Mycroft's Brain

The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans

Sherlock's brother Mycroft features prominently in this tale, and the Baker Street regular provides a fascinating description of Mycroft's role in the British government.  "The conclusions of every department are passed to him, and he is the central exchange, the clearing-house, which makes out the balance."  Sherlock's description makes Mycroft seem like a computer -- or at least a database, as the Barnes & Noble edition points out.  Yet for all Mycroft's rational qualities, he is a human being -- and capable, presumably, of his own agendas and interests.  In that sense there is something vaguely sinister about a government controlled -- or at any rate managed -- by a single man, a person whom Sherlock regards as "the most indispensable man in the country."  I'm inclined to consider Mycroft as a kind of quasi-Lovecraftian monstrosity -- an alien being that has tendrils of power woven through vast spheres of human activity and consciousness.  Sherlock even refers to him as a kind of god: "Jupiter is descending to-day."  It seems debatable whether Mycroft "has no ambitions of any kind," as Holmes' asserts.  In any case, Mycroft is a living incarnation of bureaucracy and empire -- all consolidated into one fussy, aloof brain.  Sounds pretty horrific to me.