Young Sherlock Holmes: Fire Storm

by Andrew Lane

Saddling Philadelphia up the way he’d been taught by the groom who worked for the Holmes family, he cantered out of the grounds and along the road that led to Farnham. He’d got pretty good at riding over the past few months, ever since getting back from the eventful trip that he and his brother had made to Russia.

  That trip, he reminded himself as the horse calmly trotted along past the tall trees of Alice Holt Forest, had involved the mysterious Paradol Chamber – the international gang of criminals who had also been involved with the colossal schemes of Baron Maupertuis. Nothing had been heard of them since their plan to discredit Sherlock’s brother Mycroft and assassinate the head of the Russian Secret Service had fallen apart, but Sherlock knew that they were still out there, somewhere. He occasionally asked Mycroft about them, but Mycroft professed himself to be as mystified as Sherlock as to what they were up to. The only certainty was that somewhere in the world they were up to something.

  The outskirts of Farnham crept up on Sherlock before he knew it: solid red brick buildings with tiled roofs replacing the thatched cottages that had been scattered along the road from Holmes Manor. Rather than ride into the town centre, and risk having Mrs Eglantine see him, he left the horse tied up at a stables he’d used before on the outskirts of town, tipping the ostler a few pence to feed and water it. He walked the rest of the way.

  If Mrs Eglantine was telling the truth about vegetables, then she would be at the market. Sherlock headed over towards where it was held, in the shadow of a two-storey building with colonnades all the way around. The marketplace was filled to capacity with stalls selling all manner of foodstuffs, from fruit to fresh beans, from smoked meat to shellfish.

  He couldn’t see Mrs Eglantine anywhere, but he did see Matty standing by a vegetable stall. He looked as if he was waiting for something to roll off in his direction.

  Matty caught sight of Sherlock and waved. Sherlock saw his friend’s gaze flicker back to the stall, and a look of momentary indecision cross his face before he walked over.

  ‘Waiting for lunch?’ Sherlock asked.

  ‘I don’t really separate stuff out into “meals” as such,’ Matty admitted. ‘I just eat whenever I can.’

  ‘Very wise. Have you seen Mrs Eglantine around?’

  ‘That housekeeper?’ Matty shuddered. ‘I try to stay away from her. She’s bad news.’

  ‘Yes, but have you seen her?’

  Matty nodded over towards a stall selling fresh trout laid on grass. ‘She was over there a few minutes ago. Said the fish was too small.’

  ‘Did you see which direction she went?’

  He shrugged. ‘Long as she was heading away from me, I didn’t really care. Why? What’s up?’

  Sherlock debated whether to tell Matty about the confrontation between Mrs Eglantine and his uncle, but he decided to keep quiet. That was a private family matter – at least for the moment. ‘I just need to know where she is,’ he said. ‘I think she’s up to something.’

  ‘Shouldn’t be too hard to find her,’ Matty said. ‘She dresses like every day is a Sunday, an’ someone’s died to boot . . .’

  As the two boys moved across the marketplace, pushing past the various vendors, customers and browsers who filled the place, Sherlock caught fragments of conversation from all directions.

  ‘. . . an’ I told ’im, if ’e comes back without it I’m leavin’ . . .’

  ‘. . . you gave me your word that the deal was already made, Bill . . .’

  ‘. . . if I see you with that lad again, girl, I’ll wallop you so hard your head will be spinning for a week . . .’

  One voice in particular snagged his attention. It was accented, American. He recognized the accent from talking to Amyus Crowe, and from his time in New York. He turned his head, thinking that maybe it was Crowe who was speaking, but the face that he found himself looking at was younger: all sharp planes and hard edges. The man’s hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and beneath the hair it looked to Sherlock as if his right ear was missing. All he could see there was a mass of dark scar tissue. His clothes were dusty and well-travelled, and he was speaking to a companion who had short blond hair and a face covered in circular scars, the kind you got from a bad case of smallpox.

  ‘. . . will flay us alive and turn our skins into hats,’ the man with the missing ear was saying.

  ‘We need to find Crowe and his daughter. They’re our only chance!’

  ‘Well, we know what’ll happen to us if we don’t find them. Remember Abner?’

