Young Sherlock Holmes: Fire Storm

by Andrew Lane

  ‘A rabbit’s head in a burrow,’ Sherlock corrected. That elusive thought in his head finally started running. ‘A head in a burrow. Matty, you’re a genius!’

  ‘I am?’ the boy said, surprised.

  ‘Well, technically you’re not a genius, but you have an amazing ability to bring out the genius in others. It’s so obvious!’

  ‘It is?’

  ‘Remember when you’d been kidnapped by Duke Balthassar’s men and taken to New York, and we tracked you down?’

  Matty nodded, mystified.

  ‘Do you remember when I found you in that building? You tried to get me to understand that they were taking you on the train line to Pennsylvania?’

  Matty smiled. ‘Yeah, that was clever, wasn’t it?’

  ‘You mimed using a pen, then touched the windowsill, then pointed to a weather vane on a nearby building. It took me a while to put it together, but I did.’

  ‘Yeah, I remember, but so what?’

  Sherlock sighed in exasperation. ‘Don’t you see? That’s what Amyus Crowe is doing here. A head in a burrow. He and Virginia are going to Edinburgh!’

  Matty frowned. ‘That’s a bit of a coincidence,’ he said dubiously. ‘Him having a rabbit’s head and a nearby burrow to put it in, and knowing he was going to Edinburgh.’

  ‘I think it happened the other way around,’ Sherlock said. He could feel the pure, cold flame of triumph flashing through his body, burning away the tiredness and the aching muscles. He’d done it! He’d cracked the code! He knew he was right! ‘I’m not saying it’s the best clue in the world, but Mr Crowe had to work with whatever he had to hand. He could use the pinholes in the wall to point us out here, he had the rabbit’s body lying around and he knew there were burrows out here in the paddock. He used the ingredients to hand to make a clue, and then he took Virginia to Edinburgh because that was the only destination he could build a clue for!’

  ‘But why has he let us know that he’s going to Edinburgh?’ Matty asked.

  ‘He must want us to go after him. There’s no other reason. If he didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye, he could have left a note saying just that: “Goodbye”. It wouldn’t matter who found that. But it clearly does matter that nobody knows he has gone to Edinburgh. I think he’s in danger. I think he wants our help.’

  ‘We’re goin’ to follow him, aren’t we?’ Matty said gleefully.

  ‘Well,’ Sherlock answered cautiously, ‘there are other options. Perhaps we should tell my brother.’

  ‘How long will that take? And what’s he going to do? Knowing your brother, I doubt he’ll be getting the next train to Scotland. He’ll just send lots of telegrams out, getting people to search for Mr Crowe, but they won’t know what he or Virginia look like.’

  Sherlock shook his head. ‘We’ve never been to Edinburgh,’ he said. ‘We won’t know anything about the place. How can we help them if we’ll be practically lost there ourselves?’

  ‘I’ve been there,’ Matty said cheerfully. ‘My dad took me and me mum there on the barge. Took weeks, it did. We stayed there for a month or more while he looked for work.’

  ‘Even so – the two of us, just kids, alone in Scotland?’

  ‘You went to America. And Russia.’

  ‘I had Mr Crowe with me in America.’

  ‘Until you ran off with Virginia.’

  ‘That was an accident,’ Sherlock protested. ‘The train left the station before we could get off. I also had Mycroft with me in Russia.’

  ‘Before he was arrested.’

  ‘But that wasn’t part of our plan. Anyway, Rufus Stone was with us. He helped.’ A bright light seemed to go on in his head. ‘What if we asked Rufus Stone to come with us?’

  ‘Would he?’ Matty asked dubiously. ‘I didn’t think he and Mr Crowe got on.’

  ‘They don’t,’ Sherlock admitted. ‘They’re like a cat and a dog locked in the same room, but . . .’ He thought for a minute. ‘But I’m pretty sure that my brother is paying Rufus Stone to hang around Farnham and make sure I don’t get into trouble. Mycroft still thinks that the Paradol Chamber are going to take some kind of action against me. If I tell Rufus that you and I are going to Edinburgh, then he’ll have to come with us, won’t he? If he’s supposed to stop me getting into trouble, then he won’t have any choice.’

  ‘Won’t he just stop you from getting on a train?’

