The Baker Street Letters Read online

  THE

  BAKER STREET

  LETTERS

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  CONTENTS

  Title

  Copyright Notice

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Preview: The Brothers of Baker Street

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS.

  An imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.

  THE BAKER STREET LETTERS. Copyright © 2009 by Michael Robertson. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.thomasdunnebooks.com

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Robertson, Michael, 1951–

  The Baker Street letters / Michael Robertson.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  “A Thomas Dunne book for Minotaur Books”—T.p. verso.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-312-53812-5

  ISBN-10: 0-312-53812-X

  1. Brothers—Fiction. 2. Letter writing—Fiction. 3. Holmes, Sherlock (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 4. London (England)—Fiction. 5. Los Angeles (Calif.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3618.O31726B35 2009

  813'.6—dc22

  2008045668

  First Edition: June 2009

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  eISBN 9781429990141

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  For the publication of this book, I’m grateful to my editor, Marcia Markland, and my literary agent, Rebecca Oliver, and to the Maui Writers Conference, which introduced me to them both.

  My thanks also to Diana Szu, Elizabeth Curione, Sona Vogel, Elizabeth Catalano, and David Rotstein at Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, and to Richie Kern (for representing the television rights) and Laura Bonner (for the audio) at the Endeavor Agency.

  And thank you, Barbara and Michele.

  THE

  BAKER STREET

  LETTERS

  Los Angeles, 1997

  He only wanted just one cigarette.

  He knew he shouldn’t, and not just because both of his ex-wives used to say so or because his doctor still said so.

  He knew he shouldn’t because the company rules for sandhogs on the new subway dig said so.

  But the rules hadn’t been pulling twelve-hour shifts.

  And the hot permits for acetylene torches had already been granted, so he knew there wasn’t any flammable gas.

  And he really only needed just one.

  So he moved farther into the tunnel, beyond the shining fresh concrete, away from the flammable plastic liners, and out of sight of the foreman. He sat on a muck hauler to take his break, and he took out just one cigarette and put it between his lips.

  And then he lit a match.

  London, six weeks later

  “Why are you staring at me that way?”

  Laura hardly looked up from her dinner to ask this. She arched one eyebrow over one olive green eye.

  “Your hair,” lied Reggie, “is in your champagne.”

  She laughed, and Reggie hoped it was because she remembered a September picnic in Kensington Gardens, when her red hair had indeed been in the champagne, and pretty much everywhere else.

  He wanted her to think of that, because tonight, with moonlight streaming into his Butler’s Wharf penthouse, he was beginning to fear that she did not intend to let it down at all.

  Nor had she the week before. And so Reggie had begun to stare.

  But now there was a noise from the kitchen, and Mrs. Hampstead—who should have been getting ready to bring out Blackwell tarts—brought the phone instead.

  “It’s your brother,” she said.

  “I’ll return it in the morning.”

  “Your brother!” Mrs. Hampstead said emphatically, thrusting the phone again between Reggie and Laura. “He says it is urgent.”

  “Tell him I’ll call him back,” repeated Reggie. “In the morning.”

  “Suit yourself. Just as though he’s not the only brother you’ve got.”

  Mrs. Hampstead had an uncanny knack for spouting phrases that Reggie used to hear from his mother.

  “Quite right, Mrs. Hampstead,” said Laura. “Reggie, there’s no use in being stubborn.”

  Reggie looked across and tried to read Laura’s expression, but she did not meet his gaze.

  He accepted the phone and spoke brusquely.

  “What is it, Nigel?”

  “I can’t explain it over the phone,” said Nigel. “You’ll have to see it for yourself.”

  The concern in his younger brother’s voice was evident, but to Reggie that was not proof of a crisis. At thirty-three, Nigel was just two years younger than Reggie—but the brothers did not always rate the crises of life on the same scale.

  “I’m sure it can wait—,” began Reggie.

  Laura looked up from her plate. “It’s all right,” she said, and she glanced at her watch as she said it. “I should be going anyway.”

  Reggie tried quickly to see her eyes, but she looked away again.

  “I’ll be along shortly,” he said, annoyed, into the phone.

  Laura gathered a cream-colored wrap around bare, freckled shoulders, and they took the exterior lift down from the penthouse.

  They walked from the shining metal-and-glass lift onto the wharf and then got in Reggie’s XJS.

  For a long moment, as they drove along the Embankment, with the damp air and river scents being stirred up by a light rain, neither of them spoke.

  Then Laura said, “You shouldn’t be so sharp with your brother.”

  “Was I sharp?”

  “Yes. And he only got out a month ago.”

