by Andrew Lane
He felt a sudden and irresistible urge to push things a bit, to needle the woman who had done so much to make his life uncomfortable over the past year.
‘Oh,’ he added, gesturing towards the wicker basket at Amyus Crowe’s feet, ‘and Mr Crowe has caught some fish. Be so good as to have someone gut them and bone them for him.’
Mrs Eglantine turned back, and the expression on her face could have curdled milk and caused sheep to give birth prematurely. Her lips twisted as she attempted to force back something she was going to say. ‘Of course,’ she said finally, through gritted teeth. ‘I will send someone up for the basket. Perhaps you would be so good as to leave it here and repair to the reception room.’
She seemed to melt back into the shadows.
‘You should watch that woman,’ Amyus Crowe said quietly. ‘When she looks at you there is violence in her eyes.’
‘I don’t understand why my aunt and uncle tolerate her presence,’ Sherlock replied. ‘It’s not as if she’s a particularly good housekeeper. The other staff are so terrified by her that they can barely do their jobs properly. The scullery maids keep dropping dishes when she’s around, their hands shake so much.’
‘The subject would benefit from some further investigation,’ Crowe mused. ‘If, as you say, she’s not a particularly good housekeeper then there must be some other compellin’ reason why she’s kept on, despite her vinegary personality. Perhaps your aunt and uncle are indebted to her, or to her family, in some manner, and this is a way of repayin’ a debt. Or perhaps she’s privy to some fact that your family would rather keep secret, and is blackmailin’ herself into a cosy job.’
‘I think Mycroft knows,’ Sherlock said, remembering the letter his brother had sent him when he first arrived at Holmes Manor. ‘I think he warned me about her.’
‘Your brother knows a lot of things,’ Crowe said with a smile. ‘And the things he don’t know generally ain’t worth knowin’ anyway.’
‘You taught him once, didn’t you?’ Sherlock asked.
Crowe nodded.
‘Did you take him out fishing as well?’
A laugh burst through Crowe’s usually calm expression. ‘Only the once,’ he admitted, through chuckles. ‘Your brother an’ the great outdoors ain’t exactly on speakin’ terms. It’s the first time and the last time ah’ve seen a man try and catch a fish by chasin’ it into its natural environment.’
‘He dived in after a fish?’ Sherlock said, trying to imagine the scene.
‘He fell in, tryin’ to reel it in. He told me, as ah was haulin’ him out, that he would never leave the safety of dry ground again, and if that dry ground was a paved city street then so much the better.’ He paused. ‘But if you ask him, he can still tell you the feedin’ an’ swimmin’ habits of all the fish in Europe. He may have a dim view of physical exertion, but his mind is as sharp as a seamstress’s bag of pins.’
Sherlock laughed. ‘Let’s go into the reception room,’ he said. ‘Tea will be on its way.’
The reception room was just off the main hall, at the front of the house. Sherlock threw himself into a comfortable chair while Crowe settled himself on a sofa large enough to take his considerable bulk. It creaked beneath his weight. Amyus Crowe was, Sherlock estimated, probably as heavy as Mycroft Holmes, but in Crowe’s case it was solid bone and muscle.
A soft knock on the door heralded the appearance of a maid carrying a silver tray. On the tray were a pot of tea, two cups and saucers, a small jug of milk and a plate of cakes. Either Mrs Eglantine was being unusually generous or one of the staff had decided to make the guest feel welcome.
There was also an envelope, white and narrow.
‘A letter for you, sir,’ the maid said without making eye contact with Sherlock. She set the tray down on a table. ‘Will there be anything else?’
‘No, thank you.’
As she left he reached out eagerly to take the envelope. He didn’t get many letters at Holmes Manor, and when he did they were almost always from -
‘Mycroft!’
‘Is that a fact or a deduction?’ Crowe asked.
Sherlock waved the envelope at him. ‘I recognize the handwriting, and the postmark is Westminster, where he has his office, his lodgings and his club.’
