The Adventure of the Avian Client: Part 1 by Maureen S. O'Brien -------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer: Absolutely nothing in this story should be taken as serious religious information or criticism. The names of people and businesses have been made up, and shouldn't be taken as comments on anyone or any group, living or dead. As always, SH22 belongs to DIC and Scottish Television while Sherlock Holmes belongs to the Doyle Estate and the ages. -------------------------------------------------------------------- I usually enjoy seeing the small wild creatures which make their home even in New London's hectic heart. Squirrels commute across Baker Street's rooftops. Bats nest in abandoned buildings and rush the sky at twilight. And when Holmes sits at a back window to observe the fox family in 221's back garden, it is amusing to see how much he and the foxes seem to share a family resemblance. But when it comes to the pigeons, sparrows and crows of New London, my love of nature is forgotten. The creatures have little fear of me and seem to feel that if I stand still a moment, I am inviting them to take up residence. The consequences to my appearance can only be imagined, and Holmes is frequently too amused to be sympathetic. So when my morning sweep of the front step (for listening devices as well as dust) was interrupted by a large black bird which stepped into my path, cocked its head at me, and made a harsh imperative sound, my first reaction was to shoo it away with both hands while crying, "Be off with you!" The bird sat where it was, unimpressed, and fixed me with its bright and beady eye. I was nearly finished, so I shrugged my shoulders and stepped around the bird. If it was uninclined to move, then there let it sit until doomsday. But as I opened the door into 221 and stepped inside, the bird must have risen to follow, for the next thing I knew, the raven had pushed past me in a flurry of black feathers. It then sat waiting for me on the seventeen worn steps up to our sitting room. It cocked its head at me inquiringly, as who should say, 'What is taking you so long?' I shook my head, torn between amusement and annoyance. "Out you go, sir," I told it sternly, "and by the same door you came," I added, opening the front door again. I raised my broom warningly. "Out!" The bird evaded me nimbly by hopping up the rest of the stairs. As I followed it up, it looked at the sitting room door with calculation and then began pecking its beak against it. "Why will the blessed birds never mind me?" I said, clanking up the stairs. "Perhaps because they know you would never do them harm," Holmes pronounced with amusement. He leaned out his bedroom door, which was just across the landing from our sittingroom. "And ravens are particularly intelligent, as I learned in boyhood. Now, let us see why this particular gentleman has come to call on us." Holmes, in his dressing gown and bare feet, walked across the passage and calmly ushered the raven into the sitting room. The raven led the way at a stately walk that reminded me strongly of the last statesman who'd consulted us there. The raven stopped pointedly at the breakfast table, which I had already laid, and slowly began to clamber up one of the chairs. "The first one said unto his mate, 'Where shall we our breakfast take?'" Holmes quoted amusedly. "A bowl of water and a few morsels of leftover meat from our refrigerator -- I think we still have some from the other day? -- should serve his needs nicely." Holmes, who normally avoided our little kitchen except when doing chemistry experiments, vanished behind its door. The raven jumped nonchalantly from the chair onto the table. Resignedly, I found a Times printout we hadn't recycled yet and spread it over the tabletop. Holmes returned with the raven's breakfast and watched it tear into it with beak and claw. "Yes," he commented, "you should be hungry after such a trying night, and quite possibly, a long walk." "What trying night?" I asked. "Eyes and brains," Holmes replied, falling into lecture mode. "This is a bird, after all, and yet there is one thing we have not yet seen it do." I cudgeled my circuits, then suddenly got the answer. "Why, it doesn't fly!" "And a flightless raven in New London...." "....Is probably one of the ravens at the Tower!" I shook my head. "But this is terrible! The Ravenmaster will be frantic. After all, the old legend says that if the ravens ever leave the Tower of London, the monarchy will fall." "Which is why the ravens' wings are clipped," Holmes said. "And why the Ravenmaster's post has been set in law since Charles the Second and the Restoration." Holmes looked at his watch. "And if our guest has finished his meal, I believe that it is not too