Young Sherlock: Night Break

by Andrew Lane

  ‘Likewise,’ Mycroft said, shaking the hand.

  ‘I have been considering paying a visit to Holmes Lodge,’ Phillimore went on, turning and holding his hand out towards Sherlock. ‘But given your recent bereavement – for which I offer my sincere condolences – I thought it best to delay my plans.’

  ‘That was very considerate of you,’ Sherlock said. Phillimore’s hand was cold and damp, and barely gripped Sherlock’s at all – it was like holding on to a fish, Sherlock thought. If the man was an engineer then he was a theoretical one, not one who got to grips with things.

  Phillimore half turned and indicated the shadowy hallway behind him. ‘As you will have noticed, I have decorators in at the moment. They are making the most terrible mess. I would invite you in, but frankly I am embarrassed at the state of the place. If you will permit me to make a suggestion, perhaps we could take a brisk walk into town and find somewhere we could sit and have a cup of tea.’

  ‘An excellent suggestion,’ Mycroft responded. ‘Especially if there is cake as well.’

  Phillimore smiled. ‘I know just the place.’ He glanced up at the sky. ‘I sense that there might be more rain later this afternoon – I shall just get an umbrella, and give the estimable Mr Throop some last-minute instructions, and then I shall be at your disposal.’ He smiled, nodded, and stepped back inside the hallway.

  Mycroft glanced at Sherlock. ‘I detect no dissimulation,’ he said quietly. ‘The man seems quite stable and honest, if perhaps a little boring.’

  ‘Perhaps that is what Emma needs,’ Sherlock observed, ‘a man who is as boring as she is interesting. On balance, that means that between them they would make a stable couple.’

  ‘I am not sure that is how marriage works,’ Mycroft observed. ‘But then again, I am hardly an expert on the matter.’

  As they waited for James Phillimore to reappear, Sherlock let his gaze wander across the face of the house, trying to see if he could replicate the observations that Mycroft had made. He managed all but one.

  He turned when he heard Mycroft making a harrumph! noise under his breath. His brother was consulting the watch that hung from a chain on his bulging waistcoat. ‘How long does it take to get an umbrella and give instructions to a workman?’ he growled.

  Sherlock wandered up to the corner of the house and looked along its length. He could see a garden at the back, surrounded by tall hedges. It was, all things considered, a nice house. Emma would, he thought, be happy there.

  Glancing back at Mycroft, he saw that his brother was getting increasingly irritated. Not wanting to be the focus of an angry outburst, he started walking along the side of the house, past a row of closed and curtained windows. At the far end he looked into the garden. The lawn spread from the stone patio outside the French windows and the closed back door all the way to the tall hedge. Where the patio stopped, flowerbeds ran all the way along the rest of the back of the house. He noticed idly that the rain earlier had left puddles pooling all along the patio.

  He wandered back to the front of the house. Mycroft’s shoulders were hunched, and he seemed to be muttering to himself.

  Sherlock walked past his brother, glancing into the shadowy hall as he did so. He couldn’t see any movement. He thought he heard his brother say, ‘Fifteen minutes – this is the height of bad manners!’ When he got to the opposite corner of the house he looked along its length. It seemed no different from the side he had already looked at. Bored, he walked along this side as well, past more sealed and curtained windows, getting a view of the garden from the other side.

  He couldn’t hear anything from the front of the house, so he wandered along the back of the house. The flowerbeds, he noticed, were planted with a mixture of roses, rhododendrons and hydrangeas – bushes that had been allowed to grow out, rather than be pruned. He presumed that it was a practical measure against burglars – it would be difficult for anyone to force their way past the thick stems and thorns to get to a window.

  The patio was covered in rainwater that hadn’t drained away or evaporated. Unwilling to get his shoes wet, Sherlock diverted around the flagstones, walking on the damp and yielding grass, feeling the muddy earth sink beneath his feet, until he got to the side of the house where he’d been ten minutes before. He walked slowly to the front of the house, seeing his footsteps from before outlined in crushed grass and pearl-like drops of water.

  At the front of the house he looked sideways again at his brother. Mycroft’s hands were balled into fists, and he was muttering to himself.

