Interlude

by Maer, aka 'merely a whim'

It was nearly dark when the train from Victoria Station stopped at the platform in Eastbourne. I gratefully gave up the hard seat I'd occupied for the last hour and a half, during which I'd stared unseeing out the glass as I'd mulled over the events of the day. Hampered by my stiffness and the press of the other passengers, I gathered my parcels from the overhead rack and made for the egress at the near end of the rail car.

I paused to let a mother and her child enter the aisle, causing an exasperated male sigh to gust upon my bonnet from behind me and, in the fits and starts typical of train passengers the world over, I eventually made it to the platform. I stepped clear of the car and straightened my posture, looking for Will Thompson's head above the disembarking passengers. There he stood, by the third column from the far end of the platform, his shoulder planted firmly against the soot-stained timber that held up the roof. I refrained from waving as both my hands were engaged with bags stuffed to bursting from all the shopping I'd done that day in London. Instead I raised my brows and brightened my expression when he spied me in the crowd. In seconds, he was at my side and, relieving me of my heaviest and bulkiest of burdens, quite the proper gentleman, Will made a path for both of us through the various passengers and baggage men.

"Thank you, Will. I trust you got the telegram in good time, then?" I asked when we were free of the crush. The sun was nearly down and the evening breeze off the Channel was cold.

"Oh, aye. Seth spotted the boy coming down the road even before I did. The lad's got eyes in him like a hawk. We made it to the gate in time to accept the message." We'd arrived at the kerb out front where I spied a familiar car, its paint job gleaming, waxed and rubbed with loving care to a mirror finish. Will nodded to our neighbour sitting in the driver's seat and waved him back behind the wheel; Will then stowed my packages in the boot himself before handing me into the vehicle, its interior redolent of leather and saddle soap. After carefully closing the door once I was settled inside, Will climbed into the front with the driver. The engine came to life with a well-oiled purr and we pulled away from the station. It wasn't long before the green Sussex Downs surrounded us as we travelled west toward home.

I sank into the comfort of the soft leather and closed my eyes, wondering how I was going to approach this. I replayed what Mycroft Holmes had said to me only that afternoon as we walked in one of London's celebrated street markets.

"I am worried about my brother," said he as we dodged a knot of street children. (I instinctively checked my belongings - nothing was missing, thank goodness.) "I have tried, as you know, to send cases his way that would challenge and stimulate his unique mental faculties. Many were the occasions he'd complained to me of how the old practices and habits by which he'd made his living were wasting away through lack of use, slowly succumbing to atrophy. 'My brain is like a muscle, Mycroft,' he'd said. 'If neglected, it will wither away just as surely as any disease-stunted limb.' And that," sighed Mycroft mightily - and as a man of impressive girth, his sighs were sized accordingly - "is what worries me."

He paused to fix me with a troubled eye. The expression was ill suited to his face, a face more accustomed to serene contemplation of whatever obscure facts crossed his desk from all corners of the Empire with the assurance born of supreme confidence in his abilities to deal with them. Something was bothering Mycroft, a matter that yielded not to his intelligence or his power - both vast and unmeasured, as these things go. Hence his unease. He cleared his throat and went on.

"My brother craves action and excitement, for all his protestations to the contrary. Indeed, I had thought his retirement rather premature, coming at least a decade early, but he would not be gainsaid, not even when I offered him an unofficial position with my department - on a handsome retainer, I might add - to convince him to stay in London. He said he was tired of it, of all the pettiness and the mediocrity of the current crimes being committed, that he merely wished to write his magnum opus undisturbed, keep bees, and perhaps try growing some of the more dangerous varieties of plants for chemical experiments. So he has said. Repeatedly.

"But I know my brother, Mrs. Hudson. He would initially take to his retirement like a man to a new mistress, but the day when he tired of the limited offerings afforded by the bucolic life would come all too soon, and like a falling out between paramours, it would leave him quite... lost. I do beg your pardon, madam, for my crude analogy, but I fear it was one best able to describe the intensity of his attachment to his habits."

