Young Sherlock Holmes 6: Knife Edge

by Andrew Lane

  ‘It’s no good,’ she said, her voice muffled. ‘It’s all wrong. Everything is wrong.’

  ‘It can be fixed,’ he said, hoping against hope that it could.

  ‘No, it can’t. You don’t understand.’ She balled one of her hands into a fist and hit him on the shoulder. ‘I didn’t know if you were ever coming back. I had to make a decision – did I wait for you forever, or did I move on with my life? So I decided.’

  ‘I’m here now. I’m back.’

  ‘But it’s too late. I made a promise. I have to keep it.’ She pushed him away, to arm’s length, and stared up at him. ‘Travis loves me; at least he says he does. And I love him, I suppose. Maybe not in the way I love you, but it can grow, with time. Travis will look after me. He’ll provide for me. We’ll have a good life. His dad is a powerful businessman – he’ll be a useful contact for Father to have.’

  ‘Is that enough?’ Sherlock asked bleakly.

  ‘What else is there?’ She stared up at him, waiting for an answer, but he wasn’t even sure he understood the question. ‘Maybe a year ago we might have had a chance,’ she said eventually, ‘but not now. We’ve grown in different directions. We’re on different paths.’

  ‘I’m not even sure which path I’m on,’ he admitted.

  ‘And that’s part of the problem, Sherlock. Travis knows who he is and what he wants to be. He has a plan for his future, and he wants me to be a part of that plan. He intends going into politics. He wants to be a senator, and maybe a governor. What do you want to be? What’s your plan?’

  He shrugged uneasily. ‘I’m still trying to work that out.’

  ‘I hope you do.’

  ‘Is there anything I can say to change your mind?’ he asked quietly.

  Virginia just stared at him, tears still brimming in her eyes. He had a feeling that she wanted to say ‘Yes’, but then she would expect him to know what it was that she wanted to hear, and he didn’t. He had no idea. He could work almost anything out, given the evidence, but not that.

  ‘Let’s get back,’ she said eventually, looking away from him.

  They headed out along the beach, away from the castle and away, as far as Sherlock could tell, from Galway itself. Sherlock kept an eye on the cliffs above them, and was relieved to see the boundary where the limestone cut across the blue and white of the sky moving closer to them. The sea had to be at the same level, so the logical solution was that the cliffs were getting lower. Maybe there would be a chance to scramble up them soon.

  ‘How’s Matty?’ Sherlock asked after a long period of silence.

  ‘I haven’t seen much of him,’ Virginia admitted. ‘He stays in town, mostly, and I spend my time out in the countryside. I think he’s scared of my dad.’ She hesitated. ‘He never says anything, but I know he wishes you were around.’

  ‘I thought he might leave Farnham, once I’d . . . once I’d gone. He seems to prefer travelling to staying in one place.’

  ‘I think he’s hoping you’ll come back, one day.’

  ‘And here I am, back again,’ Sherlock murmured, but if Virginia heard his response then she gave no sign.

  After a while, Sherlock realized that the cliff edge was low enough for there to be a realistic prospect of getting back up. The boulders were smaller here and speckled with orange algae. He looked for a suitable spot, but it was Virginia who saw one first. As with their original point of descent, crude stairs had been cut into the rock and the dirt to provide footholds.

  ‘Do you want to go back to the castle?’ Sherlock asked.

  Virginia stared at him for a moment. ‘What do you want to do?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’m getting hungry. Shall we head back?’

  ‘If that’s what you want.’

  A path left by who knew how many generations of feet led back towards the castle through thick furze that grew to a level that was mostly over their heads, with the occasional copse of ash trees rearing from it. It was uphill, but not steeply so. The two of them walked in silence, with Sherlock taking the lead and pushing the undergrowth back so that Virginia could get through without getting hurt. Every now and then there was a gap in the bushes, through which either the sea or the distant castle was visible.

  After an hour or so, Sherlock realized that he could see something above the undergrowth – something artificial. It was the tower that he had seen a couple of times before – the folly that he knew was near the castle but which he could sometimes not see from places where it should have been easily visible. Now that he was close, he knew that he had to take the opportunity to investigate it. The chances were that he might never be able to find it again if he left it now.

