Sherlock put a hand to his ear. He didn’t like the sound of having it cut off and posted to Mycroft as a warning.
‘You are hardly a man of action,’ Crowe pointed out. ‘Are you sure you could fight off any attackers?’
‘I will enlist assistance,’ Mycroft said waspishly. ‘I intended taking one of my other agents with me, for protection. And protective coloration. The three of us will travel together.’
‘What does that mean – “protective coloration”?’ Sherlock asked, still trying to fight his way past the immense thought that Mycroft wanted him to go to Russia. He wasn’t sure which thought was the most immense – going to Russia, or travelling with Mycroft.
‘It means that we will be travelling incognito – in disguise, if you wish to put it that way. A relatively senior Foreign Office official cannot just wander into Russia unannounced, not without causing an international incident. No, we must use noms de plume-fake names. We must have fake histories. We must be part of a large whole, a bigger picture, so that nobody will pay us too much attention.’
‘And you’ve already decided on what this larger whole will be,’ Crowe said.
‘Indeed. I worked out the plan while in the carriage from the Diogenes Club to this hotel.’
‘You took a hansom?’ Sherlock protested. ‘It’s barely ten minutes’ walk! Two minutes in a cab!’
‘Exactly Just enough time for a little think. If I had been walking I would have been so concerned with dodging other pedestrians, horses and whatever else that I would not have had any time for thinking at all.’
‘So what’s the plan?’ Crowe asked.
Mycroft speared a fragment of sausage with his fork. ‘I was asked, some weeks ago, to give permission for a British theatrical troupe to travel to Moscow to give a series of performances to the great Russian families – Shakespeare, Marlowe, Ben Jonson, that sort of thing. I gave them my permission because their visit had been requested through the Russian Embassy, and because it will improve artistic relationships between our two countries – or, at least, it will if the performances were as good as reports have made them out to be. I heard last week that the trip might need to be cancelled, as the company’s General Manager has been taken ill with a heart complaint and been admitted to hospital, and that their principal violinist in the pit orchestra has been arrested for drunken and disorderly behaviour. It occurs to me that the duties of a General Manager cannot be that onerous, consisting mainly of making sure that everybody gets to where they are meant to be and that all bills are paid on time.’
‘And the violinist?’ Crowe asked. ‘How are you goin’ to recruit one of those?’
‘One of my agents is a passable violinist,’ Mycroft said. He seemed to be focusing on his plate very carefully. ‘I will engage him to assist us.’
‘And what about me?’ Sherlock asked.
‘General factotum and backstage assistant. There are, I understand, never enough people backstage when on tour.’
‘But…’ Sherlock’s mind was racing far ahead of his thoughts. ‘But when? How?’
Mycroft popped the chunk of sausage into his mouth and chewed. As to the “when”,’ he said eventually, ‘I would suggest that we leave as soon as arrangements can be made with the theatrical company. They will, I think, be very grateful that the Foreign Office has gone so far to assist them with their tour as to actually provide them with replacements for their missing people. Their travel arrangements are already made. As I recall, they were planning to leave within the next few days, and were on the verge of sending a letter to their hosts informing them of their cancellation. Let us hope that they have not sent the letter yet, otherwise I will need to come up with another strategy. As to the “how?”, the intention is that we sail to France and take the train from there across the continent to Moscow. The journey will take, I estimate, four to five days.’ He reached for a slice of toast and proceeded to butter it. ‘I will inform our aunt and uncle that you and I will be travelling on the continent for a few weeks. They will understand, I am sure. Travel does broaden the mind. I will go and make the arrangements, while I suggest that you, Sherlock, wander down to Charing Cross Road and look for some books on Russian history and culture. They are very different from us – certainly more different than the Americans.’ He nodded towards Crowe.
‘But let me furnish you with some facts which may help,’ he continued. ‘Russia is the largest country in the world. If you were to measure its surface area on a globe you would find that it occupies almost one seventh of the available land, but much of that land is perpetually frozen grassland – tundra, as they call it. Our best estimate is that the Tsar rules over some sixty-five million subjects, which is a number that quite boggles the mind, especially when you consider that those people belong to one hundred and sixty separate races or tribes speaking one hundred and ten different languages or dialects and adhering to thirty-five distinct religions. Russia is, for all practical purposes, a world in and of itself. That is the place to which we are going.’
‘But…’ Sherlock started, ‘… but I don’t even speak Russian!’
‘That will not be a problem,’ Mycroft said reassuringly. ‘I am informed that most of the well-off households, including all of the Tsar’s court, speak French as a matter of course. I speak fluent French, and I believe yours has improved over the past few months since your time in that country. We should be able to get by.’
Sherlock glanced at Amyus Crowe. ‘But what about Mr Crowe? I don’t think he speaks French at all.’
‘Yes, his English is slightly suspect as well,’ Mycroft murmured. He gazed across at Sherlock, and his eyes were heavy with an emotion Sherlock did not immediately understand, but recognized after a few seconds as pity. ‘I am afraid that Mr Crowe will not be accompanying us. This is a trip for you, me and the violinist I intend recruiting.’
‘But why?’
‘As you pointed out, Mr Crowe does not speak French, or indeed Russian. He possesses no skills that a travelling theatrical company could make use of. He would either have to bring the lovely Virginia, taking our party up to five, or organize someone to look after her for perhaps several weeks. And he stands out in a crowd, which, if we are meant to be travelling incognito, is a problem.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Crowe said. ‘I wasn’t expectin’ to go on this little trip. You go, an’ have fun.’
Sherlock felt his stomach clench. ‘But I want you to go with us.’
‘The problem with life,’ Mycroft observed, ‘is that it rarely gives us what we want, or even what we need. I’ve heard it said that the Lord does not give us anything that we cannot cope with. In my experience this is not true, and merely serves as a mechanism for helping religious people accept the unacceptable. Life is harsh, and we cannot even hope to survive it.’
‘Ah see the lessons continue,’ Crowe said quietly.
Mycroft glanced at him. ‘The boy has to learn sometime.’
Crowe took a breath, obviously keen to change the subject. ‘What about the museum? Is there goin’ to be any further investigation there?’
‘I have notified the police as to its role in this case, and I have also initiated some more… covert… investigations through certain arms of the Government, but I strongly suspect that we will find nothing there. Either they were using it as a convenient meeting point, in which case all they have to do is walk out of the front door and we have lost them, or they had an office of some kind there, in which case they will immediately have cleared it out as soon as you and Sherlock blundered in. Either way, it will not furnish us with any clues. This is a very professional group we are dealing with.’
‘You don’t think the entire museum is a front for whoever framed you?’ Sherlock asked.