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Mycroft Holmes, they whispered behind carefully raised hands, had lost a bet.
It was, of course, entirely inconceivable that the coolly calculating, brilliant strategist might have misjudged a situation in any way. The thought, even, that the Iceman had done something as human as taking a bet was strange enough.
And yet, here they were.
The tall man with the Byronic curls and saturnine smile was clearly the younger Mr Holmes, they whispered. The silver-haired man with the boyish smile, only slightly shorter and of a more muscular build, was, some claimed, Holmes Major's husband, but that, of course, was utterly absurd. Others murmured that he was a DCI at New Scotland Yard, and that made more sense. Who the little girl between Holmes Minor and the DCI was, no-one really knew, although with those brown curls, there was a remarkable resemblance to the man on her left. She looked to be about five years old and was holding hands with the two men who flanked her.
Holmes Major asked in his well-modulated tenor, “Sherlock, really now?”
“It's 6 p.m., Mycroft,” the DCI said with a slightly apologetic shrug of his shoulders.
That was true; the meeting had run over quite significantly.
“Pay up, Brother dear, or forfeit your honour,” Holmes Minor declared in a tone that should have sounded ridiculously melodramatic, but strangely enough, he managed to pull it off with gravitas.
The DCI, on closer inspection, was biting his lower lip and trying not to laugh.
“Well, we can't have that, of course,” the Undersecretary said, his own lips twitching. “Let's adjourn this meeting, ladies and gentlemen. We aren't going to come to an agreement today, anyway, and Mr Holmes here needs to settle his debt of honour. All in favour? Capital. Adjourned!”
The Iceman let out a put-upon sigh but rose from his chair, followed by the rest of the bureaucrats, all of which were eager to see what this mysterious bet was all about.
They filed out of the conference room, and there was an expectant silence all around; no-one wanted to miss this, whatever this was.
“Here?” the Iceman asked, sounding aggrieved and resigned in equal parts.
“The staircase is nice, Uncle Mycroft,” the little girl politely pointed out.
Nice, though, was something of an understatement. It was usually referred to as the Grand Staircase, and for a good reason; it was huge and neoclassical and certainly grand, if one went in for that sort of thing.
“And so it is, my dear,” he agreed in a more pleasant tone than any of the present politicians had ever heard from him. “Well, if we are to do this, let's do it right. Gloves?”
They were walking down the staircase, the bureaucrats trailing after the small group and watching as the silver-haired DCI obediently held out a pair of white opera gloves.
“Here you are, Mycroft,” he said in an almost formal tone. “I've also brought you another tie and pocket square.”
Mycroft Holmes was, to his anthracite three-piece bespoke suit, wearing a teal silk tie with narrow light navy stripes and a solid light navy pocket square. The ones the DCI now held out to him were of a matching solid icy blue.
The aggrievement was clearly winning out on the Iceman's face. “For the record, Lyra, dear, one never combines a tie with a precisely matching pocket square.”
The DCI grinned, his eyes twinkling unrepentantly. “Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all, “but I couldn't find a sparkly one.”
The bureaucrats would have expected one of the Iceman's lethal glares at this sacrilegious comment, but in fact, there was a tiny smile dancing across his face that unsettled the spectators even more.
“If you think that will get you out of it,” Holmes Minor began with narrowed eyes.
Holmes Major cut him off with a decisive gesture. “No need, Brother. I will, of course, remain true to my word.”
He made no motion to accept the proffered tie and pocket square but looked around the main entrance and Great Hall critically. The building itself was neoclassical, and furnished accordingly. The wide staircase was rimmed with marble bannisters and separated on the first landing into two staircases who met up again at the second and principal landing with its lovely arches and mosaic floor; far above it all, in the lavishly stuccoed ceiling, was a neoclassical dome with integrated glass panes to let in the light during daytime.
“It will do,” Mycroft Holmes decided, to a cheer from the little girl. “Will you hold the tie for me, Lyra, dear?”
She happily agreed, looking excited, then admonished Uncle Sherlock to hurry and get ready, which of course put paid to the thought that she was the issue of Holmes Minor. The Detective Chief Inspector was again trying to keep a serious face through it all. Curious, the bureaucrats spread out over the large staircases, quite ready for the spectacle that was sure to follow when Holmes Minor took a clearly valuable violin from the case he had been carrying, readied the bow and lifted the violin under his chin.
The brothers exchanged a look and a nod, and Holmes Minor began to play. The opening notes were soft, melancholic, and several of the politicians, namely those with little girls at home, showed varying signs of recognitions and surprise.
Mycroft Holmes, now wearing a white opera glove on his right hand and showing absolutely no sign of embarrassment or self-consciousness, had been walking away from the staircase but now turned and slowly walked towards it again with his usual self-contained grace.
And then he began to sing, his smooth, polished tenor gently rising into the open space with the surprisingly good acoustics.
“The snow glows white on the mountain tonight, not a footprint to be seen. A kingdom of isolation, and it looks like I'm the queen.”
He paused for a small moment, looking sad.