"I do understand, sir." I hastened to assure Mycroft I had taken no offence. "I am afraid to say, however, that your brother has been distracted of late. There are times when he merely sits and smokes and putters aimlessly for days before throwing himself full tilt into one project or another.

"You mention his habits. Pardon me for asking, sir, but are you referring to the specific habit of taking cocaine?" I dared look him in the eye as I said this. Might as well get to the point.

"Yes." Mycroft raised a brow in my direction. "I see you follow me."

"I believe you want to ask if - given my unique position as his housekeeper to observe such things - your brother has been overindulging in cocaine or whatever else he sees fit to inject into his veins. As it stands now, I can tell you that he indulges only occasionally. However," and here I stopped and faced Mycroft squarely, "if his boredom with country living should become so great as to set him to taking cocaine in abusive amounts there is very little I could do to thwart him, if oblivion is his goal. What do you expect me to do should that actually become the case?"

"Leave that to me." Mycroft's faint air of menace subtly intensified with those four little words. He resumed walking. " I merely require sufficient notice of his progress to set certain procedures in motion. I plan to head him off from such a pass - forcibly, should it become necessary. He is too valuable to our Empire, madam, to simply languish in Sussex. There is a storm coming, mark my words, and England will need all the bright and shining minds she can muster to her defence. My brother shall be foremost among them. When I must needs call on him and his talents, I would have him in good working order when I do so."

There it was. Mycroft and England needed Holmes; if not now, then in the future. I gave Mycroft's rumblings about storms little consideration, for I'd already read the papers and the speculations in them over the political situation in Europe, same as anyone else, and had come to the conclusion no good end would come of Germany setting herself against England in a foolish arms race for naval supremacy. In my more cynical moments, I was convinced war would be inevitable and when it came, I had no doubt Holmes would be called upon. In what capacity and in how great a measure would remain to be seen. And it would be up to my humble self to see to it that he answered England's call with his faculties intact.

I was torn. This was no light undertaking, no following of mere whim. This commitment could last years and require me to do many things I would find personally repugnant. To do what Mycroft asked I would have to throw away every moral injunction I possessed and spy on my employer. I would have to pry into his personal affairs. I would have to steal certain private effects if necessary. I would have to lie convincingly if questioned about it. I would have to do all these things and more, all whilst I continued to live under his roof, eat his food, and take his money in the form of my pay. It went without saying it would go very badly for me were I found out. However, if everything went according to plan, up to and even including Mycroft's active intervention and if my perfidy was discovered, I would be remembered as a Judas and as a saviour. A delicious irony worthy of Shakespeare.

But I had to try. Aside from my own genuine liking and respect for the man, I had a more compelling reason to accept this commission from Mycroft. Sherlock Holmes had once saved my Jamie. As a mere housekeeper, I only owed my employer my loyalty and a job well done. As a mother, however, I owed him everything, even my place in Heaven, for the life of my son.

"All right," I heard myself say. "What would you have me do?"

I sat in the car, barely noticing when we turned onto the road that led home, and reviewed what Mycroft had said to me in return. When he'd finished, I knew that I would need help, for although I had an instinctive grasp of what had to be done, I hadn't any real experience in the doing of it. I would have to ask Will to teach me. And this was an area in which I would need to exercise tact: how would Will react once he realized I was... usurping some of his duties? I had suspected, and Mycroft had confirmed, that Will ultimately worked for not for Sherlock Holmes, but for Holmes' brother. I recalled again the serendipitous arrival of Will on our doorstep three months ago seeking the position our previous groundskeeper had so precipitously quit, almost before any of our news advertisements for a replacement had made it into print. (That suggested either bribery or intimidation - or other measures on which I'd rather not speculate - being brought to bear on our previous groundskeeper, courtesy of Mycroft. Of that, I no longer had any doubt.) I recalled his panther's grace moving through the house and over the grounds, and of speculating where and how he'd acquired it. I began to wonder if I would find myself on the receiving end of Will's clandestine talents... and not in an entirely salutary way.

