The Autobiography of Mycroft Holmes

Chapter 8: The Tenant of 221C

I remember that as I was exiting Oxford after seven years of studies, Sherlock was just entering. Unlike me, she only stayed for four years. But she called me every day, just to see how I was doing, since we had not talked much while she was still in America.

The one benefit that I saw of leaving America to attend University was getting away from Sherlock and her constant need to show me up and be smarter than me. But after a few years, I guess she changed.

It's really a shame. I wanted her to keep competing with me. It would help her improve. But I assumed that she eventually gave up.

She would call me with the most trivial problems; things like "I lost my bus tokens! What am I supposed to do now?" or "I think I'm going to fail a pop quiz tomorrow... does it matter?"

But I didn't care. It was nice to hear her voice, to know that there was not just me alone in the world, that she was alone as well and that we could be alone together. And so I entertained her, and it was a good relationship for the four years that it did last. But that was when I realized she would be graduating, and it'd all end as quickly as it began.

Only one other person I knew ever had a similar relationship to me as that brief one I'd had with Sherlock during those four years. That was Mike Stamford.

"What is that moving van doing in front of the house?" I asked Mrs. Hudson one morning, assuming she knew what I was talking about. But she did not, and so proceeded to run up to the peephole in the door to see the van.

"That's the new tenant that I thought I told you about."

"New tenant?" I asked her, sounding a bit perturbed.

"Yes, we have a new tenant in our building. Is that a problem?"

I was shocked. I was honestly caught very off guard. "Really..." I stated not nearly as much a question as a statement made in disbelief. "Where is this 'tenant' staying? I did not know there was any more adequate room in this building for another person."

"He will be staying in 221C, the basement," Mrs. Hudson flatly stated.

I promptly burst out laughing afterwards. "The basement?! And how, may I ask, did you convince someone to take that as a place of residence?" I asked, still in absolute disbelief.

"The young man who is taking up residence got... let's just say... a good deal on it."

"Give me a second, Sherlock," I said, turning to my sister, and then turning back to Mrs. Hudson, "I'd very much like to meet this man."

"You're in luck, I think he will be arriving in just under ten minutes. You can wait downstairs for him to come, and I'll join you in a minute," Mrs. Hudson said in her cheerful, high-pitched voice with a very interesting English accent. She walked back into her kitchen, presumably to turn off the stove that had a boiling pot on it.

"Mycroft, what was that all about? There's another flat here?" Sherlock asked me as I opened up Mrs. Hudson's safe and grabbing the Master Key.

"You'd better believe there's another flat here," I said, walking Sherlock downstairs. "221C Baker Street was offered to me when I first moved in, for a much cheaper price than the upstairs 221B," I said as we arrived downstairs.

"So why did you not tell me this place existed when I got here so I could maybe have a flat to myself?" Sherlock asked me when we hit the ground floor. It was pitch dark, so I felt on the wall for the light switch. I hit it, and the lights went on in the foyer before the door to the flat.

"Because 221C is an absolute toxic waste pit," I responded as an answer to both her questions, opening the door to the flat and turning on the nearly-broken light switch.