  “I’m aware of that,” said Reggie, and he was, though he was tired of having to think about it. “My mind was on something else,” he said.

  “I’m tired tonight anyway,” Laura replied, and then added, “I’m sure it will be late when you’re through.”

  Reggie thought she said this as though she were relying on it. This was worrisome. He said, “I was just beginning to think I’d found him a position he couldn’t bollix up. And this was only because his predecessor came back from holiday in America and stepped in front of a double-decker. You can’t count on breaks like that for all your positions.” Reggie realized he was speaking sharply again, and he fell silent.

  “The poor man,” said Laura, and Reggie, to his astonishment, realized that he was becoming jealous now even of her sympathy. Sympathy for a stranger, for that matter
. For a dead stranger, in fact.

  “Must have forgotten which way the traffic moves,” added Laura.

  “Mashed like a potato,” Reggie said tightly.

  He turned right onto a narrow Chelsea street and then into the drive for Laura’s ivy-covered brick mews.

  They walked on damp flagstones through the front courtyard. Then Laura stood in the doorway, kissed Reggie once lightly, and said good night. He wondered just what alternative plans she might have for the remainder of the evening—but he managed not to ask.

  He got in his car and drove around the eastern perimeter of Hyde Park toward Marylebone. He continued almost to Regents Park and then turned south onto Baker Street.

  He drove half a block and then parked. He was now at Dorset House—a structure that headquartered the Dorset National Building Society and that made up the entire Two Hundred block of Baker Street.

  It was late as Reggie entered the building, and the lobby was deserted except for a security guard, who nodded as Reggie passed by.

  Reggie crossed to the lifts, his footsteps echoing on the marble floor.

  He had just recently leased the next floor above for his new law chambers. The location was uncommonly far from the Inns of Court—few barristers in London had chambers beyond easy walking distance of the Inns and their clubbiness—but Reggie was willing to break that convention. And the lease from Dorset National was at a very decent bargain. Such a good deal, in fact, that at first he had been suspicious—but he was beginning to accept it now as just good fortune.

  He took the lift up one floor and stepped out—almost knocking down Ms. Brinks, who was trying to step in.

  “Oh,” she said. “So sorry, I wasn’t expecting—”

  “I wasn’t either,” said Reggie. “Just on your way out?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But since you’re here . . .”

  “Yes?”

  Reggie waited as his very efficient secretary—she had many years on the job and was often happy to say so—sorted quickly through the stack of papers in her arms.

  “Perhaps you’d like to sign these?” she said. “Your broker at Lloyd’s sent them over. I wanted to have them ready for you Monday morning, but here you are now. He’s uneasy about your presence in the construction trades, and thought you might prefer to underwrite something at lower risk.”

  “Such as?”

  “A media conglomerate, I believe he said. Entertainment and such.”

  Reggie took the papers and began to look them over. Ms. Brinks—fiftyish, thin as a rail, and hyperactive by nature—waited impatiently.

  “He says it’s a low rate of return, but lower risk,” she continued. “After all, who ever filed a claim over a flick?”

  “Yes,” said Reggie, signing the forms and giving them back. “Thank you, Ms. Brinks. My brother still in?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Good night, then.”

  “Good night.”

  Ms. Brinks took the lift, and Reggie continued on his way down the corridor, between shoulder-high gray cubicle partitions. The cubicles were dark and mostly empty—they were left over from Dorset National’s previous operations there, and Reggie’s chambers wasn’t large enough to make use of them. Not yet.

  At this hour, the main lamps were off. But there was residual light coming through the windows on the Baker Street side, intermittent glimmers from the senior clerk’s PC at the opposite side, and, at the end of the corridor, the light escaping through the blinds and doorway of Nigel’s office.

  The air-conditioning was off as well. The temperature was tolerable, but the air was nevertheless stifling, the lack of circulation allowing scents of printer toner and old paper to accumulate.

  He hoped this wouldn’t take long.

  The door to Nigel’s office was half-open. Reggie stopped in the doorway and took a moment to note whether Nigel’s working habits had improved.

  They had not.

  Crumpled balls of paper and confection wrappers littered the floor around the wastebasket in the near corner, where Nigel had attempted bank shots and missed. On his desk, a package of sweet biscuits spilled crumbs onto a stained blotter. And the incoming-letter basket fairly overflowed with correspondence that Nigel had yet to act upon.

  Next to the incoming basket, beneath a scattered handful of chocolate Smarties, was an opened letter addressed to Nigel from the Law Society.

  That had to be the reason he had called.

