Part 10 (1/2)

'He could be working as part of a gang,' I said.

'Unlikely,' Holmes snapped. 'Remember William of Occam's suggestion that one should not multiply logical ent.i.ties without reason. No, for the moment we will a.s.sume that our man is working alone.'

'Is your Doctor a tall chap with a shock of white hair and a penchant for velvet smoking jackets?' Mycroft asked.

'No,' I said, mystified. 'Why?'

'There's a chap who I see down in the reading room sometimes, calls himself the Doctor. Thought it might be one and the same. This one's a bit of a wag: brings newspapers into the Club dated some ten or twenty years hence and reads them as if he'd never seen them before. Got some of the members quite worried, I can tell you.'

'Apart from the coincidence in names,' Holmes said, leaning forward and fixing his brother with a hard stare, 'is there any reason why he should be the same Doctor?'

'Well spotted, Sherlock. I do have a reason. You see, a good half of the people on this list are members of the Diogenes!'

Holmes stood bolt upright, and I must admit that I was taken aback. The entry requirements for the Diogenes were notoriously stringent. To find that many of our suspects were regularly gathered together under one roof . . .

'Who?' Holmes asked succinctly.

'If we ignore the Doctor, then Challenger, Baron Maupertuis and. .'

Mycroft trailed off. Holmes nodded. I felt completely left out. There was a name on the list that was being kept from me.

Mycroft Holmes pulled a discreet velvet cord, and within seconds a footman had entered the room. Mycroft murmured a few words, and the man left.

'I have asked Baron Maupertuis to join us, if he is on the premises,' Mycroft informed us.

'What sort of a man is he?' Holmes asked.

'A strange sort,' Mycroft replied. 'Rich - exceptionally so - and a bit of a recluse. He is of Dutch extraction, and owns the Netherlands-Sumatra Company, but has recently become a naturalized British subject. Seems to be trying to be more British than the British: friends with the Prince of Wales, goes to Ascot, you know the form. We suspect that he is mixed up in some shady business deals, which is why we encouraged him to join the Diogenes.'

'Because you wanted his help?'

'Don't be clever, Sherlock. We wanted to keep an eye on him.'

As we waited, Mycroft poured me a gla.s.s of heavy, sweet sherry, and made small talk about the weather. He was not very good at it and I was glad when the door reopened.

The man who walked into the room was tall, excessively so, and thin to the point of emaciation. His face was bloodless and completely without expression - so immobile, in fact, that it could have been carved in bone.

His hair was long, ash-blond and brushed straight back: the irises of his eyes were so pale as to be almost invisible, so that his pupils were black pinp.r.i.c.ks floating on a white void. His morning attire was impeccable. He did not offer to shake hands.

'Mycroft,' he said finally. His voice was like the wind in dry reeds. 'I trust that this is important. I have another appointment.'

'I wished you to meet my brother, Sherlock,' Mycroft said. I could tell that even he, the imperturbable Holmes, was put out.

Maupertuis's gaze settled on Holmes and he nodded slightly. Although his expression did not change by one iota, something new had been added to the atmosphere of that room, an indefinable but ominous cloud.

'Charmed,' Holmes said, sniffing slightly. 'I was saying to my brother only a moment ago that we both belong to the same library.'

Maupertuis said nothing.

'A library in Holborn,' Holmes continued.

No reaction.

'I don't remember ever seeing you there. Do you go often?'

Maupertuis reached a skeletal hand into his waistcoat pocket and retrieved an ornate gold hunter, which he consulted. I noticed that the rest of his body did not appear to move at all. He swivelled slightly so that he was looking at Mycroft.

'Time presses,' he whispered. 'You understand.'

He turned to go, and as he did so, his gaze swept across me like the beam of a lighthouse. I felt as if insects were crawling across my skin. The feeling lasted but a moment, and then he was gone.

'He did not blink,' Holmes said finally. 'Most instructive.'

'A rum character,' Mycroft said. There was a fine beading of perspiration across his forehead. he took out a handkerchief and mopped it abstractedly across his face. 'I've never got his measure.'

'I wonder whether his appointment was real or feigned,' I said. 'It occurred to me that he might have wished to avoid further questioning, and invented a spurious excuse to leave.'

Holmes crossed to the window.

'We may be able to tell something by the way he . . . ah! Yes, there he is now, climbing into a hansom.'

Holmes suddenly leaned forward, like a pointer dog on the trail of a stag.

'h.e.l.lo, what's this!'

Mycroft and I moved to join Holmes. Mycroft, being nearer, got to his brother's side first, effectively blocking my view.

'Most instructive,' Mycroft murmured.

'You noticed?' Holmes. said.

'Of course.'

'What's happening?' I bleated.

Mycroft moved aside and I squeezed past him to gaze along Pall Mall at a swaying two-wheeler with a baronial crest upon its side.

'I see nothing,' I said.

'You see nothing now,' Holmes corrected. 'The hansom was listing sideways before Maupertuis entered. His weight evened the suspension out.'

'I don't . . . Ah! I see! You suspect that the hansom was already occupied?'

'I suspect nothing,' Holmes replied. 'I know. The science of deduction allows no room for suspicions. A fact is either true or it is not true. Did you not notice how Maupertuis was in a hurry to leave us for another engagement? I would suggest to you that he was due for an a.s.signation with another person. The coach is obviously his, judging by the crest, and contains the person with whom he is meeting.'

It would be instructive to know the ident.i.ty of the other man,' Mycroft said ruminantly. 'Save that he is elderly and does not often visit London, I can tell nothing about him.'