Mycroft Holmes

The profile

Seven years Sherlock's senior and, by Sherlock's own admission, his superior in observation and deduction, Mycroft Holmes lacks only the energy to leave his chair and prove it. His life runs on rails: lodgings in Pall Mall, the government office across the street, and the Diogenes Club — which he co-founded for men who cannot abide other men — from quarter to five till twenty to eight.

Officially he audits the books of government departments. Unofficially, as Sherlock finally confides, he is the central exchange of the British state: the one man whose brain files every ministry's business at once, whose word 'has decided the national policy' more than once. When Mycroft leaves his orbit — as he does when submarine plans go missing — it means the matter is of the first importance. He appears in four cases and dominates each without rising from a chair.