The Baker Street Translation (4 page)

The floor was polished and gleaming but entirely bare of furnishings—just as it had been months earlier when Reggie had first come up to talk to Rafferty. It was a little surprising; Reggie thought they would have found some additional use for the space by now.

But no, it was still just Rafferty's little office alone on the floor, tucked away in a corner, and conveying an impression not so much of prestige as of slight embarrassment.

The door was open; Rafferty, a smallish man in an immaculate gray suit and wire-rim spectacles, was seated behind his desk, looking out on the floor, and waiting—almost anxiously, it seemed to Reggie—for Reggie to get there.

“Sit down,” said Rafferty as soon as Reggie reached the entrance. “Close the door behind you, please.”

There was clearly no one else on the floor, but Reggie shut the door, as requested.

“I suppose that technically,” began Rafferty, “legally, I am not really allowed to tell you this. But I will anyway.”

In Reggie's opinion, Rafferty had always had a bit of a Napoleonic complex—but that was not his demeanor today. He seemed quite sincerely concerned—and not at all confident—about whatever it was he was about to convey.

Reggie sat down. Rafferty took a deep breath and then spoke in a hushed voice. “An offer has been made for Dorset House.”

Reggie absorbed that statement for a moment, and said nothing.

“I thought you might want to know,” continued Rafferty, “given that your chambers have been doing so well, and that your tenancy might be at risk. There is a provision in the offer that Dorset House will not be obliged to move its banking offices or its direct employees. But there is no such protection in the offer for building tenants not directly employed by the bank. There are only two such tenants, and one of them, of course, is you.”

“I have a lease!” said Reggie.

Rafferty nodded somberly, then gave a little shrug. “You know how it is—leases are made to be broken.”

“Has Dorset accepted this bloody offer?”

“No,” said Rafferty. “They have declined it—at least for the moment. I don't believe Dorset National Building Society wants to be at risk of ever having to lease back its own premises, or to move its headquarters—any more than you, I presume, would want to move your law chambers, now that your practice has gotten off the ground.”

“No,” said Reggie. “I would not. And Dorset was bloody well right to decline.”

“Yes, well, so far so good,” said Rafferty. “But there's more.” He paused and looked about now, as if someone could have actually sneaked into the office with them.

“Yes?”

Rafferty spoke in a whisper. “The buyer has said that if they are unable to agree upon terms for purchasing Dorset House, he will consider a hostile takeover of Dorset National Building Society itself!”

“He can buy the whole bloody company?” said Reggie, not whispering at all.

“Apparently. Or at least a majority interest.”

“Who could do that? Who is this person?”

“I don't know. I don't have access to that information.”

“Why in hell would anyone want the building so much that they'd buy the entire company for it?”

Rafferty just sat back in his chair and glumly shook his head. Then he said, “How are the letters? Able to keep the responses going out, aren't you?”

“Yes,” said Reggie, fidgeting just slightly. He didn't mention the batch he had just put on the cart for Nigel; strictly speaking, he knew he was supposed to be doing them all himself.

“That's good,” said Rafferty. He seemed distracted. “Do try to keep on top of them,” he said now, almost apologetically. And then he added, “For as long we have them.”

5

On a South Seas island, Laura sat with her shoes off, letting the sun pleasantly warm her bare shoulders and bare toes, and not thinking at all. She had, in fact, already made up her mind about the who, although she had not yet informed either of the men who most needed to know.

The only question was the what. Marriage was fine in and of itself. The question was, What then? She could not wait forever to decide.

Babies, or no?

Laura glanced down involuntarily at her bare toes, and then away again.

Reggie loved those toes. He had said so many times.

Nigel had not quite ever seen them. He almost had once, before Laura had met Reggie, and before Nigel had met Mara. But not quite.

Buxton seemed to have noticed them once, but apparently he had been neither impressed nor concerned, either way.

Only one woman in ten thousand had toes like that. One in one thousand, Laura had heard someone say, if the woman is a redhead. Probably an old wives' tale. There were all kinds of old wives' tales about what red hair and a couple of webbed toes might mean: a sign of intelligence; a sign of sensuality (Reggie said so); a sign, three hundred years ago, that a woman might very probably be a witch.

What other genetic quirks might she have lurking?

And what about Reggie's lurking genetic quirks? She was sure she had identified several. And never mind the genetic ones, what about all the social and behavioral ones? He had tons of those. What about his using his fingernails for all sorts of tasks that toenail clippers and screwdrivers and surgical scalpels had been designed for? Was that tendency hereditary? God, she hoped not.

And never mind all hers and his genetic and behavioral quirks, what about the state of the whole bloody quirky world?

Life being random, and so frequently unfair, there are so many things out of one's control.

She knew clearly what she wanted, yet somehow it was not an easy decision.

Just a couple of years ago, she could have blamed her own indecision on Reggie's noncommittal attitude, and just let it go at that, and so she had done.

But no longer. Blast him. She knew he was about to put the ball squarely in her court.

6

In the predawn hours at Regent's Park, a taxi pulled over on Outer Circle Drive near Clarence Gate, just south of the little takeaway patio at the boat-rental station. Two geese, gliding silently as the vehicle approached, took flight when the passenger door opened.

Robert Buxton stepped out. He was a bulky man, not inclined to being inconspicuous in either temperament or physique, and his white macintosh stood out in relief against the color of the cab.

He sensed that, and he quickly waved the driver on.

He had taken a cab, rather than his limo, specifically for anonymity. Total secrecy wasn't necessary; he wasn't concerned about the stray dawn jogger. But there was no sense in being obvious about things, either, and so he had made a point of arriving before the morning commuters—and of getting out of the cab before he reached his actual destination.

