcome was pleasant enough, albeit it perfunctory, and he had that air of broiling agitation that in his brother manifested itself in fierce activity when a case was not going according to plan.

Mindful not to outstay my welcome, having already intruded on his time, I kept my tale short and laid out the facts of my visit to Lullingfield Manor Hospital for his consideration.

"He is no better?" said he, when I had finished. "What a nuisance. Typical of my brother to conspire to cause the maximum of inconvenience to all around him, even in illness. I doubt a more selfish creature existed in the history of the world." He turned to me with a heartfelt sigh. "Forgive me, Doctor, if I sound a little harsh. I had hoped for so much more."

"We all did, Mr Holmes. His doctor is now of the opinion that his condition is irreversible."

Mycroft Holmes muttered something under his breath. "As I feared. Well, the crisis has broken and now we must deal with it. This letter," said he, brandishing the creased sheet he had crumpled in his fist, "arrived this morning. See what you make of it."

A cold hand closed around my innards as I read its contents.

'Dear Sir,' (it ran), 'we wish to lay before you certain facts what have come our way. We know about your brother. If you don't want it getting in the papers, I suggest you give us £500, otherwise we'll give them in Fleet Street chapter and verse. We'll let you know when and where we want it. Yours humbly, A Friend of Justiss'.

"Good heavens," I gasped. "Blackmail."

"Indeed," said my companion, easing himself into the chair opposite mine. "This is quite a novel experience for me. I've never had anything before that was worth anyone's time in demanding such a ransom."

"But how? How do they know about your brother?"

"Whoever 'they' might be. My thoughts exactly, Doctor."

He was gazing pointedly at me, his eyes so alive with a peculiar keenness and penetration that it engendered a horrible thought in my mind. "I hope you don't think that I—"

"No, no, of course not," said he, making a dismissive gesture. "Of the three people present in this very room when the discussion of Sherlock's condition took place, your good self is the only one I trust implicitly. Myself I also discount, since I have been fortunate enough not to pass five words with anyone since our last encounter. As for Dr Rochdale…"

He took up the letter and examined it minutely. "No, it is not his doing. If we allow that a man of moderate intelligence knows how to fabricate a document to appear less educated than he actually is, then we are left with the amount of ransom involved. Five hundred pounds is a niggardly sum, not a fraction of my brother's true worth. Indeed, I am not entirely sure if I am not offended by it. My first blackmail note has fallen far short of my expectations!"

"But, Mr Holmes, five hundred pounds is not inconsiderable."

"You have seen his institution, so you must allow that Dr Rochdale is already a wealthy man. Sherlock is worth more to him in fees for his care alone. No, that they have asked for so little suggests a lack of imagination on the part of the writer. It also suggests that they are uncertain of their facts. 'We know about your brother' is meaningless. What do they know about him? It could be nothing more than that he takes his coffee black and disdains sugar in his tea."

"Then what are we to make of it?"

"Does anyone at the hospital know of his true identity?"

"The specialist responsible for his treatment, a Dr Erasmus Gordon, told me that Holmes had been telling them who he really was, but that he had discounted it as the delusional ravings of an unsound mind. He sees the condition a great deal, apparently."

"He should work in government," snorted Mycroft Holmes. "The condition is rife there. Indeed, I believe it is mandatory for high office. However," said he, sobering, "do we believe that this ransom demand is the work of the good doctor? No. The paper is poor quality and without a watermark, the type that may be purchased in quantity for a penny. The ink is cheap and watered down, and the pen used had a broken nib – you may observe the small blobs at the end of the curlicues. The writing itself resembles a spider's scrawl, and the grammar and spelling is atrocious. You will have noted from the slant, however, that it is the work of a right-handed man – a man attempting to conceal his own handwriting will invariably switch his pen to the other hand."

"What if he was left-handed?"

"Was he?"

I tried to remember. I had a clear recollection of our conversation in the garden, talking about the Brigadier and Dr Gordon holding the shotgun he had taken from him in his hand, but which one? I was acutely conscious of an overheated feeling about my head and the growing length of my silence as I struggled with the recalcitrant memory. Try as I might, it would not come. Finally, I had to admit defeat and apologise for my apparent amnesia on the subject.

"It matters not one jot," said Mycroft Holmes sympathetically. "Do not tax yourself, Doctor. This past week has been a trial for us all and it is unfair of me to expect you to remember such a trifling detail. You had more important things on your mind."