  ‘I need to look at that thing,’ he said, pointing. ‘Is it all right if we divert our course a little so that I can take a look?’

  Virginia shook her head. ‘I’m tired,’ she announced, ‘and I’m hungry, and I need a bath and a change of clothes before I go riding with Niamh. I’m going to head back.’

  ‘All right,’ Sherlock said, glancing at the tower again, ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘I don’t need an escort,’ she said angrily. ‘I can find my own way safely.’

  ‘Look,’ Sherlock suddenly snapped, ‘I didn’t choose to go away. I was kidnapped. I was drugged, and when I woke up I found myself on a ship heading for China. It wasn’t my choice! ’

  ‘I know.’ She nodded, then said again, ‘I know. But you never wrote to me. You never bothered to get in touch.’

  ‘I was on a ship headed for China,’ he repeated, more softly. ‘It wasn’t like there was a scheduled postal service.’

  ‘You wrote to your brother,’ she pointed out. ‘But you didn’t write to me.’

  ‘I didn’t know what to say.’

  ‘That’s the problem.’

  She turned and walked away. Sherlock watched her go, feeling torn. On the one hand he wanted to go with her; on the other hand he wanted to take a look at the folly.

  His mind flashed up a memory from over a year ago: her sleeping in a rough stone hut on the Scottish moors while he, awake, watched her. He remembered the firelight making her face and her hair glow. He knew that he would never forget that sight, and the feelings that had filled him then, but also that he would never be in that situation again.

  Sighing, he turned and followed Virginia. Women, he decided, were not logical and they were not predictable, and they seemed actively to encourage that behaviour in men. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to play that game.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Lunch had just finished when – ‘Gentlemen,’ a voice announced.

  Sherlock, along with the other representatives – Mycroft, Crowe, von Webenau, Holtzbrinck and Shuvalov – turned to look at the doorway. Sir Shadrach Quintillan was blocking the space with his bath chair, the ever-present Silman standing behind him.

  ‘Are you ready for the final, the conclusive, the absolutely unfakable test?’ he continued. There was a smile on his face, and he looked relaxed, but Sherlock could sense a tension about him. Maybe it was the way his hands were resting on his lap, with the fingers twisted together.

  ‘We are, I think, prepared for anything you can throw at us,’ Mycroft said. ‘But we warn you – after the charades of last night, we are in no mood for any more trickery.’

  ‘There will be no trickery,’ Quintillan promised. ‘You will all be invited to inspect every feature of the demonstration. If you spot any sign of fraud then we will stop immediately, and I will abandon any plans that I have to further persuade you.’

  ‘Very well,’ Herr Holtzbrinck said. ‘Let us proceed.’

  Von Webenau coughed to attract attention. ‘Will the demonstration be in the same room as before?’ he asked.

  ‘No. We required a special room – an isolated one.’

  ‘A room, I suppose, that has already been chosen and prepared by you?’ Mycroft said acerbically.

  Quintillan grimaced. ‘Unfortunately, for reasons that will become obvious once
we get there, the room needs to be on the top floor, where it cannot be observed or overseen by anyone outside, but I am happy for you to choose which room it is yourself. In fact, I anticipated your request.’ He beckoned forward a floor-servant who was holding a bowl containing many slips of paper. ‘I have had my servants chalk numbers on all the rooms on the top floor,’ he said. ‘There are equivalent numbers on the slips of paper in this bowl. Please – will someone take a number?’

  The representatives looked at each other for a moment, then at some unspoken agreement von Webenau walked over and took a slip of paper from the bowl. He unfolded it, and read out, ‘Twenty-four.’

  ‘Is everyone happy for that to be the number chosen?’ Quintillan asked.

  ‘No,’ Mycroft said loudly. ‘I wish von Webenau to choose another number.’

  ‘Very well.’ Quintillan gestured to von Webenau, who screwed up the first piece of paper, placed it on the table beside the bowl and plucked another out. He opened it up. ‘Thirty-five,’ he announced.