soon to restore him to his home." "One of the simpler problems presented to you, eh, Holmes?" "Perhaps not so simple," Holmes said, frowning a little. "Come, Watson." The hovercoach quickly brought us across Westminster and downriver to the Tower Bridge's famous span. There, in vivid contrast to the great spacescrapers across the Thames, the Tower of London still stood on guard. Soldiers in red uniforms and bearskin hats (and less conspicuously, in modern holocamo) paced its stone battlements and peered down from its turrets, while Union Jacks flew bravely from the cupolas on the central keep. A long queue of tourists was already forming outside. "An unusual amount of activity for a weekday morning, wouldn't you say, Watson?" said Holmes from the seat beside me. He rubbed his hands together with satisfaction. "Let us park." All looked normal to me as Holmes disembarked, the raven secure in a carry-sack he had dug up from the endless supply of oddities he liked to keep in our rooms. But as we walked toward the Tower entrance, I soon heard a buzz of discontentment from the waiting visitors. "How much longer will we have to wait?" "Look, we came all the bloody way from bloody Australia, and we're seeing the bleeding Tower or there'll be blood on the bloody...." "Non, Pierre!" "Please," a tour guide pleaded, "let's wait quietly. The Tower personnel will let us know as soon they're ready for us." "Hey, what's the hold-up?" I recognized Inspector Lestrade's voice instantly, as indeed I had been programmed to do. "Look, I already showed you my ID," she said. Her voice was not loud, but its clarity carried over the tourist hum with ease. "We've arrived just in time," said Holmes. "Come, Watson. We're jumping the queue." We made our way forward. Holmes slipped through the fringes of the crowd like an eel while I followed, somewhat like a whale in a small swimming pool. Lestrade was a shark. "Now. You go show your superior officer my ID, and then you come back here and show me in," Lestrade was saying, her voice falling lower and lower as we approached. "Because otherwise, you are going to have to tell your superior that you, all by yourself, decided that you could deal with all this, all by your little lonesome. And since they're the ones who called me, I don't think that's going to sit too well." "Ma'am," said a face surrounded by camo instead of a ruff. It disappeared back inside. Lestrade snorted and folded her arms, obviously prepared for a long wait. She was not dressed in her usual uniform, but in civilian business clothes. She did not appear happy about this. Holmes walked up behind her. She did not appear to notice him. "Practicing discretion, Lestrade?" he suddenly asked, keeping his voice low. Lestrade did not start or even bother to turn. "I haven't had any coffee today," she observed, her voice just as quiet. "Keep that in mind." "Good to see you have your priorities in order. I had a raven for breakfast myself." Now Lestrade did turn, fixing Holmes with an eye as beady as that of this morning's client. "Holmes, you've never eaten crow in your life. Somehow I doubt you're starting now." "She has you there," I said, forced to chuckle. Holmes groaned. "Raven, I said. Not crow, or rook, or blackbird, for that matter. There is a significant difference." Lestrade waved a hand. "They're all black, caw, and eat carrion, so what's the difference? I'm a lot more interested in the difference between a Yeoman Warder and an army guy. Or even a raven and a writing desk." "Easy. One is white or black, and the other's for writing back." Lestrade groaned herself. "Remind me never to teach you about knock-knock jokes. So, the escapee's in the bag?" "Indeed," Holmes said, his eyes glinting with pleasure at Lestrade's quick understanding. He cocked his head, somehow hearing footsteps despite all the hubbub. "And if I'm not mistaken, here comes your 'army guy' to let us in." A beefeater walked out, his Elizabethan finery a splash of red against the grey stone. He walked past us and quite a little distance down the tourist queue. Naturally, all heads turned to follow him. "Ladies and gentlemen," he bawled out in the voice of a drill instructor or tourist guide, "Tower staff discovered some hidden structural damage this morning. For safety reasons, therefore, the Tower of London will be closed to the public until further notice. Those of you who paid in advance for tickets will be reimbursed through your tour companies. We apologize for the inconvenience. Your safety is important to us." From all around, voices raised the cry, "But...." The Tower gate quietly opened again to reveal an Army officer in holocamo. His face was pale beneath his tan. "Inspector Lestrade?" he asked quietly. "At your service." Lestrade