  ‘Yeah.’ The dark-haired man’s face twisted with an unpleasant memory. ‘Don’t do nothing but stare at the wall now, after what the boss did to him. It’s like there’s nothing left inside his head, apart from what he needs to breathe and to eat . . .’

  They were walking in one direction and Sherlock and Matty were walking in another, and that was all Sherlock heard before the two men were out of earshot. It sounded serious though. Sherlock decided to go and see Mr Crowe as soon as he could. Crowe needed to know that someone was looking for him.

  By the time he had formulated the thought, he and Matty were across the other side of the marketplace.

  ‘Wait here for a minute,’ Matty said. He dashed away, towards the two-storey colonnaded building on the edge of the marketplace. Sherlock lost him as he vanished into the shadows. He was about to turn away and scan the crowd for signs of a black-clad woman when Matty’s head appeared above the parapet, running along the roof of the building. He waved at Sherlock. Sherlock waved back, amazed at how quickly Matty had got through the building. The scruffy barge boy scanned the crowd with his keen gaze. Within moments he was pointing at something.

  Mrs Eglantine? Sherlock mouthed, trusting to Matty’s skill at lip-reading to pick up the words.

  Pork pie! Matty replied. Sherlock couldn’t tell if he was actually making any sound or not, but the movement of his mouth was clear enough. Matty grinned. Only kidding! he mouthed. She’s over there!

  Sherlock gave him a thumbs-up, and Matty’s head disappeared from the parapet.

  Sherlock plunged into the crowd of shoppers and market traders, heading in the direction that Matty had indicated. He scanned the heads of the people in front of him, looking out for Mrs Eglantine’s distinctive scraped-back hairstyle. Within the space of a few moments he had seen virtually every variation of hair and headwear possible: black, red, blond, grey, white and bald; straight, curly, pig-tailed and close-shaven; bare-headed, bonneted, scarved, flat-capped, bowler-hatted . . . everything apart from a woman with black hair pulled back so that it looked like it was painted on her scalp. Finally he spotted her. She was standing right on the edge of the marketplace with her back to him. She was talking to a short man with hair that was long, oiled and brushed back to either side of his head, leaving a parting dead centre. His skin was blotchy, and his jacket was shiny with old dirt and grease at the shoulders, elbows and cuffs. He wasn’t the kind of man with whom Sherlock would have thought Mrs Eglantine would associate.

  Sherlock drifted closer, deliberately looking away from the two of them so that they wouldn’t notice they had an eavesdropper.

  As he got closer he heard the man say: ‘Time’s gettin’ on, darlin’, and there’s still no sign of the thing turnin’ up. You sure it’s in the ’ouse?’

  ‘There is nowhere else for it to be,’ Mrs Eglantine said in her cold, precise voice. ‘And you don’t need to remind me how long I’ve been working in that place.’

  ‘Anythin’ I can do to speed things up?’ the man asked.

  ‘’You can get rid of that brat Sherlock,’ she snapped. ‘He’s always snooping around, and he’s too clever for his own good.’

  ‘You want him gone temporary, like, or permanent?’

  ‘So permanently,’ she hissed, ‘that I want him cut up and scattered over such a large area that nobody will ever be able to find all the bits.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sherlock felt his mouth drop open in shock. He knew Mrs Eglantine disliked
him to the point of hatred, but the fact that she hated him enough to want him dead – enough to actually ask someone to kill him – that was a shock. What had he ever done to her? Apart from question her position and challenge her authority, that was.

  The man with the oily hair was saying something, and Sherlock concentrated on hearing what it was.

  ‘I’ll take that into consideration,’ he said, ‘I surely will, but the problem is that I could be seeing a nice return on what I know about that hoity-toity Holmes family, but I’m holdin’ back. Rather than get them to pay me a guinea a week to keep their secret, I’m usin’ that influence to keep you employed by them.’ He sniggered. ‘Let’s face it, who would employ a sour-faced harridan like you if they didn’t have to? I’m losing money on this deal while you get a nice little job and a wage.’

  Mrs Eglantine started to speak, but the man held up a hand and she stopped.

  ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ he said. ‘You’re going to tell me that when you find this treasure of yours that’s hid in the house, you’ll split it with me and we’ll both be rich. The trouble is, that treasure is what’s known as “hypothetical” – I ain’t seen it and I ain’t convinced that it exists. On the other hand, the money the Holmes family could be paying me to keep their secret is real. Cash in hand, if you like – or beer in belly, in my case. So I got to ask myself, am I better off with a smaller amount of real money or a larger amount of hypothetical money?’

  Mrs Eglantine sniffed. ‘We had an arrangement, Mr Harkness,’ she said. ‘If you go back on that now, then nobody will ever trust you again.’

  ‘I’m a blackmailer,’ Harkness pointed out calmly. ‘The only thing people trust me to do is reveal their secrets if I don’t get paid regular.’ He sighed. ‘Look, we’ve had a good thing going over the years, darlin’. You ferret out family secrets wherever you work and bring them to me, and I use them to make a few quid on a regular basis, but since you got wind of this supposed treasure the whole thing’s gone to pot. Why can’t we go back to the way things were?’

  ‘Firstly,’ Mrs Eglantine said icily, ‘I am not your “darling” and I never will be, and secondly, the trivial way you blackmail the local townspeople over their petty thefts and even pettier romances barely brings you in enough money to fund those big bets you like to place on the horses and the illegal boxing. If you ever want to make anything of yourself, I am your only chance.’

  Harkness sighed. ‘You’ve got a sharp but persuasive tongue in your head, Betty. All right – I’ll go along with it for another month. But just a month, you hear? After that I’m getting my hooks into the Holmes family and soaking them for whatever cash I can.’

  ‘To you,’ she replied, ‘I am Mrs Eglantine. Never take the liberty of calling me by my first name.’ She seemed to thaw slightly, reaching out to touch his arm. ‘I’m near to finding it, Josh – I know I am. I just need a little more time.’ She paused for a moment. ‘And I need that interfering brat Sherlock out of my way. Can you do that for me?’

  ‘I’ll get some of my lads on it,’ he promised. ‘You got time for a bite to eat?’

  She shook her head. ‘That damned family are expecting their evening meal. I swear, Josh, there are times when I just feel like poisoning the lot of them and watching as they writhe in agony on the dining-room carpet. But not just yet. I need to get back.’

  ‘Stay in touch.’ He laughed. ‘Let me know if you find them golden plates you keep on about.’

  ‘I will.’ She turned away, then turned back. ‘Oh, I almost forgot. I found this in the room of one of the maids.’ She reached into a hidden fold of her crinoline skirt and withdrew a letter. ‘It is a note from a boy who claims to love her.’

  ‘I ain’t interested in tittle-tattle,’ Harkness said.

  ‘You would be if you knew that the boy in question is the eldest son of the Mayor of Farnham.’

  Harkness cocked his head to one side in sudden interest. ‘The Mayor’s son, seeing some little hussy of a housemaid? That ought to be good for a few quid. The Mayor’s very particular about the company he keeps. He tells everyone that his son is going to marry into the nobility. He’ll want to keep this one very quiet.’ He frowned. ‘The letter’s in the boy’s own handwriting? And he’s signed it?’

  ‘With love and kisses.’

  Harkness grinned. ‘People never learn, do they? I never commit anything to writing, just in case.’ He reached out and took the letter from Mrs Eglantine. ‘Thanks for this. You want cash now, or shall I add it to the account?’

  ‘Pay me later. Just make sure you remember.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll remember. My memory’s razor sharp.’

  They parted, Mrs Eglantine heading off in one direction and Josh Harkness in the other. Sherlock almost expected the man to try to kiss her on the cheek, based on that momentary final flash of friendship, but if the thought crossed his mind he didn’t act on it.

  Sherlock’s gaze flickered uncertainly between the two of them. Should he follow Mrs Eglantine, or Josh Harkness? It occurred to him that he didn’t have to follow either of them – he could just go and find Matty and spend the rest of the day in Farnham – but he knew that he couldn’t let this thing go. There was more at stake here than he had realized – not just his own safety, but the future of his family. He had to find out what was going on, and stop it. If he could.

