“Well, yes!”

“Wrong with the report, that is. The general public does not know Mycroft Holmes from Adam, so why should The Times print a formal obituary? And in any event, even if a man has been old and ill, how often does his obituary appear the very next day?”

I started to protest, then stopped: Javitz had noted just that thing, and I had dismissed it. Still: “And you think Mycroft would have expected us to make a whopping great leap of ratiocination based on a too-quick obituary?”

“I think when we find him, he will be amused that we had to dig up his coffin to be certain.”

“‘Amused,’” I repeated darkly, looking at my filthy clothing and blistered hands. “Will he also be amused when his misplaced confidence in our deductive abilities gets us arrested for grave-robbing?”

“We have not actually stolen anything,” Holmes pointed out mildly.

“Tell that to the arresting constable. Are you ready for the turf, Goodman?”

We tamped down the soil as best we could and shifted the turf back over the grave. In a day or two it would look much as it had, particularly if the rain continued, but even if the grave-diggers noticed that it was not as they left it, what would they do? Dig it up and find precisely what they had left there?

We darkened the light, left the spade in the shed, and crept unnoticed from the silent graveyard, taking our filthy selves through the wet streets to the bolt-hole.

Chapter 59

Peter James West returned the telephone to its cradle and walked across the room to stretch his reflection across the dark, rain-swept city. And only an hour ago, he’d been ready to call an end to it and see what he could salvage from the rubble of his carefully constructed plans.

The knock on his office door that afternoon had summoned him half an hour early to the taxi, which had meant an extra half hour sheltering in the damp recesses of the vault, waiting for the mourners to arrive. And there he had stood, growing ever colder, as his plans melted away like the mud at the edges of Mycroft Holmes’ grave. Now, hours later, he could acknowledge a grudging respect for the two-pronged attack on his careful plan. Buckner hadn’t a chance-although he couldn’t see that Gunderson would have done any better.

The blond man in charge of the band must have been Moreton, the mad woodsman of Cumbria. The question was, had the woman only met him last week, or had she deliberately sought him out? He’d thought the man a pet she’d picked up along the way, as she had picked up (or so it appeared) the pilot and the child. If so, it showed a degree of sentimentality he’d not have expected of the young wife of Sherlock Holmes. If not-if the band-leader’s inclusion had been planned-it indicated a degree of forethought that could prove dangerous.

Could that even be where Sosa had got to, as well, sheltering beneath her wing? And if not with her, where was he? Had his employer’s death brought him face to face with the consequences of treason, and driven him to flee the country? If so, he hadn’t taken his ill-gotten gains with him. And if the man tried to gain access to his accounts, West would hear about it. In any event, Sosa would surely be picked up soon-he lacked the nerve or the skill to go to ground for long.

But all the gloom and despair faded with the telephone call. There was a move in chess (idiotic game, a pale imitation of reality) where a lowly pawn could be made into a queen, and turned against the opponent with devastating consequences.

The telephone conversation had been to say that his pawn had been queened. He now had the tool with which to prise out the last remaining remnants of the old age, and make it new.

Painstaking, untiring, scientific method backed by modern technology: This was the new age of Intelligence. The age of Peter James West.

Chapter 60

It was fortunate that the building was empty at night, because during the work-day, someone would surely have noticed the volume of water running through unseen pipes. I claimed the first bath, which meant that Holmes’ water ran cold. I felt no regret for his discomfort.

My hair was dry by the time he came out, his skin resembling a fish’s pale belly. Goodman placed a steaming bowl of soup before him along with the plate of fresh-cooked scones he had apparently summoned from the air, and I let Holmes finish his meal before raising my questions.

“So, if Mycroft could have orchestrated this entire affair, but did not, who else is there? Who is in a similar position?”

“As you said, Sosa comes to mind. He has always been more an assistant than a mere secretary. And, he might well expect to inherit some portion of Mycroft’s authority.”

“What about West-what’s his name, Peter James? I went to see him, but he was not at the address Lestrade gave me. I thought he might come to the funeral.”

“West is one of the young men Smith-Cumming brought in after the War, and I’d have thought him of too low a rank to possess that degree of ambition. In another twenty years, perhaps. His boss, Sinclair, would be more likely: Sinclair and Mycroft have never seen eye to eye on what constitutes the greatest threat to the empire, and he’s more than once expressed his disapproval of Mycroft’s parallel and, as Sinclair regards it, amateur Intelligence firm.

“I was rather surprised to see him at the funeral-and, looking less relieved than saddened. Sinclair has taken the widespread conviction that Germany was the ultimate evil and transferred it onto Russia. He maintains the Bolsheviks have to be crushed, instantly and forever, lest they penetrate to our very soul. Mycroft agrees to an extent, but refuses to permit the limitation of interests. Thus far, the powers-that-be have agreed that Mycroft possesses a balanced view, but this has only convinced Sinclair that Mycroft is deluded and obstructive.”

He stretched out an arm for a sterling cigarette case and gaudy glass ash-tray from Blackpool. When the stale cigarette was lit, he slid the case towards Goodman, who did not take it. We sat for a time, meditating on the ramifications of in-fighting among the branches of Intelligence.

“I have to agree,” I said at last, “this entire scheme is convoluted enough to be something Mycroft cooked up.”

“That would be a pleasant dream: my brother and his assistant, smoking cigars and moving pieces around a chessboard whilst his machinery turns.”

“We need to find him,” I said, stating the obvious.

“We need to find all of the missing pieces,” Holmes corrected me. “We need to have a word with Sosa’s mother, to see if he had a favourite refuge. And Brothers, who might be with one of the church’s Inner Circle.”

“I’d suggest we look for Mycroft first.”

“Agreed,” Holmes said. He put out his cigarette and fixed an eye on our guest. “Mr Goodman, where might you look for my brother?”

“At home,” the small man said promptly.

I winced, recalling the state in which I’d left Mycroft’s flat, but objected, “He wasn’t there yesterday.”

“All the more reason for him to be there today,” Holmes said.

Goodman came with us, of course. I could not see that he would either cause, or come to, harm, and although I thought for a moment that Holmes would request him to stay behind, he did not.

We went in through the St James’s Square entrance and followed Holmes’ bobbing candle in single-file through the narrow labyrinth. The faint cracks around the doorway indicated that the light was still on in the study, and Holmes slid the peep-hole aside that I might examine the room, comparing it with how we had left it.

I took my time, then stood back.

“I don’t see his gold pen on the desk-top. I’m pretty certain it was there Saturday.”

Goodman reached for the latch, but Holmes grabbed his wrist. I had to agree. “Robert, he’s right. Last time it only seemed to be a matter of arrest, but now there may be something more dangerous in there.”