He was still something of an unknown quantity in the makeup of the household. Now I had to start digging and work with or around whatever I'd turned up. I would rather thrust a bare hand into one of Holmes' hives than approach Will on this. Only the knowledge that we both now worked for Mycroft, and of the debt I owed Holmes, kept me going forward.

I waited until my bags were ensconced in the front hall and our neighbour gone with his fare paid before I said to Will:

"If you would be so kind as to take my things into the kitchen, Will, I would like a word with you before you go."

Will obliged without demur, despite the fact it was well past his usual time to depart for the day, and carried everything into the kitchen. I put the kettle on for tea and got the more perishable of my purchases stowed away in their proper places. Will merely took a seat at the kitchen table after I'd declined his offer to help and politely waited until I was done. Afterwards, when the tea had been poured and the first sips taken, I gathered up my courage and began.

"Mycroft approached me today when I was in London. He's asked me to - I see no way to sugar coat this, so I'll just say it - spy on Mr. Holmes."

As I had decided on the straightforward approach, so did he. Will planted his elbows on the mellow wood of the old table and, cradling his cup in both hands, smiled at me with his eyes.

"So, Mycroft finally talked to you, did he? Good, I was wondering when he'd get around to it. I expect he told you I actually work for him, as a bodyguard and general watchdog for his brother?"

"Yes. He has confirmed my guess that you, sir, are more than what you appear."

Will chuckled.

"What gave me away?"

My tongue gave voice to the most telling thing about him before I could stop it. "The way you move. It's like nothing I've ever seen, although I would be hard put to describe just what it is exactly that makes me, um... Well." I took another sip of my tea. What could I say to him that he hadn't already heard before? You set all my alarms to ringing, the ones that a mother naturally develops upon having children and never really discards after they've grown? You strike me as powerful and dangerous and I cannot entirely be certain I can trust you, despite the fact that Mycroft has admitted you are his man and therefore must be trustworthy?

Will nodded thoughtfully. "Not many have noticed that. The man who recruited me did, apparently. A few others over the years, mostly in the same profession." Will put his cup in its saucer suddenly, as if struck by an appalling thought. "Are you afraid of me?"

It was an honest question, genuinely made. I looked at the man sitting across from me and I realized that my fears were groundless for, whatever he had done in the past, Will had done for King and Country out of a strong sense of duty tempered by a sure knowledge of right and wrong. I thought of what I knew of Mycroft, of the power the man held and his immunity to corruption in spite of it. I thought of Holmes and the deep drive he had for justice and uncovering the truth, however dangerous it might be. I thought of how both these men, these two who on the surface seemed as different as night and day but yet were surprisingly similar in many ways, had directly or indirectly assessed Will Thompson and found him to be a man they could trust: Mycroft had hired him to guard his brother, Holmes had hired Will as groundskeeper and thereby granted him access not only to the cottage but to his very person by mere proximity. It was a testament to Will's character that he'd survived whatever process of elimination the brothers had applied to him and so sat before me now, calmly waiting for my answer. Any trepidation I'd had evaporated with the realization that had Will been an untrustworthy man, he would never have gotten this far, not with both Mycroft and Holmes' eyes on him.

"No." I answered truthfully. "Although I will admit, I've never met anyone quite like you before. I'm not sure how to act around you."

"Rather as if I were your French tutor, and you're worried you might utter a grammatical error?" Will caught my eye and held it.

I nodded, embarrassed, blushing like a schoolgirl. Imagine that! And at my age, too!

"Piffle. We all have to start somewhere. And I trust this is leading somewhere?"

"I need your help. I accepted the job as a spy and I haven't the foggiest notion as to how to go about it. So I thought that perhaps you could teach me what I need to know."

"That depends on what you need to do."

"Mycroft wants me to monitor Holmes' drug use and report to him regularly on his brother's overall health and habits. I am to report to him immediately if I believe Holmes is in danger of his sanity or his life."

"Where are the drugs?"

"Upstairs in a locked cabinet of the laboratory."

"Where is the key to it?"

"In his desk drawer, on the same ring with the others for locking up his more dangerous chemical solutions and breakables. Cluttered though his lab might be, Holmes is scrupulous about locking up hazardous materials."

