She opened her mouth, I’m sure to provide another reason for why I shouldn’t go, but her father called to us before she could. We quickened our pace to catch up with him and loaded ourselves onto the wagon once again.
The way back was unbearably quiet, except for Mrs. Simpson’s snoring. Every once in a while, she’d snort, raise her head, and grumble before nodding off again. Constance sat with her arms crossed, silent and scowling. I knew she would have scolded me like she did her younger brothers and sisters had we been alone. At the moment, all she could do was send her disapproval through wordless glares.
As much as I wanted to reassure her, I was as restrained as she was. I had gone, in part, to spend more time with her. To enjoy the day. The pickpocket had turned my plan on its head. In addition to putting her in a foul mood, I feared my father’s reaction to news of the events in the market. I could only stare at the retreating landscape behind the sacks and baskets containing Mrs. Simpson’s purchases and count the woman’s snores, the knot in my stomach tightening with each turn of the wagon’s wheels.
When we arrived home, Mr. Straton pulled as close as he could to the kitchen entrance, so the supplies could be unloaded. When we descended, Mr. Straton pulled the two of us aside and said, “I think it best not to mention to the others about the problem with the ribbon merchant.”
I opened my mouth to confirm he didn’t plan to share the incident with my parents, but Constance spoke first.
“Of course, Papa.”
“It might be…” He pulled on his collar and glanced in the direction of the other servants before continuing. “Your parents, you see, Master Sherlock, charged me with your care. They might not be very understandin’ to learn you almost gots yourself arrested. And you bein’ under my supervision and all.”
A great weight lifted from my shoulders as I understood the import of his words, and I quickly affirmed his assessment. With relief, I returned to the house after a cheery “goodbye” to them both, to which Constance only grunted in response.
No longer worried about the events at the market, I concentrated on the invitation to the Romani camp. Despite my arguments with Constance to the contrary, I did harbor some unease about the visit. After all, someone dressed as one of them was found dead in our stables. I spent most of the day preoccupied with different scenarios for making it to the camp and ensuring my safety when I did so.
My deliberations, I feared, affected my performance during my baritsu lesson with my mother and Mr. Moto late that afternoon. My reactions were markedly inferior to previous days, to the point that Mr. Moto cut the lesson short. The three of us bundled up and headed back to the house about half an hour early. I hung back a few paces from the adults, lost in my own thoughts until a remark my mother made penetrated my contemplations.
Taking a few quick steps, I joined them. “Did you say Mr. Moto was leaving next week?”
Despite having directed the question to my mother, he answered. “I received word of a sick friend who has asked me to come before the holidays. I will be leaving on Tuesday.”
“But-but you were supposed to stay until I left for Eton.”
“I regret that I cannot. My friend needs my help. You and your mother are now both quite skilled, and I must move on.”
“I truly appreciate all your instruction,” Mother said with a smile. “But let me point out that if the student achieves, it is because of the teacher.” She sighed. “With so little time left, we will have to ensure we use each lesson to its fullest.”
Her direct glance was enough reproach to bring heat to my face despite the chill wind.
He and Mother resumed their pace, and I followed behind, even more distracted than previously. Mr. Moto’s imminent departure only served to remind me how close the holidays were and, more troublesome, my return to Eton. Events seemed to be swirling ahead out of my control and pulling me toward a destination I had no desire to reach.
My disquiet continued through dinner, during which Mycroft and Meredith kept glancing at each other. My brother once again failed to consume his usual share of the meal, and Mother raised an eyebrow when the maid took away his almost-full plate.
My efforts to sleep fared no better. In addition to my distress over Mr. Moto’s parting and my return to Eton, I turned over and over in my head Constance’s concern regarding our friendship, the identity of the man in the barn, and the Romani boy’s invitation to his camp. To make matters worse, my cousin’s steady breathing mocked my unrest and swirled my thoughts until I felt the urge to scream.
I had to get out of the nursery and find some means of distracting myself. Knowing that the schoolroom, at least, was empty at that hour, I slipped from my bed, donned my robe and slippers, and stepped from the room. Given my familiarity with that part of the house, I moved toward the room with confidence despite the darkness. To my surprise, the door was closed. Assuming Miss Bowen or one of the maids had shut it to keep the corridor warm, I reached toward the knob. A soft thump resounded from the other side and stayed my hand. A book had landed on the floor. My breath caught in my throat when I heard someone moving about in the room. Who would be in there at this hour? Not a thief. It contained nothing of any true value.
Before I could develop an explanation to these questions, footfalls from the other side of the door grew louder. A light appeared under the slit in the door, then went out. The person was coming toward me and had blown out a candle. I sped back to the nursery, leaving the door open a crack wide enough for me to spy whoever passed by. Unfortunately, the hallway was too dark for me to make out more than a slightly deeper shadow moving past. My heart thrummed in my chest as the man walked by without pausing, seemingly also having a sure foot despite the darkness.