  Quintillan turned to Mycroft. ‘Mr Holmes?’

  ‘I am content,’ Mycroft rumbled. ‘I merely wanted to establish that the bowl wasn’t filled with slips of paper all of which had “Twenty-four” written on them.’

  ‘Then if we are happy to use room thirty-five, please – follow me.’

  Silman pulled Quintillan out of the doorway, turned the bath chair around and pushed him out of sight. Everybody else followed, but Mycroft paused by the table. He reached into the bowl and removed a handful of slips of paper. He opened them up, one after the other, and glanced at them.

  ‘What’s the verdict?’ Sherlock asked.

  ‘They are all different.’ Mycroft threw the papers back into the bowl. ‘I felt that I had to make absolutely sure.’

  Out in the hall, Silman pushed Quintillan across to the ascending room. Ambrose Albano was already standing there, looking pale but resolute. The sun, shining from high in the sky, reflected off his false eye and created a blaze of white light on his cheek.

  ‘We will travel to the top floor,’ Quintillan announced. ‘It will be a tight squeeze, but I suggest that I travel first, with Mr Crowe, Herr Holtzbrinck and von Webenau. I will send the ascending room back down again, and Mr Ambrose can follow with the two Mr Holmeses, plus Count Shuvalov. Does anybody disagree with this intention?’

  Nobody spoke out, so Silman opened the door and pulled Quintillan backwards into the ascending room. Holtzbrinck, Crowe and von Webenau followed. The door closed, and the contraption began to rise.

  The group left in the hall looked at each awkwardly. No words were exchanged.

  Once they were all together again on the top floor, Silman pushed Quintillan along one of the connecting corridors and the other men followed. Each of the doors had a number chalked on it, but Sherlock noticed that they were not in consecutive order. He made a mental note of the numbers as he passed the doors: 15, 42, 11, 49, 27 . . .

  Silman kept pushing the bath chair down the corridor to a room which had the number 35 on it. A key was sticking out of the lock.

  ‘This is where the demonstration will take place,’ Quintillan announced.

  Silman turned the key, pulled it out of the lock and pushed the door open, and Quintillan gestured to the assembled representatives to enter.

  ‘Why aren’t the numbers in order?’ Sherlock asked.

  Quintillan turned to look at Sherlock. ‘I am informed that those who dwell in the spirit world have a dislike of order and organization,’ he explained. ‘They much prefer things to be random – more like nature than mathematics.’

  ‘It is true,’ Albano confirmed from the back of the group. ‘Many times I have been informed by those who have crossed over to the Other Side that they much prefer things to be disordered.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Sherlock said, but he was remembering the letters on the table for the séances on the previous nights. They had been in alphabetical order, and nobody had made a comment then – not the spirits and not Ambrose Albano. There was something odd here about the random numbers.

  The group all entered the room with the exception of Albano. He hung back, saying, ‘For reasons that you will understand shortly, I should stay here. It will make the demonstration even more convincing.’

  The room was empty – no carpets, no curtains, no paintings on the wall. There were two openings – the door that they had come through and a window. There was also a hook on one wall where a painting would have hung, and a patch of lighter wall beneath it that showed where a painting had been. The room was so bare that it looked as though it had been pre-prepared for their arrival. Sherlock was about to say something when Count Shuvalov beat him to it.

  ‘Are all the rooms on this level so bare?’ he asked.

  ‘This level of the castle is not used,’ Quintillan confirmed. ‘There is, therefore, no point in furnishing them.’

  ‘Could we check another room?’ Mycroft asked.

  Quintillan stared at him. ‘There comes a point,’ he said, ‘when suspicion turns into active insult. You were allowed to choose a room at random, and you were allowed to then change the choice. There was no way I could have known that we would end up in this room. That should be enough for you, Mr Holmes.’

  Mycroft subsided, but Sherlock caught a flash of expression on his face. Rather than annoyance, it was a look of amusement. Mycroft obviously had some suspicion that this was still a trick, albeit a more complicated one. Sherlock was of the same opinion.