"Yes," I breathed, somewhat shaken, "that probably explains it."

"As for this writing, I should stake my reputation upon this being the work of a right-handed man. It is a mess, to be sure, but there is a satisfactory roundness about the 'O' that is impossible to achieve without great familiarity with the pen. Now, if we allow that all this points to a work of artifice by a clever, educated man attempting to make us believe otherwise, we cannot overlook the most interesting fact of all, one which I have yet to find practised even by the most artful of criminals."

"Which is?"

"The writer chewed tobacco."

I stared at him aghast. "How on earth do you know that?"

"From the envelope." He delved into his pocket and drew out the grimy, soiled article in question. "If you would care to look under the stamp, you will find the glue has a tarry quality to it, where the sender has used his own saliva in the solution. It would be a rare doctor indeed who indulged in such a habit. For these reason, I would say that this letter is exactly what it purports to be – an attempt at blackmail by an unimaginative blackguard, or, as more likely seems the case to judge from the use of the plural form in this letter, a group of petty criminals."

"How would 'they' have found out?"

"Has anyone inquired after Sherlock?"

I shook my head. "I have been in Richmond since Tuesday evening. The only person I have told is Mrs Hudson and then only what you advised, that a case had taken your brother to the Continent."

"So, to employ one of those hackneyed phrases that Sherlock bandies about, since we have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely… no, that's not it."

"However improbable, must be the truth," I finished for him, pleased that that was one memory that had not escaped me. "But if we have told no one, and you discount Dr Gordon, then…"

"Then we must have been seen."

"I could have sworn the street was empty."

"But for your Lady of Shalott in her bower-eaves, come to look down upon bold Sir Lancelot. Except in this instance, the curse has come upon us."

"Old Mrs Johnson at 215?" I said doubtfully. "I took great care to conceal Holmes from her sight."

"She – or someone with greater imagination on hearing her description of events – must have realised that a person was carried out of your rooms. It was not you, then clearly it must have been my brother. Does the lady gossip?"

"Incessantly. It is her only form of entertainment."

"There you are then. One should never discount the harm done by word of mouth. People place more value upon the confidence of a neighbour than anything they read in the papers. It is the personal touch, you see. It would also explain this rather vague reference to the writer's 'knowledge' about Sherlock. Something has occurred, they know that much, but not the particulars."

"Then what will you do?"

Mycroft Holmes pondered the question, his expression unreadable. "I have been debating that very problem for most of the morning," said he. "I cannot allow these people to take their suspicions to the press – once they start sniffing around the case, we may be certain that someone will light upon the truth. I have said before that it is imperative that word of this does not come out. Therefore, in the interests of the greater good, I see no other option."

"Surely you do not propose to pay them?"

"Good heavens, no. For now, they have only their nasty surmises; to pay them would only confirm what they suspect. No, I see that I must nip this particular canker in the bud. England expects, Doctor, and doing one's duty, as Nelson discovered to his cost, inevitably involves a degree of self-sacrifice."

My blood ran cold. I gathered I was about to find out just how ruthless Mycroft Holmes could be. "Mr Holmes, I hope you don't mean—"

"Of course not," said he, "nothing so drastic as that, Doctor. I shall, however, be sending Sherlock away, to somewhere his face and his name – and your stories, come to that – are not known. The Himalayas, perhaps?" he suggested with a mirthless smile. "It is clear to me that he cannot remain in this country. That formidable brain of his contains too much that could embarrass the highest in the land. Can you imagine the hold a foreign power would have over us if Sherlock fell into their hands? Or you, come to that."

I stared at him. "Me?"

"You have seen what my brother has seen, heard what he has heard. And then, worst of you, you set it down in print. I can tell you now, Dr Watson, that you were the subject of some speculation at Whitehall a few years back. Your sense of discretion was called into question. Oh, they do not mind so much about blue carbuncles in geese, engineers who lose their thumbs or silly young ladies accepting dubious appointments in out the way country houses. Nor did I mind mention of my own good self, even if I venture to suggest that that is how the writer of this blackmail note came to know of my fraternal relationship with Sherlock. What caused the greatest stir was your account of the business concerning that vanishing Naval Treaty."

"I gave no details and changed the names."