indicated us with a hand. "Watson and Sherlock Holmes are here to assist." "They're very welcome. Honor to meet you, Mr. Holmes. I'm Colonel de Merville, in command of the Tower garrison. Do come in, all of you, before that lot out there notice and mob the door." I entered behind Lestrade and Holmes and found myself treading an ancient stone corridor. Our steps echoed. In places, the stone glistened with damp. It seemed a very unlikely sort of palace, but a very secure prison. Apparently the Royal Family must have agreed with me, since none of them had lived there by choice for longer than a day since before the Wars of the Roses. At last we came out into the sunlight of a small courtyard. It was filled with activity and men and women in holocamo. "I won't wrap it up in clean linen, since you've probably already guessed," the colonel said abruptly. "The crown jewels have been stolen. On my watch." He folded his arms. "End of my career, of course. Worst of all, I can't tell what I did wrong in setting up security, because I can't even tell how the burglars got in and out! Doors were locked when my people went in this morning. Or so they say. Suppose it could be an inside job, but they've been searched. In fact, the whole place has been searched. Nothing." "There goes the DNA analysis." Lestrade grimaced. He sighed. "That's what your chief told us when we called him. But how were we to know? Back in the bad old days, I guess someone would have thought of it. But now, our investigators aren't used to looking at more than a few drunk-and-disorderlies." He shook his head slowly. "If you can just tell us how it was done, Inspector, you'll be doing better than any of us." "Oh, how it was done is easy enough," Holmes said airily. "The real question is why." "What? But you haven't even looked at the scene of the crime yet!" the colonel objected. "How could anyone - even you, Mr. Holmes - know how it was done?" Holmes placed his carrysack on the ground and opened it. The raven peered out, then rushed onto the gravel with a croaking and flapping of wings. Holmes shrugged. "A little bird told me. And if you'll lead the way toward the ravens' quarters, I'll tell you in turn." Colonel de Merville stared. "Why, it's Alfred! Alfred, you rascal, where have you been?" The raven stared at him impudently until the colonel fished a nugget of some sort of pet food out of his pocket. The raven accepted this offering as nothing more than its due. "Most ravens would as soon take your hand off as take a handout, but he's too greedy to be mean," the colonel explained. "Begs from everyone, including the tourists if we don't watch him." "He called on us first thing this morning," Holmes told the colonel. "Which means that the robbery must have happened sometime last night, unless Alfred is in the habit of hopping the monorail." The colonel began walking, and the raven followed along with us. "Not long after the ceremony of Queen Anne's Keys, then," Lestrade commented. "I'm assuming that was the last time the jewels were seen?" "That's right, Inspector. About eleven last night." "But it can't be the Ravenmaster," Colonel de Merville insisted. "Kit Winter's a good woman, if a bit unworldly. Knows everything there is to know about ravens; doesn't care about anything else." "I doubt the Ravenmaster knew anything about it. If she had, she would scarcely have attracted attention by reporting one of her charges missing," I said soothingly. "But it wasn't just one! It was all of them!" "What?!" "As I feared," said Holmes grimly. "The ravens are always locked up at night, so Alfred could not have just wandered away in the wake of the thieves." "Then what's going on?" the colonel pleaded. Holmes said nothing. "Guess we'll have to wait and see," Lestrade murmured. "Holmes loves his show-and-tell." We slowly approached a covered pen. A slender woman with hair and skin as dark as Alfred's wing peered out at us, then hastily emerged to reveal the blue and red Yeoman Warder's uniform she wore. "Oh, Colonel, you've found him!" she said ecstatically, ignoring everyone but the bird and the officer. "Any sign of the other ravens?" "None," he told her. He introduced us and told our story briefly, then added, "We'll keep on searching, but if Dr. Watson and Mr. Holmes found Alfred out on Baker Street, I don't think we'll find the others in the Tower." "I was afraid of that," she said, her face falling. "And the Chief Warder won't listen to me. The ravens couldn't just walk out of here; someone had to have taken them. I've called to have some of the substitute ravens brought into town, but...." She shook her head. "The first time since 1946 that the Tower's been without ravens, and it happened on my watch. Old Davies retired just in