‘Dear Holmes,’ it said, ‘please allow me to tell you how very pleased I am to hear that you are ill. And my informants tell me even better news, which is that you may not be polluting this earth for very much longer. I cannot say how delighted I am. You have only been a tiny pinprick to my activities over the years, but now all Europe lies open for me without any opposition at all. Let me conclude with the hope that your last days and hours will be as painful as possible. Deutschland uber Alles. Graf von Stoltenburg.’

  “Ridiculous man,” said Mycroft wearily. “What a tiresome race they are. I fear the Count may cause us more trouble yet. No reply, Tobias. Let me just put it in my pocket book for my records.”

  Mrs Hudson knocked loudly at the door and flowed into the room, her arms laden with parcels of various sorts.

  “Now then, Mr Holmes,” she began, depositing packages at the side of the bed as she spoke, “I brought you a couple of new shirts from Savile Row. They’re quite light so they should be good by the sea side. The librarian at the Diogenes Club said he thought you would like these books in this parcel here. He told me out on the street where he could talk that he was sure you would like them. Your colleagues at the Treasury have sent you this illustrated history of chess by some American with an unpronounceable name and beautiful drawings. And, most important, I have made you a fruit cake, light but very tasty, some plain scones in this little box, and” – Mrs Hudson looked around furtively as if Dr Moore Agar might be hiding in a cupboard or lurking on the balcony – “and, in this bag, some of those little cream éclairs you like so much. I know he went on about your diet, Mr Holmes, that doctor person, but a little pleasure will do you good.”

  “Thank you so much, Mrs Hudson. I shall try the éclairs a little later this afternoon.”

  “Now listen you to me for once, Mr Holmes,” Mrs Hudson had parked herself in the red armchair nearest the bed and was looking sternly at Mycroft as if he were a soufflé that refused to rise, or a sponge that stayed flat in her oven.

  “You must get better, Mr Holmes. I know it’s easy to say it, but we all want you to get back to your normal self. Why, if you didn’t, I should have to sell Pall Mall and 221b Baker Street and go and live in the country. And that cooker and the oven in Pall Mall are so locked into the wall that I’d have to leave them behind. I couldn’t bear it, Mr Holmes. You must get well. You must start today.”

  Inspector Lestrade swept into the room without knocking, twirling his boater in his hands. “I’m so sorry, Mrs Hudson,” he said, “I had no idea you were here.”

  “Don’t mind me, Inspector. I’ve got to go back to London in a minute. Tobias, would you accompany me down that pier out there? I’d like a nice blow before I go back.”

  Mycroft rose slowly to his feet and ushered Lestrade to a couple of chairs next to the balcony. “You may think I have not been paying attention, Lestrade. Some things I have missed, I grant you. There is one matter of overwhelming importance I would draw to your attention.”

  Lestrade thought of the dozens of policemen still guarding the hotel, the staff of the Grand all confined to quarters without exception, the watch at the railway station now extended to all the ports in southern England which might take a man to France, the inquiries at Europe’s leading jewellers, the guarantee from no less a craftsman than Carl Faberge himself that all his customers had been asked to keep their eyes open, the promises of gold to members of London’s underworld for information that might lead to an arrest and the recovery of the pearls. He was never confident in the presence of the Holmes brothers, Lestrade. He would have been the first to admit that their powers were so much greater than his. What might he have forgotten?

  “And what would that be, Mr Holmes?”

  “Why, it seems to me to be of the utmost importance that the Fitzherbert Suite is kept locked and guarded twenty four hours a day. I believe an attempt will be made in the next few days to force entry. Vigilance may solve the mystery. That is all I have to say.”

  In vain did Lestrade ask if Mycroft had secret sources of information, if he knew who the thieves were. Shortly after half past four the Government Auditor began yawning. Tobias had hoped for a moment that the recovery might be beginning, but he saw that it was yet another false dawn.

