by Andrew Lane
And then Amyus Crowe did the most amazing thing Sherlock had ever seen. He threw his arms wide and his head back, and he roared as well. His voice echoed through the room. With his massive chest and his heavily muscled arms and legs he seemed suddenly larger than life. He was like a bear as well, but white instead of brown – a polar bear instead of a grizzly bear.
The bear dropped its head and gazed down at Crowe. It sniffed uncertainly.
‘Ah have eaten bigger bears than you for mah breakfast,’ Crowe said firmly. ‘Go back from whence you came, mah friend. Live for another day.’
Unbelievably, the bear sank to all fours. Even so, its head was on a level with Crowe’s. It sniffed at him for a long moment, then it turned round and shambled out of the room, back towards its pit. It passed by Sherlock without even a glance, head held low.
‘Now that,’ Macfarlane said, breaking the silence, ‘is something men would pay to see. Can I perhaps offer you a job, Mr Crowe? Fights twice weekly, payment to be agreed?’
Crowe glanced at Sherlock. He saw the crossbow, still held in Sherlock’s hand, and nodded. ‘Ah gave up bear-wrestlin’ some years ago,’ he said. ‘Ah much prefer bein’ a teacher. More of a challenge, ah find.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
They returned home from Scotland the next day. Sherlock slept for most of the journey. He was exhausted, both mentally and physically. None of the others seemed inclined to talk. In those occasional moments when Sherlock’s mind rose from the depths of sleep he found them either asleep, reading newspapers or just moodily staring out of the window. Matty dashed off the train at Newcastle and came back just as it was leaving with a paper bag full of bread rolls. That was the extent of anything momentous happening.
At Farnham they said their goodbyes as passengers disembarked around them and porters unloaded crates and boxes from the train.
‘You’ll be staying around?’ Rufus said to Crowe, phrasing the question that Sherlock had been wanting to ask but didn’t dare.
‘No reason to go anywhere else now,’ Crowe replied. He had his left arm protectively around Virginia’s shoulders. She looked pale. ‘We don’t need to run any more, and we got nothin’ pullin’ us home.’ He gazed down at Virginia and then across at Sherlock. ‘In fact, we’ve got a shovelful of reasons to stay. As long as the cottage is still standin’, an’ nobody’s moved into it, ah think you’ll be seein’ a deal more of us in the future.’
‘I think I speak for all of us,’ Stone said, ‘when I say that I’m glad. Life would be a lot less interesting without you around, although to be fair it would also be a lot safer.’
Crowe extended his right hand towards Stone. ‘You were there for us when we needed you. That’s the only definition of friendship that counts, in my book. Thank you.’
Stone, taken by surprise, shook Crowe’s hand. He winced at the pressure of Crowe’s grip on his still tender fingers. ‘I’d say it’s been a distinct pleasure, Mr Crowe, but it hasn’t; and I’d say don’t hesitate to call on us again if you need any help, but I’m seriously hoping that you will forgo that opportunity.’ He smiled, to show that he wasn’t serious. ‘Regardless of all that, however – you’re more than welcome.’
Crowe shook Matty’s hand next. ‘Son, you’re brave an’ you’re street-smart. With your instincts an’ Sherlock’s brainpower, you make an unbeatable combination. Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome, I s’pose,’ Matty said, shifting uncomfortably. He wasn’t used to praise, or to being the centre of attention.
Crowe turned to Sherlock. He gazed at him for a long moment, then shook his head. ‘Sherlock, whenever ah think ah’ve gotten you figured out, you manage to surprise me. Ah’m not sure which one of us is the student and which one is the teacher any more. Ah suspect that it’s more a partnership of equals now, but ah’m not uncomfortable about that. Ah’m not too old to learn.’ He paused and swallowed. ‘Fact is, Virginia an’ I would be dead or on the run now, if it weren’t for you. Ah owe you more than ah can say.’
Sherlock glanced away, out at the bustling scene of the station forecourt. ‘I don’t like change,’ he muttered eventually. ‘I like to have everything in my life familiar, and I need to know where I can find it. That counts for people as well as things.’