time." "Old Davies," Holmes murmured as he surveyed the pen door and roof and walked around its walls looking for footprints or signs of entry. He found none. "The previous Ravenmaster. He trained you, no doubt?" "Oh, yes. I heard there was going to be an opening soon, so I put in for it back a few years ago. He used me as an assistant for six months, then had me go rear some of the raven chicks they send out to the country in case we need spares for the Tower. Like now," she said, remembering her troubles. "Anyway, he looked in on me every once in a while, and then when everything went all right, they sent me for some additional training in bird management and then brought me back so he and his wife could finally retire to one of those grace-and-favor cottages back there." She waved her hand vaguely back in the direction of the green. "He's a great man; served everywhere and knows everyone, right up to the Prince Regent. He trusted me with his ravens," she said, her shoulders slumping, "and I lost them. I don't know how I'm going to face him." "A very clever thief did this, Yeoman Winter, not you," Holmes said kindly. "Leave the search to us, and let us leave Alfred to you -- as well as the replacement ravens, when they come." "I'll sleep in front of their pen if I have to, Mr. Holmes," the Ravenmaster vowed. "I hope I'm not just locking the barn door after the horse is gone. All the ravens left the Tower -- even if it was just for a few hours, that's a bad sign." "Nonsense," Holmes said briskly. "The only prophecy I believe is 'Crime will not pay.' Good morning, Yeoman." He turned to Colonel de Merville. "Now let us take a look at the scene of the other crime." "As you know, the crown jewels have been kept in this tower since their old quarters were destroyed in the last war," the Colonel told them. "Beautiful, isn't it?" Holmes stared at the stone tower. "It certainly stands out." "Wonderful for security," the Colonel said. "An ant can't move through there without being in full view of five or six guardposts." "And _that's_ conducive to an inside job, like the one earlier this year. Which happened on _my_ watch," Lestrade said grimly. "Ah?" The colonel looked startled. "I was on leave at the time, of course." "Yeah, I know. That was the end of _someone's_ career, but not yours or mine. So don't get too paranoid. But if it wasn't an inside job, I wonder how it was done." "I can think of at least three ways to manage it, only one of which requires the use of mirrors," said Holmes. The colonel looked startled, but Lestrade rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you would've made a great criminal. We've all heard this before, Houdini," she yawned. "Let's get inside." The crown jewels were kept in a stone room which took up an entire floor of the tower. The 'glass' cases in which the jewels had been kept were connected to a central security node directly linked to New Scotland Yard's computer. In addition, they were protected by locks, bolts, concealed energy bars, concealed lasers, lumie beams, surveillance cameras, pressure sensors, heat sensors, and just about everything available except chewing gum. "And I'm not too certain about the chewing gum," De Merville said. "Well, whoever got in here had a certain amount of technical skill, since he, she, or they were able to bypass the safeguards and get into the cases," Lestrade pointed out. "Not a trace of DNA evidence, so they were careful, too." "Who has the keys to the cases?" Holmes asked. The colonel answered, "The door keys are held only by the Chief Warder and...." "Not the door keys. They didn't come through the doors. What of the cases?" "The Chief Warder. Oh, and the Crown has a set, I believe." "Which currently would be held by the Prince Regent, I assume?" "Yes. But Mr. Holmes, how could they get in here..." "...Without coming through the doors?" Watson interrupted. "Just what I was about to ask, myself." Holmes smiled. "Why, through here." He walked over to the stone wall and pressed one featureless block among many. After a moment, a door of stone opened out of the wall. "Good heavens!" said De Merville, and I echoed him. Lestrade just looked irritated. "Why didn't you tell us about this last time?" "Last time the thief's means of entry was fairly obvious," Holmes answered. "Besides, I had reason to believe the passage was no longer a factor." A short man strode importantly into the room, then stopped and stared. "Where did that come from, De Merville? And why didn't you find it before that thief did?" Holmes turned. "Ah, Chief Warder. Just the person I was hoping to see. Tell me, why _was_ this passage not blocked? Or if you wished to maintain a historical architectural feature, why not inform the colonel so that he