by Andrew Lane
Sherlock walked alone, up through Piccadilly Circus, through Leicester Square and across to the bottom of Charing Cross Road. The streets were thronged with people on the pavements, and horses, carts and cabs of various descriptions in the road. If this was just a few hundred people, and it felt like he was being crushed, then what would a country of sixty-five million people be like? And if there were sixty-five million people in Russia alone, then how many people were there in the world as a whole? The scale of things made him dizzy!
Bookshops, junk shops and pawnbrokers lined the street on either side, and he spent a good hour browsing through the boxes of stuff that were located outside the various emporia, and the shelves and cabinets inside. He let his mind wander, not trying to force it in any particular direction.
He came across a handful of books about the Russian Empire, selected the two most factual and bought them. He also found himself interested in a box of door locks, padlocks and keys, which the owner of the shop warned him were unsorted. There was no guarantee that any of the keys would fit any of the locks; the owner was selling them as seen. Sherlock wondered whether by having numerous padlocks in his possession, to fiddle with and experiment on at his leisure, he might learn how to pick a lock. It was a skill that might prove useful in future. In fact, it would already have proved itself useful in the past couple of months.
In the end he abandoned the box of locks and walked away. He could always go back for them later.
Further up Charing Cross Road he crossed Cambridge Circus, and then went on to the beginning of Tottenham Court Road. Still more shops, although the street was at least wider here, giving more room for the horses and cabs to pass. He checked out a pawnshop in desultory fashion, knowing that it was nearly time to turn round and head back if he was going to be at the Diogenes Club on time. His eye was caught by a violin case resting on a shelf at the back.
He carefully took the case down and blew the dust from it. He opened the lid, and drew a sharp breath when he saw the violin inside. It was old – old and beautiful. The veneer was a deep red, crazed with a tight spider’s web of cracks, and the f-holes on top seemed slightly offset to him, but there was something about the instrument that spoke to him. Called to him. He hefted it in his right hand, holding it by the neck and taking its weight on the heel of his palm. The balance seemed better than Rufus Stone’s violin, which he had held and played on the SS Scotia, on the way to New York. He let the violin’s curved body rest on his forearm and plucked at the strings. Sounds filled the shop, plangent and long – lasting. The tuning was awful, but there was something about the tone, some complexity, that thrilled him. It wasn’t a pure sound, by any means, but it was warm and expressive. He ran his finger along the edge between the top and the side of the violin. It felt like velvet.
‘You have a good eye,’ a dry-as-dust voice said from the back of the shop.
Sherlock turned. A section of shelving was in the way and he walked around it to see a man so old and frail that a strong wind might have blown him away. He was sitting behind a desk piled high with books and other objects. He wore a black skullcap, and he peered at Sherlock through a set of glasses that were perched on the bridge of his nose and secured from falling to the ground by a chain that hung around his neck.
‘I beg your pardon?’
The man moved out of the shadowy nook in which he had been sitting and into a dusty beam of sunlight. ‘That violin I brought with me from Krakow, many years ago. My father won it in a game of cards, would you believe? It has travelled with us across most of Europe, and now I have to sell it in order that I buy food and firewood, and yet still I want to keep it.’
‘It’s a lovely instrument.’
‘It is lovely, just as my wife is lovely, and it plays like a dream, or so I am told by those who know. Me, I play the piano, and sometimes the accordion, but only when I drink too much.’
Sherlock looked in the case. ‘Does it have a bow?’
‘For you, I have a bow,’ the man said. He dug around on the desk, moving some books. ‘There are some who say that the bow is as important as the instrument. Me, I’m not so sure. The instrument is a work of art, but the bow is just horsehair. Maybe the type of horse is important, I don’t know. Ah!’ He pulled a bow from a hidden recess and handed it across to Sherlock. ‘Go ahead, try!’
Sherlock thought back to the lessons he’d had from Rufus Stone. He’d not practised since getting back from America, because he didn’t have a violin, but he’d missed the discipline of repetitive scales and the way his mind could be calmed from its perpetual churning by the simplicity of music.