  ‘Now, gentlemen,’ Quintillan announced. ‘Please feel free to examine this room from top to bottom and from side to side. Check all of the stones in the wall and the flagstones in the floor for secret entrances. I want you to be assured that there is no way in and no way out.’

  While Mycroft, Sherlock and Amyus Crowe stood off to one side, the other three men thoroughly investigated the walls, floor and ceiling. They all conferred for a few moments, and then turned to Quintillan.

  ‘There is, as you indicate, no way into or out of the room with the exception of the window and the door,’ Holtzbrinck stated firmly. ‘We have also checked for holes through which someone might observe the room or influence what is inside. There are no holes or other gaps, and all the stones are secure.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Quintillan said. ‘Now, please examine the window. I wish you to assure yourself that nobody could climb up here from outside.’

  Von Webenau went across to the window and opened it. He leaned out, looking left and right, up and down. ‘The wall is sheer,’ he said, pulling himself back inside, ‘with no handholds or footholds.’

  ‘What about ivy?’ Shuvalov asked.

  ‘No plants of any kind,’ von Webenau confirmed. ‘Nothing that would allow a climber any purchase.’

  ‘What about upward?’ Mycroft called. ‘Could a climber get down from the roof?’

  Von Webenau leaned out again and stared up. ‘There is a considerable overhang,’ he shouted back into the room. ‘I cannot see any way that a person could climb down from above.’

  ‘Besides,’ Quintillan said as von Webenau pulled his head in and closed the window, ‘I will be demonstrating shortly that nobody could climb down without leaving traces.’ He glanced at Count Shuvalov. ‘Count, could you please confirm that there is no way that anybody outside could see into this room.’

  Shuvalov walked across to the window. Von Webenau moved out of his way. Shuvalov gazed out for a few moments. ‘I can see no way that any person outside could see in,’ he said eventually. ‘The trees and bushes are too low to permit a sight of anything apart from the ceiling, even with a telescope.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Quintillan said. ‘I think that we are ready to proceed.’

  ‘What about a curtain?’ Amyus Crowe asked. ‘That would ensure nobody could see in.’

  ‘Ah,’ Quintillan said, ‘but we must allow a means of entry for the spirits. A curtain could block their access.’

  ‘Really?’ Crowe look sceptical, but he d
idn’t pursue the question.

  ‘Indeed. Also –’ Quintillan smiled – ‘either you or Mr Holmes could argue that someone was concealing themselves in the curtains. If there are no curtains then there is nowhere for anyone to be concealed, yes?’

  Crowe shrugged. ‘If you say so, Sir Shadrach.’

  A noise at the door made them all turn. Four servants entered, each carrying a large painting in a heavy, ornate frame. One was a painting of a man in military uniform, one of a horse, one a classical scene with men in togas standing and arguing in a temple, and one a landscape with trees and hills. They placed the paintings in a line against the wall with the hook in it, and left.

  ‘We have four paintings,’ Quintillan announced. ‘Each painting is different from the others. In a moment we will all leave, with the exception of Mr Sherlock Holmes. While the rest of us go up to the roof and I demonstrate that no climber could get down without leaving a trace, young Mr Holmes will choose one, and one only, of the paintings and hang it on the wall. Only he will know which painting he chose. I would also ask Mr Holmes to choose which way he hangs it: normally, upside down, or rotated either to the left or to the right. Mr Albano will already have been blindfolded and will have wax earplugs placed into his ears. He will be completely unable to see or hear anything, and yet, through the aid and assistance of the spirits, he will know which painting Mr Holmes chose to hang on the wall and what orientation he has chosen.’ He looked over at Sherlock. ‘Is your role in this clear, young man?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘And you know why I have chosen you for this important task?’

  ‘Presumably because I was the one who exposed the tricks last night,’ Sherlock said.

  ‘That is correct. Of all of us, you are the one who cannot be in league with any trickery.’ He looked around. ‘Now, gentlemen, let us leave young Mr Holmes to make his choice.’ He glanced back at Sherlock. ‘Wait until we have all left and the door is closed,’ he said. ‘Place the key in the lock so that nobody can see in through the keyhole, then choose and hang a painting. Wait until you hear my voice calling from above. Do you understand?’