Mycroft Holmes and the Adventure of the Desert Wind , livre ebook

Andrews UK - Janina Woods

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123 pages

English

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Description

Sherlock Holmes is missing. Dr. Watson receives a cursed note, summoning him to the city of Milan. In his plight, he turns to the one person who can help him: Mycroft Holmes, secret agent and eternally concerned elder brother. Mycroft has to team up with Dr. Watson and fellow agent Victoria Trevor to follow Sherlock's trail and stand against the dark forces that threaten his life.

Informations

Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	25 octobre 2017
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9781787052130
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0324€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Mycroft Holmes and the Adventure of the Desert Wind
By
Janina Woods

First edition published in 2017 by
MX Publishing
335 Princess Park Manor, Royal Drive,
London, N11 3GX
www.mxpublishing.co.uk
Digital edition converted and distributed by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
© Copyright 2017 Janina Woods
The right of Janina Woods to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MX Publishing or Andrews UK Limited.
Cover design by Brian Belanger
Cover painting by Lou B / diogenes art

This book is dedicated to everyone, who supported this crazy idea over the years, and especially to Jeni and Lou.

It Seems I Am Being Summoned
London, January 1896
With a most ungraceful sidestep I avoided the fist, which had been thrown in the general direction of my unprotected head. I could feel the air rushing past my face, which told me that I had saved myself from bodily harm, just barely. To get away from the imminent danger, I had to twist my upper body harshly, which made me lose my balance - and with both arms tied behind my back, it was a chore regaining it in a timely manner.
“Will you please, for the love of all that is holy, just let me hit you?” one of the shadows around me shouted with clear annoyance in his voice.
I didn‘t grace it with a response. Ducking low, I evaded another blow from the person behind me, found a stable hold on my right foot and used the left one to kick my assailant’s leg. He stumbled and fell into the person behind him. I cursed. How many people had entered the room? In the twilight, I could not make out more than five. The figures around me reminded me of the spectres which had haunted my dreams for days. I shrugged off the uneasy feeling and braced myself for the next impact.
“Get him!” the downed man shouted and suddenly all of the ghost-like appearances jumped me at once.
They didn’t use any weapons, so I had nothing to turn against them. A few kicks and twists later, one of the men had my torso in his grip on the floor and another secured my legs. I struggled for a while, but it was no use. My stamina had run out, clothes clung to my body permeated with sweat, and I breathed heavily against the cold, dusty stone paving. Still, I had never been a man to admit defeat. In a feat of strength I twisted and rolled over, and in turn made my attackers lose their grip.
Now I had them. If I could just...
“Mr. Holmes? Sir? A letter for you.” The familiar voice of the footman sounded out of place in the darkness. “It is most urgent, I might add.”
“Alright, game’s over,” the man on my back said and released his hold.
I rolled over and sat up, drawing great gulps of air into my lungs as I regained my equilibrium. With a few practiced motions I got rid of the rope around my wrists and rubbed the skin to restore a proper blood flow.
“Time?” I asked without looking up.
“Thirty-seven minutes and twenty-three seconds until Crawley interrupted us,” someone answered from the other side of the room. A light flickered into existence and illuminated the small cellar room in a sickly yellow. Ah, so they had brought seven agents this time. I had half a mind to remind them of the rules to this game. But the announced time already showed that I had yet again set another record, despite the unfair odds, so I kept my mouth shut. No need to be petty. Their silence told me that they knew.
The footman, Crawley, stepped between us and handed me a folded piece of paper without further comment. I opened it to peruse its contents. What could be so urgent on a dreadful winter night such as this?
“It seems I am being summoned,” I said after I had folded the message and jumped to my feet. The motion made me feel the places I had bruised as the result of a particularly badly executed fall, but I didn’t let it influence the grace of my movement. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen.”
My fellow agents nodded, some eyeing the paper with curiosity, but no one inquired. It was not unusual for any of us to be summoned at any odd moment in time, so they could detect nothing out of the ordinary in my behaviour. I dropped the rope on an old, wooden table nearby and grabbed my suit jacket from a chair.
