Young Sherlock Holmes: Death Cloud

by Andrew Lane

  ‘Where did you get the boat from?’ Sherlock asked. ‘Was it something that belonged to the family?’

  ‘Hardly,’ Matty said, snorting. ‘Let’s just say I found it and leave it at that.’

  ‘So how do you get by? What do you do for food?’

  Matty shrugged. ‘I work in the fields over the summer, picking fruit or cutting wheat. Everyone wants cheap workers, and they don’t worry about using kids. During the winter I do odd jobs: a bit of gardening here, replacing lead tiles on church roofs there. I make do. I’ll do anything apart from chimney-sweeping and working down the mines. That’s a slow death, that is.’

  ‘You make a good point,’ Sherlock conceded. ‘How long have you been in Farnham?’

  ‘A couple of weeks. It’s a good place,’ Matty conceded. ‘People are reasonably friendly, and they don’t bother you too much. It’s a solid, respectable town.’ He hesitated slightly. ‘Except . . .’

  ‘Except what?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He shook his head, pulling himself together. ‘Look, I’ve been watching you for a while. You ain’t got any friends around here, and you’re not stupid. You can figure stuff out. Well, I seen something in town, and I can’t explain it.’ He blushed slightly, and looked away. ‘I was hoping you could help.’

  Sherlock shrugged, intrigued. ‘I can give it a go. What is it?’

  ‘Best I show you.’ Matty brushed his hands on his trousers. ‘You want to go around the town first? I can tell you where the best places are to eat and drink and just watch people going by. Also where the best alleys are to run away down and the dead ends you want to avoid.’

  ‘Will you show me your boat as well?’

  Matty glanced at Sherlock. ‘Maybe. If I decide I can trust you.’

  Together, the two of them headed down the slope towards the road that led into town. The sky above them was blue, and Sherlock could smell smoke from a fire and hear someone in the distance chopping wood with the regularity of a pocket watch ticking away. At one point, as they briefly crossed into a copse of trees, Matty pointed to a bird hovering high above them. ‘Goshawk,’ he said succinctly. ‘Tracking something.’

  It was a good few miles into town, and it took them nearly an hour to make it. Sherlock could feel the muscles in his legs and lower back stretching as he walked. He would feel stiff and achy tomorrow, but for now the exercise was clearing away the dark depression that had settled over him since he had arrived at Holmes Manor.

  As they got closer to the town, and as houses began to appear with more and more regularity along the sides of the road, Sherlock began to detect a musty, unpleasant smell drifting across the countryside.

  ‘What is that smell?’ he asked.

  Matty sniffed. ‘What smell?’

  ‘That smell. Surely you can’t miss it? It smells like a carpet that’s got wet and not been allowed to dry out properly.’

  ‘That’ll be the breweries. There’s a good few of them scattered around along the river. Barratt’s Brewery is the largest. He’s expanding cos of the troops that are newly billeted at Aldershot. That’s the smell of wet barley. Beer’s what turned my dad bad. He joined the Navy to get away from it, but there it was the rum that got to him.’

  They were on the outskirts of the town proper now, and there were more houses and cottages than there were gaps. Many of the houses were constructed from red bricks, with either roofs of thatched reeds tied down and bulging like loaves of bread or dark red tiles. Behind the houses, a gradual slope led up to a grey stone castle which perched above the town. The slope led up further, past the castle, to a distant ridge. Sherlock couldn’t help wondering what use a castle was in that position if any attacker could get above it and rain arrows, stones and fire down on it for as long as they liked.

  ‘They have a market here every day,’ Matty volunteered. ‘In the town square. They sell sheep and cows and pies and everything. Good place to check when they’re clearing up at the end of the day. They’re always in a hurry to get out before the sun goes down, and all kinds of stuff falls off the stalls, or gets thrown away cos it’s a bit rotten or wormy. You can eat pretty well just on the stuff they leave behind.’

  ‘Lovely,’ Sherlock said drily. At least meals at Holmes Manor were something to look forward to, although the atmosphere over lunch and dinner was not.