  ‘Why don’t we just knock again?’ Sherlock called. ‘He’s obviously got deep into discussion with his decorators.’

  ‘More likely he’s taken fright at the thought of talking to the brothers of his fiancée and he has run out of the back door, never to be seen again.’

  Sherlock shook his head. ‘There’s a French window and a kitchen door at the back, but they are both closed. Based on the pools of water on the patio, the doors haven’t even been opened, let alone anybody walking across the flagstones. And in case you thought that he might have climbed out of a window, they’re all closed and the only footsteps in the soft earth are mine.’

  ‘Then where is the man!’ Mycroft cried.

  The front door to the house opened wide. Mycroft turned to face it, mouth opening to say something cutting, but the man standing there was not James Phillimore. It was a smaller man dressed in workman’s clothes and a flat cap. He stared down at Mycroft and Sherlock.

  ‘You blokes seen the owner?’ he asked.

  ‘We saw him earlier,’ Mycroft answered, frowning. ‘If you are George Throop then he went to speak to you.’

  ‘Didn’t make it,’ the man said. ‘Ain’t seen him. Anyway, we’re knocking off for the afternoon. Got to wait for the plaster to dry before we can do anything else.’

  ‘Do you have any idea where Mr Phillimore has gone?’ Mycroft demanded.

  Mr Throop shrugged. ‘Beats me.’ He called back over his shoulder: ‘Miss Winstanley, there’s two gentlemen at the door waiting for Mr Phillimore.’ He turned back to Mycroft and Sherlock. ‘Best I can do,’ he said. ‘We’ve only got an hour for lunch, and this Mr Phillimore is very concerned about punctuality. Very concerned, he is.’

  He walked out of the door and past Mycroft. From behind him, two other workmen emerged. Their faces were dusty and their clothes had streaks of paint on them. Sherlock paid particular attention to their heights and their faces as they passed, just in case Mr Phillimore was trying to sneak past them for some bizarre reason, but they were all bulkier than he had been, with rough, unshaven faces. They glanced at him suspiciously, wondering why he was examining them so closely. One of them was cradling his arm, as if it had been injured. Perhaps something had fallen on it while they were decorating, or moving the furniture.

  Mycroft looked to Sherlock as if he was going to burst with indignation. He was about to call out when the maid came to the door again. She looked puzzled.

  ‘Did the master not come out this way?’ she asked.

  ‘We have not seen him since he went back inside to fetch an umbrella,’ Mycroft said, ‘and that was twenty minutes ago. Perhaps you would be so good as to see where he is and remind him that he has visitors waiting on him.’

  The maid smiled uncertainly. ‘I’ll certainly go and see what has detained him,’ she said. ‘Please wait here.’

  ‘As if we have any other option,’ Mycroft growled.

  ‘Perhaps he has a large number of umbrellas, and he can’t choose which one to bring with him,’ Sherlock said brightly. Mycroft just glanced darkly at him, then turned away.

  The maid returned five minutes later. She looked flustered. ‘I can’t find the master,’ she said. ‘He’s nowhere to be seen. Are you sure he didn’t come out this way?’

  ‘If he did, then he possesses the fabled umbrella of invisibility,’ Mycroft said. The maid just looked at him, puzzled. ‘Did you check every room?’ Mycroft went on.

  ‘
I did, sir, yes.’

  ‘Is there any other way out of the house?’

  ‘There’s the back door,’ the maid said, frowning, ‘but he’d have to go past cook, and she’s been baking pies all morning. She says she hasn’t seen him. Oh, and there’s the French windows that lead out to the garden from the drawing room, but they’re locked.’

  ‘Could he have climbed out of a window?’ Mycroft asked.

  She looked at Mycroft strangely. ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘We’ll worry about the “why” later – could he have done so?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said, ‘but I doubt he could have closed and locked the window behind him, and that’s how they all are. There’s no reason to have a window open in this weather.’ She hesitated. ‘I did find this,’ she said, holding up a handkerchief. Sherlock could see a trace of blood on it, fresh and red. ‘Maybe the master had an accident.’