He quickly tuned the violin, plucking the strings repeatedly and turning the pegs at the end of the neck until the notes were correct. He raised it to his shoulder and nestled his chin against it. It felt natural. It felt as if it was meant to be there.
Placing the bow against the strings, he played a sustained note on each one in turn: G, D, A, E. The notes sounded like a voice, singing in heaven. He tried some scales, and was surprised at how quickly his fingers seemed to remember what to do.
When he lowered the violin, he was amazed to see tears in the old man’s eyes.
‘It has been a long time since she was played,’ he said. ‘I was worried that the passing of years and the passing of miles had dulled her tone, but she sounds more beautiful than ever – which is more than can be said for my lovely wife, who sings like a crow.’
‘How is it,’ Sherlock asked, ‘that different violins can sound.. . so different? I mean, a cart is a cart is a cart. They each have four wheels and they move when they are pulled. It’s difficult to choose between them. But violins – they all look the same, more or less, but they don’t sound the same.’
The old man shrugged. ‘You ask three fiddlers, you get four different answers. Some say it’s to do with the wood that they’re made from. Denser wood is better, they say. Some say that wood that was towed behind boats passing through the Adriatic Sea outside Venice gives a sweeter tone. Others say it’s nothing to do with the wood, but all to do with the varnish, and whatever secret ingredients the violin makers put into it. Me, I believe that it has to do with love. An instrument made for money will sound -’ he rocked his hand back and forth expressively, ‘- acceptable, but an instrument made out of the sheer love of making instruments – that will sound beautiful.’
‘Do you know who made this one?’
‘I do not. It came into my family unheralded and unadvertised. But there is a lot of love in its construction, along with the wood and the glue and the varnish – you can tell that much.’
‘How…’ Sherlock swallowed. ‘How much does it cost?’
‘Seventy shillings,’ the old man said promptly. ‘But as you appreciate a decent instrument, I will sell it for sixty-five.’
‘I can give you forty-five shillings,’ Sherlock said nervously knowing that he had three pounds and three shillings in his pocket. That was sixty-three shillings, but he wanted to make sure that he had some money left, just in case something unexpected happened.
The old man cocked his head to one side. ‘Did I mention the food and the firewood I need to buy for my family?’
‘You did. Forty-five shillings,’ Sherlock repeated firmly.
‘You are a boy whose heart has turned to stone. Fifty – seven, and no lower.’
‘Fifty,’ Sherlock said. He realized that he was breathing fast.
The old man sighed. ‘Maybe I leave the firewood for another day, and tonight we eat cold meat and cold soup. Fifty-five.’
‘Agreed.’
They shook hands solemnly, and Sherlock put the violin back in the case. He handed three one-guinea coins across. The old man handed back five shillings in change. You take care of her,’ he said, ‘and if you manage to find out anything more about her, come back and tell me. I would be interested.’
‘I will.’
The door to the shop opened, and a shadow fell across the floor. A section of shelvi
ng blocked the back of the shop from the front, so neither Sherlock nor the old man could see who had entered, but before the old man could call out Sherlock heard a voice say: ‘’E came in ’ere! I swear ’e did!’
‘You should’ve come straight in an’ nabbed ’im,’ another, deeper voice said, sounding like bricks grating together. ‘Not waited for me.’
‘What if I’d got the wrong one?’
‘Then some other family would be grieving tonight.’
CHAPTER TEN
The old man’s hand closed on Sherlock’s shoulder. ‘There is a door at the back,’ he whispered. ‘It leads into an alley. Go, with my blessing.’
‘Maybe ’e’s in the back,’ the first voice said.
Sherlock nodded a quick ‘thanks’ as the old man shuffled forward to the edge of the shelving. ‘You are looking for books, maybe? On boxing, judging by the look of your ears. Or maybe some gloves to protect those knuckles of yours?’
‘We’re lookin’ for a boy who came in ’ere,’ the deeper, rougher voice said.
‘Boys I do not allow in the shop,’ the old man replied. ‘They steal. Thieves they are, all of them.’
