Red Leech ysh-2

by Andrew Lane

  The wisteria lurched suddenly beneath him. His weight was pulling it out of the wall, dragging the tendrils from where they had infiltrated through gaps and nooks and crannies and were gripping the brickwork. He could feel his centre of gravity pulling away from the wall. He glanced down, and felt immediately sick when the ground seemed to eddy back and forth beneath him as he swayed. The vines in his right hand became loose, and he quickly scrabbled further up, looking for a firmer handhold. His fingers gratefully closed around a thick stem that appeared to be anchored in place, and he pushed upward with his right foot. His left hand closed around a flat tile on the edge of the roof. Thankfully he rested for a moment, getting his breath back.

  From beneath him he heard the grinding sound of the window being slid up.

  He froze, pulling himself as close to the wall as he dared.

  Sherlock sensed, rather than saw, a dark figure craning out of the window and scanning the ground beneath. He held his breath, desperate not to make a single noise that might give him away.

  Brick dust rained down on him from above. He felt the vine he was holding in his right hand begin to pull loose from the wall. He’d been holding on to it for too long — he should have transferred his weight off by now, but he didn’t dare.

  More brick dust hit his eyes, making him blink.

  His nostrils tickled. He wanted to sneeze, but he wrinkled his nose, clamping his nostrils shut.

  The figure below him swung back and forth, its gaze scanning the ground like the beam of light from a lighthouse. Beyond, in the garden at the back of the house, Sherlock could see several wooden crates piled up. There were gaps between the slats and he thought he saw something moving behind them, but then his attention was forced back as the figure below turned around and looked upward.

  At him.

  “You insolent, cowardly cur!" he screamed, and fired the gun again.

  The lead ball buzzed past Sherlock’s ear like an enraged hornet. He felt the heat of its passage singe his hair. Desperately he dragged himself up to the flat ledge on the roof, pulling his legs after him as the lunatic shot again.

  Silence for a moment as he caught his breath. Sliding towards the edge, Sherlock glanced over.

  The window was empty. The lunatic was coming up the stairs to get him.

  Sherlock looked around desperately. The ledge he was on was just a few feet wide. The roof proper began then, tiled and rising up at a steep slant to a peak. Dormer windows punctuated the ledge every ten feet or so — presumably second-floor bedrooms, or storage rooms.

  He had to find a way out, and quickly.

  He knew he could never make it back down the wisteria vine, so he sprinted along the ledge to the first window. It was either locked or stuck in place. He moved to the next one, but it was the same. The third window was open a crack, but the wood had warped and it would not go up any further.

  He made a move for the fourth window, but he suddenly realized that the madman with the gun was standing on the corner of the ledge, where it went around the back of the house. He had obviously found a way out before Sherlock found a way in.

  He pointed the long barrel of the gun at the centre of Sherlock’s chest.

  “Down, down to hell,” he screamed, spittle flying out of his mouth, “and say I send thee thither!"

  Sherlock waited for the lead ball to hit him and send him plummeting off the roof. He wondered for a moment if the ball would kill him before the fall did. It would be the last experiment of his life.

  Another man stepped around the corner of the roof, a burly man with pale hair and broken veins in his nose and cheeks. He grabbed the madman in a neck lock with his left arm while his right hand jabbed the needle of a syringe into the man’s shoulder. He pressed the plunger, sending whatever drug was in the syringe coursing into the madman’s bloodstream.

  The madman sagged in his arms, the gun clattering on to the roof. He was still trying to talk, but his words were slurred. His eyes fluttered for a few moments, and then he was still.

  The newcomer pulled the syringe from the lunatic’s shoulder. Clear fluid dripped out and the man slumped to the ledge. Straightening up, he gazed levelly at Sherlock.

  “What’re you doing here, boy?”

  “I was just looking for my football in the garden,” Sherlock replied, trying to sound younger and more vulnerable than he was, “when this bloke grabbed me and pulled me into the house.” He couldn’t help noticing that when the man had straightened up, he had brought the revolver up with him and was keeping it held with the barrel along his leg.