And then Buxton began walking south. He had to pause his rolling stride for a moment at the intersection of Park Road and Baker Street; the red signal light by itself was not an impediment, but an accelerating lorry was, and he had to stand for a few seconds, impatiently, until it had passed.

Then he continued across the intersection. His destination wasn't far. A hundred yards or so south from Park Road, just past the middle of the 200 block of Baker Street.

He entered the marble and glass lobby at Dorset House. He had indeed beaten the business commuters; there was no one but the thin, white-haired security guard, who was seated at his station in the middle of the lobby.

The old fellow's head was nodding down at a tabloid newspaper he had opened; he appeared to be asleep. But the sound of Buxton's footsteps on the marble floor roused him. He glanced up from the tabloid—the
Daily Sun,
Buxton was pleased to notice—as Buxton approached.

Buxton decided it was best to say something.

“Heath's chambers?” said Buxton, facing the security guard's station but with an eye on the lifts.

“You mean Baker Street Chambers?” said the guard.

“Yes,” said Buxton.

“First floor up,” said the guard. “But no one is in yet.”

“That's fine,” said Buxton. “I'll just go up and leave a note.

The elderly guard just nodded and did not challenge Buxton. Few people did.

And Dorset National Building Society did not know whom they were dealing with, if they thought he would simply accept a turndown and walk away.

Buxton got in the lift, rode up to the next floor, and then stepped boldly into the before-hours dark of the law chambers.

As he stepped out, he heard a sound from somewhere on the floor. He paused and waited—and the heating unit crackled and started up. That was, no doubt, the sound he had heard.

But no need to take chances. He was Lord Robert Buxton; he did not need to skulk unless he chose to. He announced his presence.

“Hello there,” he called out. “This is Heath's law chambers, is it?”

No one answered. No more sounds, except the hum of the heating unit.

Excellent.

He took a moment to look around. He had not been here before.

It was a simple layout—one central corridor, which led directly from the lifts where Buxton was standing to the corridor at the opposite wall, and two additional corridors on either side, at far left and far right.

All the lights were off. But even in the dark, Buxton could easily tell how little the interior on this floor—Reggie's floor—must have cost. It was so apparent in the flimsy cubicle structures and furnishings of the support offices: Compared to Lord Robert Buxton, Reggie Heath, Q.C., was simply a pauper. He couldn't even put on a good show.

Buxton couldn't help but smirk. How humiliating to be Reggie Heath.

He strode down the center corridor until he reached the secretary's desk at the far end.

To his left, the intersecting corridor led to two offices.

The first was quite small, with a window that faced toward the secretary's desk. The law clerk's office, probably. Along the wall just beyond that office was an arrangement of partitioned barrister's shelves, with incoming briefs and such. And then, beyond the shelves, was a corner office. That one had to be Reggie Heath's.

The door was closed, but Buxton checked it anyway. Locked, of course. No matter. Given the casual attitude Reggie was known to display toward the letters, Buxton did not think he kept them there.

Buxton tried the door on the clerk's office. Not locked. The door pushed open. But this office was almost empty—a typewriter, a wooden file cabinet, an empty metal In basket, a nameplate that Buxton could not quite read in the dark. Nothing of use here.

Buxton came back out and turned his attention to the secretary's station.

There was nothing to explore on the secretary's desk itself. But there were some shelves in back of it and around the corner to the side. Buxton walked around the desk to take a look.

And then, in his haste and in the dark, he almost fell over it—a small metal delivery cart, waist-high, tucked behind the desk, out of the way of the cleaning crew.

This made a noise—not loud, but startling on the quiet floor—as Buxton put out his hand to steady himself.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered under his breath.

He took a moment to look about—no lights had come on anywhere in the floor. All was silent. There was no one to hear the noise he had made. But something had fallen to the floor.

He didn't want to have to tidy up, but probably it was best not to make it obvious that someone had been rifling through the secretary's station.

He got down on his hands and knees to pick up what he had spilled. He saw a large express mailing envelope, and at least a half dozen pieces of correspondence that had spilled out of it.

He picked them all up and placed them back on the cart—and then he stopped. An address had caught his eye.

Had he found them?

He lifted one sheet up to catch the residual light that came through the windows on the Baker Street side. He could just make it out:

To: Mr. Sherlock Holmes, 221B Baker Street

Eureka. Yes. The letters to Sherlock Holmes.

He bent down again to make sure he had them all, including a couple of stragglers that had landed under the desk.

He stood and checked his watch—there was still time before anyone should begin to arrive. He put the letters on the secretary's desk in front of him, turned on the small desk lamp, and began to shuffle through them.

He was entirely prepared to buy Dorset House—or possibly even a majority interest in the bank that owned it if need be—to take away the letters and whatever it was about them that had made Reggie more attractive to Laura. But he had no intention of buying a pig in a poke—he wanted to know what he was paying for.

He began to scan through the letters. He quickly read one after another, trying to understand what could possibly make any of them matter.

But there was nothing to them. Just nothing. All he could think of was how amazing it was that there were so many losers in the world.

And then he came to a letter that made him pause.

He read it through once, and then he repositioned the lamp so that he could read it through again, more carefully.

It read as follows:

Dear Mr. Holmes—

You are receiving this letter because I know that I shall soon pass away.

Do not grieve. I go to a better place, or at least to one no worse. And as I am writing this letter and recording this document at age 102, I cannot complain about the timing of things. Indeed, my entire life story is one of the most excellent timing.

Which brings me to the purpose of my letter: I have no heirs. I have outlived them all (even my lovely beagle Paulo, whom I cannot bear to replace). There is no charity that I know well enough to trust, and no political or social cause that I fully believe in. And so I have done the only sensible, logical thing I can do:

I have willed my entire fortune to you. I know it's not much; it dwindles away daily, as you might imagine. But what little I still have will be yours.