  Sherlock smiled. ‘You know Rufus Stone. You know what he’s like. Given a choice between stopping me going to Scotland or coming with me and having an adventure, what do you think he’ll do?’

  ‘Fair point,’ Matty admitted. ‘When do we tell him?’

  ‘Let’s collect a bit more information first. I want to check the station in Farnham. If Mr Crowe and Virginia are heading for Scotland, then they’re not doing it on horseback, or in a cart. They’d be too vulnerable. No, they’ll go by train.’

  Matty frowned, carefully thinking through what Sherlock had said. Watching him, Sherlock felt a sudden flash of kinship. Matty had become a part of his life in a way he had never expected. The boy was his opposite in so many ways – instinctive where Sherlock was logical, emotional where Sherlock was cold, impulsive where Sherlock would always think through his options – but he had a quick mind, and he was fantastically loyal. He was the closest thing Sherlock had to a best friend. Sherlock wondered if he always would be.

  ‘If Mr Crowe bought two tickets to Edinburgh from the ticket office at Farnham Station,’ he said slowly, ‘then he’d be leaving a trail. If the Americans are chasing him they could just check at the ticket office and find out where he went. It’s not as if he’s inconspicuous.’

  ‘No,’ Sherlock agreed. ‘So what would he do?’

  Matty shrugged. ‘I dunno.’

  ‘He’d probably buy two tickets to an intermediate station – say, Guildford, but he and Virginia could get off earlier – maybe at Ash Wharf. He could then buy two tickets through to Edinburgh from there. If anyone was following then they’d go from Farnham direct to Guildford, and there they would lose the trail, because nobody at the ticket office in Guildford would remember him.’

  ‘Clever,’ said Matty approvingly.

  ‘In fact,’ Sherlock went on, ‘if I were him, I would buy two tickets for Guildford, get off at Ash Wharf, buy two tickets for London, then when I got to London I’d buy two tickets for Edinburgh. That confuses the trail even more.’

  ‘You’re sure that’s what he’d do?’

  Sherlock nodded. ‘He’s a hunter. He knows the kinds of trail that prey can leave, and he’ll be careful not to do the same thing.’

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘Now we go to Farnham.’

  The two of them rode from the cottage towards the centre of Farnham, not without a twinge of guilt in Sherlock’s mind. He hated leaving the cottage empty and unguarded. Who knew what might happen to it before Amyus Crowe and Virginia came back? They would come back, he was sure of it. He would make sure of it.

  The ticket-office clerk at Farnham – a tall elderly man with fluffy white sideburns – confirmed that a bigman in a white suit and hat, accompanied by a girl dressed like a boy, had bought two tickets the day before. Sherlock was pleased to note that the tickets had been bought with Guildford as the destination. So far his deductions were bang on target.

  ‘Look,’ Matty said, pointing across the road. In a small triangle of field next to a barn a horse was cropping the grass. It was tied by a long halter to a fence.

  ‘That’s Sandia,’ Matty said.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Sherlock asked.

  ‘Very sure.’

  ‘At least we know he’s all right. Virginia has probably paid someone at the station to keep an eye on him. If she had time to do that, they can’t have been taken forcibly. They must have found out that somebody was after them. If I know Mr Crowe, he will have managed to keep one step ahead of them.’ Suddenly Sherlock felt an awful lot better.

  ‘Are we going on to Ash Wha
rf now?’

  Sherlock thought for a moment. There was a point at which extra evidence did nothing more than confirm what you already knew. He was confident enough in his deductions. ‘No, let’s go and find Rufus Stone. We need to tell him what we’re going to do, and then we need to talk to my aunt and uncle.’ He remembered the events of earlier that day. ‘I think there’s enough residual goodwill there that they won’t raise any objections to me going away for a few days, especially if they know that Rufus Stone is going with me.

  Matty turned to go, but Sherlock reached out a hand and stopped him. Matty turned back enquiringly.

  ‘What?’

  Sherlock hesitated, wondering how to ask the question. Wondering if he should ask the question. ‘That stuff you said earlier, about friendship getting thrown away when times are tight and money is scarce – did you really mean it?’

  Matty looked away. His lips tightened for a moment before he answered. ‘I’ve had friends before,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t have them now. They left, one by one, when it suited them. So I learned that’s the way things work.’

