The Scottish Ploy (8 page)

Ten minutes later I handed the prepared package of files to Tyers and went back to the study where I found Mycroft Holmes, newly dressed, his hair still damp from the bath, standing in front of the hearth, hands spread to the heat. “You’ve done well, my dear boy,” he announced, cocking his head in the direction of the stacked sheets.

“It’s good of you to say so, sir,” I replied, and sat down in the chair I had occupied for most of the morning.

“Sir Marmion will have his files back in good time and you and I will have an opportunity to plan for our next go-round with Baron von Schattenberg.” He continued to look pleased, which suggested to me that he had arrived at a strategy to deal with the situation. “I am most grateful for all Inspector Strange told me—in strict confidence, of course.”

I was not quite following his thoughts here, but I sat still, waiting to hear what more he would say. “There may well be a few policemen who have become enmeshed in certain organizations that purport to address political wrongs that are actually occupied in fomenting violence and civil unrest. I am told that even when the alliance is not divided that police sympathies tend toward those organizations because of their public positions of maintaining order at all cost.” He came to his chair and sat down again, his face expressive of his ambivalent thoughts. “Although I cannot yet prove it, I am convinced some of those organizations have direct ties to the Brotherhood, which would explain how they have managed to work undetected for so long—few policemen are willing to act against their fellows, as such an investigation must inevitably require.”

“What does Inspector Strange have to say about the extent of this riot?” I was dubious about this possibility, for it struck me that anything so wide-spread could remain secret for long.

“He has only guesses, and is reluctant to try to seek out anything more material, for he has discovered that any proof that might have existed has been mislaid or destroyed. Those who could give relevant testimony are missing. He says that there were even policemen who tried to investigate the groups in the past, and they all—with one exception—came to a sticky end.” Mycroft Holmes studied his hands. “You may guess, if you like.”

“Your source of information?” I suggested.

Holmes nodded. “The one exception is Inspector Strange himself. He is not anxious to become caught up in the very intrigue he left behind four years ago.”

“But you believe him?” I could see there was apprehension in his somber grey eyes.

“I would rather I did not, but I do.” He rocked back on his heels. “Policemen serving as paid assassins. In England!” The idea clearly distressed him. “You might expect such a thing in Turkey, or in Sicily, or perhaps in Russia, but not here.”

“What do you plan to do?” I asked, wanting to know for my own benefit as well as his.

“I plan to watch my back, and so should you.” He folded his arms. “If the men who have been following us are policemen, then dealing with them becomes much more problematic than it was.”

“If we have, in fact, been followed.” I was becoming uncomfortable with the many notions now crowding my head.

“We have, in fact, been shot at,” Mycroft Holmes said firmly as he fingered the small scab on his face. “And it was a policeman who sent Sid Hastings away. He is not one to be fooled by an imposter; no jarvy is.”

“But why should anyone be taking such action now? Do you think it is the Brotherhood?” I knew the answer before I heard it from him.

“My dear Guthrie,” he said, all insouciance, “who else is likely to take so great a risk at this time?”

I could not help but agree, lowering my head as I did. “Where does that leave us?”

“In a bit of a pickle, I should think,” said Mycroft Holmes. “I hope you have your pistol with you. I do not want you going out without it.”

“If that is what you want, I shall do it,” I told him, trying to convince myself my anxiety was the product of my imagination and not the information Mycroft Holmes had conveyed to me. “My pistol is in my valise.”

“Good man,” said Mycroft Holmes.

“I will load it, if you think it best,” I went on.

“Of course I think it best. Why should I want you to carry an empty pistol?” He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Do not try my patience, if you please.”

“I did not mean to try your patience, sir,” I told him. “You do not generally want me to carry loaded weapons to diplomatic meetings, such as the one we have scheduled this afternoon?”

“Ah, yes,” said Mycroft Holmes. “Forgive me. Ordinarily you would be right, but it would be best, I think, to make an exception today. In case the Brotherhood has plans for us.”