‘But I saw one come in…’
The voices faded away as Sherlock moved through the cramped storage area behind the shop and found a door that led out into a rubbish-strewn alleyway running perpendicular to the road on the other side. He glanced both ways. There was nobody about. He sprinted, as quickly as he could, back towards the Charing Cross Road, with his heart pounding in his chest and the violin case banging against his legs as he went.
Well, that answered at least one question. Whoever it was who had framed Mycroft was still interested in them.
Sticking to the crowds, and always aware of the people around him, Sherlock made his way through London to the Sarbonnier Hotel. When he got there, lungs burning with the effort of running so hard, he found Mycroft in conversation with a big man who appeared all the bigger thanks to the bulky coat he wore. His shoulders, Sherlock thought, were so wide that they made him look like a sideboard. His abundant red hair didn’t end with his scalp: it continued down in flourishing sideburns, an extravagant moustache and a vast, spade-shaped beard.
‘Ah, this is Mister Kyte,’ Mycroft said, interrupting their conversation. ‘He is the Actor-Manager of Kyte’s Theatrical Company. Mister Kyte, this is my… protege… Scott Eckersley’ He stared warningly at Sherlock, but Sherlock had already picked up the fact that he, and – presumably – Mycroft, were using false names.
‘Pleased to meet you, sir,’ Sherlock said, shaking the man’s hand. The backs of Mr Kyte’s hands were covered with reddish-brown hairs, and the palms prickled against Sherlock’s, as if hairs were growing there as well.
‘And you, sonny, and you.’ Mr Kyte’s voice was a deep wheeze. ‘Mr Sigerson here tells me that you’re a dab hand with ropes and scenery.’
‘I am that, sir,’ Sherlock said brightly. Inside, he was wondering what the man was talking about. He stared at Mr Kyte’s face. There was something strange about it: Sherlock could see a series of small cuts around his eyes, nose and cheeks. How had they got there?
‘Good stuff. Good stuff indeed. Well, come on down to the theatre later and meet the cast and crew.’ He turned to Mycroft – or Mr Sigerson, as Sherlock now had to think of him. ‘Thank you again for joining our motley team. I’m sure it’ll be an adventure to tell the grandchildren about!’
‘Indeed,’ Mycroft said. ‘It is not likely that I will end up with grandchildren, but I shall make copious notes just in case.’
Mr Kyte left, and Sherlock turned to Mycroft. ‘Mister Sigerson? The son of Siger? Couldn’t you have come up with a better name than that?’
‘I was thinking on my feet,’ Mycroft said. ‘Not the most comfortable position for me to be in.’ He gazed at the violin case under Sherlock’s arm. ‘What is that?’
‘It’s… a violin. In a case.’
‘Yes, I can see that. The question was rhetorical. You have covered rhetoric during your Greek lessons at school, haven’t you? The question it was meant to spark in your mind was: why have you gone and bought a violin when you should have been buying warm clothing, as I told you?’
Sherlock thought quickly. ‘There were two men looking for me,’ he said. ‘I went into a shop. They followed me in. I had to get out through the back of the shop. I bought the violin on impulse, because-’
‘Because you needed something to change your profile, to make yourself look different,’ Mycroft said. Sherlock could tell from his voice that he was dubious about Sherlock’s story. ‘This is a worrying development: it means that they are still looking for you, and by extension Mr Crowe and me as well. This makes it even more imperative that we leave London, indeed the country, as soon as is practicable.’
As Mycroft spoke, Sherlock started to feel uneasy. He hadn’t actually lied to Mycroft, but he had moved around the sequence in which events happened in order to make it look as though he had a reason for buying the violin other than the fact that he had fallen in love with the instrument.
‘Well, I suppose we can always burn the violin for warmth, should the need arise,’ Mycroft continued. ‘How much did it cost you?’ He raised a hand. ‘No, don’t tell me. I would rather remain happily in ignorance. Go and put that… thing… in your room, and then join me for lunch.’
‘But you only just finished breakfast.’
‘Sherlock, if I want to be scolded then I will return to my lodgings and talk to my landlady.’
