Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [125]
Even the sharpest and most disciplined of minds tends to wander somewhat under the influence of a pummelling followed by several ounces of alcohol. Holmes, I thought, could use a gentle firming-up.
“Was the muscle local talent, from London? Or a country boy?”
That made him focus. The confusion at the back of his eyes dissipated as he concentrated on the memories, reaching through the tumult of attack to retrieve the more subtle sensations.
“There must have been three of them in all, with the third in charge of transport. They were waiting down the street from the door I’d gone through an hour earlier.”
“How did they find you?”
“They may have ears within the War Offices. I had been interviewing there all day, in my guise of a retired French colonel seeking candidates for posthumous awards, and at least three clerks had the opportunity of overhearing the conversation I had with Alistair at Justice Hall regarding our progress, during which I chanced to mention my destination for the evening. I shall give you their names, Mycroft; see if you can turn up any past wrongdoing among them. In any case, my attackers waited up the street, saw which way I was going, and drove past me. As I walked, I noticed two men, their heads ducked against the rain, dash from a private car into a doorway. When I had gone past, they came back onto the street and one of them—the muscles—literally tackled me from behind and ran me into an alley-way. We ended up in the entrance to a yard, with fisticuffs among the dust bins.
“Mycroft,” he interrupted his narrative to say. “Do you think you might ring down for that light supper you offered me earlier? Soup or a boiled egg for me, although Russell no doubt could do with something more substantial, having had dinner at Simpson’s snatched out from under her nose. Where was I? The dust bins, yes.
“The muscular individual was quite aware that a blow to the head induces sufficient disorientation to allow for a more leisurely treatment to the rest of the victim’s anatomy. And so it proved. Against him alone I might have stood; the two of them soon had me down and were, as they say, putting the boots in.
“The muscles was at the most seven inches over five feet, but solid. Wearing an Army greatcoat, newer boots with stiffened toes, steel perhaps—but no, his smell was of city streets and the docks, not of manure and grass. A city tough. He’ll have a black eye, but no obvious marks on his hands—he wore gloves.
“The other: not, perhaps, a gentleman in the strict sense, but a man of education. A schoolmaster or high-ranking clerk, perhaps a gentleman’s gentleman. Homburg type rather than cloth cap, although they’d abandoned the actual head-gear and pulled on stocking caps, or balaclavas, when they came out of the doorway. His overcoat was good, heavy wool, dark colour but not I think actually black. Neck scarf, also dark, gloves that gleamed in the light, polished lace-up boots. A city suit, I’d say, under the overcoat. No facial hair that I could tell, but I’d have missed a trimmed beard or a small moustache. The gentleman will have a limp: I gave his left knee a good one when I was down. And his overcoat is missing a button.”
With a smile of satisfaction, he worked a cautious hand beneath Mycroft’s borrowed dressing gown to the pocket of the shirt, and brought out a silk handkerchief, which he held out to me. I knelt down at the low table with it, and allowed it to unroll. A round of horn dropped out. Wordlessly, Mycroft brought me a small leather kit containing powders, brushes, and insufflator. I raised three partial prints from the surface, and allowed Mycroft to put the object in a safe place, away from the attentions of his housekeeper.
A rattle in the service lift heralded our much-delayed evening meal, with its mixture of invalid food and hearty labourer’s fare (for Mycroft, whose brain sweated mightily for king and country). Mycroft grumbled that the roast