And I knew it was a man—no rustle of skirts, only the staccato click of a man’s boots. When the sound faded down the servant stairs, I released a breath I hadn’t even realized I had been holding and crept from my hiding place to glance first at the stairs and then back to the schoolroom. Torn between following the man and inspecting the schoolroom, I weighed which might present the greatest amount of information. Someone foreign to the household would have had no interest in the schoolroom. After all, what would some dusty books and even dustier furniture offer to anyone? My father’s office, the library, or even the kitchen held more valuable and useful items. That someone known to us required stealth to move about represented the true threat. The identity of that person and his mission so near to where my cousin and I slept deserved priority. Whatever occurred in the schoolroom could wait.
My ears rang from my efforts to detect any hint of noise in the surrounding silence. I slipped to the stairs on stockinged feet, seeking even the slightest indication someone still moved about. After a moment of nothing, I descended as quickly as I could with minimum noise. At the second-floor landing, I paused, considering whether the person had stopped there or continued to the ground floor. When a frosty breeze blew up my nightshirt and sent goose bumps up my legs, I knew someone had opened the back door, allowing the winter air to make its way up the stairwell.
The man had left through the back of the house.
Fearing I would lose him in the dark, I rushed down the stairs as quietly as possible.
The kitchen was even chillier than the stairwell. Because the man had been unable to lock the door from the outside, it had blown back open, letting in the frigid air. I pulled on a coat and boots left for the servants to use for a quick trip into the yard. The moment the extra layers shut off some of the elements about me, I quit the shivering that had possessed me since the stairwell.
Stepping outside, I cursed under my breath. My luck in pursuing the man dissipated in the frosty breeze. Heavy clouds blocked the moonlight. I could barely see beyond my outstretched hand.
How was I to determine where my quarry had gone in the inky darkness?
Before returning to bed, I decided to make one attempt at finding him. As a first step, I considered the most logical options. If h
e wanted to leave, he would either go to the barn for a horse or head straight to the woods. The horses would raise an alarm if someone entered the barn at this hour. The woods required some light to keep on a path. I detected no sounds from the barn or light in the woods beyond, eliminating those options.
The final choice was my uncle’s workshop. I headed there.
Fortunately, a well-worn path through the winter-dried vegetation marked the way. Stealth and my limited vision slowed my progress. As I neared the building, I decreased my pace even more to listen for any sounds from within. Some slight shuffling and scratching sounds rewarded my discretion.
A thin line of light also illuminated the door’s edges. The workshop door had remained slightly ajar.
Keeping away from the sliver of light stealing through the crack, I crept to the entrance and peered around the corner. A lantern shone a cone of light onto a spot on one of the worktables and silhouetted a figure bent in deep concentration. Despite the light, I was unable to make out who he was or what he was doing—until the man reached to his left. I slapped my hand to my mouth to stifle a gasp that rose unbidden in my throat.
Uncle Ernest’s hira shuriken crossbow lay on the table in front of Mr. Moto. In his hand, a pencil. He was making a drawing of the modified crossbow my uncle had designed to shoot razor-sharp stars.
Our baritsu master was stealing the plans for my uncle’s invention.
Indignation rose from my stomach to my throat, and I called upon every bit of my reserve to refrain from stepping into the building and denouncing the man. Instead, I paused to determine the most appropriate course of action. Confronting him would most likely end with me unconscious and Mr. Moto disappearing before anyone was aware. I opted for returning to the house and informing my parents of the man’s subterfuge. With luck, I might be able to convince my father to return and catch the thief in the act.
With a plan in place, I stepped away to hug the building’s wall as I moved away from the entrance. After less than half a dozen steps, a crash from the direction of the open kitchen door reverberated across the yard. A second later, the light inside the workshop went out.
With the darkness now complete, I kept my focus on the workshop door and inched backward, watching for any indication of Moto leaving.
When I was about halfway to the building’s edge, the door’s hinges creaked, and I dropped to my stomach. After a moment, a rustle in the ankle-high grass told me our Japanese guest had stepped off the path and was heading to the left.
The greenhouse.
Several months ago, I had learned that while the enclosure’s back door had a lock, it was rarely secured. Mr. Moto seemed to know this as well. When the rustling had moved a far distance away, I raised my head to see if I could make out how close he was to the house. The night’s gloom, however, prevented me from even identifying the structure’s outline.
I jerked my head to the right. Another swishing sound emanated from the direction of the stables and woods.
Had Moto seen me and circled back to deal with me?
I stilled, afraid to even breathe as the whispering continued past me.
Despite the movement in the vegetation, the wind carried the distinct click of the greenhouse door across the yard. The other person’s movement stopped, then resumed—also in the direction of the greenhouse.
Perhaps they also had heard the crash from the kitchen and knew of the lack of a lock on the greenhouse door?
I sucked in a breath as my mistake became clear.
My discovery of Moto’s deceit was accidental.
I hadn’t followed Moto out. The man in the schoolroom had gone toward the woods, despite the darkness, but whatever had drawn him there had been fleeting.
Now faced with a new dilemma, I lay on the cold ground considering my options. Because I had no idea of the person’s identity, should I follow him to discover it or inform my parents of Moto’s activities? While whatever the other person was doing might be nefarious, Moto was definitely up to no good, and my parents needed to know of the malicious activity occurring within the household.