Just as I left the room, I could already hear whispers exchanged among them. I consciously didn’t pay them any mind. Most of the agents in the service were younger than I and couldn’t accept me retaining my high status within their ranks. I had barely entered the 42 nd year of my life, which made me the oldest agent to turn down a more relaxing desk job or relocation to a warmer post in a colony further south after more than a lifetime of work.
The fact that I continued not only to outsmart my colleagues, but actually displayed a better physical record than most, was a source of constant talk and jealousy. Adding to that my experience in the field, I made sure that I was still chosen for most of the high-profile work, leaving them to clean up the mess common people made. In short: I was everything they wanted to be, but could never seem to reach - and god, I enjoyed it.
London was sleeping under a thick blanket of snow. Not even the thieves and scoundrels made an attempt of braving the bitter cold. Even evil needs a winter holiday, it seems . Not that I, Mycroft Holmes, would ever step so low as to pursue a pickpocket in the streets. No, I was used to an entirely different class of criminal. But even if the city took a break, the Secret Service would never be still. Its agents worked throughout the British Empire and beyond, ensuring the safety of its citizens.
As I traded the comfortable warmth of the Diogenes Club for a hard seat in a hansom cab, which might as well have been a block of ice, I briefly considered abandoning the effort. Being summoned to handle Sherlock’s problems wasn’t my favourite way to pass what little free time I had. While I loved my little brother, I did so in the same way one would love a pet cat: Dearly, but with a healthy dose of wariness.
When Sherlock decides to leave the country on one of his errands, he has the gracious mind to inform me of his destination. He doesn’t do so out of a generous heart or consideration for his elder brother’s feelings, but out of the desire to avoid any complications for himself. After a rather unpleasant stay on an island in a remote fjord in Norway during the winter, from which he only escaped by sending smoke signals to passing fishermen, he had found that informing me was the lesser of two evils.
My thoughts drifted to the note my brother had left behind a week ago, delivered to me by one of his street urchin helpers - who had almost not been able to gain access to the club after getting in a row with the footman at the door. It had mentioned only the city of Milan and the number nine, indicating both Sherlock’s destination and projected days of absence. He was rarely wrong on this account, so I hadn’t paid his escapade any mind so far. But now I frantically clawed at any information my brain would provide about the current political and social affairs in northern Italy, as well as any gossip that had made the way over, to give me an idea of the problems he might have encountered.
A knock on the roof of the hansom told me we had arrived. Agitated flurries of snowflakes rushed into the cab as the driver opened the door and I thanked him with a nod as I jumped out into the barely disturbed snow on the pavement. I made my way through the piled-up, crumbly white ice and walked up to the door of 221b Baker Street.
It took no time at all for Mrs. Hudson to answer the ring of the bell, which wasn’t surprising, as Watson would have alerted her to my visit. She ushered me into the building and placed a hand on my arm in a familiar gesture, as she welcomed me into the enveloping warmth of the hallway. I returned her greeting with a smile I hoped to be equally kind and declined her offer of tea brought to the sitting room. There were other things on my mind, and I didn’t want to spoil the enjoyment of a hot cup of tea on a cold winter night by association with a distressing incident.
“Mycroft! I thank you for responding so quickly,” Watson appeared on top of the stairs. He was wearing a simple, for once not ill-fitting, brown suit, looking as worldly and small as ever with his dirty blonde hair and matching mustache. I don’t know why he always reminded me of an old dog. Oblivious to my thoughts, the doctor motioned for me to follow him into the sanctum of the building. “While I am aware that it’s a nightmare to travel in this weather, the issue at hand simply cannot wait.”
“I fully understand,” I responded, and my reply was genuine. Problems concerning Sherlock always took the highest priority for us, after all.
“What issue, Dr. Watson?” Mrs. Hudson asked with curiosity, remaining dutifully at the bottom of the stairs while I joined Sherlock’s associate at the top and avoided every creaking board as was my custom. “Mr. Holmes hasn’t gotten himself i