could post guards?" "How was I to know there was a zedding passage up here?" "I tried to call you and tell you so. But since I found it difficult to get through, I sent you an e-mail to that effect. When was it, Watson?" I checked our outgoing mail logs for the Tower's domain name. "A year and two months ago Friday, at 2:23 and 37 seconds. It appears that you attached a map as well." "I never received any such message," the Chief Warder blustered. I checked the logs again. "The receipt message arrived a minute and 14 seconds later." "But I...I...I can't read e-mail from every Tom, Dick and Harry I don't know. Cranks and spammers, most of them. A waste of time and energy." Holmes glanced at the busy courtyard filled with soldiers instead of tourists. "Quite a timesaver," he remarked mildly. "The horse may be long gone, but we still ought to shut the barn door," de Merville said before the Chief Warder could reply. "You'll want some guards here, and then plascrete, probably." He looked happier at the chance to do something. "But first," Lestrade inserted, "we'll need to examine the scene. Watson, call in for some evidence technicians and then let's go on down. Assuming it's wide enough?" She glanced at Holmes. "Oh, it's wide enough," Holmes assured her. "Three men could walk it abreast, and did. And the tunnel's made of good solid stone." "DNA," Lestrade gloated. "We've got 'em now." The call completed, I handed Holmes a torch from my chest storage while Lestrade drew a small penlight out of a pocket on her holster. Scanning for DNA along the way, I preceded them, following the passage down a secret stair which led us down the tower to its base and below. A concealed peephole and door even gave us a view and potential exit into the bailey. "Another refractive suit," Lestrade commented. "Bet we won't get DNA after all." "Wait and see, Lestrade. There's no point guessing before we get the data, and our opponents may have made a mistake." We retraced our steps and informed the colonel and Chief Warder of what we'd found. Then we reentered the tunnel and walked toward its other end. Here the tunnel was danker but less stuffy, and as we walked, I began to feel a draft. "Here's a bit of family history for you, Lestrade!" Holmes remarked at last. He pointed his torch at a pair of letters carved shallowly into the stone. "G.L." Lestrade said, tracing the letters with her fingers. "George Lestrade." The carving was almost a foot below what was chest level for her, for Lestrade's ancestor had been a short and wiry man. "The good inspector insisted on leaving his mark," Holmes chuckled. "He would have left all our initials and the date as well, if I hadn't threatened to leave him inside." Lestrade said nothing, although she smiled absently. "Perhaps I'll have to use the same threat twice," Holmes added. "Yeah, I'm coming," said Lestrade. She touched the stone for a moment longer, her eyes somewhere far off. Then she turned away. We walked for perhaps another hundred feet before coming to a set of stairs, made of the same stone as the jewel tower, which broke out and upward through the side of the tunnel. We followed them, feeling the draft blowing more strongly as we went. In a few more moments, we saw sunlight again and switched off our torches. We climbed out of the stairway. Beside us was a large flagstone which had obviously been dragged aside by determined hands and now leaned against some sort of long box in the middle of the floor. All around us were the remains of a tiny chapel. There was a stone altar set in one wall with a beautifully carved wooden crucifix standing in a niche above it. In another niche nearby stood a statue of an old man with a raven. The bird had been made so carefully that one could still distinguish the piece of bread the raven held in its beak. It might still have been the middle ages. But turn one's head, and one saw where sunlight and construction equipment had broken through the back wall of the buried sanctuary. "The Chapel of St. Elias," Holmes said, "or Elijah, to use the spelling more common today." "And in the desert, Elijah was fed by a raven," Lestrade said, suddenly comprehending. "Also, all the flagstones have ravens drawn on them, except for this one," I said, pointing to the piece which had been dragged aside. "A very simple set of signals, yes, but this was a passage made for only the most desperate circumstances, when elaborate arrangements are difficult to remember. When my brother deduced the existence of a secret passage from a mere description of the chapel -- which was then under the basement of a pub -- we decided that it would be best to disguise the passage further." He pointed to the flagstone. "Come, let us put the stone on the floor for the