All other men are
specialists, but his specialism is omniscience. We will suppose
that a minister needs information as to a point which involves
the Navy, India, Canada and the bimetallic question; he could get
his separate advices from various departments upon each, but only
Mycroft can focus them all, and say offhand how each factor would
affect the other. They began by using him as a short-cut, a
convenience; now he has made himself an essential. In that great
brain of his everything is pigeon-holed and can be handed out in
an instant. Again and again his word has decided the national
policy. He lives in it. He thinks of nothing else save when, as
an intellectual exercise, he unbends if I call upon him and ask
him to advise me on one of my little problems. But Jupiter is
descending to-day. What on earth can it mean? Who is Cadogan
West, and what is he to Mycroft?"
"I have it," I cried, and plunged among the litter of papers upon
the sofa. "Yes, yes, here he is, sure enough! Cadogen West was
the young man who was found dead on the Underground on Tuesday
morning.
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