  ‘Maybe he did, but where is he?’ Mycroft pursed his lips. ‘Sherlock, you wait here,’ he said. ‘I shall make a perambulation of the house and look for evidence that Mr Phillimore has left in a hurry and in a manner that avoids passing us.’

  ‘Remember the pools of water on the patio,’ Sherlock said, remembering his own perambulation a few minutes before. ‘They would have been disturbed if the French window had been opened and someone had walked across the patio, but they appear untouched. The patio is too wide to jump across, as well.’ He thought for a moment, trying to recollect what he had seen. ‘The windows all let out on to flowerbeds with bushes, and there is no sign that the bushes have been disturbed. Also, someone jumping down from a window would have left marks in the wet lawn, but there were no such marks. The same would be true if anybody had used a ladder to reach a window from the lawn.’

  ‘I told you, gentlemen,’ the maid said, ‘all the windows are closed and locked, including the French ones.’

  ‘It’s not that I do not believe you, Sherlock,’ Mycroft said, ‘but evidence is best checked first hand.’ He walked off, disappearing around the corner of the house. Sherlock stood there, staring at the outside of the house and trying to work out what was going on. The maid stood in the doorway, obviously unsure what to do.

  Mycroft returned from the opposite direction a few minutes later. ‘You are, of course, correct,’ he said. ‘There would have been indications in the puddled water, the lawn or the flowerbeds if someone had left the house other than through this door, but I see no such marks. Besides, I noticed rain on the window frames that would have drained away if the windows had been opened.’ He shook his head. ‘This really is a puzzle. I can only assume that Mr Phillimore is still in the house but is hiding in a cupboard or under a bed.’

  ‘If he doesn’t want to see us that badly,’ Sherlock said, ‘then perhaps we ought to leave him to his own devices.’

  Mycroft raised an eyebrow. ‘If he doesn’t want to see us that badly, then perhaps we ought to determine the reason why.’ He nodded decisively. ‘We shall search the house,’ he announced to the maid. Indicating the handkerchief which she still held, he added: ‘Some harm does appear to have come to your master, and we need to determine what, and check whether he needs help.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think the master would approve of people ransacking his house without his permission,’ she said, raising a hand to her mouth.

  ‘Then he can come out from hiding and tell us so himself,’ Mycroft said. He would have pushed past her, but his bulky frame filled the doorway, and she retreated before him like a dinghy before a steamship.

  Sherlock followed his brother into the house. The hallway was small and carpeted, with a coat stand, an umbrella stand and a table. Mr Phillimore’s dusty top hat sat on the table, where he had probably set it down when he went back inside. Stairs on the left led upward, and there were several doors leading to various rooms. The smell of paint and plaster was stronger inside than out. ‘You search upstairs first,’ Mycroft said. ‘I shall stay here so that he does not sneak past us. Check all wardrobes and cupboards. Check under beds. Look for trapdoors that lead up into the attic.’

  Not without some misgivings, Sherlock went up the stairs. He felt edgy about searching another man’s house without his permission, but something was obviously wrong.

  There was only one floor upstairs. The hall had nothing in it but a roll of carpet and some furniture, which had obviously been moved out of one of the three bedrooms to allow the decorators access. Sherlock quickly but thoroughly searched the three bedrooms and the one bathroom.

  Two of the bedrooms had dust sheets thrown across the beds, the chairs and the dressing tables. Each room was neat and tidy, free of dust and free of any human habitation. With some misgivings Sherlock opened the various wardrobes and cupboards that he found, but there was nothing in them but clothes of a rather old-fashioned cut. Mr Phillimore was not hiding behind the curtains either. The space under the beds was empty as well, apart from some slippers and a bedpan. He also looked under the dust sheets in case Mr Phillimore was sitting very quietly, hidden beneath one of them, but of course he was not. Sherlock also checked all of the windows, but they were shut and locked. Glancing down to the garden beneath, he could still see no trace of footprints or any other sign that someone had left the house that way.

  Hands on his hips, he looked around in frustration. Where on earth could James Phillimore have gone?