  “And what did this gentleman want to do to you, once he got you inside the house?”

  “I don’t know. I swear I don’t.”

  The newcomer was silent for a few moments, thinking. The long barrel of the revolver tapped against his trousers.

  “Get in the house,” he said eventually. The barrel of the gun swung casually up to cover Sherlock. “And take him with you,” he added, nodding towards the unconscious madman. “Drag him round the corner. There’s an open window there. Just slide him inside.”

  “But—"

  “Don’t argue, boy. Just do what your betters tell you.”

  Sherlock glanced from his face to the gun and back again. This man wasn’t twitchy, or edgy, or mad. He was perfectly sane, but just as likely to shoot.

  Sherlock moved forward and took the madman by his shoulders. The newcomer stepped back to give him space. Sherlock dragged the unconscious body around the corner and along to the open window, aware all the time of the nearness of the edge of the ledge. One misstep and he would fall.

  The man’s body was heavy and difficult to manoeuvre, and Sherlock felt sweat springing out across his entire body as he wrestled with it. Eventually he managed to get it half in and half out of the bedroom window. Climbing over it with difficulty, he pulled it in after him.

  And all the time, the man with the gun watched.

  A pair of arms suddenly appeared over Sherlock’s shoulder and took hold of the unconscious body.

  “I’ll take him from here,” said a high-pitched voice.

  Sherlock turned his head, surprised. A fourth man was standing close to him. This man was short and portly and bald. He was also missing part of his right ear.

  Sherlock stepped back and let the newcomer pull the body along the ground, out into the corridor and along to a different bedroom. This one had a key sticking out of the lock. Inside, while the newcomer was hoisting the unconscious body on to the bed, Sherlock noticed that this room did actually have bars on the windows. This was the madman’s room.

  The third man — the burly one with the blond hair — was standing in the doorway. He still had the gun.

  “How’s Gilfillan?” he asked.

  “Nasty head wound,” the small, bald man replied, still arranging the madman on the bed. “He’ll have one hell of a headache when he wakes up, but I think he’ll be OK.” He sniggered. “He’s got a thick skull. You’d have to hit him a lot harder to cause any significant damage.”

  “I might just do that,” the burly man snarled. “Damn fool, letting Booth get the drop on him like that. He could’ve derailed the entire plan. The last thing we need is Booth running wild across the countryside, especially in his current state.”

  Booth! Sherlock tried not to react, but inside he felt a warm glow of satisfaction. The man was John Wilkes Booth, not John St Helen.

  The burly man was still talking. He gestured at Sherlock with his gun. “And now, because of him, we’re saddled with a witness.”

  The bald man stopped what he was doing and looked up at Sherlock for the first time. “What are we going to do with him, Ives?”

  The burly man — Ives — shrugged. “I don’t see we’ve got much of a choice,” he said.

  The bald man was suddenly nervous. “Look, he’s just a kid. Can’t we just, you know, let him go?” He turned towards Sherlock. “You ain’t seen anything, have you, kid?”

  Sherlock t
ried to look terrified. It wasn’t hard. “Honest, guv,” he said, putting as much sincerity into his voice as he could muster, “I’ll forget all about it. I promise I will.”

  Ives ignored him. “What’s the verdict on Booth?”

  “The sedative worked a treat. He’ll be out for a few hours.”

  Ives nodded. “That gives me enough time, then.”

  “Enough time to do what?”

  Ives raised the long-barrelled revolver and pointed it directly at Sherlock. “To kill the kid and dump his body. Rule number one, remember — never leave anyone behind who’s seen your face.”

  Chapter Four

  Sherlock felt a shudder run through him. They were going to dispose of him, just throw him away like a sack of potato peelings! He glanced back and forth between the two men, looking for a way to escape, but Ives was standing in the doorway and the small, bald man was between Sherlock and the window. And even if he managed to get out of the window, where would he go? They would just follow him out, corner him and either push him off or shoot him and watch him fall.