  ‘Not with me,’ Sherlock said. ‘And not with Amyus Crowe or Virginia.’

  Matty nodded reluctantly. ‘At least you’ve convinced me they didn’t want to go. That’s a start. Now come on. Time’s slipping away.’

  They found Stone where Sherlock had expected him to be – in his lodgings, practising by himself up in the attic space. The two boys could hear him faintly from the street, playing what sounded like a wild dance. As they climbed the stairs the music got louder and louder, until they entered the attic where it seemed to fill the entire space, whirling and spinning with the lanky figure of Rufus Stone sawing madly with the bow in the centre. If he heard them enter then he gave no sign. Eyes closed, he pulled wilder and wilder notes from his instrument until, with a final flourish, he finished. The air appeared to quiver like a jelly for a split second before collapsing back to normal.

  ‘That’s a hell of a tune,’ Matty said approvingly.

  ‘Very kind,’ Stone said, turning and grinning at the two of them. ‘Although I have to say, it sounds even better played by the light of a campfire in the middle of a forest at midnight. The trouble is that the older I get, the more I find I prefer the comfort of a warm, dry house.’ He gazed from one boy to the other. ‘Something has happened, hasn’t it? Tell me.’

  Between them, with Sherlock sketching in the facts and Matty filling the gaps with vivid descriptions, they told Rufus Stone the story. His face grew grimmer and grimmer as they spoke. When Sherlock finished by telling him exactly what the two of them planned to do, he stood for a moment, thinking.

  ‘You really both intend going to Edinburgh?’ he asked finally.

  ‘Yes,’ Sherlock answered.

  ‘And there’s nothing I can say to change your minds?’

  ‘No,’ Matty replied.

  He sighed. ‘Then it’s a good thing I keep a bag packed and ready by the door. It won’t be the first time I’ve had to leave a place at a moment’s notice.’

  ‘The difference is,’ Sherlock said quietly, ‘that we’ll all be coming back. With two extra people.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It was the next day before the three of them could set out for Edinburgh.

  After talking Rufus Stone into accompanying them as a responsible adult – a task that was surprisingly easy, Sherlock thought, all things considered – Matty had headed off to make arrangements for Albert to be looked after while Sherlock rode back to Holmes Manor to talk to his aunt and uncle. As he expected, they were still dazed and distracted from Mrs Eglantine’s fall from grace, and the personal freedom they had suddenly gained as a result. He presented the trip to them as a fait accompli and, as he expected, they went along with it. After all, they had previously agreed to him travelling to America and Russia. Compared to that, Edinburgh was just down the road. Or up it.

  Uncle Sherrinford did nearly throw the whole plan into chaos when he asked to be introduced to Rufus Stone. ‘I cannot,’ he proclaimed, ‘in all conscience, let my nephew travel to the far end of the country with a man I have never even met. I know nothing about him.’

  Remembering Rufus Stone’s bohemian taste in clothes, his earring and his gold tooth, Sherlock suppressed a grimace of concern. If Uncle Sherrinford ever met Rufus Stone in person he would probably forbid Sherlock from ever associating with him again in Farnham, let alone travelling with him to Scotland. Sherlock had developed a lot of respect for his aunt and uncle – a respect that bordered on familial love – but they weren’t exactly the most understanding of people. Grasping at straws, he said, ‘If it helps, Mycroft has known Mr Stone for several years, and is currently employing him to be my violin tutor.’

  ‘Ah,’ Sherrinford said, nodding his head. ‘In that case, I waive my requirement. Your brother is a perspicacious man, and I trust his judgement when it comes to character.’ He peered sideways at his wife. ‘You know, I recall that Mycroft said that there was something wrong with Mrs Eglantine the first time he met her. Perhaps I should have told him what she was doing to us. He might have been able to help.’

  ‘What’s done is done,’ Anna said, patting his hand. ‘The Good Lord does not place a burden on our shoulders that is too heavy to carry, and each burden makes us stronger.’

