The God of the Hive - Laurie R. King [133]
“Russell.”
“Theft,” I spat. “Embezzlement for the good of the nation! Oh, Holmes, how could you?”
“It was necessary.”
“The ends justifying the means? The tawdry excuse of every tyrant through history.”
“Mycroft is no tyrant, Russell.”
“Isn’t he? Stealing money from his government to set up his own little monarchy. What is he doing with all that money, that can’t be done openly? Bribes? Assassinations? I know there’s blackmail—blackmail, Holmes! Those letters of his that ‘would taint our name forever.’ You detest blackmailers, yet you permitted it!”
“The ‘noble lie’ has to convince the rulers themselves.”
I rejected the sadness in his voice by making mine louder. “I think I prefer the sentiments of Phaedo to those of The Republic: ‘False words are not only themselves evil, but they infect the soul with evil.’”
“Do you not imagine that my brother is well aware of that? Do you not see that thirty years ago, he consciously chose to shape a life of virtue on top of that one act?”
“What I’d imagined was that Mycroft was above such things. What I’d hoped was that he did his best to counteract the slimy deeds that Intelligence spawns, the bribes and blackmail and God knows what death and misery. What I’d hoped—” I broke off and slammed the drawer. What I’d hoped was that Mycroft was better than that.
“Good men may be driven to unethical decisions. I have been, myself.”
I grabbed a comb and began to drag it through my hair, trying to ignore the figure in the edge of the looking-glass.
“Are you and I arguing,” Holmes asked eventually, “or are you arguing with yourself?”
I threw the comb into its drawer, kicked my shed garments into the corner, and jammed one of the wider cloches over my head. I looked at my reflection, but after a time, I had to look away.
Mycroft had always been a bigger-than-life presence, even before I met him; to find … this at the man’s core shook me. When it came to Mycroft, I had somehow decided that he managed to undertake the business of Intelligence without the unsavoury aspects of the craft, even though I myself was regularly driven to house-breaking, lying to the police, assault … Holmes was right, I was being simplistic. Childish.
Fortunately, he had the sense not to say so.
“All right,” I said. “Yes, he pays. That doesn’t make it right, but it’s a brutal world and the work he does is necessary. I am disappointed. Profoundly disappointed. But I will help.” I picked up my purse.
“I left Damian at the Hotel Delft in Bleumenschoten,” Holmes said. “And Dr Henning, of course. Under the name Daniel de Fontaine.”
I flagged down a cab on Piccadilly, went to the Standard’s offices to leave the advert, then walked down the street to a quiet public call-box.
It took ten minutes to achieve a connexion with the hotel in Tunbridge Wells. The man who answered was friendly and sounded intelligent, but he assured me that no one by the name of Javitz had checked in the previous day. My heart instantly tried to climb up my throat.
“Not—” I forced myself under control: Shouting at the man would not help me. I took a deep breath, and changed what I had been about to say, and the way in which I said it. “Oh dear, perhaps they were forced to use another hotel. Were you full up, yesterday?”
“No, madam, we were not.”
“Well, perhaps—” Perhaps what? They didn’t like the looks of the place? Estelle threw a tantrum and demanded to be returned to Goodman’s family home? They’d had a mechanical breakdown on the road to Tunbridge Wells, a flat tyre, a deadly crash?
They’d been picked up by Mycroft’s foe?
Do not panic. Do not. “Perhaps if I describe them, you can tell me if you’ve seen them. He’s tall, American, has an injured leg, and the child—”
“Ah yes, you mean Mr Russell.”
I found I was leaning against the wall, and the box was full of a rushing sound.
“Madam? Hello, Exchange, have we been cut off?”
“No,” I said. “Yes, I’m here,