Sherlock scooted upstairs to the room that Amyus Crowe had booked for him and left his new violin on the bed. As he came out, he noticed that the door to the room next to his, the room Crowe had booked for himself, was open. He looked inside, expecting to see Crowe, but a maid was making up the bed. Crowe’s bag had gone.
‘Excuse me – what happened to the man who rented this room?’
‘He’s checked out, sir,’ the maid said, turning round and curtseying.
‘Checked out?’
‘Yes, sir – unexpected, like.’
‘Oh. Thanks.’
He rushed downstairs to tell Mycroft, but Crowe was standing in the hotel lobby with his coat on and his bag at his feet.
‘Ah, Sherlock, ah was hopin’ ah’d see you.’
‘You’re leaving?
‘There ain’t anythin’ for me to do here. Your brother is takin’ you off my hands. Ah should get back an’ look after Ginny.’
‘But…’ Sherlock trailed off, knowing that Crowe was right.
‘Exactly Ain’t no point fightin’ against the facts. Ah ain’t needed on this trip. That’s all right – ah’m a grown man. Ah can take it.’
‘I wish you were coming.’
Crowe’s face was grim. ‘So do ah. There’s somethin’ awry ’bout this whole business. Ah think your brother’s normally infallible mind has been affected by gettin’ locked up like a common criminal, an’ by the fact that things are gettin’ close to home. Ah can’t help feelin.’ that he’s made a miscalculation somewhere, but ah can’t quite put my finger on it. Ah do believe that this little expedition to Russia is a mistake, but ah can’t convince him to call it off". We had an exchange of words about it earlier. He’s set on goin’. Ah think the disappearance of his man in Moscow has discomfited him more than he will admit.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s never easy, losin’ one of your team. It’s happened to me, more than once. Even so, ah don’t see why he needs to drag you along with him.’
‘Give my… my regards to Virginia.’
‘Ah will, right enough.’ Crowe stuck out his hand. Sherlock shook it solemnly, his fingers vanishing inside Crowe’s massive fist. ‘Take care, an’ take care of Mycroft. He’s goin’ to be out of his element.’
A hotel porter rushed over to take Crowe’s bag, but he waved the man away. ‘When ah’m too old to pick a bag up, that’s when ah’ll ask for help,’ he said. He picked the bag up and threw it over his shoulder. ‘Come and visit us when you
get back. Tell us everythin’ that happened.’
‘I will.’
Sherlock watched as Crowe walked out of the hotel door without glancing back. He felt as if a chunk of himself had just been carved away. He felt vulnerable, alone.
Eventually he walked through into the restaurant, where Mycroft was sitting at a table with a whole turbot on his plate. He was meticulously filleting the fish with his knife and fork.
‘If I were the Good Lord,’ he said conversationally as Sherlock sat disconsolately at the table, ‘I would have ensured that fish that were edible were also easy to eat. It seems like a failure in design that something that tastes so good creates such difficulty in removing the bones. Either we are meant to eat it or we are not; there should be no middle ground.’ He glanced up. ‘Has Mr Crowe left?’
‘Yes, he has.’
‘Good.’ Mycroft lifted a slice of fish on his knife and carefully transferred it to his fork. ‘He disapproves of my plan to take you to Russia.’
‘He said you argued.’
‘We did. He was very forceful in his opinions. He is very protective of you, you know.’
‘We’ve been through a lot together, over the past year or so.’
‘Indeed.’ Mycroft popped the fragment of fish into his mouth and chewed for a moment with his eyes closed. ‘Beautifully cooked. The black butter sauce is exquisite. I shall have to remember this place. It is not so far from my office that I could not take my luncheon here on a regular basis.’
‘Mycroft, are you sure we should travel to Russia in disguise?’
‘I have considered the matter thoroughly, and I see no other option.’ He checked his watch. ‘The third member of our expedition should be joining us in a moment. I sent him a telegram earlier.’ He glanced briefly at Sherlock. ‘There is something I should warn you about. I said that this man was one of my agents, and that he was a violinist.’
‘Yes?’