  “Please, mister, I ain’t seen nothing,” he whined, trying to buy himself some time.

  “Don’t come the innocent with me, son,” Ives growled. He moved back into the corridor and gestured to Sherlock to follow him. “This way, and be quick about it.” He glanced over at the short, bald man — who Sherlock assumed had some kind of medical training, as he seemed to be the one Ives deferred to when it came to injuries and insanity. “Berle, you secure Booth good and proper, and then you look to getting Gilfillan up and moving. I want to clear out of this place. There’s too many people already who’ve spotted something odd. I guarantee our friend here didn’t sneak around because he was looking for some lost ball, but because of some kind of dare, or because he wanted to see what we were doing.”

  Sherlock moved out into the hall. He glanced back at Berle, who wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Please, mister, don’t let him hurt me,” Sherlock whined, but Berle turned away, back to the unconscious John Wilkes Booth. “Sorry, kid,” he murmured, “but there’s too much at stake here. If Ives says you got to die, then you got to die. I ain’t going to get involved.”

  Berle hesitated for a moment, looking at something on the dresser.

  “What about this thing?” he asked Ives.

  “What thing?”

  Berle reached out and picked up a jar. It was made of glass, and the top was covered with a piece of muslin cloth held on with string. From where he stood Sherlock could see that tiny holes had been pricked into the muslin with a sharp knife. It was the kind of thing a kid would do if they were keeping a caterpillar or beetle alive — cover the top of the jar so that the creature couldn’t escape but punch some air holes in the top so that it could still breathe — but he couldn’t see any insects or other creatures inside. The only thing in the jar was a mass of glistening red stuff, like a piece of liver, or a massive clot of blood.

  Ives glanced at it dismissively “We take it with us,” he said. “The boss wants it. He wants it almost as bad as he wants Booth, here.”

  Berle shook the jar dubiously. “You sure it’s still alive?”

  “It had better be. The boss ain’t a man known for his patience when it comes to being let down, an’ this thing’s come all the way from Borneo.” His face fell into concerned lines. “I once heard that a servant of his dropped a pitcher of iced mint julep on the veranda one time. Duke just looked at him, not sayin’ anythin’. The servant started to shake, an’ he backed away down the garden to where it ended in a riverbank, shakin’ all the time and cryin’, an’ he walked backwards into the river an’ just disappeared, out of sight. Like he was hypnotized. Never seen again. Duke once said there are alligators in that river, but I don’t know if he’s tellin’ the truth.”

  Berle looked dubious. “I would’ve thought Duke would use one of those two things he has on leashes. Ain’t they supposed to be his killers?”

  “Maybe he just wanted to make a point. Maybe those things weren’t hungry’ Ives shook his head. “It don’t matter. That thing’s comin’ with us, all the way home.”

  He pushed Sherlock down the corridor towards the stairs with the barrel of the gun.

  “What are you going to do to me?” Sherlock asked.

  “Can’t shoot you,” Ives mused. “Not unless you give me no choice. If a kid’s body is found with a ball in it then there’ll be some kind of investigation, and the house with four foreigners in it is going to be the first place the police look. Could inject you with an overdose of one of Berle’s drugs, I suppose, but that’s a waste. We might need those drugs, the rate Booth’s getting through them. No, I think I’ll just suffocate you with a rag in your mouth. That way there’s no obvious signs of violence. There’s a quarry a few miles away. I’ll put you in the cart, cover you up with some sacking and drive you out there. There’s plenty of holes in the ground I can throw you into. If you’re ever found, the authorities’ll assume you just fell in and hit your head.”

  “Is it really so important?” Sherlock asked.

  “Is what so important?”

  “Whatever you’re doing here? Is it really so important that you need to kill me to make sure nobody ever finds out?”

  Ives laughed. “Oh, people’ll find out all right. The world will find out in time, but that’s a time of our choosing.”

