Doctor Who_ All-Consuming Fire - Andy Lane [39]
A heavy pause fell across the room, broken by the arrival of the footman with a tray containing a teapot and several fine china cups.
'You cannot possibly have deduced that we have met the Pope,' I said, when the footman had left. The brothers were locked in an eye-to-eye battle of wills. Knowing the natural truculence of the Holmes family, I could see that it could go on all day, if I did not interrupt.
'Quite right,' Holmes said. 'Somebody has brought Mycroft a juicy fat worm.'
'You are meddling in affairs of state,' Mycroft said.
'You have no right to interfere,' Holmes snapped. 'I have been retained in a private capacity.'
'That is equivalent to saying that the amorous predilections of Prince Edward, Duke of Clarence and Avondale are his own concern!' Mycroft crossed to the window again, so that the light was behind him, throwing his vast shadow across the room. 'The monarchy and the state are the same.
They cannot be separated. The same holds true for the Pope and the Vatican. Did you not wonder why the Supreme Pontiff travelled half-way across Europe in secret to consult you? Did it not occur to you that the commission, simple though it may have seemed, might have implications which could rock Europe? Help yourself to tea, by the way.'
I did so, wondering what the amorous predilections of Prince Edward, Duke of Clarence and Avondale actually were.
'Balderdash!' Holmes threw himself into an armchair. 'The Foreign Office is merely annoyed because the Pope came to me rather than to it.'
'The Foreign Office be damned!' Mycroft exploded. 'They couldn't find a cow in a field. The Queen is annoyed because his Eminence Pope Leo XIII didn't come to her!'
'So,' Holmes whispered, 'as I suspected.'
Mycroft shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. 'Yes,' he said, 'as you suspected.'
'The Diogenes?'
'Of course.'
'Please,' I interrupted, 'if it is not too much trouble, can somebody explain to me what you are talking about?'
Mycroft glanced at Holmes, who nodded slightly. I felt as if I had been given some sort of endorsement.
'Please do not discuss what you are about to hear outside these walls,'
Mycroft began. 'I am telling you this only to ensure that my brother is aware of the truth of my position, rather than his own deductions, and because I am aware, following your commissions for the Royal Families of Scandinavia, Russia and Holland, of your honesty and integrity.'
I nodded, feeling rather proud of the faith he put in me.
'As you may know, there are certain people attached to the Foreign Office who make it their business to find out other peoples' business. One might call them a kind of secret service.'
I thought back to the Orient Express, and the Reverend Hawkins. How mysterious are the wheels of power.
'Many countries have them, Doctor Watson. Germany has agents in England even as we speak, as does Russia. We have had our own agents abroad for nigh on four hundred years, now. We operate under a rather severe handicap, however. We are a decent race.' He snorted. 'The average Englishman thinks that there is something rather sordid and dishonourable about spying, and that pretty much ties our hands as to how effective we can be.'
'There is something sordid about it,' I exclaimed. 'The whole idea is . . .
well, just not cricket!'
'The Germans don't play cricket,' he said, scowling. 'And neither do the Russians. Unfortunately, the Foreign Office do. They run the whole thing like an Eton game. You've never seen such a group of ineffective stuffed shirts. When Thomas Beach, one of their best agents, infiltrated the Irish Republican Brotherhood and reported that the Fenians had entered into diplomatic relations
with the Czar of all the Russias, and that they had actually built a submersible boat with which to attack Royal Navy vessels, what did they do? Nothing! Her Majesty was furious when she found out!'
'Her Majesty?'