“You do expect them to take action, don’t you?” I said, shocked in spite of myself.

“Regrettably, I do,” he said. “If Jacobbus Braaten is coming to England with Vickers, you may be sure they will want to remove any ... obstacles from their path.” He laid his hand on his chest. “I am accounted something of an obstacle by them. As are you,” he added keenly.

“Perhaps,” I said. “But why draw attention to their presence by so overt an act as killing us? Would not the police—” Before I could finish, Mycroft Holmes interrupted.

“If the police are truly being influenced as Inspector Strange indicated they are, we must not look to the police to aid us, or at least not in any way we would expect.” He began to twiddle his watch-fob, a sure sign of agitation on his part. “If the Brotherhood wishes to return to England, they know they must stop me, or render me ineffective against them. Had I not learned of the role the police might play in this, I might well have relied upon them in a most improvident manner.” His voice dropped. “You have fought the Brotherhood more than once, Guthrie. You know what they are capable of doing. Still you do not want to believe how ruthless they can be.”

I considered my answer. “I would prefer not to think anyone so lost to human sensibilities as these men are,” I told him at last.

“I cannot blame you for that,” Mycroft Holmes said with sympathy. “But I must ask you to remember what they have done before, and to realize their goals have not changed.”

“Yes,” I said, then sighed. “It is all such a muddle. Sir Cameron and his wife. Baron von Schattenberg and his aides. And on top of it, Mister Kerem’s tale, which is another matter altogether.”

Mycroft Holmes raised one heavy eyebrow. “Is it? I wonder.”

I recalled what Tyers had said about obfuscation, and was tempted to mention it to Holmes, but said instead, “How could they be connected?”

“I don’t know. Yet.” He dropped his watch-fob and began to walk about the room. “They may not be. But my thumbs are pricking again.”

“Not very scientific,” I quipped, trusting he would not be offended.

“Not that we have determined thus far,” he agreed, becoming affable once more. “But damnably reliable, for all of that.”

“Indeed, sir,” I said, aware that Mycroft Holmes’ general level of sensitivity in such matters had been honed by years of testing. I stopped myself asking him if there was a bump for such predispositions on the skull.

“Just at present, I am—” He broke off as the sound of a ringing bell and pounding fists came from the front door. “What on earth?” he asked of the air.

“Mister Holmes!
Mister Holmes!”
came the urgent cry from a man whose mother tongue was not English.

“Mister Kerem!” Holmes exclaimed, motioning to me to answer the urgent summons. “Take your pistol, Guthrie. This may not be what it seems.” He held the study door for me as I went to retrieve my pistol—unloaded as it was—from my valise, and rushed to do his bidding.

Halil Kerem stood on the top step of the stairs, his overcoat open, his suit in disarray, his hair wet. He sagged as I stood aside to admit him. “It is too much,” he said as he trudged into the flat, hardly moving as I put my pistol in my pocket and closed the door.

“What is too much, Mister Kerem?” Mycroft Holmes asked from the study door.

For an answer, the Turk began to weep in a ghastly, shuddering way no Englishman—or Scot—would ever do. Through his tears, he said, “The police. They have found my brother. Mister Holmes. He is dead. My brother is dead.”

FROM THE PERSONAL JOURNAL OF PHILIP TYERS

Returned from the asylum betimes, having put Sir Marmion’s file into his hands myself, to find MH closeted with the Turkish gentleman, Mister Kerem, who has learned but an hour since that the police found the body of his missing brother in an alley in Shoreditch. He was not identified, but it seems there is a tattoo on his shoulder, for the corpse was quite naked and showed evidence of much abuse. Mister Kerem wishes to discover if the tattoo the police said the body has is the same tattoo as his brother’s, which will settle the matter beyond all question. I have brought tea and brandy—although Mister Kerem, being a follower of Islam, does not drink—for MH, G, and the Turk.