  “It was the younger Pitt, I believe,” said Mycroft, “whose last words were reported to have been: ‘I could just eat one of Bellamy’s meat pies.’ Well, I could just eat one of Mrs Hudson’s cream éclairs. I’m afraid there aren’t enough to offer one to either of you.”

  Lestrade strode out to the balcony and glared at the holidaymakers on the pavements and the carriages driving along the seafront. As his gaze travelled to the distant horizon where sea and sky met in a clash of blues he felt his eyes fill with tears.

  “Mr Holmes, Mr Holmes,” he cried, rushing back inside to find Mycroft wiping a dollop of cream from his waistcoat, “you must come back to us. You can’t just go away like this.”

  “My doctors won’t allow me to go anywhere just at the moment, Lestrade.”

  “That’s not what I meant, Mr Holmes,” Lestrade was leaning forward now, “what I mean to say is, knowing you and your brother has been the high point of my professional career. It’s been more important to me than the murders I’ve been lucky enough to solve. You know, I said to the wife before I came down here, ‘Carrie, I said, it’ll break my heart if Mr Holmes doesn’t get better, so it will and no mistake.’ Now it looks as though you’re not getting better and your powers are passing away like the tide going out beyond your balcony here. I said to your brother once, Mr Holmes, that if he should come down to the station there wouldn’t be an officer there who wouldn’t take his helmet off and cheer him to the rafters. It’s the same for you, Mr Holmes, it’s the same for you. I can’t bear it if your powers have gone, I really can’t.”

  A low grumble was coming from the opposite chair now. Sated by Mrs Hudson’s éclairs and Lestrade’s uncharacteristic eloquence the Auditor of all Government Departments had gone back to sleep. The snoring grew louder. Tobias put his head in his hands and thought about his future. Inspector Lestrade walked very slowly out to the balcony and pulled out his handkerchief.

  The notepaper was the finest London’s stationers could provide. In the centre at the top was a crest of a starry sky at night with the words per silentium ad astra inscribed in a semi-circle, silence is the way to heaven. This was the motto of the Diogenes Club and the letter was a typewritten plea from its Chairman to its most distinguished member.

  ‘Dear Holmes,” Tobias began, with Mycroft cleaning his glasses by the balcony, shortly before seven o’clock, as the sea front was growing quiet and the holidaymakers were going home for the night, “forgive me for writing at this difficult time. The Diogenes Club is in crisis. Without your support it will be declared bankrupt in the next few weeks and closed down for good.

  “I do not propose to burden you with the details of how we arrived in this predicament, save to say that the current secretary has been dismissed from post. We were perhaps naïve in assuming that previous employment at a leading public school would equip him with the necessary experience. Carruthers-Browne, like many a new boy before him, took the rules too seriously. He felt the club constitution did not permit him to speak to members who were behind with their subscriptions or late in settling their accounts for food and drink consumed on club premises. So seriously did he take the rules that he felt they did not permit him to write to the sinners either. Once this became known a number of reprobates began spending very heavily, particularly on the more expensive vintages, secure in the knowledge that nobody would pursue them for their debts. I am glad to say they have now been disabused of this point of view and some are being pursued through the courts. But the net result is that the Diogenes is in debt to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds. No benefactor has come forward to rescue a club where he would not be able to speak.

  “The authorities have, however, made one concession. They have stated that if you were willing to take on the position, not of Club Secretary, but of Treasurer and Auditor for two years they would hold back on the bankruptcy proceedings for that period, assuming that in that time you would have sorted the problem out.

  “I realise that this would be a major step but I do not believe the task would be too arduous. You have after all been performing the same function for the departments of government for many years now. I do hope you will be able to accept. So too do all the members of the Diogenes Club, including the club cat, Mog the Mute. I look forward to hearing from you. Yours sincerely, Berkeley.”

  Mycroft leant across and picked up the letter. It joined the other one in his pocket book. “Really, Tobias,” he said wearily, “this is too much. I cannot be some lady bountiful for London’s club land, rescuing the fallen and restoring to life those places brought low by the folly of their own members. Can you decline for me tomorrow? It would be too much.”