He ripped the envelope open, pulling the flap from the grip of the blob of wax that held it firm.
‘Look!’ he said, holding the paper up. ‘The letter is written on the headed stationery of the Diogenes Club.’
‘Check the postmark on the envelope,’ Crowe murmured. ‘What time does it show?’
‘Three thirty yesterday afternoon,’ Sherlock said, puzzled. ‘Why?’
Crowe gazed imperturbably at Sherlock. ‘Mid-afternoon on a weekday, and he’s at his club, writing letters, rather than at his office? Does that strike you as unusual behaviour for your brother?’
Sherlock thought for a moment. ‘He once told me that he often walks across to his club for lunch,’ he said after a moment. ‘He must have written the letter over lunch and got the footman to post it for him. The post would have been collected in the early afternoon, and the letter would have got to the sorting office for around three o’clock, then been stamped half an hour later. That’s not suspicious, is it?’
Crowe smiled. ‘Not in the slightest. Ah was merely tryin’ to indicate that there’s a whole lot of facts that can be deduced from a simple letter. If the postmark had been Salisbury rather than Westminster it would have been unusual, and would have prompted further questions. If we knew your brother never left his desk durin’ the day, not even for lunch – an unlikely occurrence, ah have to admit – and yet the letterheaded stationery was from his club then that would have been unusual as well. You might have surmised that your brother had lost his job, or was sufficiently disturbed that he had not gone into work, or left early.’
‘Or maybe he’d just taken some stationery from the Diogenes Club and was using it in his office,’ Sherlock pointed out.
Crowe looked discomfited. ‘Ah guess there’s always an alternative explanation,’ he growled.
Sherlock scanned the letter quickly, excitement growing as he read the words until he was almost at fever pitch.
My dear Sherlock,
I write in haste, as I am awaiting the arrival of a steak and kidney pudding and I wish to do it full justice before I return to my office.
I trust you are well, and that the various scars from your recent adventures have healed. I trust also that our aunt and uncle are well, and that our Mrs Eglantine is proving too unpleasant.
You will be pleased to hear, I am sure, that arrangements have been satisfactorily concluded to allow your education to continue at Holmes Manor. The news that you will never have to return to Deepdene School will, I presume, not come as too much of a shock.
Amyus Crowe will continue to school you in the more practical and sporting aspects of life and Uncle Sherrinford has agreed to become responsible for your religious and literary education, which only leaves mathematics. I will ponder on that, and let you know when I have reached a decision. The aim, of course, will be to prepare you for university in a few years' time. We can discuss at some stage whether you have a preference for Oxford or Cambridge.
This morning, by the way, a letter arrived from our father. He must have posted it in India the moment he arrived, as it summarizes everything that happened to him on the voyage. I am sure that you would rather read the letter than have me tell you about it, and so I invite you to dine with me (at my club, naturally) tomorrow.
Please pass the invitation on to Mr Crowe: I have some details I wish to discuss with him about your education. The 9.30 a.m. train from Farnham will bring you to Waterloo in good time to meet me at 12 sharp.
I look forward to seeing you tomorrow, and to hearing all about the events that have befallen you since we last met.
Your loving brother,
Mycroft.
‘Anything interestin’?’ Amyus Crowe asked.
‘We’re going to London,’ Sherlock replied, grinning.
CHAPTER TWO
Sherlock rode into Farnham that afternoon, through a light rain that left puddles on the roads and trickled down the back of his neck no matter how much he turned his collar up or tucked it in. He was riding the horse he had ‘liberated’ from Baron Maupertuis – the horse he still had to find a name for, if he ever did.
He just couldn’t understand why people gave names to animals. The animals didn’t care if they had names, or numbers, or nothing, and it implied a level of empathy and equality that shouldn’t exist. Animals were animals and humans were humans.