I have a note from Sir Marmion to MH which I will deliver when it is more convenient; just now the task of consoling Mister Kerem seems to occupy all MH’s attention ...

I must remember to tell MH that in my journey to and from the asylum I was followed ...

THE THREE
of us had crowded into Sid Hasting’s cab and were bound for the morgue at Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital, where Mister Kerem believed his brother’s body had been taken. The rain had not diminished, and low places in the road now contained standing water that rose in what seemed a bow wave as we passed through them.

Mister Kerem had regained a modicum of self-control, and although he shuddered from time to time, he had stopped crying, for which I was exceedingly grateful: I supposed Mycroft Holmes shared my sentiments.

“If you will be good enough to call back for us?” Mycroft Holmes said to Hastings as we drew up at the carriage-entrance to the building. “I do not know how long we shall be, but there should be time enough for you to find a pub and eat a pastie.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Sid Hastings. “I shall be here again in half an hour, if that is satisfactory.”

“Quite,” said Holmes as he alighted from the cab and held the door for Mister Kerem and me to step out into the relative shelter of the extended and pillared roof. “I feel so much out of my element,” he confided to me in a rush. “This is so much more my brother’s area of expertise.”

I had to agree that his brother dealt more often with cases of this sort, but I said, “You have more than enough skill, sir.”

“That is what I’m afraid of,” said Holmes drily as led us forward.

An orderly standing in the doorway looked at us in mild curiosity, not knowing if any of us needed his assistance. He was smoking a pipe, and was preparing to set it down when Mycroft Holmes signaled him to remain where he was. “Need to find someone, do you?” he asked, doing his best to be helpful.

“We know what we seek, thank you,” Mycroft Holmes told him as we went into the hospital.

The smell as we stepped through the door was of carbolic and that underlying sweetish odor of sickness that all hospitals possessed. Ahead was a counter behind which an uniformed attendant waited, his ledger open and ready.

“Good day,” said Mycroft Holmes as he went up to the counter. “I have here with me Mister Halil Kerem who believes you may have his brother’s body in your morgue. He has come to identify it.”

The attendant behind the desk scowled at us. “I don’t know about that,” he said, giving what was obviously a routine response for him.

“It is of some urgency, as I understand it,” said Mycroft Holmes. The attendant made notations in the ledger. “The police will be here in an hour or so. You may sit on the benches until they come.”

“Must the police be here for him to make an identification?” Holmes asked, knowing it was not required by law—only that there were two witnesses to the identification, which Mycroft Holmes and I would be.

“It’s easier if they are.” The attendant was prepared to ignore us entirely.

“Easier for whom?” Holmes was beginning to lose patience.

The attendant did not answer; he seemed wholly engrossed in his ledger.

Mycroft Holmes laid his forearm on the counter and leaned forward; although he lost none of the affability he had extended in his initial greeting, there was no denying the authority he projected as he said, “My good man, Mister Kerem is in great distress. He is a stranger in this country, come to find his brother. Now he has been led to understand his brother may be the victim of a crime. It is his most earnest hope that the police are in error and the man you have here is not his brother. But unless you admit him—and us—to see the body, he must continue in the agony of uncertainty. Surely you have had other men come here to identify bodies?”

The attendant had backed up and now stood pressed against a filing cabinet. “In the basement. The second hall on your right. Take those stairs,” he said, pointing to our left. “There is an orderly. He’ll show you the body.”

“Excellent,” said Mycroft Holmes. “Thank you for your help.”

The attendant nodded once, and tried to restore his importance as we went to the stairs, descending into the basement down a broad flight of shallow stairs. It occurred to me that the reason the descent was made so easy was that stretchers had to be carried up and down them with some frequency, a recognition that seemed somewhat ghoulish. At the second hall on the right the air was distinctly colder than on the floor above, and there was a searching, persistent odor of death that shocked me, not because I did not expect it, but because I did.

