The God of the Hive - Laurie R. King [115]
Now, Holmes simply looked at him. Goodman nodded as if he’d replied, and said, “She looks forward to meeting you.” He went into the minuscule kitchen, which was more a matter of putting his head into the cubicle.
“Mr Goodman, I believe you have something on the stove for us?”
“I do,” our guest replied. “Although I have to say it was a challenge, coming up with something edible out of that pantry. Perhaps the tins are intended as weapons, rather than comestibles?” he added politely, his head appearing around the door.
Holmes retreated with the letter to the inner room while I took out plates and silver. I was rinsing the dust from some glasses when I heard Holmes say my name, sharply. I looked in at where he sat on the bed.
“Why did you not tell me how Mycroft signed his name?” he demanded.
“How did he sign his name?”
“With the letter M.”
“Is there significance in that?”
“Have you ever seen my brother sign a letter with only the initial?”
“He does all the time,” I protested. I could see it in front of my eyes, that copperplate M curving around a dot.
“In a letter to me?” he persisted.
Now that he’d mentioned it, I had to agree, it was generally Mycroft’s full name, even in telegrams. But I had seen that M as well, and recently. Then I had it: “The letters from Mycroft that Sosa had in his desk. Those were signed with just the initial.”
“Precisely: his business communications. The initial began as his mark to indicate that he had seen a document, and evolved into a substitute formal signature. I believe Smith-Cumming adopted the technique with his letter C on documents, until that letter took on a life of its own and was taken to mean Chief—his successor, Hugh Sinclair, signs with the C.”
“So, what? This letter to you is a business communication?”
“I should say he meant us to understand that he was writing in an official, rather than a fraternal, capacity.”
I could not see that it made any particular difference. “If you say so, Holmes,” I said, and went back to laying the table.
When he came out, he had changed his formal suit for a pair of frayed trousers and an equally working-man’s shirt of a dark colour, which he was rolling up to the elbows. He set an ancient dark-lantern on the floor beside the door: He had not by some miracle let go the idea of digging up Mycroft’s grave.
Goodman had created a kind of bean ragoût that he poured over a mound of rice—remarkable, considering the raw materials to hand. Holmes chewed the first bite with careful consideration, then gave a small moue, as if the taste had proved some inner theory. Goodman tucked in with gusto, and launched into the story of how he’d come to locate and hire a band with such absurdly woeful skills, weaving in a great deal of entertaining but questionable detail, aware of, but ignoring, the grey eyes that never left him.
When the plates were empty, I abandoned the men to the washing-up and dug through the stores for a costume appropriate for grave-robbing: trousers and a dark shirt similar to those Holmes had donned, ancient brogues, and the gloves Holmes used when he was driving a carriage. I chose another shirt and took it into the other room. The cook was scrubbing a pot. Holmes was drying the plates and putting them on the shelf. One of them had made coffee.
“Mr Goodman chooses to join us,” Holmes told me.
“I didn’t imagine he could resist.” I held out the shirt. “That white shirt will be too visible at night, if we’re caught. This one should fit you well enough.”
Goodman laid the pot upside-down next to the sink and reached for his neck-tie, undressing with no more self-consciousness than a child. I turned my back. Holmes looked on, bemused.
I had rather hoped that, considering the circumstances, we might find the coffin sitting at the edge of the hole, the interrupted burial having been delayed until the morrow. However, the mound of earth had been filled in, the sod returned to its place. The height of the mound suggested the addition of a substantial