Young Sherlock: Night Break

by Andrew Lane

  Eventually the train began to slow on its approach to Arundel. Sherlock realized that his heart was beating faster. It had been a while since he had been home. He wondered which had changed the most – it, or him?

  Emerging from the station, which was little more than two platforms and a ticket hall at the end of a small country lane, Sherlock saw that a brougham was waiting for them. For a moment he expected to see one of the family servants at the reins, and was desperately trying to recall the names of the ones he remembered, but he was shocked to see that it was Rufus Stone sitting up there above the horses.

  ‘Mr Holmes,’ he said, tipping his hat to Mycroft, then, ‘Mr Holmes,’ to Sherlock, and, ‘Master Arnatt,’ to Matty. He was smiling, though.

  Matty just smiled, nodded, and moved to make the acquaintance of the horse that was patiently waiting for some order to move.

  ‘Rufus,’ Sherlock called. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Your brother wanted to have a familiar face to call on in case of trouble,’ Rufus said.

  ‘Actually,’ Mycroft rumbled, ‘I was worried what Mr Stone might get up to if I wasn’t around to watch over him. Besides, I, rather than the British Government, fund his activities, and as there was nothing for him to do while I took a leave of absence from my work, I decided that he might as well earn his keep working for us here.’

  ‘And so here I am, a trained violinist, swordsman and actor, reduced to the position of general cab driver, luggage handler, bodyguard, cheerer-upper and whatever else you need me to be.’ Stone took off his hat and managed a creditable bow, even while seated on the highest point of the brougham. ‘On call at every hour of the day or night.’

  ‘You have secured rooms in town?’ Mycroft asked.

  ‘No need – your telegram of recommendation arrived at Holmes Lodge and the butler, whose name is Mulhall, by the way, arranged for me to have a room in an outlying building. I think it used to be occupied by horses, given the smell, but I’ve slept in worse.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Mycroft gazed at his travelling cases, which had been placed in front of the station by the stationmaster’s boy. ‘Well, these cases are not going to move themselves.’

  Rufus smiled at Sherlock and Matty. ‘Given that I’m actually not a full-time family servant, perhaps you two fine lads could assist in getting the bags up on the back of this brougham.’

  After the bags were secured with leather straps, the three of them crammed themselves inside and the vehicle set off, clattering along narrow country lanes at a speed that Sherlock considered fast and Mycroft obviously thought was perilous, judging by the way he clutched on to the window frame. Matty leaned out of the window, his hair blowing backwards in the breeze.

  ‘This isn’t a pursuit!’ Mycroft yelled up to Rufus at one point, but it didn’t lead to any slowing down of the vehicle. Once or twice Sherlock thought he heard Rufus laughing from up on his perilous perch.

  Looking out of the brougham’s window, Sherlock found that he recognized bits of the countryside as they passed. He had once fallen off the roof of that barn, and had been saved only by a fortunately placed pile of hay. He had once fallen in love – as a twelve-year-old – with the daughter of the farmer who owned that farm. And he had stood on that hill and turned through 360 degrees, taking in every detail of the landscape beneath him.

  Childhood days. He felt so old now, in comparison. Where had that innocence and sense of infinite possibilities gone?

  A rough stone wall appeared on their right, and Sherlock knew that they were getting close to Holmes Lodge. This was the boundary of the estate. The brougham continued along the wall for a while, then turned into an ornate gateway. Black ribbons had been tied around the gateposts, and Sherlock felt a quiver of sadness. This was where it started. No matter how he had tried to put off the process of grieving, of understanding that his mother had died, this was where he would have to find a way of coming to terms with the knowledge.

  The brougham moved along the gravel path that led up to the three-storey, two-winged building that Sherlock remembered from his childhood, and had dreamed of going back to every holiday from school until he had been removed from the school system and set on a different course by his brother. Someone must have seen them from a window, because the main door opened as they came to a halt and several footmen rushed out to take their bags. One man, white-haired and dressed in a black suit and a black velvet waistcoat, moved to open the door on Mycroft’s side. ‘Sir,’ he said, inclining his head. ‘And sir,’ to Sherlock. And then, after a momentary hesitation, a final, ‘And sir,’ to Matty, as he slipped out behind them. ‘I welcome you back to Holmes Lodge. I only wish that it could be under better circumstances.’

