Red Leech ysh-2

by Andrew Lane

  Somewhere towards the back of the ship Sherlock could hear music playing. He turned from his position staring out at the waves, trying to trace its source. The music floated overhead, as light as the seagulls which followed in the wake of the ship and hung in the air, barely moving their wings. It sounded like a violin playing a melody that swept up before pausing at the topmost note and then crashing down again.

  Leaving his place at the rail, Sherlock walked back towards the stern, looking for the source of the music. There was precious little entertainment on the ship as it was: anything that broke up the monotony of the day should be investigated and treasured.

  Past the long single storey of the saloon, in a clear area of deck, a man stood playing the violin. It was the man he had seen the day before, when they had been leaving Southampton — the man with long black hair and green eyes. He was still wearing the same corduroy jacket and trousers, although he appeared to have changed his shirt. The violin was pressed into his neck and his head was tilted, chin holding the body of the instrument steady while his left hand fingered the neck and his right hand sawed the horsehair bow across the strings. His eyes were closed and his face bore an expression of intense concentration. Sherlock had never heard a piece of music like that before: it was wild, romantic and turbulent, not ordered and mathematical, like the pieces by Bach and Mozart that he was used to hearing in the occasional recitals at Deepdene School for Boys.

  Several other passengers were gathered around the man, listening to him with quizzical smiles on their faces. Sherlock watched, and listened, as he swept to a climax, held the note, and then stopped. For a moment he kept the violin up to his chin, eyes still closed and a smile on his face, then he let it fall and opened his eyes. The crowd applauded. He bowed. His violin case was on the deck in front of him, Sherlock noticed, and some of the passengers threw some coins in before they wandered away.

  After a few moments, only the violinist and Sherlock were left. The violinist bent to scoop the coins from the case, then glanced up at Sherlock.

  “Did you enjoy that, my friend?”

  “I did. If I had some money I’d give it to you.”

  “No need.” He straightened, having left the violin and bow in the case. “The money supplements my fare, and offsets my expenses, and allows me a little extra for the occasional drink, but I’m not trying to make a living by playing. Not here on the ship, anyway. I do, however, have to practise, and my room-mate does not appear appreciative of anything apart from German polkas.”

  “What was that piece?” Sherlock asked.

  “It’s a newly written violin concerto in G minor by a German composer by the name of Max Bruch. I met him in Koblenz, last year. He gave me a copy of the score. I’ve been trying to get it right ever since. I think one day it will be a part of the repertoire of every classical violinist.”

  “It sounded incredible.”

  “He uses some ideas from Felix Mendelssohn’s works, but he gilds them with a particular glint of his own.”

  “Are you a professional musician?”

  He smiled; an easy, unforced grin that revealed strong white teeth. “Sometimes I am,” he said. “I can turn my hand to many trades, but I seem to keep coming back to the violin. I’ve played in orchestras in concert halls and string quartets in high-class tea rooms, I’ve busked on the streets and accompanied singers in music halls while beer glasses fly overhead and shatter against the stage. My name, by the way, is Stone. Rufus Stone.”

  “I’m Sherlock Holmes.” Sherlock walked over and extended his hand. Rufus Stone took it, and they shook for a few moments. Stone’s hand was firm and strong. “Is that why you’re going to America?” Sherlock continued. “To play the violin?”

  “Opportunities are drying up in England,” Stone replied. “I was hoping that the New World might have some use for me, especially after the cream of their manhood was cut down in the War Between the States.” His gaze flickered up and down Sherlock’s frame. “You have the build of a good violin player. Your posture is upright, and your fingers are long. Do you play?”

  Sherlock shook his head. “I don’t play any instrument,” he admitted.

  “You should. All the girls love a musician.” He tilted his head to one side, almost as if the violin was still there. “Can you read music?”

  Sherlock nodded. “I learned at school. We had a choir, and we had to sing every morning.”

  “Would you like to learn the violin?”

  “Me? Learn the violin? Are you serious?”

