Young Sherlock: Night Break

by Andrew Lane

  As quickly as they could after breakfast, Sherlock and Matty saddled up a couple of horses from the stables and set off for Mr Phillimore’s house.

  As they prepared the horses, Sherlock noticed the cut lengths of rope that had been left lying around in the straw. The sight sent a pang of anguish through his heart. He hated being lied to – especially by family.

  They got to James Phillimore’s house shortly after nine o’clock. Sherlock rang the bell, and Marie – the maid – answered it. When she saw Sherlock she winced. Obviously she had troubling memories of the day before.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’

  ‘Is Mr Phillimore in?’ Sherlock asked.

  ‘I’ll see if he is available,’ she replied, and vanished back into the house. This time she actually shut the door on him. Sherlock found himself wondering if she had just vanished back to the kitchen, or wherever she spent her time when she wasn’t opening the front door, and had left him and Matty to stew on the doorstep until they decided to give up and go home. He was just about to knock on the door again when it reopened.

  ‘The master will see you,’ Marie said. It was clear from her tone of voice that she disapproved.

  Phillimore was waiting in the drawing room. ‘Mr Holmes!’ he exclaimed, ‘I was hoping that you would return and tell me what has transpired with those three thugs.’ He glanced at Matty. ‘And you’ve brought a friend with you – how wonderful.’

  ‘This is Matty – Matthew Arnatt,’ Sherlock said. ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you very much about what we found out from those men, but I was hoping that we could take another look at that letter. I think we may have missed something.’

  Phillimore frowned. ‘Did your brother not tell you?’

  Sherlock felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. ‘Tell us what?’

  ‘That the same thought had occurred to him. He came here late last night. Very late last night, in fact. I was just preparing for bed when he rang the doorbell. He was, I have to say, very short with me. He said that he needed to take the letter from my brother for testing. I was most reluctant to let him have it, but he was very insistent.’

  ‘He took the letter?’ Sherlock asked.

  ‘He did.’ Phillimore frowned. ‘Did he not tell you when he got back to Holmes Lodge?’

  ‘No – he must have forgotten.’ Sherlock forced a smile. ‘I apologize for wasting your time, Mr Phillimore.’

  ‘Please tell your brother that I would like to have that letter back,’ Phillimore said as he escorted them to the door. ‘My brother and I have had our differences over the years, but I welcome his attempt to repair our relationship. That letter is very dear to me.’

  ‘I promise to raise the matter with Mycroft at the first opportunity,’ Sherlock said.

  ‘And . . .’ Phillimore hesitated. ‘Please convey my deepest regards to my dearest Emma. Tell her that I have been staying away, in deference to her bereavement, but that I hope to see her again soon.’

  ‘I will do that,’ Sherlock replied. Privately he couldn’t help thinking that, given Emma’s perilous mental state, she might well have forgotten about Phillimore by the time Sherlock returned.

  ‘Oh, one more thing,’ Sherlock called as Mr Phillimore began to close the door.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Years ago, when your brother and you were on good terms, did you play a lot together?’

  He smiled in remembrance. ‘Yes, we did.’

  ‘And did you play lots of tricks on your parents and your teachers?’

  ‘We did indeed. I recall that we made up our own language, which we used to speak whenever we didn’t want the adults to know what we were saying. Oh, and we used invisible ink to write notes to each other. It used to infuriate our teachers when they would find us passing notes back and forth but there was nothing on the notes. It was such fun.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Sherlock said. ‘You’ve been a great help – more than you know.’

  As the door closed behind them, he slammed his hand into his leg in frustration. ‘Mycroft got here first!’ he exclaimed. ‘He has the letter!’

  ‘’E’s almost certainly taken the message to London with him,’ Matty pointed out. ‘Along wiv those blokes. What do we do now?’

  The answer was clear in Sherlock’s mind. Having started on this journey, he had to keep going. ‘We’re going to go to London and get the letter back,’ he said firmly.

  ‘Ain’t that goin’ to be a problem?’ Matty asked, frowning. ‘I mean, we don’t know where ’e’s goin’ to ’ide it.’