  His Pall Mall apartment in danger of being sold, the club he had helped to found on the rocks, Tobias felt Mycroft’s world was crumbling slowly around him, like the erosion on the great cliffs east of Kemptown.

  “I have my solicitor coming to see me in the morning, Tobias. I feel I need to compose myself and make some notes about my affairs. By the way, could you leave me a note of your full name? I know you have told me many times but it has slipped my memory, like so much else.”

  Tobias wondered if Mycroft was planning to leave him something in his will. A book of mathematical theory perhaps, or his most expensive chess set. Tobias fetched his notebook from his attic room and hid himself in a corner of the main drawing room to compose his notes on the case so far. This position had, incidentally, the advantage of being on the main thoroughfare for pretty chambermaids going from the housekeeper’s quarters to the bedrooms on the upper floors.

  On the face of it, Tobias reflected, very little had changed since the attempted theft. Policemen in large numbers had appeared, of course, and the exits out of Brighton and other south coast ports were still guarded. But the Duchess of Alcester was still in the hotel. She had been heard telling her butler come security officer that she intended to stay a very long time and not pay the bill. Nobody, she said, would dare take me to court in the knowledge that I had been robbed of my jewels in their hotel.

  The other four who had been present on the night of the theft were still working in the hotel. Indeed Lady Alcester’s butler had assumed quite superior airs since the event, ordering the footmen about as if he were a senior member of the hotel staff. Inspectors Lestrade and Bramble had tried to see if either of the two doors guarded by the hotel staff could have had an accomplice on the other side who could have taken the Romanov pearls and fled. But Bramble’s men had searched every room in the hotel and were prepared to swear in court that the pearls were not there. At half past seven another letter arrived from London, hand delivered by a Government messenger. Most Immediate, it said on the front, Strictly Private and Confidential. Mycroft groaned when he saw it.

  “Who is it now for God’s sake, Tobias,” he sighed, leaning back in his chair. “Is there no peace for the convalescent? Being sent here for one’s health is becoming rather like recuperating in the Main Sorting Room of the Brighton Post Office. Oh well, tell me the worst.”

  “Foreign and Colonial Office, Great Charles Street, Office of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.”

  “Sir Edward Granville, by God,” Mycroft muttered, “what has the Foreign Secretary to do with the Majestic Hotel? We shall soon see. Read on, Tobias, thank you.”

  “Dear Mycroft,” the letter began. The Foreign Secretary was the only man in Government who addressed Mycroft by his Christian name rather than his official title of Government Auditor. He was also Mycroft’s oldest friend in Whitehall.

  “I shall be brief. I write with deep regret and a great wish that recent events might have turned out differently. The Prime Minister has asked me to write to you on behalf of the Government to tell you of our decision about the position of Government Auditor. The deficiencies in administration since you were taken from us have been many fold: the inability to forecast correctly the likely impact of future Cabinet policies has made Government virtually impossible: the absence of an experienced counsellor able to offer impartial and well informed advice to the Prime Minister has made Number Ten Downing Street even more of a burden than it was before.”

  The letter was certainly having an impact on Mycroft. He was sitting bolt upright in his chair now, forming the fingers of his hands into a steeple.

  “To aid your recovery, we are relieving you of all your duties from the end of next week. The position will be advised in the usual quarters. Medical advice has been virtually unanimous, from Dr Moore Agar to the Prime Minister’s personal physician. In retirement you have a chance of recovery. If you attempt to remain in office, not only will you be unable to continue your normal duties, but you may not live till the New Year.

  “The Prime Minister will be writing to you personally. He asks me to convey on behalf of his Cabinet and his Government a multitude of thanks for your devoted work over the years.

  “I hope to you see you soon and I trust that your convalescence by the sea is bringing an improvement in your health. Yours ever, Granville.”

  Tobias was conscious of a low murmur that grew into a growl as he read through the letter. He also saw out of the corner of his eye that Mycroft was becoming redder and redder in the face. When the letter ended he gave a great shout of pain.

