‘So what happened?’ Sherlock put his cup down and took a bite from one of the pastries. The savoury filling was hot – minced beef and mushrooms. Steam burned his lips.
‘I came back one day to find the Third Section turning my place over. I knew they were the Third Section because of the cheap suits. I turned and walked away before they realized I was there. I’ve been moving around ever since, going from one bad hotel to the next, never staying too long in one place. I tried to get word out to Mycroft, but all the telegraph offices are under the control of the Tsar’s officials.’ He shook his head. ‘Who’d have thought it – old Mycroft, levering himself out of his comfy armchair in London and coming all the way here, just to see if I was all right.’
‘It’s more than just you,’ Sherlock said. Quickly he told Wormersley what had happened in London and in Moscow.
Wormersley leaned back in his chair and sipped his tea. ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Interesting and bizarre.’
‘It’s like having a partial set of broken china fragments,’ Sherlock said. ‘I have no idea what kind of object they would make if you put them together.’ Catching the words as he was saying them, he wondered why the simile of a broken china object had come suddenly to mind.
‘It all depends on why Mycroft was arrested,’ Wormersley mused. ‘Is he here under his own name or an assumed name?’
‘He’s here as Mr Sigerson,’ Sherlock replied. ‘He’s part of a theatrical company who are putting on a performance at the invitation of a Russian Prince. Yusupov, I think his name was.’
Wormersley nodded. ‘Good cover. Did he go to my apartment?’
‘We both did.’
‘That’s probably why he was arrested. They were watching the apartment, and arrested Mycroft on the basis that he might know where I was hiding.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense.’ The tea and the pastries were helping Sherlock’s brain to break out of its paralysis. ‘If that was true, they would have arrested him – arrested both of us – at the apartment instead of waiting until we got back to the hotel. And it doesn’t explain why they tried to frame me for pickpocketing.’ He paused for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts and then examine them in the way that Amyus Crowe had taught him. Regard them as traces left in soil and vegetation by some animal – which way did the animal go and how big was it?
And how many animals were there?
He drew a sudden breath in realization. ‘It’s almost as if there are two separate organizations at work – one secretive, that works by framing people for stuff they didn’t do, and one that arrests people in the open and throws them into carriages. One unofficial and one official.’
Wormersley nodded cautiously. ‘I’m with you so far. Go on.’
‘The official organization – the Third Section, I suppose – had no reason that I know of to arrest Mr Sigerson, the innocent manager of a theatrical company. On the other hand, if they knew that Mr Sigerson was actually Mycroft Holmes, a British Government official, in Moscow on an undercover mission, then they would have every reason to detain him.’
‘Indeed they would, but who would tell them?’ Wormersley nodded. ‘This shadowy, secretive second organization of yours, presumably. But why would they want Mycroft arrested?’
‘To get him out of the way?’ Sherlock thought for a moment. ‘No, that doesn’t make any sense. There are easier ways to get someone out of the way. No, they must have wanted him to be arrested.’ He paused for a moment, grasping at thoughts. ‘They must have wanted him to be arrested by the Third Section – which is under the control of a man Mycroft said he knew: Count Pyotr Andreyevich Shuvalov. They met in France a few years ago.’
Wormersley gestured to Sherlock to keep his voice down. ‘Best not to mention that name in public,’ he cautioned. ‘The Third Section has ears everywhere. Even mentioning their name is enough to attract their attention.’
Sherlock was too excited to stop. It was as if he was looking at a set of jigsaw pieces and mentally moving them around until he could work out what the picture was. Or, his brain said again, like a collection of china fragments which he was reassembling in his mind into a porcelain figure. It was clear to him now that this second organization – the secretive one – actually wanted Mycroft to be arrested because they knew that Count Shuvalov would question him in person. His brother was an important diplomat, and Shuvalov knew him. It was unlikely, Sherlock thought, that Shuvalov would trust the interrogation of an important diplomat to an underling, and he probably wouldn’t want anybody else to be there in case any diplomatic secrets were revealed. It would be a polite chat between two men who were acquainted at some stage in the past – held in Shuvalov’s office, because that was where he would feel most comfortable, most at home. And because Mycroft was an important man, and deserved some measure of respect.
The truth came crashing in on Sherlock suddenly, so obvious, so monumental that he was momentarily breathless with surprise that he hadn’t already seen it. This had all been arranged from the start! Everything that had happened in London was designed to get Mycroft to Moscow! Framing him for murder in the Diogenes Club wasn’t an attempt to stop him from seeing those reports in his office – it was a way of making sure that he would see them. If he thought those reports were important enough that someone would frame him for murder to stop him reading them, then he would definitely pay them serious attention once he got back to his office! They were the lure at the end of a fishing line that reached all the way to Moscow!
Wormersley was staring at Sherlock intently, but Sherlock’s thoughts were whirling too quickly for him to speak. The china pieces were coming together in his mind now. The details were getting clearer by the moment.
The theatrical company itself was a sham, Sherlock realized in shock. It had to be. It was another report on Mycroft’s desk – he’d assumed it was a coincidence, but it hadn’t been. This secret organization, whoever they were, wanted him in Moscow so that he could be arrested, and so they gave him a reason to go to Moscow and a way of getting to Moscow, all packaged up and ready to go!
Sherlock’s head was filled with the faces of the theatrical company – Mr Kyte, Mr Malvin, Miss Dimmock, Mrs Loran, not to mention the conductor, Mr Eves and his musicians. And what about the stagehands – Pauly, Henry, Judah and Rhydian? Were they all part of the charade? Were they all acting, even the ones who weren’t actors? The scale of this undertaking was fantastic!
Looking at it now, it was all so obvious. This secret organization was counting on Mycroft being confused after his arrest in London and grabbing the first good opportunity to get to Moscow that came along. But Sherlock had been there as well, and so was Amyus Crowe, and so the organization had to get the two of them out of the way. That explained the attack in the museum. The organization was reacting quickly to unexpected events, which was why their plans had seemed so difficult to understand.
He was breathing fast now, feeling the excitement of knowing he was right flooding through his body and tingling every nerve.
It was all designed, every bit of it, to get Mycroft alone with Count Pyotr Andreyevich Shuvalov, the head of the Third Section, in Shuvalov’s office. It all led to that moment. But why? Thinking back over everything that had happened, the answer was blindingly obvious to Sherlock. They wanted to kill Count Shuvalov, and they wanted Mycroft to be blamed. That was their modus operandi – they framed people for things they didn’t do. They framed Mycroft for a murder, and then they framed Sherlock for pickpocketing.
Sherlock’s gaze came up to meet Wormersley’s. ‘And you are part of it, aren’t you?’ The words came suddenly to his lips, but he knew them to be true. His mind, a split second behind, had all the proof laid out.
Wormersley gazed admiringly at Sherlock. ‘You really are your brother’s brother. Bravo!’