Start: A Summons from Mycroft
The London fog of 1897 was not merely a weather condition; it was a physical weight, a sulfurous yellow blanket that pressed against the windows of 221B Baker Street as if trying to force its way inside. Within the sitting room, the air was thick with the scent of Sherlock Holmes’s strongest tobacco. He sat draped across his armchair, eyes fixed on the ceiling, his long, thin fingers steepled beneath his chin. The silence was absolute, broken only by the occasional hiss of the coal fire and the distant, muffled clatter of a hansom cab on the cobbles below.
"A letter from the Diogenes Club, Holmes," I remarked, breaking the stillness as I retrieved a thick, cream-colored envelope from the mantle. It bore the heavy wax seal of the most unsociable club in London—and more importantly, the unmistakable hand of his brother.
Holmes sat bolt upright, his gray eyes instantly sharp. He tore the envelope open, scanned the contents in a single second, and tossed the parchment onto the table. "Mycroft does not use the word 'imperative' lightly, Watson. A foreign diplomat is dead within the club's silent walls, and a treaty that holds the peace of Europe in its margins has vanished. The game is afoot, and it is played for the highest stakes we have ever encountered."
He reached for his Inverness cape and his deerstalker, his movements a blur of kinetic energy. "Come, Watson. The fog is thick, but the mystery is thicker. We must reach Pall Mall before the trail grows as cold as the man in the locked room."
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