  “Betrayed!” he shouted. “Betrayed! The bastards! They’ll pay for this, they bloody well will!”

  Mycroft Holmes rose from his chair and began to stomp about the room. Tobias noticed that he was moving at almost his normal speed and not in the slow shuffle of the convalescent. He waddled out onto the balcony and glared at the sea and the West Pier.

  “Right, Tobias,” he cried, still pacing about his enormous sitting room. “Send a wire to the bloody Foreign Office. Tell them that I propose to call on Sir Edward bloody Granville at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Tell Mrs Hudson that I shall be staying the night before coming back here. She should make up the spare room for you if you wish to stay.”

  Tobias headed for the door. “Stop, Tobias, not too soon. I fear I shall have to set my powers to work on the affair of these wretched pearls. Can you send word to Lestrade that I would like to see him for breakfast here at eight o’clock in the morning and that I suggest he should plan for a reconstruction of the theft round about ten o’clock, notices to that effect to be posted all over the hotel.”

  Mycroft finally located his cane and began swotting imaginary enemies. “And in ten minutes time, Tobias, when your errands are complete, meet me by the front door. We’re going to English’s Oyster Bar and Seafood Restaurant round the corner. Damn the doctors! Damn their eyes! I want the finest and the richest sauce the chefs of English’s have yet devised to adorn a lobster. Oysters to start with, that’s it, oysters. We’re celebrating something, Tobias, we’re definitely celebrating something. I’m not sure what just for the moment, but it’s going to be a great evening.”

  Half an hour later Mycroft and Tobias were sitting in a booth in the red velvet splendour of English’s. A dozen oysters had been despatched, and half a bottle of Meursault.

  “Let me tell you something, Tobias. I don’t think I’ve ever told this to anybody else except Mrs Hudson when I had a bad fever some years back.”

  Mycroft paused to inspect a large crab that was making its way to a nearby table, instruments of torture and extraction displayed on the silver salver.

  “For some people the most important thing in their lives may be their family, their parents, their brothers and sisters, their wives, their children. For others it may be sport or exploration, the exhilaration of the hunt in full cry, the perilous ascent of the Matterhorn, the impossible late cut through the slips. For me, it was the position of Auditor of all Government Departments given into my care all that time ago. For years Sherlock had lorded it over me with that supercilious air of his, the dramatic crimes solved, the rich and the aristocratic competing for his services. But once I was Auditor of all Government Departments, that ceased to matter. My brother might have been the most distinguished consulting detective in the land, but I was the most important man in the entire Government. In the long battle for supremacy between brother and brother, I had won. The administration could not function without me, as Granville’s letter said. There was no question in my mind as to who held the more important position.”

  Mycroft’s lobster thermidor arrived, an enormous helping in pink and cream and gold. Mycroft rose to his feet. “I give you a toast, Tobias. To Dr Moore Agar! To the medical profession! Damn their bloody eyes!”

  Silence reigned briefly while Mycroft did battle with his lobster. Sections of it were dismembered as if he were drawing and quartering his enemies. Tobias was savouring a lemon sole with a cream and onion sauce.

  “So you see, Tobias, where we are. I defined that job. That job defined me. Now they are trying to take it away from me. I will not have it. I refuse to have an inferior post to my brother. Even if he is now only a glorified bee keeper, I should have no position at all. In some countries the Prime Minister never takes a long holiday in case his enemies have removed him from office before he comes back. Intrigue and conspiracy are as rife in Whitehall as they were in Machiavelli’s Florence. If you’re ill, your job will be taken before you’re out of your pyjamas. Well, tomorrow the comeback begins, Tobias.”

  “Let me give you a toast, sir. To the return of Mycroft Holmes. Mycroft Redux!”

  Mycroft’s return to gastronomic form was not over yet. For pudding he forced down a crème brulée with white chocolate and mint ice cream. He took a large glass of Armagnac on his balcony at the hotel, entertaining Tobias with tales of his early triumphs as Auditor of all Government Departments.