“Those double doors,” said Mycroft Holmes, and I remembered he had been here before. “The attendant will be at a small desk on the other side; he will show us the body in question. Let me deal with him, Mister Kerem.”

“Of course, Mister Holmes,” said Mister Kerem.

I glanced at the Turk and saw puzzlement in his face. I supposed he was trying to reconcile his first impression of Mycroft Holmes as a bureaucratic nonentity with the manner in which Holmes had secured our admission to this place. I made a mental note to myself to mention this to Holmes later, when we were private again. Now I gave my full attention to the attendant, who looked up in surprise as we came through the door.

Without any preamble, Mycroft Holmes addressed the middle-aged fellow who sat behind the desk. a racing-book in his hands. “You have an unidentified body here, that of a young man. He has a tattoo on his shoulder.”

“What is that to you?” The attendant was less officious than his colleague above-stairs, but he was also less easily impressed.

“This man”—Mycroft Holmes indicated Mister Kerem—“has reason to believe the body may be that of his missing brother. We have come with him as witnesses, in case it is.”

The attendant rose from behind his desk. “I’ll show you. But I warn you, he isn’t a pretty sight, not if it’s the lad I’m thinking of.”

“I am prepared,” said Mister Kerem. “Allah is Merciful.”

“That’s as may be,” said the attendant as he led the way along a row of draped tables. “The killers weren’t, I can tell you that. Had to have been more than one of them, the way he’s beat-up.”

I almost winced at this unfeeling remark, but thought it just as well to let it pass, to save Mister Kerem any more unpleasantness than was necessary. Perhaps the attendant was trying to prepare us for the body. I supposed the attendant had to subdue any trace of sympathy or he would become incapable of working here. Perhaps, I thought, in a clumsy way, the attendant was attempting to prepare Mister Kerem for what he would see.

The attendant stopped at the eleventh table. “This is the lad, then,” he said. “He went through a lot before he died, the poor sod. The face is pretty bad. I’ll turn him over for you so you can see the tattoo.” With that, he whipped back the drape, revealing the battered and mutilated body of a young man with dark, curly hair. His eyes were gone, and his nose and ears. Three of his fingers were missing, as were his testicles.

Mister Kerem said nothing; an instant later the attendant turned the body over.

I saw Mycroft Holmes start in alarm, then at once mask the consternation he felt. He leaned forward to study the tattoo, the line between his heavy brows deepening. Whatever it was he saw, he did not like it.

“Is it the tattoo, then?” The attendant looked from one of us to the other.

“It is,” said Mister Kerem in a voice so neutral it was hard to distinguish his words. “This man is my brother,” he said more firmly.

“You are certain?” the attendant said to make sure. “The tattoo is enough?”

“It is enough,” said Mister Kerem.

“Very good,” said the attendant, and motioned to us to turn away while he put the body on his back once again and concealed it under the drape. “If you’re sure, we can fill out the forms now, and you may send for the undertaker as soon as the police will permit it.”

Mister Kerem looked shocked. “Can I not remove him myself?”

The attendant shrugged. “Not until the police say you may.” He stepped away from the table. “I’m sorry. But your brother was murdered, and the courts call a body part of the evidence. It’s the law.”

“How can they?” Mister Kerem looked very much distressed. “They cannot be so ... so hardhearted as to keep me from doing my duty—”

The attendant did his best to calm Mister Kerem. “Let’s get the paperwork taken care of first, shall we. Then we will see what the police demand. The sooner this is done, the sooner you may have him.” This was true enough as far as it went, but was more of a polite gesture than an assurance of swifter action on the part of the police.

“If I must,” said Mister Kerem, glancing at Mycroft Holmes. “You can help, can you not? You got us here.”

“I’ll see what I can do; first you must provide the information asked. Then we may have reason to encourage the police,” said Holmes, and pulled me some small distance aside while the attendant extracted a form from his desk and cast about for his inkwell and pens. “Did you see that tattoo?” he asked me in a whisper, keeping a covert eye on Mister Kerem and the attendant, about fifteen feet away from us. His voice was not much more than a breath, but his intensity made it seem louder.