‘Well, son, you know where we are. Don’t be a stranger now.’
Crowe dropped his arm away from Virginia’s shoulders, ready for the two of them to head off towards their cottage, but Virginia stepped closer to Sherlock.
‘Thank you,’ she said simply, and kissed him on the lips.
Before he could do anything apart from blush, she had turned away and was walking off with her arm through her father’s.
In the station, the train’s steam whistle sounded. It was ready to leave.
‘I think,’ Rufus Stone said, breaking the heavy silence, ‘that I need a stiff tot of rum and a liniment-soaked bandage for my fingers. Or a stiff tot of liniment and a rum-soaked bandage for my fingers. Either one will do. The rum in the Farnham taverns tastes like liniment anyway.’ He cocked his head as he looked at Sherlock. ‘Let’s delay restarting the violin lessons, eh? I suspect that your fingers will be a lot more agile than mine for a while, and I hate to be embarrassed.’
Glancing at Matty, Rufus raised a finger to his forehead and saluted. ‘Until next time, Mr Arnatt.’
Stone walked off jauntily. Sherlock watched him go. He knew he should have been feeling something over all the goodbyes, but his lips were still tingling with the memory of Virginia’s kiss.
‘See you tomorrow?’ Matty said.
‘I suppose so,’ Sherlock replied. ‘The only thing I can think of now is sleep, and lots of it.’
Matty glanced at the crates that had been unloaded from the train. ‘Looks like there’s some good scoff there,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll follow them crates for a while, just in case an accident happens and one smashes.’
Sherlock smiled. Matty was irrepressible. He would always survive, no matter what happened. In fact, Sherlock wouldn’t be surprised if, in fifteen or twenty years’ time, someone named Matthew Arnatt was a highly successful businessman with interests all over the country. But he would still be stealing pies off market stalls, just to keep his hand in; of that much Sherlock was certain.
‘People think there’s an obvious dividing line between things that are legal and illegal,’ he said quietly. ‘I think if I’ve learned anything since moving to Farnham, it’s that there is no line. There’s a whole lot of grey in between the white at one end of the scale and the black at the other end. We just need to be careful where we stand.’
‘As long as I’m closer to the white end than the black end, I’m prob’ly all right,’ Matty said. He grinned suddenly, then turned and ran off.
Sherlock held on for a moment, waiting for something to happen. He wasn’t sure what that thing might be, but he had a sense that the storm had paused for a moment rather than passing on. Eventually, when nobody else came up to talk to him and nothing at all noteworthy happened anywhere around him, he left, feeling somehow deflated.
He caught a ride on a farmer’s passing carriage back to Holmes Manor. He jumped off at the gates and walked up the curving drive to the front door, carrying his bag of clothes and toiletries.
The door was unlocked, and he pushed it open. Sunlight streamed across the hall. The space that for so many months had seemed dark and threatening now was filled with warmth and light. It was like an entirely different house. Had he finally got used to it, or was this something to do with Mrs Eglantine’s departure? Had she taken the shadows and the darkness with her?
As he stepped into the hall, a figure appeared from the dining room.
‘Ah, you must be Master Sherlock,’ a voice said.
Sherlock’s tired gaze took in the form of a middle-aged woman with straw-coloured hair pulled back into a bun that was secured at the back of her head with a net. Her face was kind, and her eyes were brown and lively. Although she wore black
there was something about her clothes that gave the impression of parties and dances rather than funerals and wakes.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve been away for a few days.’
‘So the master said. He mentioned that he was expecting you back soon.’ She smiled. ‘My name is Mrs Mulhill, and I am the new housekeeper. I started yesterday.’
‘Welcome to Holmes Manor.’
‘Thank you. I am looking forward to working here very much indeed.’ She glanced at his bag. ‘I’m sure you have laundry that I can take. If you want to make yourself comfortable somewhere, I will bring you a tray of tea and some biscuits. The master and the mistress are out at the moment, but they will be back for dinner.’
‘Tea and biscuits,’ he said, ‘would be wonderful.’
Leaving his bag in her care, he went across to the library. In his uncle’s absence it was the place where he felt most at home. The front room was for receiving visitors, and the dining room was for eating, and he didn’t feel like going up to his bedroom.