  The town proper surrounded them now, and the street was filled with so many people that the two boys had to keep stepping off the pavement and into the rutted road to avoid being bumped into. Sherlock spent most of his time looking out for piles of manure, trying to ensure that he didn’t end up stepping in one. The general standard of dress had improved, with decent jackets and cravats on the men and dresses on the women predominating over the breeches and jerkins and smocks that had been worn by the people they passed out in the countryside. Dogs were everywhere, either well kept and on leads or mangy and rough – strays looking for food. Cats kept to the shadows, thin and big-eyed. Out in the road horses pulled carriages and carts in both directions, grinding the manure deeper and deeper into the rutted earth.

  As they reached an alleyway that ran sideways off the main road, Matty paused.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Sherlock asked.

  Matty hesitated. ‘That thing I saw.’ He shrugged. ‘It was down there, a few days back. Something I don’t understand.’

  ‘Do you want to show me?’

  Instead of replying, Matty ran off down the alley. Sherlock sprinted to catch up with him.

  The alley dog-legged into a side street narrow enough that Sherlock could touch the buildings on either side. People were leaning out of upper windows and talking to one another just as easily as if they were leaning over garden fences. Matty was staring up at a particular window. It was empty, and the door below it was shut. The place looked deserted.

  ‘It was up there,’ he said. ‘I saw smoke, but it moved. It came out of the window, crawled up the wall and vanished over the roof.’

  ‘Smoke doesn’t do that,’ Sherlock pointed out.

  ‘This smoke did,’ Matty said firmly.

  ‘Maybe the wind was blowing it.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Matty seemed unconvinced. His brow was furrowed as he recalled what had happened there. ‘I heard someone screaming inside. I ran off, cos I was scared, but I came back later. There was a cart outside, and they was loading a dead body into it. There was a sheet over the body, but it got caught in the door and it got pulled off. I saw the body. I saw its face.’ He turned to Sherlock, and his face was a mask of fear and uncertainty. ‘He was covered in boils – big red boils, all over his face and neck and arms – and his face was all twisted, like he’d died in agony. Do you think it was the plague? I’ve heard about it, ravaging the country in the past. Do you think it’s come back?’

  Sherlock felt a chill run across his shoulders. ‘I suppose this might be the start of another outbreak, but one death doesn’t make a plague. It could have been scarlet fever, or any number of other things.’

  ‘And that shadow I saw moving over the roof – what about that? Was that his soul? Or something come to take it?’

  ‘That,’ Sherlock said firmly, ‘was just an illusion caused by the angle of the sun and a passing cloud.’ He took Matty by the shoulder and pulled him away. ‘Come on – let’s go.’

  He guided Matty away from the house and down the narrow street. Within moments they were back on the main road through Farnham. Matty was pale and quiet.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Sherlock asked gently.

  Matty nodded. ‘Sorry,’ he said, shamefaced. ‘It just . . . spooked me. I don’t like disease, ever since . . .’

  ‘I understand. Look, I don’t know what it was that you saw, but I’ll give it some thought. My uncle’s got a library – the answer might be in there. Or in the local newspaper archives.’

  They walked across a small bridge and back into town. The street led past a set of wooden gates set into a stone wall. An animal of some kind was lying by the
gates, legs outstretched stiffly, not moving. Its fur was dirty and dull. For a moment Sherlock thought it was a dog, but as they got closer he could see the pointed snout, the short legs and the alternating stripes of black and white – now lighter grey and darker grey – that ran down its head. It was a badger, and Sherlock noticed that its stomach was nearly flat against the road. It had been run over, probably by the wheel of a cart.

  Matty slowed down as he approached. ‘You should be careful going past here,’ he confided, as if he was perfectly safe and it was Sherlock who had to worry. ‘I don’t know what they do in there, but there’s guards inside. They got billy clubs and boat hooks. Big blokes too.’

  Sherlock was about to say something about the likelihood that the men were just providing some protection for the wages of the workers within when the gates swung open. Two men stepped out into the road; their faces were battered, scarred and grim but their clothes were immaculate in black velvet. They looked left and right, checking the boys out momentarily and dismissing them, then gestured to someone inside.

  A carriage pulled by a single black horse nosed out of the courtyard. Its driver was a massive man with hands like spades and a head that was bald and covered in scars. They closed the gates, then jumped on the back of the carriage, hanging on as it moved away.