  ‘Thank you, Mulhall,’ Mycroft growled. He turned to Sherlock. ‘Mulhall has been taken on here since you last visited. He has had the complete trust of our mother and, for a brief time before he left for India, our father.’

  ‘Then he has my trust as well,’ Sherlock said, nodding at the man. ‘Thank you for being here at this difficult time.’

  With a few quick gestures Mulhall corralled the footmen and got them to take the cases and bags inside. ‘Your rooms are all arranged,’ he said. ‘There is a small afternoon tea arranged for you. Dinner will be at eight.’

  ‘And the . . . arrangements?’ Mycroft asked.

  ‘The funeral is set for tomorrow. Given the circumstances, the family doctor was content to sign a death certificate, and the local coroner did not see a need to become involved. The service will be held in the family chapel, of course, and the . . . the deceased will be interred in the family tomb in the grounds of the house. There will be a reception back at the Lodge afterwards.’

  ‘And Aunt Anna – she has arrived?’

  ‘Earlier today, sir. Oh, and Mr Lydecker, the solicitor, is here. I believe he wished to talk about family arrangements in your father’s absence.’

  ‘Very good. Thank you, Mulhall.’

  The hall was smaller than Sherlock remembered – or he was larger. He remembered the smell, though, a mixture of beeswax wood polish and flowers. Odd, he thought, how scent could bring back a memory more clearly than sight or sound.

  He glanced around. The reception room was on his left, and the dining room on his right. The door to the library was straight ahead, with the stairs running up the wall on either side of it, and then turning through 90 degrees to form a balcony above the recessed library door. Any panelled space on the wall was occupied by a stuffed animal’s head: stags, boar, badgers and the occasional whole fish. There was even the head of a tiger that Sherlock’s father had sworn blind he shot just outside Brighton but which Sherlock knew he must have bought at some bric-a-brac shop because he liked the look of it.

  Matty stopped, staring down at the striped skin of a zebra that was acting as a carpet in the centre of the hall.

  ‘Ain’t never seen an ’orse like that before,’ he said. ‘Is it painted?’

  ‘It’s not a horse,’ Sherlock pointed out, ‘it’s a zebra. And no, it’s not painted. That’s what they look like in the wild.’

  ‘I never heard of a “zebra”,’ Matty observed. ‘What’s one of them, then, when it’s at home?’

  ‘It’s an animal that lives in Africa.’

  ‘What’s it look like?’

  Sherlock hesitated. ‘It looks like a horse,’ he admitted. ‘A horse with stripes.’

  Matty gazed at him critically. ‘Well in that case,’ he said, ‘I’ll call it a striped ’orse until I see one of these “zebras” for myself.’ He smiled. ‘You ought to approve of that,’ he added. ‘I’m followin’ the evidence, rather than takin’ someone’s word.’

  ‘He’s got you there, Sherlock,’ Mycroft said as he crossed the hall towards the library.

  ‘Why are zebras striped?’ Matty asked.

  ‘I read somewhere,’ Sherlock replied, ‘that it disguises them when they are in thick vegetation – the sun shining through the trees makes stripes of
light and dark, and their stripes mean that they blend in and don’t get seen by lions and other predators. That can’t be right, though, because everyone says that zebras live out on the plains, not in the trees.’

  ‘A good point,’ Mycroft said. He was standing over by the door to the library. ‘There must be some other explanation. See if you can work out what it is.’ He paused. ‘Sherlock, please join me as soon as you have freshened up.’

  Sherlock followed the footmen with his cases up the stairs to the room that he remembered occupying in his youth. He was pleased to see that his books were still there, lined up on the windowsill – the Greek legends, the Roman histories, along with the plays of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson and Webster. There was a layer of dust on them that he could see from the doorway, and their pages, facing the window, had been discoloured by the sun.