  ‘Brother Mycroft spends his whole life in only three separate places in London,’ Sherlock pointed out. ‘His rooms in Whitehall, the Diogenes Club, also in Whitehall, and his office in the Government Buildings.’

  ‘Which I’m guessin’ are in Whitehall.’ Matty smiled. ‘Your bruvver don’t like movin’ around too much, does ’e?’

  Sherlock couldn’t help smiling as well, despite the gravity of the situation. ‘If he could sleep and eat in his office then he’d stay there all the time. Alternatively, if he could sleep and work in the Diogenes Club then he would do that instead. Eventually, of course, he would lose the use of his legs entirely, but it might take him a while to notice. Or care.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I doubt that he would take the risk of allowing the letter to lie around in his rooms or in the Diogenes Club. There have already been two attempts to retrieve it, and both the club and his rooms are vulnerable. No, for safety’s sake, and because the letter concerns matters to do with the Foreign Office, he will probably take it to his office and leave it there.’ He glanced at Matty. ‘How do you feel about breaking into the Foreign Office and stealing a letter?’ he asked.

  Matty shrugged. ‘I done worse in my life.’ He caught Sherlock’s expression, and added: ‘I ain’t goin’ to tell you what, though.’

  A depressing thought struck Sherlock. ‘I suppose it’s possible Mycroft might put the letter into a safe, rather than leave it on his desk. That will cause us problems.’

  Matty shrugged. ‘Depends what kind of safe,’ he said. ‘Anythin’ over five years old I can prob’ly get into. It’s just a case of listenin’ to the tumblers click as you turn the knob. I got good ’earing.’

  ‘You’ll have to teach me how to do that,’ Sherlock said, staring at Matty in wonder.

  ‘If I teach you how to do it,’ Matty pointed out, ‘then you won’t need me any more.’

  ‘I’ll always need you,’ Sherlock said simply.

  Rather than respond to that, Matty just nodded gratefully, and looked away. ‘When are we goin’ to head for London?’ he asked. Sherlock thought he could hear a catch in Matty’s voice.

  ‘There’s no point waiting,’ Sherlock replied. ‘We need to get there and get the letter before Mycroft has a chance to analyse it and put it safely away somewhere. We’re going straight to the station now, and we’re going to catch a train.’

  They got to Arundel Station with plenty of time to spare before the next train, and left the horses at the nearest stables with enough money having been passed to the stable boys that the horses would be looked after until they returned. They looked around cautiously in case Rufus Stone was travelling at the same time they were, but they didn’t see him. Half an hour later they were on the train heading for London.

  It was only after they had passed through the outskirts of London that Matty suddenly said, ‘’Ang on – who’s in charge of your ’ouse now? Your bruvver’s left, an’ so ’ave you. Who does that leave – your sister?’

  ‘I suppose Aunt Anna is in charge now,’ Sherlock said dubiously. In fact, it hadn’t even occurred to him to leave a note for her telling her what was going on, or send any instructions to the servants to carry on until he got back. In the same way, it probably hadn’t occurred to Mycroft to do anything similar when he left so abruptly. The Holmes family did have an issue with thinking things through properly, Sherlock had to admit. He wasn’t sure that he would have agreed with Mycroft that he w
as easily distracted, but once he was focused on a particular thing, then he did have a habit of letting everything else slide.

  ‘Maybe I’ll send a telegram,’ he said weakly.

  The train arrived eventually at Victoria Station. Sherlock and Matty headed east on foot.

  ‘’Ow are we goin’ to get in?’ Matty asked as they walked past the grim frontage of the Tothill Fields Bridewell Prison.

  ‘I’m still working on that,’ Sherlock said. In fact, he had no idea.

  They passed Westminster Abbey, and kept walking. Eventually they got to Whitehall: a wide thoroughfare with Trafalgar Square at its top and the Houses of Parliament at its base. Sherlock had been there several times over the years, and he knew his way around. The Foreign Office was two-thirds of the way down, on the right: a very grand building of brown stone with an ornate roof and high windows. The faces of some of the stones had been carved with little decorative peaks and troughs, like miniature stone hills.

  ‘What now?’ Matty asked as they came within sight of the building. ‘I was thinking we might say we was chimney sweeps come to clear soot out of the chimneys.’