  After a few seconds he decided that he should follow the greasy-haired man. Mrs Eglantine was heading back to the house – she had said so herself. He knew where she would be and pretty much what she was going to be doing. The man was the uncertain quantity here, and Sherlock needed to find out much more about him. That was the direction that any immediate threat to Sherlock would be coming from.

  Harkness now had something incriminating on one of the housemaids in Holmes Manor. Sherlock wondered which one it was. He didn’t know any of them by name, and rarely said anything to them, but they all seemed pleasant enough, and good at their jobs. If one of them had found happiness with a boy who was from a different social class, then what of it? Sherlock didn’t see why either of them should be punished for the fact, let alone the boy’s father.

  Not for the first time, it occurred to him that the British system of working class, middle class and upper class people was not only pointless and archaic, but damaging to the very fabric of society.

  Checking to see that Mrs Eglantine hadn’t turned around to come back for some reason, Sherlock slipped through the crowd after her friend.

  Sherlock stayed well back, just in case Harkness looked over his shoulder. He probably didn’t know what Sherlock looked like, but he seemed like the kind of man who would be constantly checking for pursuit. As the two of them moved through the crowd Sherlock couldn’t help but notice how some of the townsfolk – usually the better-dressed ones – moved out of his way and turned their heads to avoid looking at him. He seemed to be known to a lot of people – and not in a good way. Sherlock couldn’t help but remember some of the older boys at Deepdene Academy who had bullied the younger ones. They had swaggered through the school halls in much the same way, and the kids had moved out of their path like minnows moving out of the way of a stickleback.

  Sherlock sensed a presence by his side. He turned his head a fraction, not sure that he wanted to acknowledge whoever it was. Maybe Mrs Eglantine had turned back and seen him. But no – it was Matty. He grinned up at Sherlock, one hand holding a cauliflower which he was eating raw.

  ‘Wha’s goin’ on?’ he said through a mouthful of vegetable.

  ‘We’re following someone.’

  ‘Who? That Mrs Eglantine?’

  Sherlock shook his head. ‘No. Some other man she was meeting. Harkness, I think his name is. Josh Harkness.’

  Matty’s face seemed to freeze. His eyes widened in concern. ‘Josh Harkness? Small bloke with hair that looks like he washes it in lamp oil?’

  ‘That’s him.’

  Matty shook his head. ‘Best not to get involved
with him, Sherlock. I heard things about him. The barge hands on the canal talk about him in whispers. He takes a cut from most of the thieves that work this town. Five per cent of their earnings, he takes, payable every week. If they don’t pay him, he takes five per cent of their bodies – just cuts it off. Fingers, toes, ears, noses . . . whatever it takes until he has five per cent of their body weight. That’s his rule, and he never varies it.’ He shuddered. ‘We had a talk, him and me, a little time after I arrived in Farnham. He took me by the shoulder in the marketplace and said quietly, “I notice that you’re not averse to nabbing bits of food here and there, young ’un. That’s all right – never let it be said that Josh Harkness begrudges a boy his fill. But take a note from a friend – if you ever graduate to taking money rather than fruit and pies, I get a cut. Ask anyone. And if I don’t get a cut –”’ he made a snipping motion with his fingers – ‘“well, one way or another, I get my cut, if you see what I mean.” He’s not a nice man, Sherlock. Even on a scale of people who are not nice, he ranks right near the top.’

  Sherlock nodded thoughtfully as the two of them moved through the crowd. ‘I understand. I got the impression that he had few scruples, but he’s got something on my family – some kind of information that he’s holding over their heads.’

  ‘Yeah, he dabbles in blackmail as well. He collects all the little secrets that people have, and he gets them to pay him every week according to their means for the privilege of keeping it all secret.’ Matty shook his head. ‘It’s a few pence here, a couple of shillings there and a handful of pounds every week, but it all mounts up. He’s making a fortune without working for it.’

  ‘And he’s cashing in on people’s unhappiness,’ Sherlock said grimly. He found that the thought was making him angry. ‘He’s a parasite on the human race, and someone ought to do something about it. Why don’t they?’

  ‘The people he’s blackmailing are too scared to go to the police, because if they do their secrets will be revealed. Besides, he’s probably blackmailing half the police in Farnham as well. The last thing they’re going to do is expose him.’