Emma Holloway - A Study in Ashes

“Haven’t you eaten enough?” Watson asked.

“There is always room for a good cheddar,” he said around a toothpick.

“I’m beginning to think you are about to go into hibernation. Where in God’s name do you put it all?”

“It is a question of will.”

“Keep it up and it will become a question of dyspepsia.” But Watson managed a piece of Edam all the same.

“I’m glad you’re settling back into Baker Street,” Holmes said, turning his attention to the view outside the window. The restaurant was on the upper level and gave a partial view of Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament beyond. The trees mercifully hid the wound in the Clock Tower.

“I am pleased to be back,” Watson replied, but stopped there.

Things were the same as before, but different. He should have been happy to resume his role as Holmes’s caretaker and scribe—and occasional gunman—but the circumstances of his return weighed heavily on him. He had left Baker Street to marry, but he had returned because Mary had died, leaving his own house echoing with recriminations. What good is a doctor who cannot cure his own wife? What good was a husband who hadn’t even given her the blessings of a family? Some men wouldn’t question such things, but he did. Mary had given him her heart, and he could not help feeling that he had failed.

“You look pensive, my dear Watson.” Holmes closed his eyes and sniffed at the steam rising from his coffee cup. “You need to exercise your mental faculties. I had two excellent cases last June, just waiting for your pen. Do you recall that affair in Boscombe Valley? And the beggar with the twisted lip?”

“Is work always your prescription for the blue devils?”

“It is the absence of mental exercise that will trouble me,” Holmes decreed.

“So you assume I suffer from an absence of material to beat my brain upon?”

Holmes opened one eye, which glittered with sarcastic mischief. “Perhaps not so much as that. Brain beating has never been your forte.”

Watson bridled. He knew he shouldn’t, that he was sure to lose, but he simply couldn’t help himself. “You speak as if a medical doctor never uses his powers of deduction.”

“I do not deny it in the least, my dear fellow. Nevertheless, my observations must range beyond the quantity and quality of what arrives in a patient’s bedpan.”

The doctor choked on his coffee. “Really, Holmes!”

“Tut, don’t be squeamish. I never am. Observe there.”

Holmes flicked a finger toward the window. “See that man with the embossed portfolio under his arm?”

Irritated, Watson turned. “No doubt you will tell me his blood type and place in the Order of Precedence by the exact shade of his hat lint, I will fall down in awe and admiration, and the overweening self-love that springs from your intellectual superiority will be assuaged. And preferably, it will appear in print so that the world might applaud.”

Holmes gave a mild snort. “Ah, Watson, you know me too well. However, it is not hat lint today, but the ribbon pinned on his lapel that interests me.”

“It is red. What does that signify?”

Holmes leaned in, lowering his voice. Their table was in the alcove of the window and away from the other diners, but caution was prudent. “The Scarlet King. The man is a government official, and a highly placed one, judging by the cut of his suit. Only someone who can afford a Bond Street tailor will wear such as that. I’ve seen these ribbons popping up recently and made inquiries. My brother, Mycroft, tells me they’re a mark of allegiance to a member of the Steam Council. This one is red, ergo Scarlet.”

“Why is that significant?” Watson wanted to know. “Merchants have always painted their doors with the color of whatever steam baron is their patron. The gaslight globes are colored depending upon the utility company that supplies them. Is this any different?”

“It appears that the steam barons are forming political cabals. Steam barons in Parliament—and therefore with the ability to create law—would be allowing the fox free access to the chickens.”

“Can the queen or prime minister do anything to stop it?”

Holmes gave one of his lightning smiles, there and gone again in a blink. “I have it on very good authority that Keating Utility holds mortgages on every one of the prime minister’s properties. There will be no help from him.”

Watson pushed away his coffee cup, no longer interested in food. “And the queen?”

“The Steam Council has a long history, dating back to the 1770s and the colonial rebellion. At first, they were no more than a club of like-minded industrialists. Then they grew ambitious. The first time they proved a real threat was just after the Great Exhibition in 1851. I think seeing their inventions in the Crystal Palace went to their heads, but Prince Albert sorted them out quickly enough that time. The council was sufficiently repressed that it has taken over thirty years to rebuild its influence. Unfortunately, Queen Victoria is not in such a strong position now.”

Since the 1850s were before his time, Watson took the history lesson as given—but he wasn’t so sure about Holmes’s last remark. “Why can’t she simply declare them null and void?”

“My dear doctor, they own three-quarters of the aristocracy, lock, stock, and wine cellar. Most, if not all, of the barons have developed secret armies of their own.”

“What?” Watson exclaimed in astonishment.

“And furthermore, she has no means to make her objections stick. She is a woman of advancing years, losing her children one by one. Once she is gone, where is the forceful personality who will ensure the council stays meek and mild? Where is the next generation’s Albert?”

Gloom descended on the table like one of the thick Thames fogs. Watson made a helpless gesture. “So where is this all to end?”

Holmes raised an eyebrow. “You would raise a hand to help our beleaguered queen?”

“Of course. What truehearted Englishman would not?”

“Your loyalty, as always, is beyond reproach. So, thank God, is your marksmanship.”

Statements like that gave Watson a very bad feeling.

“Oh, look,” said Holmes blandly. “Here comes my brother.”

The timing was a little too pat. Holmes had been expecting this. Mycroft, who was every bit as tall as Sherlock but rather wider, strolled up to the table with an indolent swagger. He made a perfect picture of bureaucratic elegance in gray flannel tails, a top hat, and pristine white linens.

“I would like to point out, Sherlock, that you’re at my table ,” Mycroft said with a slight fidget. “I reserve this table from two o’clock on. You know my habits are precise.”

“A Mr. Holmes reserves this table,” Sherlock replied, with a smugness only a younger brother in the right can muster. “I merely took advantage of the fact that you were being imprecise . There are other seats to be had.”

“But this is the one I sit at.”

“You could join us,” Holmes suggested.

“I dine alone.”

The brothers were intolerable once they got started. “Look here, Holmes,” Watson broke in. Both Holmeses looked his way. Watson sighed. “We were done eating in any event.”

“That is hardly the point,” said Sherlock, rising from the contested spot. “And I was waiting for Mycroft to appear.”

“Why?” his brother asked suspiciously.

“To advise you that I am taking Watson with me to Dartmoor.”

The doctor pushed away from the table, rising to his feet. “You are?” This was the first he’d heard of it.

“I’ll explain everything to him in due course, but I thought you should know.”