Mycroft Holmes and the Edinburgh Affair , livre ebook

MYCROFT HOLMES
and the
Edinburgh Affair
Janina Woods




First edition published in 2018 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 © 2018–2019 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.
Cover design by Brian Belanger
Cover painting by Lou B / diogenes art




For Philippe, with love



Chapter One
It was hard to come up with a good reason why I should be outside my train carriage in the middle of this freezing winter night, armed with a particularly heavy frying pan.
Behind me I could hear the excited steps of my pursuers, who had so rudely interrupted my sleep and chased me out of my cabin in the middle of the night. I had secured one of the last sleeping compartments on the train, which made its way over several days from Eastern Europe to the French coast, hoping to depart the continent without notice, but fate had different plans.
Of course my attackers hadn’t found anything of worth, as the stolen papers were concealed on my body in a leather wrap, which I carried securely between my waistcoat and shirt. How often this habit had saved me I had never counted, but when you are alone out there, you’re always ready to run and leave almost everything behind.
Nothing and no one to weigh you down—that was just the way I liked it.
The door to the carriage opened outwards with a bang, kicked down most likely, and crashed into the wall beside me. I didn’t hesitate and swung my improvised weapon of solid iron. It connected with the body of an unfortunate man and produced a satisfying noise. He lost his balance in an instant and screamed as he fell off the train, into the inky blackness of the night. The second man ducked and stumbled backwards. A few moments passed until it was clear that he wasn’t coming after me anytime soon. My hands were already frozen and I didn’t know how much longer I could safely hold my weapon. I needed to get back inside, out of the wind, because my shirt was merely a flimsy shield against the airstream of the moving train.
“Hand over the papers and you won’t get hurt!”
The second man shouted from inside the carriage, his voice spilling out of the door like the tentative rays of light from the single lamp that was still glowing in the galley. He spoke German, and now that I could hear him properly, I was pretty sure he stemmed from the vicinity of Munich.
“Why should I believe you?” I shouted back, also in German, though my accent sounded more like the dialect they spoke near the border to France.
“Because I have a gun and you don’t have a choice,” the man answered. “Give up the papers and I’ll let you walk through that doorway unharmed. If not, I’ll shoot you.”
“Then I’ll fall off the train like your friend and the documents will be lost,” I countered.
“We can collect you from the ditches later. As long as the information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, everything will be fine.”
He was apparently someone who liked to hear himself talk. Overzealous patriots usually fell into that particular category. I could put myself in the same group, but of course I knew much better than to let me be distracted by my own words.
His voice was louder now, much closer to the door. I put my ear to the wall behind me and cursed under my breath as soon as it connected with the metal, because it felt even colder than ice. But this was the only way I could block out the roar of the wind. There was a scratching noise on the other side of the wall. It was low and slow, moving along an uneven surface. It was very different from the clatter the train produced.
So he was directly behind me, most likely hugging the wall in an effort to surprise me when I deemed it safe to walk back inside. Perfect. With some force I knocked the frying pan against the metal, and as expected there was a small commotion on the other side, as if someone had knocked over a stack of pots. Immediately I pulled a gun from my belt, spun around the corner into the carriage, fired in the direction of the startled man and hit him squarely in the chest.
The rest of the galley was empty, so I stashed my gun and placed the frying pan on the narrow counter next to me. Then I checked the downed man’s pulse, which I couldn’t find, and rummaged through his pockets. I took his weapon—a beautiful Mauser pistol with its elegant, narrow barrel, almost fully loaded—and his identification papers, so my employers could find out who these people had worked for.
The man was of no further use to me, so I grabbed him under his shoulders and dragged his lifeless body to the door. A shove later he disappeared into the darkness like his friend. I didn’t bother with the blood stains on the floor, but frowned at the specks that had found their way onto my shoes, only barely visible in the flimsy light.
Crisis averted, mission saved. I gave myself a pat on the shoulder. It was a superfluous behaviour, even a tad indulgent, but my own approval was an important part of my solitary pursuit.
No one else thanked me for anything, after all.
I encountered no other person on the way back to my compartment. Only the rattle of the train and the roaring winter wind kept me company. The metal around me creaked and the floor all but vibrated over a stretch of particularly uneven terrain . To walk along the corridor in the darkness was just a tad unnerving—much more so than the earlier fight. I was used to action, not silence.
But then I reached my small room and opened the door, only to find a shadow, which immediately lunged at and threw me back against the windows in the corridor. The impact punched all the air out of my lungs.
Blindly, I reached into the black mass and found some fabric to hold onto, though which part it was I didn’t know and didn’t care. With the person in my grasp, I tore at their clothes and pulled them to the ground, then turned around on my axis, so that I was on top of them. Without knowing exactly where I would hit them, I punched where I estimated their face to be. My first punch managed to hit the forehead, my second a turned cheek.
Then something glinted in the darkness and I pushed myself up—backed away from the threat. Metal was always dangerous. I couldn’t tell if it was a knife, a gun, or something else... but being in reach of a blade in the dark was never a good idea. I wanted to avoid using my own gun here, where other passengers could hear it and alert the crew, but my attacker might’ve had other rules of engagement.
Luckily, I had dragged him from the door of my cabin, so he was no longer blocking it, and I managed to jump into the small space, past his legs. In this way I had effectively trapped and cornered myself, and I hoped my pursuer would take his chance. A scuffle on the floor, as he scrambled to his feet, told me that he was very likely to act on his good fortune and my obvious blunder. I reached for my cane, which I had stashed on the upper bed, and twisted the handle just so .
The unlucky man ran directly into my extended blade, impaling himself quite thoroughly. I couldn’t see the look on his face, but I imagine it would’ve been one of surprise, and before he could shout out in pain, I dragged him towards me and placed a hand over his mouth, muffling his screams until he hung limp in my grasp.
Well, now my clothes were completely ruined. And so was the floor of the small room. I let out a weary sigh as my blade slipped out of his body. Only his feet were still in the corridor, so I dragged them in and closed the door after a quick check to see if anyone else had noticed the commotion. The electric light flickered into existence and illuminated the space in a golden yellow. I looked at the man at my feet, clad in ordinary street clothes and a practical leather jacket, bleeding out over my floor. Quickly I pocketed his papers, which were already partly blood-stained .
The window could be opened, so the man took the same journey as his murderous companions. With the bed sheet I wiped down the sword and concealed it again in my walking cane. Then I cleaned the floor with the same sheet and threw it from the window as well. With a small towel I removed any other stains I could find and discarded it too.
The information under my waistcoat was still safe and my head was still on my shoulders. But I wasn’t going to get any more sleep that night, so I readied my measly bag of luggage, changed into a fresh set of clothes—the only one I had left—and smoothed down my hair as well as I could. Then I took a deep breath, killed the light and took a seat on the bed.
With the cane across my legs and a hand on the gun at my side, I waited for morning to come and the train to arrive at the French harbour town, from where I could finally take a ferry back to the homeland.



Chapter Two
My townhouse in Kensington was a sight for sore eyes after having spe