  Sherlock was at the top of the stairs by now, and Ives gestured to him to head down, towards the first floor. Reluctantly Sherlock obeyed. He knew he had to make a break for it some time, but if he tried now then Ives would just shoot him and find some other way of disposing of his body so that it would never be found. Apart from causing Ives some momentary inconvenience, Sherlock was pretty sure that running now would achieve nothing. Maybe he’d get a chance when they got out into the open air.

  Heading down the stairs he felt something underneath the sole of his shoe; something lying on the carpet. Before he could see what it was, Ives had pushed him onward. He turned, curious, just in time to see a length of string suddenly pull tight across the stairs, from banister to panelled wall. It was the string, lying on the carpet, that he had stepped on.

  Ives’s foot caught under the string as he was going down to the next step. His body kept on moving while his foot stayed where it was, trapped. His eyes widened comically as he fell forward. His hands scrabbled for the wall and the banister, his right hand banging the revolver against the panelling of the wall before he dropped it. Sherlock stepped to one side as Ives fell past him. The man hit the stairs with his shoulder and rolled in an ungainly way, over and over, until he hit the first floor and lay, sprawled, across the carpet.

  Sherlock glanced over the edge of the banister from where he stood halfway up the stairs. Beneath him, in the shadows of the first floor, he saw Matty’s pale face staring up at him. Matty was holding one end of a piece of string. Sherlock traced the string up to the banister and across the stairs to where a nail had been roughly pushed into the gap between the skirting board and the wall. The string was tied to the head of the nail.

  “You were lucky the nail didn’t pull out when his weight was pulling on the string,” Sherlock observed calmly, although his heart was beating fast and heavy in his chest.

  “No,” Matty corrected, “you were lucky it didn’t pull out. It made no difference to me. He didn’t know I was here.”

  Sherlock descended to the first-floor landing and bent to check on Ives. The man was unconscious, with a nasty red mark on his forehead. Sherlock picked up the gun. No point taking any chances.

  Matty joined him. “What is it about you and other people’s houses?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I have to keep getting you out of trouble.” He glanced up the stairs. “What’s going on up there? I saw the cove with the burned face pull you into the house, and then I saw two other coves pitch up in a wagon. Next thing I know, there’s three of you out on the roof. I saw guns, so I thought I’d b
etter come in and get you.” He shook his head. “For a kid with a big brain you spend a lot of time a prisoner. Can’t you just talk your way out of trouble?”

  “I think,” Sherlock said, “that it’s the talking that gets me into trouble, sometimes.” He paused, thinking. “Where did you get the string from?”

  “In me pocket, of course,” Matty replied. “You never know when you might need string.”

  “Come on,” Sherlock said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “There’s another bloke downstairs,” Matty pointed out, “but he’s knocked out. At least, he was when I came up. We’d better be careful in case he’s awake by now.”

  The two of them crept down the stairs to the ground floor and past the reception room where the man who Sherlock had first seen unconscious and bleeding — Gilfillan, Ives had called him — was now lying on the sofa and snoring. Sneaking past, they headed out of the front door, out of the garden and down the road to where Matty had hitched the horses.

  “Did you find out what you needed to know?” Matty asked as they mounted the horses.

  “I think so,” Sherlock said, thinking. “There’s four men in the house, and they’re all American. At least, three of them are — I never heard the other one speak. One of the men is disturbed in the head, and one of them is a doctor looking after him. The other two I guess are guarding him, making sure he doesn’t escape. They must have left one man in charge when the other two went out — maybe to get food or something — and the disturbed man, whose name is John Wilkes Booth, knocked him out. He assumed I was part of some kind of plot against him, which is why he pulled me into the house.”

  “But what are they doing here in England in the first place?” Matty asked.

  “I don’t know, but there’s something going on. This isn’t just a rest home for mad assassins.”

  “Mad assassins?

  “I’ll tell you all about it when we get to Holmes Manor.”

  The ride back to Farnham took over an hour, and Sherlock’s spirits fell with every mile they travelled. How was he going to explain to Mycroft and to Amyus Crowe that his quiet little investigation had ended with the four men in the house now warned that someone knew they were up to no good? If he’d thought about it properly, he would never have gone near the house.