Echoes of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon(28)

“It will be a matter bloody well within me, if one of your lunatics shoots me!”

Mycroft Holmes—outside of London?

I reached the wall along which Holmes the younger was hiding. Bullets continued whizzing past, shouts increasing, the screams of horses adding to the chaos.

The same cloaked form that shot Sewall was now beside Holmes. A flash of bright metal—someone was trying to cut Holmes’s throat!

“Unhand him!” I reached them and seized the cloaked shoulder, pulling for all I was worth, which thanks to the bullet in my shoulder, wasn’t much. “Damn it!”

It was Miss Hartley.

While my brain struggled to catch up with my eyes, she shoved me over. I fell hard, momentarily paralyzed by shock and confusion, and watched as she ran toward a horse.

Then I scrambled to my knees. “Are you all right? Did she—?”

But the only wound I could see was where Sewall’s bullet hit. I immediately went about stanching it, then paused, realizing that Miss Hartley was escaping.

“Let her go, Watson,” Holmes said. “All is well.”

“How can that be?”

“I have what we need. Help me up.”

I did so.

Suddenly, Mycroft Holmes was beside us, a lantern in one hand, pistol in the other.

“Stop her!” Mycroft bellowed, then raised his pistol, aiming at Miss Hartley.

“Mycroft!” I cried out. “What in God’s name—?”

Sherlock hurled himself at his brother. Mycroft lifted a ham-sized fist, and attempted to land a punch, but toppled over as Sherlock tackled him. The pistol flew away, and I watched, astonished. Mycroft’s blows were accompanied with bull-like bellows; if they landed, they might have shattered an anvil. I suddenly realized that Sherlock’s silent speed and unorthodox fighting style had been developed specifically for fighting his brother. The titans of myth might have fought such a battle. Both brothers fanatically, in their own ways, devoted to order. Both crossing each other’s purposes now.

Despite the fascination of the horror of brother fighting brother, I picked up Mycroft’s discarded pistol and fired it into the air.

Finally, the combatants fell apart. The madness left Mycroft’s eyes as he became aware of what one of his lieutenants was calling to him: they were arresting what remained of Chercover’s defeated force.

Sherlock, panting and holding his arm, could not leave well enough alone. “Sorry, brother. She was so clever—possibly the only woman to best you?”

Mycroft wheeled around on him. “You pestilential little weasel! How dare you?”

“I dare, as I dare everything,” Sherlock replied, all insolence.

“No matter. You need not hang for treason. My men will find her. We have Chercover.”

“She’s fleeing his organization,” Sherlock said. “She’s no use to you now, and will not trouble you again.”

“Hrrmph.” Without another word, Mycroft stalked away.

If, at times, I found Sherlock Holmes baffling and Mycroft Holmes entirely beyond my ken, then the two brothers together were a mystery for the ages. I knew there was something of great import being communicated in their bickering, but for the life of me, I could not fathom it.

“Don’t worry, Watson,” Sherlock Holmes said, seeing my utter confusion. “He threatens me with hanging, or a knighthood, every month or so when we are talking. With any luck, he won’t speak to me for years. More than likely, though, he’ll need me and come crawling. Or rather, stride in imperiously, and I’ll make him squirm before I give him whatever he wants.”

Holmes looked under his jacket and made a face at the wound above his wrist. “Not so bad as some; my coat saved me worse. Should be a cinch for you to—” He glanced at me holding my shoulder. “Oh! Well, after you have stitched yourself up first, of course.”

“What about the rest of the case?” I said helplessly.

“Oh, we don’t need Mycroft for that.” He smiled and reached into a deep coat pocket. Something clanked, and shone in the lantern light—the object I had believed was a knife at Holmes’s throat.

“Anna Hoyt’s chatelaine!” I cried. “So now, you can find the treasure!”

“Well . . . not quite. Arabella Hartley got here first.”

“But if so, why did she stay so long?”

Holmes was rapt in examining the chatelaine, trinket by trinket individually. Nothing more than might interest an antiquarian, there were the usual scissors, pomander, thimble, seal. There was only one key on the chain now—presumably used to open the treasure’s hiding place.

The seal had an engraving: “Isaiah 56:5.”

“A hint from Anna Hoyt herself. And Miss Hartley knew,” Holmes said. “Somewhere around here, she found the wall hiding the jewels.”

Holmes shook the decorative little needle case; there was no rattle of needles inside the narrow cylinder. Invariably curious, he removed the top, and drew a slip of paper from inside the etui. Reading by Mycroft’s abandoned lantern, we saw the following:

It is not safe for me here. But I will not leave England before trying to assist you. And if you should live, take this small token, with my thanks—AH.

“She saved you,” I said.

“She did. Though it was not in her best interest to do so.”