  CHAPTER SIX

  One of the bedrooms was empty of furniture. The carpet had also been removed, leaving bare floorboards, and the curtains had been taken down as well. Sherlock remembered seeing the carpet rolled up in the hall. Three of the bedroom walls had been freshly plastered and were still damp, while the fourth wall had been covered with floral wallpaper. The pattern wasn’t to Sherlock’s taste – it seemed old-fashioned, but then so did James Phillimore. A bucket of plaster, a bucket of wallpaper paste, several more rolls of wallpaper and some tools had been left in one corner. Sherlock took a quick look around, but there was nowhere there for a man to hide – even a man as thin as his sister’s fiancé.

  In the hallway, just outside the bathroom, a trapdoor gave access to the roof space. It was bolted shut. Sherlock was about to leave it, but then it occurred to him that perhaps James Phillimore had climbed up into the attic, and then someone – perhaps the maid – had bolted the trapdoor behind him and removed whatever he had used to climb up there. That would mean that there was some kind of conspiracy to hide Mr Phillimore, but Sherlock was beginning to run out of options as to where the man could have gone. He retrieved a footstool from one of the bedrooms and used it to gain access to the trapdoor. He threw the bolt and pushed it upward. Dust fell into his eyes. The space revealed was dark, but when he stuck his head up into the attic and waited for a few moments his eyes got used to the darkness and he began to see thin beams of light slanting across from gaps in the brickwork and the slates of the roof. They revealed that the attic was completely empty. There was no space, no area of shadow, where James Phillimore could hide.

  Sherlock bolted the trapdoor again, climbed down and took the footstool back to the bedroom where he had found it. Slowly he went back downstairs to where Mycroft was waiting impatiently. The maid was still standing near him, obviously unwilling to leave a dangerous madman alone.

  ‘Well?’ his brother snapped.

  ‘Nothing,’ Sherlock said. ‘I looked everywhere.’

  Mycroft shook his head in frustration. ‘He must be somewhere!’ He turned to the maid. ‘Is there a cellar in this house?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  He sighed. ‘Sherlock – search the rooms down here as well. Check chimneys and sideboards. Leave the kitchen until last.’

  Sherlock did as he was told, searching the front room, the drawing room and the dining room. Each was decorated with reasonably old furniture and engravings of buildings and bridges – obviously things that appealed to James Phillimore’s engineering training. He checked any cupboard space that was large enough to hide a man, and most
of the ones that weren’t, but they were all empty apart from the usual detritus of brushes, brooms and stored Christmas decorations. He also checked the windows carefully, paying particular attention to the French windows that led out to the garden, but they were all locked and the space behind the curtains was empty. The puddles of water, the bushes and the lawn outside appeared as undisturbed from this direction as from outside, and there was sufficient dust on the frames to suggest firstly that Mr Phillimore had not left via any of them and secondly that his maid was skimping on her duties.

  He returned to his brother in the hall. The maid had finally gone. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Absolutely nowhere that a man could hide, and yet no way he could have left.’

  ‘There is only one remaining possibility,’ Mycroft announced. ‘He must have left via the back door, and the cook is lying when she says that she didn’t see him.’

  ‘Or the cook is Mr Phillimore in disguise,’ Sherlock pointed out, ‘and it is the maid who is lying.’

  Mycroft led the way to the back of the house, squeezing through the narrow doorway into the kitchen. The cook – a large woman with forearms like a dock worker – was rolling pastry out on the kitchen table. The maid was standing on the other side of the table, and judging by the glower on the cook’s face the two of them had been talking about Mycroft’s invasion of the house. On the far side of the room was a doorway leading, he presumed, to a pantry, and then to the garden.

  ‘What’s all this about then?’ she challenged him. ‘Coming into a gentleman’s house all unannounced and uninvited. We should call the police, that’s what we should do!’

  ‘Be my guest,’ Mycroft said. ‘There is something strange going on here, that much is obvious. Now, do you maintain that your master did not come into this kitchen and leave the house by that back door?’

  ‘I do,’ she said, squaring up to him, rolling pin raised in defiance. ‘And any man that says otherwise is a liar!’