As his horse splashed its way towards the market town, Sherlock found himself thinking about the strange difference between pets and animals. If you could eat a cow, in the form of beef, then why couldn’t you eat a horse? There seemed to be no logical reason why not – as far as he knew, horse flesh wasn’t poisonous or anything. Alternatively, if cats and dogs were off the menu then why weren’t rabbits safe from being put in the stewpot? It didn’t make any sense. Someone had drawn an arbitrary line through the animal kingdom, saying, ‘All right, the ones over here you can eat to your heart’s content, but the ones over there you take for walks, and stroke, and care for, and bury when they die.’
He wondered, as the water found its way through every gap in his clothes, whether other countries had the same illogical rules. Were there countries somewhere where the inhabitants ate horses and dogs, but maybe considered cows sacred? If there were, it indicated that the whole thing was just subjective, if not random, but if all countries made the same distinctions then maybe there was something about humans that meant they all considered cows as food and horses as friends.
He absently patted the neck of the horse he was riding. Could he ever eat it? Could he sit down to a juicy steak, knowing that a few hours earlier he’d been riding the animal it had come from? Logically, he didn’t see why not, but in practice he could detect a little squeamishness in his mind. Maybe if he was starving. Maybe if the two of them were caught in a blizzard, and the only way to survive was for him to cook and eat his horse. That would make sense.
As the horse clopped through the outskirts of Farnham, a disturbing thought occurred to Sherlock. If he was willing, in principle, to eat his horse, then why not his friends? If he and Matty were caught in a blizzard . . .
Even the thought made him feel sick, and he quickly squashed it, but a lingering doubt remained. Logically, there was a sliding scale between, say, insects and humans in terms of intelligence and general development. Fish and frogs were closer to the insects, arguably, and dogs and cats were closer to humans. Wasn’t that what Mister Charles Darwin had recently written in his book On the Origins of Species – a book he’d heard his Uncle Sherrinford complaining about over the dinner table some weeks before? Humans were just another type of animal, according to Darwin, with nothing special or God-given about them. But if you factored religion out of the discussion, if you accepted that humans were just animals who could make tools and talk, then why weren’t you allowed to eat people the way you were allowed to eat cows?
Too many questions, and logic did not seem to be any help. Logic was telling him that if this was all right then that was all right as well, but instinctively he knew that there was a difference. There were limits. The trouble was, he didn’t know where they had come from or how to think about them properly.
And all this because he hadn’t given his horse a name.
‘I’ll call you Philadelphia,’ he murmured, patting its neck again.
He smiled. As names went, it had a whole lot of meaning attached to it. Virginia – Amyus Crowe’s daughter – had named her horse Sandia after a range of mountains in America, after all, so he should be able to name his horse after an American city. The train that he, Virginia and Matty had been trapped on months ago, after Matty had been kidnapped by the agents of Duke Balthassar, had belonged to the Philadelphia Line, and the name would always remind him of what they had been through. And the short form of Philadelphia was Philly and ‘filly’ was another name for a young female horse, so it was also a kind of joke. It worked on all kinds of levels.
‘Philadelphia it is,’ he said. The horse made a whickering noise, as if it understood and approved. That, of course, really was just his imagination.
They were in the centre of town by now, and Sherlock left his horse – left Philadelphia – tied up next to the grain market and walked along under the brick colonnades, looking for Matty. He knew Matty’s habits by now – where to find him at any time of day or night. The boy seemed to have fallen into a routine. Rather than move on in his narrowboat, looking for new towns and new opportunities, he had settled in Farnham, at least for a while. Sherlock secretly hoped it was because of him – because of their friendship. He liked Matty, and he would miss him when – if – he left.
Matty was sitting by the river, apparently watching nothing in particular, although Sherlock knew he was waiting for a barge to show up that usually delivered boxes of fish from the coast, laid out on crushed ice. Matty had found that if one of the boxes was dropped and smashed then he could steal a fish or two from the wreckage before anyone stopped him. Sherlock sometimes wondered if Matty occasionally got in the way of the men unloading the boat, making them slip and drop the boxes they were carrying, but he never asked. Best not to know.
