‘Except what?’ Crowe asked.
Instead of answering, Mycroft reached inside his jacket. ‘I still have the card the dead man gave to Brinnell. There was something written on it. Something that made me interested in seeing him.’
He pulled a slip of cardboard from his inside pocket. ‘John Robertshaw,’ he read, ‘along with an address in Chelsea – Glassblowers’ Road. Probably false, just created to add veracity to the card.’
‘But worth checking anyway,’ Crowe pointed out.
‘Indeed. I would not want to let a clue get away from us because we dismissed it from our minds.’ He turned the card over. ‘My name, handwritten, so that Brinnell would know who he wanted to see. And three words.’
He glanced up. His eyes met Sherlock’s.
‘The Paradol Chamber,’ he said grimly.
Shocked, Sherlock’s mind flashed back to the time he had spent in the clutches of Baron Maupertuis. The Baron had mentioned the Paradol Chamber. He hadn’t said what it was, but he had referred to it as if he worked for it, or reported to it. As if it was something important, and secret.
‘I remember now,’ Mycroft continued. ‘I saw the words, and I remembered what you had said about hearing Baron Maupertuis use the same phrase. I had Brinnell bring the man in so that I could question him. But this card was the bait in a trap.’
‘And you took it,’ Crowe observed mildly.
‘In my own defence,’ Mycroft protested, ‘I was on familiar territory, and not expecting an attack.’
‘And yet it came.’ Crowe waved a large hand. ‘No matter. We must move on. Ah will secure a solicitor for you. Sherlock, do you still have the name and address of the solicitor given to you by the footman at the Diogenes?’
Sherlock nodded, and passed across the slip of paper which he had kept in his shirt pocket.
‘And you, Sherlock,’ Crowe continued, ‘will investigate this calling card.’ Crowe handed over the card that Mycroft had retrieved from his jacket. Sherlock turned it over, and read the ominous words The Paradol Chamber with a shiver.
‘How do I do that?’ Sherlock asked.
‘Smell the card,’ Crowe instructed.
Sherlock raised it to his nose. There was a slight but noticeably sharp odour. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Printer’s ink,’ Crowe replied. ‘The card has been freshly made, probably as a one-off, just to get the man into the club. No respectable club would admit a man without a card, after all. He wouldn’t have any cards himself, given his station in life, and his mysterious employer would hardly have given him one of his own. No, it was made recently, which means it was made locally’ He turned to Sherlock’s brother. ‘Mister Holmes, how many printers are located in the vicinity?’
Mycroft thought for a moment. ‘I can think of four, all of them in the Chancery Lane area. I will give you the addresses.’ He took a scrap of paper and a pen from his pocket and began to write.
‘Check each of the printers,’ Crowe instructed Sherlock. ‘See if they recognize the card. See what they can tell you about the man who had it printed.’
‘All right.’
‘And meet me back, oh, outside the Sarbonnier Hotel in two hours. You remember where that is?’
‘The place we stayed the last time we came to London? Yes, I remember.’
‘Good.’
The door swung open as Crowe was speaking. ‘Time’s up,’ the constable said. You gentlemen have to go.’
‘Don’t worry, Mycroft,’ Crowe said. ‘We will get you out of here.’
‘I just hope that happens before dinner time,’ Mycoft replied with a wan smile. ‘I have missed luncheon, but I am not sure that the food here will be up to my usual standards.’
He extended a hand to Sherlock. ‘Try not to think of me like this,’ he said.
‘Here, or in the club, or anywhere else,’ Sherlock said, taking Mycroft’s hand, you are my brother. You take care of me. Now it’s my turn to take care of you – if I can.’
‘You can,’ Mycroft said. ‘And you will. I know that once you set your mind to something, it gets done. That is a trait we both inherit from our father.’
The constable coughed, and Sherlock reluctantly followed Amyus Crowe from the cell.
The clanging of the door behind him made him flinch. He hated to think what the sound did to Mycroft.
‘Where now?’ he asked as they emerged into the fresh air of Covent Garden.
‘You to Chancery Lane, which is in that direction.’ Crowe waved a hand vaguely. ‘Me to -’ he checked the card, ‘Glassblowers’ Road, Chelsea. We will meet later.’
He turned and strode off without a backwards glance, leaving Sherlock to stare after him uneasily. He was alone in London – again. He couldn’t help remembering what had happened last time.
Eventually he turned away and started to walk in the direction Crowe had indicated. He passed taverns and shops, market stalls and people standing on street corners with trays of goods. And people – all kinds of people, from toffs in fine clothes to urchins in rags. London was indeed a melting pot for all humanity.
He was about to ask someone the way to Chancery Lane when he noticed a sign on the side of a road he was passing. He turned in. It was a more salubrious area than the one he’d passed through: judging by the brass plates on the buildings it was comprised mainly of firms of solicitors, augmented by the occasional doctor’s practice.
After five minutes or so he came across the first printer’s shop. The location made sense to him now: the solicitors and barristers in the area would no doubt have need of a lot of printing services. Nervously he pushed the door open.
The smell inside was an intensified version of what he had smelt on the card: dry musty and sharp. What he hadn’t counted on was the noise. The clatter of several printing presses in the back of the shop made it almost impossible to hear his own voice when he said: ‘Excuse me!’
A man turned to look at Sherlock. He was in shirtsleeves, but he wore a bowler hat. His moustache was luxuriant, covering not only his mouth but most of his chin as well.
‘No jobs ’ere,’ he said. ‘Got all the printer’s devils I need. Shove off!’
‘I need to ask a question,’ Sherlock said.
The man stared suspiciously. ‘What?’
Sherlock passed the calling card across. ‘Did you print this?’
He examined it critically. ‘No. Now shove off.’
Sherlock backed away as the man turned back to his work. If each of the printers was that rude then he’d be finished within a few minutes, and at a loss to know what to do until he had to meet up with Amyus Crowe again.
The second printer was friendlier. This time Sherlock could see into the back of his shop, where metal drums covered in tiny metal letters were being rotated by boys younger than him, who were pushing all of their weight against great metal handles. The drums were pressed against long ribbons of paper that were pulled past them, leaving inked letters on the paper. The boys were covered in patches of ink as well, marking their skin in black and white.
He asked the same question, profferred the same card, but despite the fact that the printer smiled and tried to be helpful, he hadn’t printed the card either.
Sherlock struck gold with the third printer.
This man was tall and thin, with whiskers that hung like ribbons down his gaunt cheeks. Looking at him, and remembering what Amyus Crowe had told him on the train about each man bearing the marks of his profession, Sherlock began to see the typical marks of a printer: the ink ingrained under the fingernails and in the creases in the fingers, the ridges along the fingertips left by years of prising metal type out of the printers, the long, straight cuts along the palms of the hands left by the ribbons of paper as the rollers whisked them past. All the marks were there for the person who wanted to see.
‘Oh yes,’ the man said, nodding. ‘I remember this. Odd request. Normally people want four, five hundred cards, cos they’re for leaving behind, right? I mean, you don’t show someone your card and then take it back, do you? But this cove just wanted the one. Handed me a scrap of paper with the details written on it.’ He shrugged. ‘So I set the machine up and just printed the one card. Told him he could have a hundred for just a shilling more, but he said no.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Actually, he didn’t say no – he went outside to talk to some other cove and then he came back and said no.’