  Nigel was doing something with the drawers of a tall wooden filing cabinet, his back toward the door. Reggie rapped his knuckles on the door frame. Nigel swiveled his desk chair to face Reggie, in the process mangling half a dozen blank forms that had slipped to the floor.

  “Oh,” Nigel said almost immediately. “You were with Laura.”

  “And you realize that just now because . . . ?”

  “That perplexed look you’ve had of late.”

  Reggie didn’t want to talk about it. “Is it the disciplinary tribunal?” he asked, pointing at the Law Society letter.

  “That? Oh, yes.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “What does it say? Have they scheduled your reinstatement hearing?”

  “Yes. The tribunal convenes Monday morning.”

  “Excellent. It’s about time you wound that up. You can drop all this clerical stuff and get back to what suits you.”

  “Of course,” said Nigel, with no particular emphasis.

  “Did they say anything about the substance of the charge?”

  “Apparently they feel I’ve done my penance; they’re no longer threatening to revoke my solicitor’s license permanently.”

  “As expected. They’ve been sensitive to this ‘inappropriate conduct’ stuff ever since that lawyer in Staffordshire made page one of the Daily Mail by shagging a client’s wife. He probably shouldn’t have, given the client was in the House of Lords. But your hearing should be just a formality. You’ll make nice, and I’ll sit at the table to show support. No doubt at all you’ll be reinstated.”

  Nigel listened to all that without objection—though he had begun to drum his fingers, and one knee jittered slightly. “I’m sure it will all be fine,” he said now. “But, as to the reason I called—”

  “It wasn’t this?”

  “Of course not,” said Nigel, and he attacked the mess on his desk, shoving aside the tube of Smarties and the sweet biscuit crumbs. He opened the folder he had just taken from the file cabinet, and he began to push letters from it onto the blotter. Then he stopped.

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t have phoned. You won’t understand this.”

  “You mean I won’t agree,” Reggie said suspiciously.

  “No, you would agree if you understood. But you won’t understand.”

  “Nigel, Laura is waiting. Will you tell me what is wrong?”

  Nigel separated the letters and displayed them on the desk in front of Reggie.

  “Part of my job is to reply to correspondence that should have been delivered elsewhere—or rather, not at all.”

  “What’s the problem? If it’s misdelivered, send it back.”

  “I can’t. It’s in the lease.”

  “What is?”

  “That the tenant receive these letters, and not complain to the postmaster to get them stopped, but instead respond to them—with these bloody forms I have around here someplace.”

  “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The in-basket is full of them. Just take one off the top.”

  Reggie did so. He began to read one letter—and then he stopped abruptly. He stared at the name of the addressee for a moment, and he gave his brother an incredulous look.

  “Nigel, is this a joke?”

  “It’s not a joke.”

  Reggie read aloud the address on the envelope: “Mr. Sherlock Holmes, 221b Baker Street, London.”

  He tossed the letter dismissively back onto the desk in front of Nigel.
<
br />   Nigel was unfazed. “Look at the others,” he said.

  Reggie picked up another letter and read the address: “Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective, 221b Baker Street.”

  And another: “Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Bee Keeper, c/o 221b Baker Street.”

  Nigel nodded and folded his arms as though he’d made his point.

  “Are you telling me everything in this basket is addressed to him?” demanded Reggie.

  “Yes—they’re pretty much all like that, although most aren’t so much interested in the beekeeping aspect.”

  Reggie stared at the letters in his hand and then back at Nigel again.

  “You mean simply because our address is—”

  “Yes,” said Nigel. “Simply because you’ve located your new chambers in a building that takes up the entire Two Hundred block of Baker Street.”

  “But surely no one could actually believe—”

  “Apparently some would do.”

  Reggie looked again at the letters that had piled up in the basket. There were dozens of them, in all kinds of formats—scrawled in longhand and typed on ancient Remingtons; laser-printed and hand-lettered on lined yellow pads.

  In fact, the letters to Sherlock Holmes outnumbered all the legitimate correspondence. This was annoying.

  “Doesn’t it occur to these people that if he were real, he’d be long dead and rotten?”

  Nigel shrugged. “What can I tell you? Dorset House has been getting and responding to the letters for years. The Baker Street Tourist Board loves them for it.”

  “Then let them handle the responses. Why should we worry about—”

  “Because the letters have always been delivered to this floor of this building—and now you’ve taken a leasehold on it. And as you know, the lease specifically says that the occupant of these premises takes responsibility for the letters.”

  Reggie said nothing for a moment, and now it was Nigel’s turn to give his older brother an incredulous stare.

  “You did know this, of course,” said Nigel. “I mean, you did read the full lease agreement before signing?”