  ‘Let’s see if the gent will give us a farthing,’ Matty whispered. Before Sherlock could stop him, he was running towards the carriage.

  Surprised, the horse shied back against the shafts that connected it to the carriage. The driver tried to regain control, slashing at it with his whip, but he just made things worse. The carriage slewed around as the horse tried to prance away from Matty.

  Through the carriage window, Sherlock was momentarily shocked to see a pale, almost skeletal face framed with wispy white hair staring at him with unblinking eyes that were small and pink, like the eyes of a white rat. He felt an instant flash of instinctive revulsion, as if he had reached out for a lettuce leaf on his dinner plate and touched a slug instead. He wanted to move, to back away, but that pale, malevolent gaze held him pinioned, unable to move. And then the burly driver managed to regain control and the horse cantered past the two boys, taking the carriage and its occupant with it.

  ‘Didn’t even get a chance,’ Matty moaned, dusting himself down. ‘I thought that bloke was going to have a go at me with that whip.’

  ‘Who was the man in the carriage?’ Sherlock asked, his voice unsteady.

  Matty shook his head. ‘I never even got a look at him. Did he look rich?’ he said hopefully.

  ‘He looked like he was three days dead,’ said Sherlock.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Clouds of steam from the train’s funnel billowed up through the slats of the bridge, scalding the boys’ legs. Sherlock ran one way, Matty the other, both of them laughing and damp. The train ploughed majestically underneath them and into Farnham station, slowing as it arrived, and the boys moved back to the centre of the wooden bridge that connected the platforms, watching as it came gradually to a halt with a clanking of chains and a cacophonous hiss as the driver vented the remaining steam.

  It was the morning of the following day. The platform had been deserted before the train arrived, but within moments it was magically transformed into a bustling mass of people heading for the exit. Men in black frock coats and top hats emerged from the First Class compartments like insects from cocoons, rubbing shoulders with the paunchy men in tweed jackets and flat caps and the women in decent frocks who had been sitting in Second Class, and the various muscled and weather-beaten labourers in threadbare shirts and patched trousers who had been squashed together in Third. Men in uniform opened a sliding door in one of the carriages and began unloading wooden crates, and bags of what Sherlock supposed were letters. Station porters appeared from whatever offices they normally hid themselves away in and started moving the boxes and bags on trolleys away from the train. Within a few moments the platform was almost clear again, apart from a handful of lingering townsfolk who were chatting together, catching up on the events of the week. A guard, self-important in blue tunic and hat, stepped forward, looked up and down the length of the train, raised his whistle to his lips and blew a short, sharp blast. The train seemed to shudder and then began to heave itself out of the station, ponderously at first and then with increasing speed. The carriages clanked as their connections pulled taut, one after the other, and they were dragged after the engine.

  ‘Is that the train to London or the train from London?’ Sherlock asked.

  Matty looked up and down the line. ‘To,’ he said finally. ‘From here the line goes to Tongham, Ash, Ash Wharf and then on to Brookwood and Guildford. From there you can get a train straight through to London.’

  London. Sherlock gazed along the tracks to where the train was just pulling around a bend and out of sight. At the end of its journey it would be within a mile or two of his brother Mycroft, who would be sitting in his office reading documents, or poring over a map of the world, coloured red where the British Empire had made its mark. For a moment the desire to run after the train and climb on board was almost overwhelming. He missed his brother. He missed his father and his mother and his sister. He even missed Deepdene School for Boys, although not as much.

  ‘What’s at Brookwood?’ he asked, trying to distract his thoughts more than anything else.

  Matty seemed to shiver. ‘Don’t ask,’ he said.

  ‘No, really.’ Sherlock’s interest was piqued now. ‘Is it anything worth us going to see?’

  Matty shook his head. ‘There’s nothing there that you want to see in daylight,’ he said with finality, ‘and you wouldn’t want to be there at night, believe me.’

  ‘I was thinking that we could get hold of some bicycles,’ Sherlock pressed. ‘Get out and about. See some of the villages and the towns around here.’

  Matty glanced over at him, frowning. ‘Why would we want to do that?’

  ‘Curiosity?’ Sherlock asked. ‘Don’t you ever wonder what things are like before you see them?’