  Stone nodded. “We’ve got a week before we dock, and that time will pass awfully slowly if we don’t find some way to amuse ourselves. When I get to New York I’m going to be looking for employment as a violin teacher. It would help if I could actually say that I’ve taught somebody to play the violin. At the moment I have some good ideas about how to do it, but I’ve never turned them into practice. So — what do you say? Are you willing to help me out?”

  Sherlock thought about it for a moment. He didn’t play whist or bridge, and the only alternative was laboriously translating the copy of Plato’s Republic which Mycroft had given him. This sounded far more interesting. “I can’t pay,” he said. “I haven’t got any money’

  “There will be no financial encumbrance on you. You’ll be doing me a favour.”

  “What can you teach me in a week?”

  Stone considered for a moment. “We can start with posture,” he said. “The way you stand and the way you hold the violin. Once I’m happy you’ve got that right, we can move on to getting the various right-hand techniques correct — détaché, legato, collé, martelé, staccato, spiccato and sautillé. Once I’m happy with that, we can move on to the left-hand techniques — finger dropping and lifting, shifting and vibrato. And then, I’m afraid, it’s practice, practice, practice — scales and arpeggios until the tips of your fingers are sore.”

  “I said I can read music, but I can’t hold a note,” Sherlock admitted. “Our choirmaster said I had a cloth ear.”

  “No such thing,” Stone said dismissively. “You may not be able to sing, but I guarantee I can get a tune out of you by the end of the week that people will throw coins for — even if it is just a German polka. What do you say?”

  Sherlock grinned. Suddenly the voyage seemed like it might be a lot more interesting than he’d expected. “It sounds good,” he said. “When do we start?”

  “We start now,” Stone said decisively, “and we run on until lunchtime. Now, pick up the violin. Let’s see how good your stance is.”

  For the next three hours, running from the end of the breakfast session to halfway through lunch, Sherlock learned how to stand properly, how to hold a violin and how to hold a bow. He even played a few notes, which sounded like a cat being strangled, but Rufus (“Call me Rufus,” he had said when Sherlock called him Mr Stone. “When you say “Mr Stone” it makes you sound too much like a bank manager for my liking’) told him that it didn’t matter. The purpose of the morning’s session, he pointed out, was not to learn how playing the violin sounded but to learn how it felt. “I want you to be relaxed, but ready. I want your arms and fingers and shoulders to know all the shapes that a violin can make against them. I want that violin to feel like an extension of your own body by the time we’ve finished.”

  By the end of the time, Sherlock’s body was aching in places he didn’t even think he had muscles, his neck was cramping and the tips of his fingers were tingling from where he’d been pressing the catgut strings down. “I’ve just been standing in one spot!" he protested. “How come I feel like I’ve been running a race?”

  “Exercise isn’t necessarily about moving,” Rufus said. “It’s about muscles tensing and relaxing. You don’t often see fat musicians. That’s because although they’re sitting down or standing in one place, their muscles are continually at work.” He paused, face creasing in thought. “Except for percussionists,” he said eventually. “They just get fat.”

  “What next?
”

  “Next,” Rufus said, “we have luncheon.”

  While Rufus returned his violin case to his cabin, Sherlock went looking for Amyus Crowe. The big American had emerged from wherever it was he had been sequestered, but there was no sign of Virginia. As they all sat at the communal table, Sherlock introduced Crowe to Rufus Stone.

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” Crowe said, shaking Rufus’s hand. “You’re a musician, I perceive. A violinist.”

  “You heard me?” Rufus said, smiling.

  “No, but you’ve got fresh dust on your shoulder. In my experience dust on a man’s jacket means one of three things: he’s a teacher, he plays billiards or he plays the violin. There ain’t any billiards table aboard this ship, to my knowledge, an’ I’m not aware there are enough children on this ship to make it worth while settin’ up a classroom.”

  Sherlock checked the shoulder of his own jacket. Indeed, there was a fine patina of dust across it. He rubbed some between his thumb and forefinger. It was an amber-brown colour, and felt sticky.