He settled down into his uncle’s leather chair, soothed by the smell of the books and the manuscripts that surrounded him. On the desk he could see the pile of sermons, letters and suchlike that his uncle had asked him to sort through, before Josh Harkness, Gahan Macfarlane and Bryce Scobell had infiltrated his life. It all seemed so long ago.
The sermon in front of him was one he had already looked at – an attack by a vicar somewhere up in the Midlands on various heresies and schisms within the Church. Sherlock’s gaze caught on the phrase ‘Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ halfway down the page, and it was as if a light had suddenly gone on in his brain.
Gold plates. Mrs Eglantine had been looking for gold plates, because she had overheard Sherlock’s Uncle Sherrinford talking about them. She had been obsessed with the idea that somewhere in the house was hidden a stash of gold plates – a treasure of some kind – but she had never found them.
There was a treasure, but it wasn’t the kind she had been anticipating.
Sherlock called to mind what he had read about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – or the Mormons, as they were also known – while he was in his uncle’s library. The movement had begun in America about forty years before, led by a man named Joseph Smith Jr. He had claimed that he had in his possession a sacred text called the Book of Mormon, which he told people was a supplement to the Bible. When asked where this sacred book had come from, Smith claimed that when he was seventeen years old an angel named Moroni told him that a collection of ancient writings, engraved on golden plates by ancient prophets, was buried under a hill near New York. The writings told of a tribe of Jews who had been led by God from Jerusalem to America six hundred years before Jesus was born.
Golden plates.
Sherlock felt a laugh bubbling up in his chest. Mrs Eglantine must have overheard Sherrinford Holmes talking to Aunt Anna about the golden plates of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Had he mentioned the word ‘treasure’ as well? Had he said to her something like, ‘I shall treasure this letter, my dear, as it gives me everything I need to argue that the golden plates of the Mormons never existed,’ and had Mrs Eglantine overheard the words ‘treasure’ and ‘golden plates’ and drawn a completely erroneous conclusion? Without asking her, Sherlock would never know, and he devoutly hoped that he would never meet her again, but it seemed likely. The treasure she had so diligently searched for was a chimera. A complete illusion.
Sherlock laughed again. He would tell his uncle, of course, as soon as he returned, but he didn’t think Sherrinford would be too distressed by the news that there was no treasure. He wasn’t a man who cared much for worldly goods.
In the midst of laughing, Sherlock smelled something sweet. It was a familiar smell, vaguely medicinal. He knew it from somewhere, but he couldn’t quite place it. For a moment he thought that Mrs Mulhill had returned with the tray of biscuits she had promised, but the room was empty apart from him.
He tried to stand up, but his vision began to blur. He put a hand on the desk to steady himself, but he missed. He fell forward, head impacting on the blotter, but he didn’t feel the impact. He didn’t feel anything apart from a delicious lassitude. A warm mist closed in around him, and he slept.
Vague visions, like a collage of pictures, filled his mind. A black carriage. Ropes. A pad that smelled sweet and cloying placed across his mouth. The sky. A face, red-bearded and wild-eyed, that he recognized but could not put a name to . . .
When he woke up, everything was different.
He was buried in the midst of a pile of thick, tarry ropes in a small room. The walls, the floor and the ceiling were made of rough wooden planks. His head was pounding, and his stomach was lurching. The floor seemed to be moving beneath him, but it was only when he tried to push the ropes away and get to his feet that he realized that the problem was with the room, not with his sense of balance. It really was moving.
He pulled the door open and stepped through, still holding the frame for support.
He was looking out on the deck of a ship. Beyond the rails was a choppy grey sea flecked with white spume. There was no land in sight.
A sailor came around the corner and stopped dead at the sight of Sherlock. He sighed heavily and turned to look behind him.
‘Get Mr Larchmont,’ he yelled. ‘We got ourselves a stowaway!’ Turning back to Sherlock he shook his head. ‘You chose the wrong ship to stow away on, boy.
‘Why?’ Sherlock asked. ‘Where are we going?’