  A washbowl sat on a pedestal near the bed. Beside it, on a chest of drawers, was a large jug.

  ‘There’s fresh water in the jug, sir,’ one of the footmen said, standing in the doorway. ‘Would you wish us to unpack your bags for you, sir?’

  ‘No, thank you – I’ll do it myself.’

  ‘Very well, sir.’ He turned and left.

  Sherlock quickly opened his case and took out a fresh shirt. Stripping his old one off, he splashed water on his face, neck and chest, and dried himself off with a towel. He dressed again in the fresh shirt, then walked to the door.

  He turned back to look again at the room. He wasn’t sure how he was feeling. He wasn’t sure how he should be feeling. He’d never lost a parent before.

  Hadn’t he? a voice asked from the back of his mind. Amyus Crowe had grown to become like a father to him, over the short time they had spent together. Crowe had taught him things, the way a father should, and had given him the mental tools he needed in order to start taking responsibility for his own life, holding his hand when necessary and letting him go when that was the best thing to do. Crowe had, in many ways, been a closer father than his real father.

  Maybe that was why he was feeling so conflicted. This house was meant to be his family home, but Mycroft was the only member of the family to whom he felt any real connection now. If his real father ever came back from India, then Sherlock wasn’t sure what they would even talk about.

  Sighing, he turned away and walked along the balcony towards the stairs. He passed one of the guest rooms, and noticed through the open doorway that Matty was standing in the centre, looking perplexed.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

  Matty shook his head. ‘I ain’t often stayed in a place this big, or this comfortable,’ he said. ‘’Cept when we was in America, before we took the ship ’ome again. I don’t think I’ll be comfortable ’ere.’

  ‘Put the mattress on the floor,’ Sherlock advised. ‘That’ll make it harder for you to sleep on. Either that or take a blanket and sleep in the stables with the horses, if that makes you feel better.’

  ‘All right.’ Matty grinned. ‘Good ideas, both of them.’

  Sherlock kept going, down the stairs. He assumed that Mycroft and the family solicitor would be in the library, but before he could turn in that direction a small figure appeared from the direction of the kitchens.

  ‘Sherlock, dear? Is that you?’

  It was Sherlock’s Aunt Anna: small, almost birdlike in her movements.

  ‘Aunt Anna?’

  She smiled: a tremulous little smile of greeting. ‘Sherlock! How lovely to see you!’ She caught herself, and frowned. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean that, exactly, given the circumstances. What I meant to say was that under other circumstances it would be lovely to see you, but that I’m sorry that we had to meet again under these circumstances, involving as they do the sad passing of your dear mother.’ Her face cleared, and then she frowned again. ‘Except that, if the circumstances were not as they are, then I might not be here at all, and we would not be meeting.’ A pause ensued, in which Sherlock opened his mouth to say something, but she continued: ‘Of course, relations within our family had improved a great deal after . . . after that little problem we had with Mrs Eglantine . . . and who is to say that your dear mother, were she still alive, would not have invited me to visit here anyway, after the death of my own husband, dear Sherrinford – who, after all, was her brother-in-law?’ She stared up at Sherlock, wide-eyed and suddenly panicky. ‘You did hear that your uncle had died, didn’t you? I presume that your brother informed you. I would have written, but –’

  He took her small, frail hands in his left hand and raised his right hand to her face, putting a finger against her lips to shush her for a moment. ‘Aunt Anna, I am very happy to see you again, despite the tragic circumstances, and yes, Mycroft did tell me about Uncle Sherrinford’s death. Please accept my condolences. Are you still living at Holmes Manor?’

  She nodded. ‘The house is far too large for me, of course, but I cannot bring myself to leave it. There are so many memories there. I remember dear Sherrinford saying –’

  ‘I am sorry that I couldn’t be at the funeral,’ Sherlock interrupted, knowing that she could go on forever if not stopped. ‘He and you were very good to me when I came to stay. I would have been there, but I was –’

  ‘You were in China. I know – Mycroft wrote to tell me. He was very concerned that we knew that, when you didn’t come back from London, it was not because we had done anything wrong, or because you did not like living with us.’