  “This isn’t chalk,” he said. “What is it?”

  “Colophone,” Rufus explained.

  “A form of resin,” Crowe interrupted. “Known as “rosin” to musicians. It’s collected from pine trees an’ then boiled an’ filtered before bein’ formed into a cake, like soap. Violinists coat their bows with it. The adhesion the resin causes between the strings and the bow is what makes the strings vibrate. Of course, the resin dries out and becomes a dust, which is deposited on the shoulder as that’s the bit of the body closest to the instrument.” He glanced at Sherlock’s jacket, and frowned. “You’ve been playin’ the violin as well. No, you’ve been learnin’ the violin.”

  “Rufus — Mr Stone — has been teaching me.”

  “You don’t mind, Mr Crowe?” Rufus asked. “I only offered to help us both pass the time.”

  “I never put much store in music,” Crowe rumbled. “The only tune I know is your National Anthem, an’ that’s only because folks stand up when it’s played.” He glanced at Sherlock from beneath shaggy eyebrows. “I was intend-in’ to continue our studies while we were on the ship, but Virginia ain’t taking too well to the voyage.” He shook his head. “I can’t rightly recall if I mentioned it but her mother — my wife — died on the last transatlantic voyage we made. That was from New York to Liverpool. The memory weighs heavily upon her mind. An’ on mine.” He sighed. “Memory’s a funny thing. A person can slide memories of just about anythin’ to one side an’ ignore them, but sometimes the slightest thing can set them off again. Usually it’s smells an’ sounds that recall memories the best. Ginnie’s not talked about her mother for a while now, but the smell of the ocean an’ the smells of the ship have just bought it all floodin’ back.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sherlock said. It seemed inadequate, but he couldn’t think what else to say.

  “Bad things happen to people,” Crowe said. “It’s the one acknowledged truth of the human condition.” He sighed. “I’m goin’ to trust you to spend time on that translation your brother gave you,” he said. “An’ I’ll try to spend an hour or two a day with you, talkin’ over what your eyes an’ ears can tell you while you’re on this here ship, but the opportunities for proper consideration are scant. The rest of the time is your own. Use it as you will.”

  The rest of the meal was conducted in uncomfortable silence. As soon as it finished, Sherlock excused himself. He had a feeling that he’d somehow disappointed Amyus Crowe, and he didn’t want to add to that disappointment by going straight back to his violin lessons. Judging by the slight nod that Rufus Stone gave him as he left, the violinist understood.

  He spent an hour in a chair on the deck, reading through the difficult Greek of Plato’s Republic. The process of translating from Greek to English in his head was so laborious that he hardly understood the sense of what he was reading — he could get the words right, but by the end of the sentence he’d lost track of where it had started and what it was trying to say.

  He looked up at one point, wrestling with a particularly difficult transitive verb, to see a white-uniformed steward standing beside him holding a tray. It was the same man who had helped him with directions and who had served at dinner the night before.

  “Is there anything I can get for you, sir?” the steward asked.

  “A Greek dictionary?”

  The steward’s lined, tanned face didn’t change. “I’m afraid,” he said, “that I cannot help you there, sir. We do have a library on board, but I do not believe there is a Greek dictionary upon its shelves — especially a dictionary of ancient Greek, which is what I suspect you need.”

  “Do you know every book that’s in the library?” Sherlock asked.

  “I have been with this ship ever since she launched,” the steward replied. “Not only do I know every book in the library, I know every cocktail on the menu, every plank on the deck and every rivet in the hull, yes?” He nodded his head. “Grivens is the name, sir. If you need anything, just ask.”

  Sherlock’s gaze was drawn towards the hand that held the tray. It was tattooed from the wrist upward, disappearing into the darkness of the man’s sleeve. It looked to Sherlock like a pattern of tiny scales, coloured a delicate, gold-flecked blue that shone in the sunshine.

  The same colour as Sherlock had seen on the wrist of the figure that had been observing him from the shadows the day before. Coincidence, or not?