"That is not enough," said Mycroft Holmes briskly. "I am afraid, my dear sir, that you are delightful innocent when it comes to the affairs of state. At the time, I did not think you fully understood the implications of your actions. The French and Russian ambassadors were up in arms that there should have been any such insinuation of their dabbling in stolen state documents made against them. We all know they do, of course, as would we if the chance came our way, but it is something neither we nor they admit openly. Appearances are everything in matters of diplomacy, and you broke that unwritten rule of stating the facts exactly as you saw them, rather than honouring the pretence of ignorance. It took the devil of a job to convince them that it was nothing more than a pure work of fiction on your part."

"I had not realised it was a sensitive issue."

"Dealing with politicians is akin dealing with women, with many of the same inherent dangers – you must think before you speak in the certain knowledge that whatever you say will be taken down and used in evidence against you. In your case, there was talk in certain quarters of having you charged with high treason."

"Surely not!"

Mycroft Holmes nodded slowly. "I dissuaded them by pointing out that a public trial would cause them greater embarrassment than your story already had. I also said that you were harmless and…" He cleared his throat and looked a trifle disconcerted. "As well as a few other things of which I am not proud. Given the choice, however, between having your intelligence questioned and standing trial, I thought you would prefer the former rather than the latter."

"Yes," I said, numbly.

For many years I had railed against Holmes's excessive secrecy, believing that he did me a disservice in not trusting to my discretion in matters of brothers and closely-laid plans; now I had to wonder. I had listened to this tale with a sense of growing dismay and horror. I had known none of this. In my naivety, I had thought I was offending no one by my poor attempts to honour the name of the friend I had thought lost to the churning waters of the Reichenbach Falls. I had not realised I had raised the ire of foreign powers as well as that of my own government. I cringed to think how close I had unwittingly come to disaster, and could scarcely express my gratitude enough for the unseen efforts undertaken on my behalf.

"It was the least I could do," said Mycroft Holmes graciously. "I was already in a most unenviable position, thanks to my thoughtless brother, and having you come to harm because of his reticence in not forewarning you was unconscionable. It really isn't done, you know, to reveal that the government is fallible and that important documents get lost. It dents the public's confidence. I took the precaution after that of having a quiet word with your editor, who assured me that the next story was to be your last, dealing as it did with the events surrounding my brother's 'demise'. That was much safer ground."

Listening to this account, something I had often wondered at began to make sense. "Is this why Holmes put an injunction on my writing further accounts of his cases?"

"Yes. I advised him it was the best course of action. He said that he didn't want to offend you. I said that you would be more offended if you came to a sticky end on the wrong end of an assassin's blade. Believe me, Doctor, it does happen. The fate of that poor fellow, Cadogan West, should convince you of that." He delved into his pocket and took out his snuff box. "Give it time, sir, time and several changes of administration, and then you may write what you will, including that account of the Bruce-Partington Plans if you judge the case worthy of transcribing. But not now. You do understand? Good. Now, about my brother."

I waited in silence while he helped himself to a pinch of snuff.

"What a nuisance this is," said he, throwing his hands down onto the arms of his chair with ill-disguised annoyance. "I have already suffered disturbance enough to my routine, and there is yet more to come. As it is, I have had to inform Dr Rochdale that my brother must be moved. He is making inquiries about private asylums abroad. On Monday, the press will be notified that Sherlock has gone missing, thus pre-empting our blackmailers and foiling their schemes."

"And after that?"

He smiled grimly. "We can do no better than to follow Sherlock's excellent example. He died a literary death once, he shall do so again. Of course it means another memorial service, another empty coffin – as I say, tiresome. But you must forgive my morbid turn of thought, Dr Watson. I am not quite so heartless. He has a month to make a full recovery, nothing less will suffice, otherwise I shall have no choice but to inform anyone who is interested that my brother is dead. He cannot be missing indefinitely. That would create unhealthy interest and speculation."

"But what if he does recover?"

"I thought you said it was unlikely."

"There is one possibility." It was a slim chance, but one that had occurred to me during my visit to Lullingfield Manor Hospital. The opulence of my surroundings, so unlike any I had experienced at such an institution before, had made me think of those less fortunate, and those in one remote Cornish asylum in particular.

"What is this 'possibility', as you call it?"

"Not so much a what, Mr Holmes, as a where. Helston, to be exact. If there is any hope for your brother, I am certain I shall find it there."

"Then go," said he, "and I wish you the best of luck, for I feel you shall need it. Time is against us, Doctor. You – and my brother – have until Monday."

Continued in Chapter Nine