  ‘Nothing could be further from the truth, Aunt Anna. You were both so kind to me at a time when I didn’t really know what I was doing or what I wanted to be.’

  ‘You seem so much older now,’ she said, reaching up to touch his cheek gently. ‘China has changed you. You have grown up into someone much stronger. You have the same strength that your brother has, but you have your mother’s gentleness as well.’ She hesitated. ‘I can only hope that you have not inherited your father’s unfortunate . . . disposition of the brain.’

  ‘I suppose time will tell,’ he said simply.

  ‘Would you tell me more about China? It is a country I have heard much about, but I would be keen to learn more. I hear they have the most exquisite cups and saucers.’

  ‘I would love to sit down with you over a cup of tea and tell you everything that happened to me, but that will have to wait. My brother wishes to see me in the library.’

  ‘Then you must go, of course. I will see you later. There is plenty to keep me occupied here. All the arrangements for the wake, of course – the food, and the drink, and the flowers! The servants here are very good, but they do need a steadying hand, and I am glad to help. It keeps me busy, and stops me from thinking about . . .’

  She wandered away, still talking. Sherlock watched her go, smiling. It had been almost a year since he had last seen her, but Aunt Anna was still exactly as he remembered.

  He felt a moment’s grief as he remembered his Uncle Sherrinford – a tall man with a big white beard who used to quote Scripture all the time. He had been a good man, a scholar, and Sherlock was sad that he had never had the chance to talk properly to him.

  He turned and headed towards the library, where his brother was waiting.

  His father’s library was nothing like the extensive archive of history, theology, geography and other abstruse subjects that had lined the walls of his Uncle Sherrinford’s library. Siger Holmes’s tastes ran more to leather-bound volumes of various magazines such as Punch, along with histories of military campaigns, biographies of various famous military figures, and journals, travel books and ledgers concerning the Holmes family and estate dating back many generations. For a moment Sherlock felt a sickening wrench of nostalgia for those simple days when his father would be sitting at the desk, reading some military history, while Sherlock would lie on the floor with a book in front of him, randomly selected from the shelves. He had read about so many different things there, memorized so many facts by accident, all at his father’s feet.

  He took a deep breath and pulled
his attention back to the present.

  Mycroft Holmes was sitting at the large oak desk that Sherlock remembered his father sitting at so often during his formative years. Another man was standing off to one side, staring out of the French windows at the Holmes estate. He was portly, with a florid complexion and a fringe of white hair running around the back of his head. He turned as Sherlock entered, and walked towards the boy with his hand outstretched.

  ‘You must be young Sherlock,’ he said. ‘I am pleased to meet you. I am –’

  ‘Father’s solicitor,’ Sherlock said. ‘The butler said that you were here.’ He cast a quick glance at the man’s clothes and hands. He was doing reasonably well, in financial terms, but he was frustrated with the Law and was, in his private life, a reasonably good watercolour artist, mainly of landscapes. He was unmarried, but he had been in a secret relationship with his secretary for many years now – a situation that he was happy with, but which she wished would become more formal. He also had a dog – a red setter, Sherlock thought.

  The entire thought process only took a second or so. Sherlock glanced up and saw that his brother was looking at him, smiling. Mycroft knew exactly what thoughts had gone through his mind, and no doubt his brother would have spotted a couple of things that Sherlock had missed.

  ‘A spaniel, not a red setter,’ Mycroft said. Before the solicitor could say anything, he added, ‘Sherlock, thank you for joining us. Mr Lydecker and I have just been discussing the issues concerning the family, and this house. Sadly, the estate has been allowed to fall into a state of disrepair over the past few years, since our father left for India. Mother was unable to keep on top of it, but she kept the true situation from me, and instructed the servants to do the same. There is much work that needs to be done, and very little money to do it with.’ He shrugged. ‘Father’s Army pay is being paid to him directly, in India, and he appears to be spending it all. There is nothing coming back, and so the estate is forced to fall back on its own resources, like a body which is receiving no food and has to digest its own fat reserves. It is not a situation which can go on forever.’