  Grivens noticed the direction of Sherlock’s gaze. “Is something wrong, sir?”

  “Sorry” Sherlock thought quickly. It was obvious that he’d spotted something odd, but he had to cover for his gaffe. “I was just noticing your... your tattoo. My... brother... has one just like it.” In his mind he formed a quick apology to Mycroft, who was the last person in the world Sherlock would expect to have a tattoo. Except perhaps for Aunt Anna.

  “Had it done in Hong Kong,” Grivens explained. “Before I joined the Scotia, that was.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “The man who did it was a wrinkled little Chinaman in the back alleys of a marketplace in Kowloon,” the steward continued. “But he’s famous among sailors all over the world. I swear there’s nobody to touch him, not anywhere else. There’s colours he uses that nobody else can even mix. Any time I see a tattoo done by him on another sailor, or if another sailor sees my tattoo, we just nod at each other, cos we know we’ve both been to that same little Chinaman. It’s like being in a club, yes?”

  “Why do so many sailors have tattoos?” Sherlock asked. “As far as I can tell, every member of this crew has a tattoo of some kind, and they’re all different.”

  Grivens glanced away, out to sea. “It’s not something we tend to talk about, sir,” he said. “Especially to passengers. The thing of it is, and forgive me for being indelicate, but if there’s a shipwreck then it might take some time for the bodies of the sailors to wash ashore — that’s assuming they ever do. There have been instances where bodies couldn’t be identified, even by their closest relatives. The action of salt water, harsh weather and the fishes of the deep, if you take my meaning. But tattoos last a lot longer. A tattoo can be recognized long after a face is gone. So that’s how it started — a means of identification. Gives us some measure of comfort, knowing that after we’re gone at least our families have a fighting chance of being able to bury us properly’

  “Oh.” Sherlock nodded. “That makes sense, I suppose. Thanks.”

  Grivens nodded. At your service, sir. Are you going to be here for a while?”

  “Where else would I go?”

  “I’ll check back with you later, then. See if you need anything else.”

  He moved away, looking for other passengers to serve, but leaving Sherlock thinking. If this was the man who had been watching him from the shadows — if he was being watched from the shadows, which was itself an assumption based on a scuffle and a movement — then why was he so concerned as to whether Sherlock would be stayi
ng there on deck? Did he want to search Sherlock’s cabin for some clue as to what Sherlock knew? Or did he intend going after Amyus Crowe and Virginia? Whatever the answer, Sherlock couldn’t stay there. He quickly got up and headed off along the deck and down the stairway to the corridor where his cabin was located.

  The door to his cabin was open a crack. Was it the steward, searching it, or was it Amyus Crowe inside?

  Sherlock moved closer, trying to look through the crack to see what was happening. If it was Grivens then he would go and fetch Amyus Crowe, tell him what was going on.

  Something pushed him hard in the small of his back. He fell forward, stumbling into the cabin. Another push and he was on the floor, just managing to miss the edge of the bunk bed by twisting his head and curling up. The carpet burned against his face as he hit it. He curled round, looking up at the doorway.

  Grivens shut the door behind him. His faded blue eyes were suddenly as cold and as hard as marbles.

  “You think yourself clever, yes?” he snapped. Sherlock caught his breath at the abrupt change of attitude from servitude to anger. “I’ve broken better men than you in half. You think I didn’t realize you were going to follow me here to see if I was searching your cabin? I noticed you checking out my tattoo, and I could tell by your eyes that you recognized it from yesterday, when I was watching the three of you. So I made you think I was going to search your cabin, and I lured you back here.”

  “To do what?” Sherlock asked. He was finding it difficult to catch his breath lying on the floor, twisted around like that.

  “To get you off this ship. You, then the other two.”

  “Off this ship?” Sherlock’s mind took a second or two to catch up. “You mean — throw us off? Into the Atlantic? But we’ll be missed!!"

  “The Captain might even turn around, steam back and look for you, but it won’t do any good. You won’t last half an hour in that water.”