His brother chortled softly but was elbowed by the little girl, who seemed to have rather sharp little elbows indeed.
“The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside. Couldn't keep it in, heaven knows I tried,” Mr Holmes went on, his tenor expressive and suddenly gaining power and momentum. “Don't let them in, don't let them see, be the good man I always have to be, conceal, don't feel, don't let them know...”
His voice rose powerfully now, smooth and impressive. “Well, now they know!” And with one smooth motion, he pulled off his glove and flung it away dramatically.
“Let it go, let it go, can't hold it back any more. Let it go, let it go, turn away and slam the door.”
This was the point where even the last of the bureaucrats recognised the tune; it had been in the charts, after all, and made a reappearance with an alarming frequency. The Iceman was singing the Ice Queen's song from the Disney film Frozen, complete with the gestures as if he were conjuring swirls of ice and snow, and then he started loosening his teal tie.
“I don't care what they're going to say. Let the storm rage on... The cold never bothered me, anyway.”
And with that, he flung his tie away with utter disregard for the expensive Italian silk, a smile spreading across his face. The tie, too fluttered to the floor, but he didn't spare it a glance.
“It's funny how some distance makes everything seem small, and the fears that once controlled me can't get to me at all.”
He walked towards the staircase with increased energy. “It's time to see what I can do, to test the limits and break through. No right, no wrong, no rules for me...”
The sudden light in his usually so cool blue eyes made a few bureaucrats exchange almost fearful looks. Mycroft Holmes entirely unfettered was, indeed, a scary thought.
“I'm free,” he sang as he put his foot on the first step, then started a quick ascent. “Let it go, let it go, I'm one with the wind and sky. Let it go, let it go, you'll never see me cry.”
The bureaucrats moved out of his way as he made it to the first landing, some of them still staring at the man as if they couldn't believe their eyes.
“Here I stand,” he sang, stomping his foot, “and here I'll stay. Let the storm rage on...”
Sherlock began with a short, sweeping solo; in the film, this was where Elsa raised the crystalline ice palace around her. Mycroft used the time to begin a stately ascent to the second landing, a powerful, mischievous light in his eyes.
“My power flurries through the air into the ground, my soul is spiralling in frozen fractals all around. And one thought crystallises like an icy blast: I'm never going back, the past is in the past!”
He flung away his light navy pocket square dramatically and ran his other hand through his precisely tamed hair, making a small curl appear at his forehead. Little Lyra, who had been scurrying up the stairs behind him, held out the silvery, icy-blue silk tie to her Uncle Mycroft with a beaming smile.
He slung the pale silk around his neck but didn't bother to tie it. Instead, he loosened the first two buttons of his bespoke shirt, then picked up the little girl with the brunet curls and whirled around with her effortlessly.
“Let it go,” he sang, and she joined in with her sweet girl's soprano. “Let it go, and I'll rise like the break of dawn. Let it go, let it go, that perfect man (girl, she sang) is gone.”
They were on the second landing now, looking down at all the others. His clear tenor rang out powerfully as he sang the final lines, underscored by the softer, sweeter voice of the girl. “Here I stand in the light of day. Let the storm rage on... The cold never bothered me, anyway.”
And with a final, perfect turn, Mycroft Holmes walked away from the bannister, the beaming little girl on his hip.
Absolute silence fell.
Sherlock lowered his bow and lifted the violin away from his chin.
Mycroft and Lyra turned around again, shared laughter in their eyes, and were greeted by a sudden wave of thunderous applause.
Whatever reaction Mycroft had expected for his impromptu performance of a song from a Disney film, it wasn't this, but he accepted the accolades with aplomb. He put down Lyra and bowed elegantly while she dropped a graceful little curtsy, then they both gestured down to Sherlock and his violin, who received the ongoing applause with a sweeping bow of his own. The DCI was grinning widely and clapping enthusiastically, somehow in possession of the discarded glove, tie and pocket square.
“That was fun, Uncle Mycroft,” the little girl said, happy to hold his hand as they descended the grand stairs in a fittingly stately way.
He smiled at her with far more warmth than any of the assembled politicians had ever seen on his face. “It was, wasn't it?”
They bid a polite good evening to the suited men and women they passed on the stairs, some of them still looking rather gobsmacked but most of them smiling, and joined the rest of their group. Once Holmes Minor had loosened the horsehair of his bow and carefully stowed away his violin, the four of them left, Holmes Major still holding the little girl's right hand, the DCI walking next to him and Holmes Minor holding the girl's left hand.
The massive wooden door closed behind them.
“That,” the Undersecretary said, “was surreal in the extreme.”
The others nodded or voiced their agreements.
Somewhere not very far away in Whitehall, a brunette woman contacted IT. Several of the bureaucrats' phones would have to be unobtrusively hacked post-haste and certain video files copied to her department's mainframe and the originals scrambled. Blanche de Lestrade would certainly be happy to see this. And maybe, if Anthea was feeling evil enough, she'd send a copy to Violet Holmes, too.
~Fin~