‘This ain’t a pleasure cruise to the Mediterranean,’ the sailor said. He smiled, revealing a handful of tobacco-stained teeth. ‘This is the Gloria Scott, and we’re sailing all the way to China!’
HISTORICAL NOTES
You might think that researching a book set on the same land mass as the one where I live would be easier than researching one set in, oh, say, America or Russia. I certainly thought that before I started work. The strange thing is that it didn’t turn out that way.
I first started thinking about setting a book in Edinburgh when I was staying there for a few days. I was doing a talk at the Edinburgh Festival, and then visiting a couple of schools and talking to the pupils about Sherlock Holmes, and me, and why I wanted to write these books. I was staying in a small hotel in the centre of Edinburgh – just off Princes Street, in fact – and every day, when I left the hotel, I looked to my right and saw the massive volcanic plug of Castle Rock, with Edinburgh Castle sitting on top of it like a solid grey cloud hanging above the city. It all looked so stunning that I couldn’t help but start to picture Sherlock Holmes clambering up Castle Rock, risking his life to save someone. Probably Virginia.
What I should have done, of course, was go to the nearest bookshop and buy as many books on the history of Edinburgh as I could. But I had a lot of stuff in my suitcase, and at the time I was busy writing the previous Young Sherlock Holmes mystery, Black Ice, so I didn’t have time to think about the next book. I filed the images and scenes away in a little locked box in my mind for later. Much later.
Much later comes around faster than you expect. By the time I started to write Fire Storm I was back in Dorset, nearly as far from Edinburgh as it’s possible to get without falling into the sea. Looking around for inspiration, I could only find Michael Fry’s Edinburgh – A History of the City (published by Macmillan – who also publish the Young Sherlock books – in 2009, which means I probably could have got them to send me a free copy rather than buying my own). That book did, however, give me a good sense of how the city had developed and the kinds of people who lived there.
The story of the bodysnatchers Burke and Hare, which Matty tells Sherlock when they are in the tavern off Princes Street, is entirely true. Edinburgh was famed for its medical school, and there was indeed a shortage of bodies. Burke and Hare found the perfect solution to the problem – provide fresh bodies to order, by killing people. Burke was indeed hanged, and then dissected in the very place where so ma
ny of his victims had ended up, while Hare did vanish, never to be seen again.
The other story that Matty tells Sherlock – later, when they are coming out of the tenements where they have been questioned by Bryce Scobell – is not true, although it is widely believed.
I ’eard a rumour, last time I was ’ere, that the local authorities was tryin’ to move people out of the tenements. ’Parently they wanted to sell the land off to build factories on, or posh mansions, or somethin’. People I talked to told me that the authorities would start a rumour that some illness, like consumption or the plague, had broken out in a tenement. They’d move everybody out to the workhouse, then they’d knock the tenement down an’ build on the land. Make a lot of money that way, they could. I ’eard that sometimes, if there weren’t any places left in the workhouse, they’d brick up the alleyways in an’ out of the tenements an’ leave the people inside to starve, but I don’t believe that.’
The tenement in question is called Mary King’s Close (a ‘close’ being the local name for the alleyway between two tenement blocks). It’s been built on, over the years, to the point where what were alleys are now underground tunnels. You can visit the place today, and hear the stories about the people who were walled up there to starve, and about the ghosts that still appear in the rooms at night, but the truth is rather more prosaic. People falling ill with the plague often voluntarily quarantined themselves in their own houses to avoid passing the disease on, indicating their status by placing white flags in the windows. Friends and neighbours passed food and supplies to them until they either got better (unlikely) or died (much more likely). There were even special places set up outside the city where plague victims could go to be segregated from everyone else.
Interestingly (or perhaps not) Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859 and studied medicine there from 1876 to 1881. One of his teachers was a man named Joseph Bell, and it is widely accepted that Doyle based the character of Sherlock Holmes on Bell (who, it was said, could diagnose not only a patient’s illness but also their occupation merely by looking at them). I did briefly consider including an appearance by Joseph Bell in this book, but I quickly decided not to. It would have been too much like an in-joke, and there was no real reason for him to be there.