  ‘That won’t work,’ Sherlock replied. ‘We’re too clean, and too well fed. Nobody would believe we were chimney sweeps. And besides, there’s usually an adult with them to make sure they don’t run off.’

  ‘All right then – what do you suggest?’

  ‘We wait, and observe,’ Sherlock said.

  They spent several hours in various positions around the front and the back of the Foreign Office, watching as important-looking men in frock coats, striped trousers and top hats entered and left via a door that was guarded by doormen in formal uniforms. The men who came and went all had impressive moustaches, sideburns or beards. After a while they seemed to blend together in Sherlock’s tired mind, so that it seemed the same man was entering and leaving time and time again. Once or twice carriages drew up and diplomats in exotic robes and strange hats or headdresses got out and went inside with plenty of ceremony and handshaking from the diplomats who had come outside to greet them.

  Twice while they watched, newsboys with piles of newspapers entered the building, waved through by the uniformed doormen.

  ‘Look at that,’ Sherlock said the second time it happened. ‘The newspaper boys have free rein to enter the building. The people who work there must read the newspapers for reports of foreign news that hasn’t made it through diplomatic channels yet. The boys probably wander through the corridors, selling the newspapers to whoever wants them. That gives us a way in. We just need to get a pile of whatever newspaper edition comes out next, and walk past them as if we have every right to be there. I think there’s three or four editions of some of the newspapers every day.’

  ‘So we steal them?’ Matty asked.

  ‘We buy them,’ Sherlock countered. ‘Buy the whole pile from the next boy who comes along.’

  ‘Or we could just steal them,’ Matty murmured.

  It was half an hour later that a boy wearing a cloth cap came past them carrying a pile of newspapers. Sherlock was going to approach him, but Matty held him back. ‘Look, just give me a couple of shillings,’ he said quietly. ‘I think ’e an’ I speak the same language. ’E certainly looks more like me than ’e does you.’

  Matty caught up with the boy and walked beside him for a few minutes, chatting. Eventually the boy stopped. Matty handed a coin across, and the boy handed him the pile of newspapers. He ran off, and Sherlock walked up to join Matty.

  ‘Easy as fallin’ off an ’orse,’ Matty said.

  Sherlock grinned. ‘Give me half the newspapers, then walk beside me up to the Foreign Office doors. Look as if you’ve got every right to be there. Actually, look as if you don’t want to be there.’

  ‘Hey, I’ve snuck into places before,’ Matty replied, sounding slightly offended.

  Together they walked towards the impressively big building. Sherlock was expecting to have to say something, or explain why they weren’t the usual delivery boys, but the doorman on duty just waved them through. Maybe the faces of the boys who delivered the newspapers kept changing, or maybe he just didn’t look at them after so many years of working there. Whatever the reason, Sherlock and Matty just walked right past him.

  Inside the building, they found themselves in a foyer whose floor was tiled in white and black marble. Ahead of them an enormous white stone staircase rose up like a cascade of frozen water. Its banisters were wide enough that Matty could have slid down them on a tea tray. The air was cool, and the echoes of distant footsteps mixed with the clatter of typewriters.

  ‘Where now?’ Matty hissed.

  ‘Keep moving,’ Sherlock said. ‘Mycroft told me his room number once, just in case I ever needed to send him an urgent telegram while he was at work. I can still remember it. All we need to do is to keep walking along the corridors until we find it.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Matty said.

  They walked along the first corridor they came to, with Sherlock checking the room numbers as they passed. Several times men in the offices saw them and called out, wanting to buy a newspaper off them. In fact, they were so successful at selling newspapers that Sherlock worried they might run out before they got to Mycroft’s office, and have no obvious reason for wandering the corridors. For that reason he made sure that he and Matty moved fast, and didn’t linger in doorways.

  The numbering system, if there was one, wasn’t intuitively obvious, and so Sherlock and Matty had to keep looking for the right room instead of working out where it was. They discovered eventually that Mycroft’s office wasn’t on the ground floor. Instead of going back to the main hall, and the white marble staircase, Sherlock found a door at the end of a corridor that led on to a metal spiral staircase. They went up to the next floor and started again.