"Does he let you clean the lab?"

"On occasion, usually when there is nothing dangerous about that could spill or explode or... Please understand me, Will. I have already assumed I would have to steal the key," and here I couldn't suppress a grimace at the notion. "I am just in the dark as to how afterwards to hide the fact that I've done so. Is there any trick to the trade, as it were, that you could teach me?"

"Certainly."

Thus began my career as a spy. I found it was surprisingly easy, a fact that gave my conscience no end of consternation and much matter for thought when sleep came slowly on some nights. It wasn't long before I'd nicked the key and had a copy made. Replacing the key was a bit trickier, but I'd got it done. Every week or so, I would write out a report that I would place in Will's hands before he'd leave for the day. Will would send it on to Mycroft with his own report.

There was little to say at first. Life in Sussex with Sherlock Holmes was for the main part tranquil enough - barring the occasional chemical experiment gone awry, bouts of discordant violin playing which my employer sometimes undertook to help him think through one knotty problem or another, and more and more frequently outbursts of ill temper over matters trifling for a man in a better frame of mind. I bore these inconveniences and storms with the patience acquired from long acquaintance. (One could not last as Holmes' housekeeper as along as I have without a fair amount of patience.) I also tried to gently dissuade him from his self-destructive habit of taking cocaine in a vain attempt to escape his utter boredom. At times I actually succeeded. Most times, however, Holmes did what he wished, despite my best efforts. The decline his brother Mycroft and I had both dreaded had begun.

It was slight at first, and I dutifully noted the occurrences in my reports to Mycroft. When the frequency grew and Holmes' decline threatened to grow worse, I began to wonder at Mycroft's silence on the matter. Why had he not sent me word or instructions on what to do about it? I could only surmise that perhaps the brothers had had a falling out, during one of Holmes' increasingly infrequent visits to London, and Mycroft had thought that appearing to fall back was the best approach. Given that as a possible scenario, I made sure to keep up with my reports, hoping that in them Mycroft could see a way out for Holmes. That he hadn't has been a puzzle I still haven't to this very day solved to my satisfaction. So I did what little I could to stave off the inevitable, sent my reports to Mycroft through Will Thompson, and prayed for a miracle.

My prayers were partially answered in the form of a long-term commission from Mycroft that required two years of Holmes' time and also travel as far abroad as America. It even, much to my surprise, required my own services in the capacity as a housekeeper.

I speak, of course, of my involvement in the Von Bork Affair, which Holmes' friend Dr. Watson had written and published under the (unlikely) title, His Last Bow. Holmes assumed the role of Altamont. As such he was gone for long stretches of time and was thus removed from my sight and my ability to spy for Mycroft. As the case progressed toward its end as chronicled by Dr. Watson, Holmes approached me with the task of working inside the Von Bork household, using what skills I'd learnt from Will and my native intelligence to better pass on vital information of Von Bork's organization from within whilst Holmes worked to topple it from without. My efforts were paltry when set beside Holmes' efforts, but it does give me a small glow of pride to have had a hand in putting away a man as dangerous as Von Bork. My only regret was, as thorough though we'd tried to be, some few of Von Bork's men had escaped the trap we'd set for them.

When the case came to a close, Holmes ensconced himself in the cottage and took up where he'd left off. By then it was late 1914, the Great War had descended upon us all, and Holmes resumed his decline into drugs and apathy. The Von Bork case had only been partially successful as a diversion. I stepped up my prayers for a more permanent solution to Holmes' troubles.

I am only grateful that one had been found and even though it had come from an unexpected source in the form of one young woman by the name of Miss Mary Russell - a solution I was sure that not even Mycroft had a hand in arranging - I could rest assured that my employer had won free of his deadly addiction for good.

During the years Will Thompson worked for us and for Mycroft, I had come to trust the man in a way I had not come to trust anyone before or since. He was a very real defence against the hostile elements of the world and he accomplished his duties in a manner usually so smoothly done it was well nigh invisible. Then there came the occasion I got to see the man "in action," as the Americans say. It was the summer of 1915 as I recall...