  Sherlock dined with his aunt and uncle that night. The food wasn’t up to the usual standard – the shock waves from Mrs Eglantine’s disappearance seemed to have echoed down to the kitchen staff – and there was little conversation. Uncle Sherrinford and Aunt Anna seemed subdued by the magnitude of what had happened. Even Aunt Anna’s usual constant stream of opinion, gossip and commentary on the day’s events was absent. As soon as the meal was over, Sherlock excused himself and headed for bed. He’d had a busy day, and he needed to regain his strength for what lay ahead.

  Sherlock, Matty and Rufus Stone met up at Farnham Station early the next morning. Each of them had a bag of clothes, toiletries and other travelling necessities.

  ‘This,’ Rufus Stone said with a grim face, ‘is a remarkably bad idea. My initial flush of enthusiasm has dissipated like a rain puddle soaking into the earth. Edinburgh is a big city, with a lot of people in it. What you intend doing is a bit like searching an ant’s nest for one particular ant. It won’t be easy.’

  ‘Nothing easy is worthwhile,’ Sherlock pointed out.

  ‘Touché.’ Stone smiled.

  Rufus Stone paid for the tickets. He bought them from Farnham to London, on the basis that they could buy the next set of tickets, from London to Edinburgh, once they had arrived, and because it would be embarrassing and potentially dangerous to leave a trail behind them when Amyus Crowe hadn’t. Sherlock offered to use some of the money that Mycroft had sent him, but Stone shrugged. ‘Your brother pays me a regular salary for teaching you the violin,’ he pointed out. ‘One way or the other, it’s his money which is buying the tickets. It doesn’t really matter which one of us hands it over.’

  There wasn’t a train for another hour, so Rufus suggested having a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich before they left. The boys agreed enthusiastically. The nearest tea shop was just across the road, but while the three of them were eating Sherlock stared through the shop window and noticed two men standing in front of the station and looking around. One of them had black hair pulled back into a ponytail; the other had smallpox scars across his cheeks and forehead.

  ‘Are those the two you think are looking for Amyus Crowe?’ Rufus asked, following the direction of Sherlock’s gaze.

  Matty nodded.

  They watched as the men approached the ticket office and asked the clerk a question. He shook his head. One of the men asked him something else, and slid some money across the counter. The clerk tore two tickets from a strip and passed them over.

  ‘They’ve bought tickets,’ Rufus pointed out. ‘That means they’ll probably be on the same train as us. Either they know about Edinburgh or they are moving the search to Guil
dford. Whatever the reason, we need to stay out of their way.’

  Finishing their sandwiches and tea, they headed back across the road to the station. A few minutes later the train heaved itself alongside the platform: a behemoth of black iron shrouded in steam and hissing like some biblical demon. The three of them found a compartment to themselves. Sherlock kept an eye out for the two Americans, but he couldn’t see where on the train they got on – if they had got on at all.

  Sherlock was used to train journeys by now. For a while he let himself become entranced by the scenery flashing past, but when that grew too boring he waited until they arrived at the next large station – which turned out to be Guildford – and quickly left the train to buy a newspaper from a seller on the platform. It was a London edition of The Times, presumably brought down as part of a large bundle on an early train.

  The train was venting steam in a white cloud across the platform when he turned away from the newsvendor’s stall. As he moved back towards the long wooden wall of the train carriages, an errant breeze pushed the steam away and he spotted one of the Americans walking across the platform. It was the taller man, the one with the black hair shot through with grey and the gnarled scar tissue where his right ear should have been. He was coming from the direction of the ticket office. His companion – the man with the pockmarks across his cheeks – was standing by the carriage door, holding it open so that the train couldn’t leave before his friend was back on board. As the black-haired man approached his companion he shook his head. Whatever he’d been looking for – which Sherlock suspected was some news on Amyus Crowe’s movements – he was disappointed.

  As they got back on to the train, and as Sherlock headed for his own carriage, he wondered whether the men knew about him and Matty and Rufus Stone. Rufus hadn’t spent much time with Mr Crowe, but Sherlock and Matty were regular companions of his. Most people in Farnham would have seen Sherlock and Mr Crowe together at one time or another, and people in small towns were inveterate gossips – something that Josh Harkness had traded on. It would only take a few pence changing hands, or the purchase of a pint of beer, for them to find out that Amyus Crowe spent time with people other than just his daughter. If they had descriptions of Sherlock and Matty, then they might recognize them on the train. The three of them would have to be careful.