  After ten minutes on the first floor of the building, Sherlock saw the right number by the side of a half-closed office door. He indicated to Matty that they were in the right place. He was just about to put his newspapers down and move towards the door, ready to listen for anybody inside, when it opened and the large bulk of his brother’s body emerged.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Sherlock grabbed Matty’s arms and shoved him sideways, through an open door and into the next office. Matty started to say something, but Sherlock grabbed his jaw and stopped his mouth from moving.

  ‘Ah – the newspaper boys,’ a voice said. ‘Is that the late afternoon edition?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Sherlock said automatically. He turned his head. The man sitting at the desk was as thin as Mycroft was fat. His top hat and frock coat were hanging on a coat stand, and Sherlock could see springy metal bands around his upper arms, presumably keeping his cuffs from falling on to his hands. He had a green visor held to his forehead by a band around the back of his neck, shielding his eyes from the light from the tall window.

  ‘Give me a copy,’ he said. ‘I’m expecting news from Constantinople.’

  Sherlock handed a newspaper across and the man threw a coin at him. ‘Bring the evening issue as soon as it arrives. Bring it straight here first, then you can do the rest of the building after. There’s a half-shilling in it for you if I get the newspaper first.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  There was a pause as the man opened the newspaper, then realized Sherlock and Matty were still there and glanced at them, waiting for them to leave. Sherlock for his part was worried that Mycroft was still out in the corridor, maybe talking to someone, but he didn’t want to raise suspicions here. He pushed Matty out of the office, making sure their backs were towards Mycroft’s office.

  In fact, his brother’s recognizable figure was striding down the corridor away from them.

  ‘Lookin’ for the lady wiv the tea trolley,’ Matty guessed.

  ‘We’ve got a few minutes,’ Sherlock said. ‘Let’s get in there and look for that letter.’

  They moved quickly along the corridor and into Mycroft’s office. Sherlock was half
afraid that his brother might have been sharing it with someone else, but if he was, then Sherlock supposed he and Matty could just pull the newspaper trick again. In fact, there was only one desk, and the office was empty of anyone else.

  Sherlock put his pile of newspapers down and glanced around. Everything was neatly filed away. The maroon leather surface of the desk was almost bare, apart from a green blotter, a fountain-pen stand, an inkwell and a photograph in a frame. Sherlock couldn’t help himself: he reached out and took the photograph, expecting it to be either of their parents or possibly of him and Emma.

  In fact, it was a picture of a woman in a white dress. From her freckles Sherlock judged that she was probably a redhead. Her hair was curled, and her smile was so vivid and genuine that Sherlock found himself smiling as well.

  ‘I said it before – ’e’s a dark ’orse,’ Matty observed. He had put his newspapers by the door.

  Sherlock put the picture down. ‘He probably doesn’t even know who she is,’ he said dismissively. ‘He keeps it here just so everyone else thinks that he has a woman in his life.’

  Matty just stared at him. ‘Give ’im some credit,’ he said eventually. ‘I know ’e’s ’urt you, but he’s doin’ whatever ’e is doin’ for a reason. That telegram you said ’e got – it was prob’ly givin’ ’im orders. Don’t assume that ’e’s lyin’ about everythin’.’

  Sherlock sighed. ‘You’re right, of course,’ he said

  The top of the desk was clear, so Sherlock checked the desk drawers. There were fountain pens, propelling pencils, rulers and pencil sharpeners in the top drawer, envelopes in the second draw, blank paper and notebooks in the third drawer, and a revolver in the bottom drawer. Sherlock stared at it in amazement.

  ‘Dark ’orse,’ Matty murmured when he saw what Sherlock was looking at.

  Having exhausted the desk drawers, Sherlock stared around the room, frustrated. There was a cabinet against the wall by the door, but it was locked. A chunky metal safe was set into the wall opposite the desk, but that was shut and locked too. Matty had assured Sherlock that he could break into a safe, and so a locked cabinet would presumably present few problems, but Sherlock was worried about the time it would take. Assuming Mycroft had popped out for a cup of tea and a currant bun, instead of heading for a meeting, he would be back in a few minutes. As good as Matty might be, Sherlock was pretty sure it would take him longer than that to get into the cabinet, let alone the safe.