Crowe’s face was grim. ‘So do ah. There’s somethin’ awry ’bout this whole business. Ah think your brother’s normally infallible mind has been affected by gettin’ locked up like a common criminal, an’ by the fact that things are gettin’ close to home. Ah can’t help feelin.’ that he’s made a miscalculation somewhere, but ah can’t quite put my finger on it. Ah do believe that this little expedition to Russia is a mistake, but ah can’t convince him to call it off". We had an exchange of words about it earlier. He’s set on goin’. Ah think the disappearance of his man in Moscow has discomfited him more than he will admit.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s never easy, losin’ one of your team. It’s happened to me, more than once. Even so, ah don’t see why he needs to drag you along with him.’
‘Give my… my regards to Virginia.’
‘Ah will, right enough.’ Crowe stuck out his hand. Sherlock shook it solemnly, his fingers vanishing inside Crowe’s massive fist. ‘Take care, an’ take care of Mycroft. He’s goin’ to be out of his element.’
A hotel porter rushed over to take Crowe’s bag, but he waved the man away. ‘When ah’m too old to pick a bag up, that’s when ah’ll ask for help,’ he said. He picked the bag up and threw it over his shoulder. ‘Come and visit us when you get back. Tell us everythin’ that happened.’
‘I will.’
Sherlock watched as Crowe walked out of the hotel door without glancing back. He felt as if a chunk of himself had just been carved away. He felt vulnerable, alone.
Eventually he walked through into the restaurant, where Mycroft was sitting at a table with a whole turbot on his plate. He was meticulously filleting the fish with his knife and fork.
‘If I were the Good Lord,’ he said conversationally as Sherlock sat disconsolately at the table, ‘I would have ensured that fish that were edible were also easy to eat. It seems like a failure in design that something that tastes so good creates such difficulty in removing the bones. Either we are meant to eat it or we are not; there should be no middle ground.’ He glanced up. ‘Has Mr Crowe left?’
‘Yes, he has.’
‘Good.’ Mycroft lifted a slice of fish on his knife and carefully transferred it to his fork. ‘He disapproves of my plan to take you to Russia.’
‘He said you argued.’
‘We did. He was very forceful in his opinions. He is very protective of you, you know.’
‘We’ve been through a lot together, over the past year or so.’
‘Indeed.’ Mycroft popped the fragment of fish into his mouth and chewed for a moment with his eyes closed. ‘Beautifully cooked. The black butter sauce is exquisite. I shall have to remember this place. It is not so far from my office that I could not take my luncheon here on a regular basis.’
‘Mycroft, are you sure we should travel to Russia in disguise?’
‘I have considered the matter thoroughly, and I see no other option.’ He checked his watch. ‘The third member of our expedition should be joining us in a moment. I sent him a telegram earlier.’ He glanced briefly at Sherlock. ‘There is something I should warn you about. I said that this man was one of my agents, and that he was a violinist.’
‘Yes?’
‘What I did not say was that you already know him.’
Sherlock heard the words, but he didn’t understand them. ‘I know him? But I don’t know any of your agents. I’ve never met any of them – except perhaps Mr Crowe, but I don’t think he counts as one of your agents.’
‘He certainly does not.’ Mycroft’s expression was of a man who was preparing himself to convey bad news. ‘Sherlock,’ he said, as he lifted his gaze to look past his brother, ‘I believe you are acquainted with Rufus Stone.’
Eight words. Eight simple words that seemed to drop like stones into the deep well of Sherlock’s mind. He could feel the ripples bouncing around his mind long after Mycroft had finished speaking. He turned his head so that he could see what Mycroft was looking at, but the logical, analytical part of his mind already knew. The other part – the emotional part that still belonged to a fourteen-year-old boy – was hoping that it wasn’t true, that whoever was standing behind him was a complete stranger.
But it wasn’t, and that emotional fourteen-year-old part of his mind shrivelled up just a little bit more than it already had.
Rufus Stone was standing behind him. Rufus Stone, with his unkempt brown hair and his stubble-flecked chin and his green velvet jacket. He wore a gold ring in his ear. He looked uncomfortable, as if he desperately wanted to be somewhere – anywhere – else. Sherlock certainly did.
‘Sit down,’ Mycroft said. ‘You are making the place look untidy. Don’t mind the waiters; I don’t think they get many Gypsy violinists in here. The experience will do them good.’
‘Hello, Sherlock,’ Stone said as he sat down.
‘You work for my brother?’ Sherlock asked. ‘Why didn’t you ever tell me?’
‘Because I told him not to,’ Mycroft replied. ‘When we decided that you and Amyus Crowe were to travel to America a few months ago, I was worried that Mr Crowe would find himself dragged off on side-business, or suddenly discover that he loved his homeland so much that he couldn’t return to England. I arranged for Mr Stone to get a ticket on the same ship, to keep an eye on you. In New York he was to shadow you and keep you safe.’ He snorted. ‘That, of course, did not turn out as well as I had anticipated, thanks to your actions in following young Matthew Arnatt’s captors on to a train bound for who-knows-where.’
‘You work for my brother!’ Sherlock repeated. The thought was like an obstacle in the centre of his mind that was too big to climb over.
‘I need hardly add,’ Mycroft continued, ‘that teaching you the violin was not in his instructions.’
‘No, that was my choice,’ Stone said. ‘And my pleasure.’
‘But what do you do for Mycroft?’ Sherlock asked.
Rufus Stone shrugged. ‘Mostly I travel, free as a bird and just as poor. I can move unchecked and unhindered through a lot of the Central European countries. Nobody bothers an itinerant violinist like me. I pick up rumours, and I hear things in conversations in taverns and the like, and I report them back to Mr Holmes here.’
‘One can often judge more about the state of a nation’s economy by what the farmers are saying over a glass of ale than one can by reading the newspapers,’ Mycroft said. ‘I have a large number of people, all over the world, whose only task is to reap big bushels of what the general public are saying, winnow it down and send me the resulting kernels of truth.’
‘And moving to Farnham?’ Sherlock’s hands were shaking, and he had to hold them together beneath the table to stop anyone else from seeing. He felt betrayed. ‘Whose idea was that?’
Stone looked across at Mycroft. When Sherlock’s brother remained silent, Stone said: ‘When I came back to England, Mr Holmes asked me to stay in the country for a while, see what I could learn about the state of the nation. I suggested that I should start in Hampshire.’ He paused, awkwardly. ‘I wanted to see how your violin playing was coming along.’
‘I bought a new violin,’ Sherlock said. His voice sounded small, even to him.
‘I’d like to see it.’
Mycroft coughed. ‘Mr Stone will be accompanying us to Russia. He has travelled in that country before, and of course we need a violin player in order to complete the theatrical company roster.’ He paused for a moment, and then continued in a softer voice, ‘Sherlock, believe me, I would never have done this for any reason other than for your own good, and I would not have let you find out that I had done it if it had not been entirely necessary.’
‘That doesn’t make it all right,’ Sherlock said. He stood up. ‘I’m going out.’
‘Be at the King’s Theatre in Whitechapel at four o’clock this afternoon,’ Mycroft instructed him. ‘We are to meet our travelling companions.’
Sherlock walked away without answering. Behind him, he could hear Mycroft saying: ‘No, let him go. He will come to understand, in time, that what I did was entirely logical and for his own protection.’