“Well,” said Carruthers, “if you want my opinion, lonely ones. We can’t seem to bear sharing our world, not with other animals, not with other humans for that matter. If we don’t sort that little flaw out then one day there’ll be nothing left of this planet but a spinning, empty rock.”
“Oh now,” I said, “surely we’re not as bad as all that? Mankind can be capable of great kindnesses and consideration. We’re not the voracious destroyers you think.”
“But those who are outnumber those who aren’t,” he replied. “And I fear they will not stop until they’ve ravaged our world. But then—” he smiled over the ridge of his teacup as he drained it “— if we don’t deal with this Moreau fellow, there might not even be much left of the world to ravage!”
“Sir?” said a waiter at Holmes’ arm. “Are you Mr Sherlock Holmes?”
“I am indeed,” he replied, taking a telegram from the proffered silver platter.
“How on earth could anyone know you were here?” I asked.
“There’s only one man I would rely on to pull such a trick,” he said, opening the telegram.
“Mycroft,” I agreed with a chuckle.
Holmes did not share my good humour. In fact his face was positively ashen as he lowered the telegram. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I fear we may have left it too long to act. A man calling himself Dr Moreau appeared at the Houses of Parliament an hour ago.”
“He’s been captured?” asked Carruthers.
“Far from it,” Holmes replied. “He’s abducted the Prime Minister!”
PART FOUR
THE PIG-HEADED VILLAIN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
All three of us made our way to the Diogenes Club. This time the meeting would take place on Mycroft’s territory, the silent and smoky hallways of which were more than simply a gentlemen’s club.
The Diogenes is often discussed as the strictest and most unfriendly club in the city. Its members, some of the most influential and important men in the land, are forbidden to speak except in certain isolated areas. It prides itself on homing the most unclubbable men in the country, men so anti-social and misanthropic that no other building would have them. Of course this has the effect of making many people wish to join, there is nothing quite so attractive to a certain stratum of society as exclusivity, even if that exclusivity is earned at the cost of their social reputation. But few were allowed to join the club, the board saw to that.
The board was composed of one man, the same man that had established the club so as to have a central office within which to conduct his business: Mycroft Holmes. The club had become an extension of his secret empire, a place filled with those with real power. Not the Cabinet, which was in Mycroft’s view nothing more than an ever-shifting selection of public functionaries, rather than long-term men of money and position. Those who supported the Cabinet; who provided the leverage and finance to see things get done. In many ways the Diogenes was the government, the quietly beating heart at its centre that kept the country afloat. And now, in this state of emergency, that heart was beating harder than ever.
“Good morning, Gentlemen,” said the footman who greeted us at the doorway. “Mr Holmes is expecting you.” He led us up the stairs to the front door. “Need I remind you that, even in these trying times, the rules of the club stand. Once we are beyond those doors you are to say nothing until you are within the visitors’ room.”
“Nothing?” asked Carruthers, a man to whom this sort of behaviour was an anathema.
“Absolutely nothing, Sir,” the footman confirmed. “Failure to observe this rule will result in one of the staff ejecting you from the premises.”
“And we wouldn’t want that,” said Holmes. “I’m sure Carruthers has been thrown out of much better clubs than this in his time, after all.”
“Well, actually, I was once banned from the Coleman but that was entirely down to a misunderstanding with regards a demonstration of Chinese wrestling. I got a bit carried away and threw a member of staff through a picture window. It was quite a scandal at the time.”
“No doubt,” I said.
We were ushered through the front door into the charge of another member of staff, this one even more aged than the last. He had the face of a baby bird, a bulbous cranium surrounded by straggling hair with a nose that looked more than up to the task of fishing a snail from its shell. He gave a deferential nod that turned into a panicked shake as Carruthers opened his mouth to greet him. I nudged the garrulous explorer in the ribs and was relieved to see he got the hint. He adopted a music-hall routine of mime, rolling his eyes, slapping his wrist and making buttoning gestures at his lips.
The bird-faced gentleman led us up the giant staircase to the fourth floor of the club. I often wondered if the visitors’ areas were located on the top floor as an extra deterrent against sociability. Certainly there was little Mycroft would dread more than climbing all those stairs. He would never make the journey unless it was absolutely unavoidable.
We were led into the main visitors’ room where Mycroft sat in the window observing the street outside. Whenever I had met him here this was the position he adopted. I realise now that it was his version of that walk Holmes and I had conducted through the city. It was Mycroft’s opportunity to remind himself what the real world —and all the people in it—were really like.
“Well,” he said, without turning around, “I don’t imagine any of us thought matters would come to a head as quickly as this.”
“Indeed not,” Holmes agreed standing at Mycroft’s side and gazing through the glass at the street below. “Tell us what happened.”
“The Prime Minister was addressing the House of Lords on the matter of Ireland,” Mycroft sighed, “as he so often does. It was neither a particularly heated debate nor an important one, just the usual hot air that keeps that building warm through the winter months.
“Moreau—or whoever he is—gained access through the cellars. We later found a hole knocked through from one of the expanded train tunnels.” He looked up for the first time. “We’re having our own station built as part of the Underground network, saves time all round. Anyway, once inside the building he made his way to the main debating chamber. He was not alone.”
“He had some of his creations with him?” asked Holmes.
Mycroft nodded. “According to one of the security officers there was a gang of eight, all of them recognisable as different animal species. A leopard, a goat, a … dear Lord … a horse! Oh, damn it all it was positively a bloody farmyard! And he played the part, he wore a pig’s face as a mask.”
“Really? That is interesting.”
“It’s damned grotesque. Obviously the majority assumed they were all wearing masks, then one of the damned things spoke and the way its mouth moved …”
“We have seen something of a similar nature,” Holmes said, briefly describing our encounter with Kane. “This security officer, might we hear the story direct from him?”
Mycroft nodded and gestured towards the old member of staff. “I thought you might ask that. Bring him in, Kirk.”
Kirk led in a small, stocky fellow who looked like he was completely out of his environment. Some people are simply more physical than others and this fellow looked like he was probably snapping the floorboards simply by standing on them.
“Fellowes, Sir,” he announced, holding out a worn, strong hand that looked all too capable of crushing the bones of mine to powder.
“Dr John Watson,” I replied, shaking the man’s hand.
“A pleasure to meet another old soldier,” he said. “I was wounded out around the same time as yourself. Good to finally put a face to the name.”