The God of the Hive - Laurie R. King [47]
Satisfied, he allowed himself to be escorted to the room, high up in the east wing, giving the bellman a tip that compensated for the lack of bags. He took off his hat, sat at the desk before an elaborate arrangement of fresh flowers, and lifted the earpiece.
A trunk call from this address did, as he’d expected, receive priority treatment. Within a quarter hour he was speaking with a familiar Cockney voice, the line crackling and occasionally dropping words, but tolerably clear as these things went.
The two men had known each other more than thirty years, since the eight-year-old Billy had introduced himself by attempting to pick Holmes’ pocket. On being caught, the young thief’s cheeky intelligence led Holmes to hire him on the spot, eventually to appoint him the most unlikely page-boy ever to grace Mrs Hudson’s kitchen. More importantly, Billy had become Holmes’ liaison with the street-boys he had dubbed his “Irregulars.” Now, the two men exchanged the sorts of greetings designed to communicate that they were both alone, and as secure as might be expected. Then Holmes got down to business, avoiding as always the unambiguous meaning and the personal name—one could never tell when a bored exchange operator might be listening in.
“I need you to get into touch with my brother,” Holmes began.
“You know he’s been arrested?”
“Arrested? My—” He bit back the name before he could finish it; the Bakelite earpiece creaked in his grip.
“You didn’t know?”
“I’d heard there was a raid, but an arrest? For what?”
“Truth to tell, the arrest’s speculation, like. Only, I heard he was picked up Thursday and taken in for questioning, and he hasn’t been seen since. You want me to go by his place and check?”
“No.” He tried to imagine what on earth could be going on, to result in the arrest—arrest!—of Mycroft Holmes. That was taking the game of cat-and-mouse to an extreme. It had to be some Scotland Yard brainstorm: A play for power amongst the Intelligence divisions would be more subtle. Whatever the reason, it was most inconvenient. He’d been counting on the use of Mycroft’s connexions.
“No, I think you should steer clear of his apartment, and do not make any approach to Scotland Yard. If you hear that my brother is at home again, you might give him a ring from a public box, but don’t go beyond that. I’ll be back in a few days, I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding.”
“I hope so.” The Cockney voice sounded apprehensive: Billy thought Holmes had meant that the arrest was due to a misunderstanding, not that Billy had misunderstood Mycroft’s absence to be an arrest. Still, there was no point in correcting him. In any event, if the Dutch operators were anything like the English, he risked being cut off soon. However, he had to venture another question before getting down to business.
“What about … the rest of my family?”
“Your wife?”
“Yes.” No one but Mycroft and Russell—and now Dr Henning—knew who Damian was.
“Haven’t heard from her. You want me to ask around?”
“Don’t worry, she’s been out of town. I expect she’ll get into touch before long.”
“Anything you want me to tell her when she does?”
“To keep her eyes open. The same goes for you.”
“I understand.”
“I need you to do something.”
“Anything.”
“A man who calls himself Reverend Thomas Brothers, who runs a somewhat shady church called the Children of Lights on—”
“The Brompton Road, yes.”
No moss grew on Billy when it came to the goings-on in London, that was for certain. “See what you can find out about Brothers, and about his assistant, a felon named Marcus Gunderson, who did time in the Scrubs.”
“Marcus Gunderson,” Billy repeated. “Thomas Brothers. Anything in particular?”
Holmes had had time to think about the ill-fitting elements in the Brothers case, and here was the place where the design was most baffling—and although it would have been far better to investigate it himself, Billy would make an adequate stand-in. “I want to