“You think the threat will come out of Italy?”
“I think Italy signals the start of an epidemic. The Broad Street pump of politics, as it were. And I believe that the Fascists will be looking for those in power that they might infect.”
“And you are the doctor who closed off the source of cholera-laden water. Does that make me the curate who assisted him?”
“No one believed Dr Snow, either, until he forced matters by removing the pump’s handle.”
“So now we’re plumbers.”
“Sherlock, I need you to go to Venice.”
“Yes, Mycroft, I know. I know you do.”
“You will find the city much changed.”
“Venice hasn’t changed in four hundred years, much less forty. The hemlines are further from the ground, that is all.”
“But you’ll go?”
“I will.”
“Thank you. I’ll have the files sent to Sussex.”
“Don’t do that. Have them here tomorrow. I’d rather Russell not know that I’m doing this for you.”
“When is your wife going to get past this childish aversion to the realities of Empire?”
“Mycroft, has no one ever pointed out to you that name-calling can be extremely revealing?”
“Revealing of irritation, perhaps.”
“Or, of a sensitivity over the truth. Brother mine, the power you wield is dangerous. The use you have made of it has not always been noble. Russell’s objection to that troubles you more deeply than you admit, even to yourself.”
“So you fling insults at me by way of revenge for the uncomfortable memories of Venice?”
“You may be right. I must be gone, I have an appointment with a burglar. Leave the file for me tomorrow.”
“I’ll put it on the dining table in the morning. And, Sherlock? Keep your head down, you and Mary both. There’s violence brewing in Italy. I wouldn’t want you—either of you—to become a target for Fascist boots.”
Chapter Nineteen
“YOU TRULY DON’T NEED TO go with me, Holmes.” I eyed the laden valise, wondering if I ought to fill its last corner with another pair of shoes or a bathing costume.
His only reply was to flip closed the top of his own case and tug down its buckle. It seemed a remarkably small space for what would, I knew all too well, turn out to contain absolutely everything he needed, and in pristine condition.
I grabbed up the shoes—because honestly, why did I imagine I would have either time or inclination to lounge about in a bathing costume?—and wrestled the valise shut. Beneath it on the bed lay my pencil, now stabbed through a crumpled list of tasks:
Maps (Why didn’t all countries have Ordnance Survey maps?)
Beekeeper (Fortunately, one was available.)
Tell Patrick we’re away (My farm manager would watch the place.)
Tell Exchange to route calls to Patrick (Lest calls go unanswered)
Get Lira (Enough to start us off in Venice)
Money for Ronnie
V’s will (I’d finally got the answer out of Ronnie’s solicitor, although it took me a truly irritating amount of time and game-playing, but no, he had not received any notification of changes. The Marquess remained Vivian’s designated guardian, but the actual beneficiary—this being the part the legal gentleman was loath to reveal, and only did so without saying it directly—would be Ronnie. If changes had been made, either they’d been done through another solicitor who had yet to register them, or Lady Vivian had made a holograph will.)
I looked up at Holmes, to ask about the item yet to be crossed off, and found myself distracted by his moustache. Not that I minded it, really. It was so thin, it practically blended into the line of his lip. Just that with the dye in his hair and the darkening around his eyes, he looked a bit…
Racy. As a disguise, it was oddly effective.
“Holmes, did your legal gentleman take care of the money for Ronnie?” Ronnie was familiar with my own firm, so I’d needed to keep their name off of the correspondence.
“Tomorrow and on the fifteenth of each month, until such a time as your friend sorts out her financial situation, one hundred pounds shall be sent her from an anonymous ‘Friend of Miles Fitzwarren.’?”
I drew a line through that item on the list, and dropped it into the waste-bin. Between consultations with Ronnie and buying detailed maps of the lagoon and showing our photographs (doctored and otherwise) to half the railway personnel in England—to say nothing of searching out a neighbour willing to care for bees—we’d managed to delay a solid week, with little to show for it. Although we could now be relatively certain that Vivian had more or less emptied her bank account; that Rose Trevisan was a London-born nurse with a spotless history of service; and that the two women had left London disguised as brother and sister. Holmes had spent several of the days in London, about some unspecified business. I began to suspect his delay was deliberate.
“Holmes, I know how you feel about Venice, but honestly, I’m quite looking forward to this.”
“Italy is not a comfortable place to travel these days,” he said darkly.
“I know, but Venice isn’t exactly Italy, is it?”
“I believe you’ll find it has moved somewhat closer to the mainland. Well, perhaps Mr Mussolini has managed to get the trains running on time.”
I turned to frown at him, and at the moustache. “Holmes, if that was meant to be a joke, I ask you to remember that his Blackshirts are dragging their enemies off the streets.”
“Precisely. So kindly make an effort not to criticise the man in public, lest you be added to their targets.” He picked up his bag and set off downstairs with it.
I followed more slowly.
Personally, I found Venice a delight. Venice was a place between—a fascinating blend of solid and liquid, of the West but Eastern in flavour, a place of tradesmen who dealt in magic. That one of its most prized industries was glass, a substance that went from liquid to solid through the use of fire and air, was no accident.
My first memories of the city built on water were as a child at my mother’s side, when her laughter and incredulity proved contagious. I had been back five or six times since then—including a very brief stopover there during the spring, on our way home from Istanbul—but had never shed my amazement and affection for this city of stone laid upon the waters.
Of course Holmes would grumble at the idea of Venice: this was a man who clothed himself with sharp edges and clear colours, who valued cold facts and logical reasoning, whose entire career was based on tracing matters down to their base. One might as well introduce a British bulldog to a Siamese cat.
What I had not considered was that he might hate going there because of the danger it put us—put me—into.
Sixteen months earlier, in April 1924, Italy had held an election that put two-thirds of the Parliament into the hands of the Fascist Party.
At the end of May, a member of Parliament named Giacomo Matteotti—a vocal Socialist and long-time thorn in the side of the Fascisti—made a vehement speech protesting the growth of violence and criminal behaviour, accusing the Fascists of fraud in their victory, and demanding that the results be annulled. A book denouncing the Fascists was hurried to press. But shortly after his speech, Matteotti disappeared from his home.