“Most unusual,” I said. “A winged serpent in a kind of circle.”

“The winged serpent had a man’s face,” Mycroft Holmes declared. “The colors are quite vivid.”

“Did it have a face?” I took his word for that. “What is the significance?”

“It is the inner circle of the Brotherhood,” said Mycroft Holmes. “Their elite.”

It took a moment for me to encompass the implications. “Oh, no. You cannot think that that young man—” I began, horrified at the notion.

“No, I do not think he was one of their elite. But he certainly has had contact with one of them. And recently. That tattoo is quite new, to be so bright.” Mycroft Holmes blinked his eyes as if to sort through a number of visions, each more unpleasant than the last. “I wonder how much Mister Kerem knows of this?”

“Surely he must know
some
thing,”
I said, giving voice to the fear that had touched me as soon as Mycroft Holmes identified the tattoo.

“If he does, his presence here is more distressing than anything he reported to us.” Holmes made a swift, dismissing gesture. “Well, we must take a page from his book: we must not reveal anything to him.”

“Is that why you have changed your manner?” I ventured.

“In part,” he replied. “Kerem has singled me out for some reason. I hope I may cause him to do something to reveal what that reason is. If you will assist me in that effort, I will be most appreciative, dear boy.”

“As you wish,” I said. “Shall you feign ignorance about the tattoo?”

“Of course, about its age and its significance. I will do my best to learn all that I can from Mister Kerem. And so shall you,” said Mycroft Holmes, his grey eyes like the North Sea in winter. “Follow my lead, Guthrie. And be alert.”

“That I will, sir,” I said, and moved with Holmes as he went back to stand by Mister Kerem.

“I have supplied as much information as I can,” Halil Kerem said. “I do not know how my brother came into England, nor in whose company. If I did, I should surely inform the police.” He was talking as much to the attendant as to Mycroft Holmes. “I know only that Yujel is dead and now our family must mourn his loss.”

With a discreet cough, Mycroft Holmes asked, “Do you happen to know how long he has had that tattoo? And how he came to have it?”

Mister Kerem rounded on him, his face working with emotion. “Tattoo!
Tattoo?
What does that matter now? It was useful only to identify his body.” He added something in Turkish that did not sound complimentary.

“I understand your upset, Mister Kerem. I would be distraught at the loss of my brother, too. But we must start somewhere, and that tattoo is an obvious place. It is certainly one of the first questions the police will have.” He had returned to his bureaucratic persona; he did not quite dither, but he came close to it. “While you have been providing answers for this man”—he inclined his head toward the morgue attendant—“I have been trying to anticipate the questions the police will ask, in order to hasten their release of the body to you. The tattoo is so unusual, I am convinced they will fix upon it as having bearing on this case.” He managed a nervous little smile. “The sooner they are satisfied, the sooner you may arrange for ... the funeral.”

“Very well,” said Mister Kerem, making himself speak calmly while he used an over-large handkerchief to wipe his eyes. “The tattoo was an old one. He received it when he was eleven, as I recall. It was administered by a man who has done tattoos all his life. It is supposed to protect the man who has it.” He stopped, his voice becoming unsteady as he again fought back tears. “Yujel was proud of it. He showed it off whenever he could.”

“Just so,” said Mycroft Holmes. “So his having the tattoo was known to many?”

“I would suppose,” said Mister Kerem, turning suddenly to the attendant. “Is there anything you can do to give my brother a bit more dignity?”

The attendant laughed. “Dignity? Why, he’s
dead,
saving your feelings, sir. Dignity is nothing to the dead. They have no need of it, no, nor of anything else.” He saw the outrage in Mister Kerem’s eyes. “If it would make you happier, sir, I’ll put his body near the back, away from the rest.”