When I decided it was safe to return, I pushed myself off the ground and, with a stiff-muscled gait, made my way back to the kitchen door. When I reached for the latch, I held my breath, fearing it had been bolted by whomever had created the earlier disturbance that had spooked Mr. Moto. To my relief, it opened.
Emily squealed when I stepped into the kitchen.
She’d been stoking the oven fire in preparation for the day. She now spun about, wielding a log as if it were a weapon.
“It is I, Emily,” I said and stepped closer to the light cast by the oven’s fire.
Dropping her arm, she slapped her other hand over her heart. “Lords, Master Sherlock, you gave me quite a start. I thought it was the thief returned for more bread. He broke a crock of flour tryin’ to get it.”
She pointed to the half-opened door where a dusting of white covered the area in front of the larder.
I stepped to the edge of the powder and, with one glance at the mess, knew who had caused the crash that ended Moto’s effort in the workshop.
Joining me, she pointed to the door leading outside. “The thief was in such a hurry to leave, he didn’t close the door. But how he got in, I don’t know. I locked it myself.”
“I heard the crash,” I said quickly. “I had come down to the…library…for…something to read. When I came in here and saw the door, I went to see if I could catch the thief. But it was too dark.”
The young woman shook her head. “That was a mighty foolish thing to do. A thief like that, he might just cut you to save himself.”
“Probably best I didn’t catch him,” I said. She studied me for a moment, and I became all too aware of my strange attire. “I borrowed the clothes to go after the thief. I’ll bring them back in a bit.”
After another head-to-toe inspection, she nodded, her lips in a straight line. “All right. Off with you.”
She didn’t seem convinced that I wasn’t the one who had spilled the flour. I could have pointed out how a trail of white-powdered footprints led back to the main part of the house but decided to let her blame an outsider. I shuffled my way from the kitchen, erasing Trevor’s small, bare prints.
My cousin must have gone in search of a snack, but I owed a great deal to his midnight nibbling. When the broken crock alarmed Mr. Moto and sent him back to the house, it kept me hidden long enough to be aware of the second person coming from the woods.
At my parents’ bedroom door, I paused. Even though what I had discovered was important, Father wasn’t going to appreciate being woken at this hour. Nor, I suspected, would he take kindly to my concern that we wouldn’t be able to leave everything to Constable Gibbons. Swallowing, I rapped on the door. After a moment, shuffling footsteps preceded the door opening a crack.
My mother peered through and then widened the opening. “Sherry, dear, what are you doing up at this hour, and why are you wearing that old coat?”
“May I come in? I have something I must share immediately.”
She peered over her shoulder and then stepped outside, closing the door behind her. “Your father’s still asleep. What is it? Are you ill?”
I glanced up and down the corridor and shook my head. “We can’t speak here.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “There are spies about.”
Her hand flew to her throat, but rather than argue with me, she ushered me into the bedroom. Stepping to the bed, she lit a candle. In the flickering light, I could make out Father’s form in the large four-poster. Beyond that, I could see little, with the exception of the silhouette of the two chairs created by their fireplace’s red-glowing embers.
“Mr. Holmes,” she said in hushed tones, “you must wake up. Sherlock has something to share with us.”
He rubbed his face and yawned. “At this hour?”
“It must be important for him to wake us.”
“Whose coat are you wearing? What exactly have you
been up to?” Father asked after he sat up and squinted at me.
“I couldn’t sleep and heard someone in the schoolroom.”
Father ran his hand over his face several times, and Mother licked her lips as I summarized my discovery of Moto in the workshop copying Uncle Ernest’s invention and then the shadowy figure who trailed after him to the greenhouse. When I concluded, Father’s eyes were fully opened, sleep long ago pushed away. His face darkened in color as he practically ground out his response to my story.
“Of all the…unmitigated…insolent…devious… He was a guest.”
“Mr. Holmes, I do fear for your health if you don’t calm down,” Mother said.
“We have a thief amongst us, my dear. And a spy. I can’t calm down.” He shoved his bedcover aside and stood. “I’m throwing him out right this minute. On his ear.”
Mother stood in front of him and placed her hands on his chest. “I would caution you to consider a little more prudence. Please recall that the man is an expert in baritsu. You might meet more than a little resistance if you attempt to throw him out.”
“Are you saying, Mrs. Holmes, I should let him continue under our roof? Who knows what else he might have stolen?”
“Exactly. We need to have an opportunity to search his room and ensure he doesn’t leave with the drawings he made tonight or any other night. A little restraint will give us the time to do so.”
Father’s breathing, which had become almost a pant, calmed to a much more normal rate. “A search of his room. Right. Gather the evidence to have him arrested.”
“And that, my dear husband, does require a plan. I would suggest the family gather after church to discuss how to lay the trap.”
Church?
I opened my mouth to suggest that just once we should consider skipping it, but Father shared my thought before I could.
“Perhaps we should send the others on and we remain here?”
She tilted her head for a moment before responding. “Any change in routine might warn Moto and whomever went into the woods. Besides, Constance is singing.”
The Adventure of the Murdered Gypsy Page 8
