Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [124]
I trotted up the steps, shunned the lift in favour of the stairway, and pounded on Mycroft’s door, slightly breathless. I felt his presence arrive on the other side, where he paused to look through the secret peep-hole in the centre of the knocker, and then the bolt slid. I slipped past him, shedding rain-coat and hat as I went, not needing to ask where Holmes was because I could see his stockinged feet sticking out from the end of the comfortable sofa.
The six-foot-plus man laid out on Mycroft’s long settee had at some point since the morning changed into a Frenchman. From his silk-stockinged feet to the sleek part of his hair, his trousers, shirt-front, and even the still-attached moustaches were unmistakably French. He’d even, I noticed from a glance at the suit’s coat that lay over the arm of a nearby chair, dug out his Légion d’Honneur. It was honestly come by—Holmes avoided a display of unearned ribbons when he could, even as disguise. The most English things about him at the moment were the squat crystal glass balanced on his chest and the India-rubber ice-bag from the Army and Navy Stores that rested on his head.
A good deal of my apprehension deflated abruptly, leaving me dizzy with relief. Just bruises, then, and perhaps a cracked rib, judging by the care with which he drew breath. And a splint on one finger.
Mycroft placed a glass of brandy in my hand and pushed me gently into a chair. I put the glass aside and sat on the edge of the upholstery.
“You needn’t look so mother-hennish, Russell,” Holmes said crossly. “There’s nothing here that some strapping won’t take care of.”
“What did they use?” A length of pipe, unless the cut on his jaw came by a fall.
“Brass knuckles and boots, for the most part. One of them picked up a cobble-stone.” He gestured at the jaw. “But the other ordered him to drop it. They weren’t aiming to murder me, just to render me hors de combat. Or to warn me off, but if so, the small detail of precisely what it was off which I was being warned was left too late, and omitted entirely when the local constable came pounding and whistling to the rescue.”
“Not robbery?”
“If so, it was secondary to the pleasure of knocking me about.” He shifted in the pillows, and winced. “If you are not going to drink that excellent brandy, Russell, I shall happily offer it a home.”
His speech and his eyes seemed clear, and the head wounds minor. I handed him the glass. He took a mouthful and made a face; since I was certain that any brandy kept by Mycroft would not make him grimace, I added a loosened tooth to my mental list.
The brandy settled him. After a minute, he went on without prompting.
“Two men, one of them a gentleman or something very near—and yes, I am fully cognisant of the absurdity of that statement, but his voice through its muffling mask had the accents of authority and education, and he commanded the other to drop the stone with the bark of an officer. Unfortunately, that phrase, ‘Drop it,’ were the pair’s only words—not sufficient to identify the speaker’s origins or identity.” He paused to take another swallow, reducing the glass to half its original level, then resumed. “The authoritative individual was a fit man of around five feet ten or eleven inches—I fear the alley was too dimly lit to allow for any more detail. He had done a certain amount of boxing, I should say, but like most amateur pugilists, he was not entirely familiar with the sensation of hitting with a set of brass knuckles.
“The other man, the muscles of the team, was more street fighter than pugilist. Certainly he was no respecter of the Queensberry rules. He was more than comfortable with a