moment." Holmes' brother! If I were not a robot, I would have said that excitement coursed through my veins. As it was, the matrix I used to think was stimulated to access many locations in memory. Mycroft Holmes, like his seven-years-younger sibling, had created his own position in life. Mycroft had become the Foreign Office's synthesist and expert on everything. At times he had virtually dictated British foreign policy, and rumor had it he was the reason that the head of a certain intelligence department was known simply as M. Holmes himself had willingly admitted that Mycroft's deductive skills surpassed his own. This piece of armchair detection certainly supported his conclusion. With Lestrade and myself to aid, moving the stone was the work of a moment. Dust trails on the floor showed us that the tomb had been sitting on top of the secret stairway's flagstone before it had been rudely shoved to the side. I moved my gaze upward. The box was revealed to be an Edwardian adaptation of a medieval knight's tomb. There was even an likeness etched in the brass on top -- a man with the traditional dog at his feet to represent death in peacetime. Whoever had done the work had a sense of humor, however, for the dog drawn at his feet was a caricature of the Count von Bismarck, and the effigy portrayed a portly diplomat in evening dress -- Mycroft Holmes. Lestrade's eyes widened. "So this is where he was buried!" she said, her voice hushed and reverent. The mystery surrounding Mycroft's gravesite had fascinated generations of Sherlockian scholars -- including Lestrade, it would seem. We glanced at each other. At last, we knew the truth. It would only add to the legend of Mycroft's life of hidden service. "So," I remarked, "he served his country even in death." "A better idea in theory than in practice, I'm afraid." Holmes walked down to one end of the tomb and stood there impatiently. "Now, if you two can stop staring at the brasswork for a moment, I think we ought to start working. This is part of the crime scene; it'll need to be sealed off and guarded until the tunnel can be blocked. The city archaeology office will have to be told -- if they haven't been already; I notice that construction outside seems to have been stopped. And as soon as the evidence technicians are done, I'll have to see to moving my brother out of here before the government does." He looked at the chapel's collapsed wall. "What a waste." Lestrade's brow furrowed with concern. "Hey, are you all right?" "I?" Holmes glanced back at her. "I'm fine. But several millions of people were less fortunate than I." Holmes turned back to his brother's coffin. "Mycroft died in August of 1910. A quiet summer. A few more passed, and then the whole world was at war, from Tokyo and Sydney to the Orkneys and New York. Do you think that would have happened if Mycroft had been alive?" Holmes did not wait for an answer. His sharp face grew even more drawn. "But Mycroft could not be bothered to listen to his doctor's advice, or Watson's, or my own. He went his own way, eating and drinking as he wished. So millions of children starved, and millions of young men were killed by gas and disease and bullets. And still there was no man competent enough to deal with the mess, so that millions more died a few years later. The whole world had to sit under the threat of Damocles' sword for fifty years before diplomacy could become sane again, and even then, it was mostly a return to the status quo ante bellum -- minus a few kings and a few million people." He pointed to the tomb. "This tomb was the tomb of them all." I was appalled at the vision spread before us. Lestrade was less impressed. "So the whole twentieth century was all Big Brother's fault? Totalitarianism, nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism, and just plain hate had nothing to do with it?" She shook her head wonderingly. "Gosh, what a lot of helpless puppets there must have been back then. How in the world did people get themselves dressed in the morning?" Holmes' eyes returned to the present. "Perhaps I do exaggerate." Lestrade snorted. "Just a tad." Holmes turned back to his brother's resting place. "But now that I've 'downloaded' all that," he said, smirking a little at the modern expression, "I'll be less tempted to say it to Mycroft's face." "What?" "Why, Holmes," I exclaimed a minute after Lestrade, "do you mean....?" Holmes lifted the heavy tomb lid, and Lestrade and I hastened to help him. Inside the tomb was a great receptacle of glass, metal, and wood shaped like a coffin, but with a round window revealing the face of Mr. Mycroft Holmes, floating in honey. "Yes," said Holmes, "sometimes my brother _did_ take my advice." ---------------------- CONTINUED in Part 2