‘Hi,’ Matty said. ‘I was wondering if you were going to show up.’
‘I’m going to London tomorrow,’ Sherlock responded. He had meant to make conversation first, find out where Matty had been and what he had done recently, but he couldn’t help himself. He wasn’t good with conversation. ‘I’ve got to go to the station and get the tickets.’
‘Good luck with that,’ Matty muttered.
‘You could come,’ Sherlock said, defensively, but he wasn’t sure whether the invitation from Mycroft extended that far.
‘To the station? Thanks, but I’ve already seen it.’
‘To London!’ Sherlock said in exasperation.
‘You won’t get me back up in the Smoke.’ Matty shook his head. ‘I still remember what happened last time. After you an’ Ginnie were kidnapped by that Baron Maupertuis bloke, I had to travel all the way back here to Farnham with her father. He tried to teach me to read!’ His voice rose aggrievedly. ‘I told him I didn’t want to read, but he kept trying to tell me about “a before e except after c” and stuff. An’ then we had to sail to France to try and find the two of you, an’ he just kept at it. Wouldn’t stop.’
‘I think he just likes to teach,’ Sherlock said. ‘And you were the only audience.’
‘Well, I’m not making that mistake again.’
‘Have you seen Virginia?’ Sherlock asked.
‘Not for a few days now.’
‘You want to go and look for her?’
Matty shook his head, eyes still fixed on the canal. ‘No, I’d rather eat.’
‘I could buy you a pork pie,’ Sherlock offered.
Matty looked tempted, but he shook his head. ‘You won’t always be around,’ he said. ‘I can’t rely on anyone else to feed me. I got to do it myself, an’ that means I got to keep my skills sharp. I got to make sure I can snaffle a cauliflower or a ham hock without anyone noticing.’
‘It’s all right,’ Sherlock said quietly. ‘It’s not charity, it’s friendship.’
‘Feels like charity,’ Matty mumbled. ‘And I don’t accept charity. Not ever.’
Sherlock nodded. ‘I understand.’ He looked around. ‘I’m going to head across to the station. See you later?’
‘Depends on when lunch turns up,’ Matty said gloomily.
Sherlock walked off, not sure where exactly he was going. He felt edgy. He wanted to be on his way to London, but he knew that he had to wait until the next day for that. Mycroft had been very specific.
He wandered along the High Street for a while, past taverns that were already doing a roaring trade, even though
it was barely after midday, past baker’s shops with windows piled high with breads twisted into knots and covered with seeds, past shops selling vegetables and fruit, or tools and seeds, or clothing ranging from the rough to the exquisite, pressing through crowds of locals who were buying, or selling, or just standing around idly, gossiping.
‘Sherlock!’ a voice called.
He turned, surprised. For a moment he didn’t recognize the tall, slim man with long black hair who was smiling at him from the other side of the road. Or rather, he knew that he knew him, but he wasn’t sure where from. His gaze scanned the man’s clothes and hands in the way that Amyus Crowe had taught him, looking for signs of his profession, but apart from a worn area on the left shoulder of the man’s patched corduroy jacket and the smattering of orange dust beneath his fingernails, there were no clues.
Except . . .
‘Mister Stone!’ he shouted, at the same moment that his brain supplied the information that the man was a violinist down on his luck, based on the signs on his clothing.
Rufus Stone’s smile stretched wider, revealing the gold tooth that Sherlock remembered from their voyages out to and back from New York, where the man had been teaching him the violin to help pass the time.
‘I keep telling you,’ Stone shouted as he started to cross the road, dodging the carts that clattered past and avoiding the piles of manure that had been left by the horses that pulled them. ‘Only employers call me “Mister Stone”, and there have been fewer of those over the past months than there are teeth in a chicken’s beak.’
‘What happened to you after we docked in Southampton?’ Sherlock tried to keep a petty tone out of his voice, tried to make it just an ordinary question, but he had thought that the violinist was going to head for Farnham after they docked and set himself up as a tutor.