  ‘Towns look like towns and villages look like villages,’ Matty averred, ‘and all the people look like each other. That’s the way life is. Come on, let’s go.’

  He led Sherlock along the bridge, down the cast iron stairs and on to the platform where the passengers had earlier disembarked. From there they walked out into the road.

  A cart had drawn up by the side of the road, and three men were loading it up with crates of ice insulated with straw that had come off the train.

  One of the men was a weasely-faced fellow with yellow teeth. He scowled at the boys as they walked past.

  ‘Young Master Sherlock,’ a cutting voice said from behind them. ‘I am disappointed to find you consorting with scruffy street Arabs. Your brother would be mortified.’

  Sherlock turned, already blushing despite not knowing who was talking to him, to find the housekeeper, Mrs Eglantine, standing a few feet away. Two men who Sherlock recognized from Holmes Manor were loading a series of boxes of groceries on to a cart which was hitched to a large and apparently placid horse. The boxes had almost certainly come off the train.

  ‘Street Arabs?’ Sherlock looked around. Matty was the only other person there and he was watching Mrs Eglantine with a cautious eye, looking ready to run if things went bad. ‘If you think he’s a street Arab then you need to get out more, Mrs Eglantine,’ Sherlock said boldly, irritated by her attitude.

  Her lips twisted. ‘The Master wishes to see you when you return,’ she said as the two men behind her loaded the last box on to the cart. ‘Please do not keep him waiting.’ She turned and stepped up into one of the front seats. ‘Lunch will be served whether you are present or not,’ she added, as one of the men swung up to join her at the front and the other climbed on the back. ‘Your friend is not invited.’

  The horse trotted off, pulling the cart behind it. Mrs Eglantine didn’t turn to look at Sherlock, but kept staring ahead. The man sitting on th
e back of the cart glanced at the boy and nodded agreeably, touching the front of his cap. He was missing several teeth, and there was a notch in his ear that looked like he’d caught it with a knife, or an axe, or something.

  ‘Who was that?’ Matty said, coming up beside Sherlock.

  ‘That was Mrs Eglantine. She’s the housekeeper at the place where I’m staying.’ He paused. ‘She doesn’t like me.’

  ‘I’m guessing that she doesn’t like anyone,’ Matty said.

  ‘I’d better go,’ Sherlock said. ‘It’ll take me half an hour to get back if I’m fast, and she was serious about food. I’ll go hungry until dinner if I miss it.’ He turned to look at Matty. ‘Will I see you tomorrow?’

  Matty nodded. ‘Back here, at about ten o’clock?’

  It took Sherlock almost forty-five minutes to walk back to Holmes Manor, and he arrived just as the gong was being sounded for lunch. He brushed the worst of the dust from his clothes and entered the dining room. Unusually, Sherrinford Holmes was seated at the head of the table, reading a pamphlet. His wife, Anna, was bustling around, checking the cutlery and talking to herself. Mrs Eglantine stood behind Uncle Sherrinford. She didn’t react as Sherlock entered, but the way she pointedly avoided looking at him told him that she had noticed his arrival.

  ‘Good afternoon Uncle Sherrinford, Aunt Anna,’ Sherlock said politely as he sat down.

  Sherrinford nodded towards Sherlock without raising his eyes from the pamphlet. Anna managed to incorporate what sounded like a greeting into her continuous monologue.

  A maid entered with a tureen of soup and proceeded to spoon it out into bowls, under the supervision of Mrs Eglantine. Sherlock watched without much interest until Sherrinford put down his pamphlet, leaned forward and said: ‘Young man, I have a visitor coming after lunch, and I would be obliged if you could be present. Your brother has exhorted me to ensure that your education is kept up whilst you are away from school, and has also indicated that he wishes you to be kept away from trouble. To that end I have retained the services of a tutor. He will take you on for three hours a day, every day of the week apart from Sunday, when I will expect you to attend church with the rest of the family. His name is Amyus Crowe.’ He sniffed. ‘Mr Crowe is a visitor to this country from the Colonies, I believe, but none the less has demonstrated himself to be a man of learning and discrimination. His Latin and Greek are excellent. I expect you to abide by his instructions.’