Young Sherlock Holmes: Fire Storm (19 page)

As he passed one particular alley, something in the shadows made a scuffling noise. He stopped, intrigued, and looked sideways. He made no move to get any closer to the alley – that would have been stupid – but if anyone was following him then he wanted to know who it was.

For a moment he could only see a pool of shadow, like liquid darkness, where the sun could never penetrate, but after a few moments his eyes got used to the contrast and he could make out something that seemed to be floating in mid-air, like a pale balloon. It took a moment of concentration before his brain realized what he was looking at – the face of someone dressed entirely in black who was standing there, in the alley, staring out.

Sherlock took an involuntary step backwards. The face was bone-white, with eyes set so deep that the sockets were just black holes in the face. The cheekbones stuck out sharply, and the lips – if the figure had any lips – were pulled back from teeth that seemed to grin at Sherlock as if the figure was enjoying some private joke. For a long moment Sherlock was convinced that a rotting human body, something close to a skeleton, was standing there, in the alley, looking at him. Had it been ripped from the ground and left there, propped up against a piece of wood, as a warning? And who would do such a macabre thing?

The figure raised a hand to the side of its face and waved, then drew back into the darkness until Sherlock couldn’t see it any more. Only after it had gone, leaving him cold and shaking, did he remember the man in the tavern, the one who had been sitting alone. Had it been him?This figure had looked even more skeletal, even less alive, but that might have been a trick of the poor light.

What was going on? He thought back to what his aunt and uncle had told him. Was he going mad, like his father?

For a few seconds Sherlock wanted to go further into the alley, looking for the figure – looking for the truth about what he’d seen – but he pulled back. Logically, the most likely explanation was that this was a trap, and the figure was bait to lure him in. But was it random, or did someone know that his curiosity often outweighed his good sense? Rattled, Sherlock walked away from the mouth of the alley and he didn’t look back.

The park was only a few minutes further. When he got there, Matty was already waiting.

‘Are you all right?’ his friend asked. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Sherlock replied sharply. ‘There’s no such thing as ghosts.’

‘All right – keep your hair on.’

‘Did you find anything out?’ Sherlock asked.

Matty shook his head. ‘Most of the blokes and kids I knew around here have moved on. That or they’ve died. I did find a couple of people who remembered me, but they don’t know anything about a big American who’s come through this way. What about you?’

‘I could find my way around the city now.’

‘Well, I suppose that’s something,’ Matty said critically. ‘If we was ever planning on moving here.’

‘Don’t underestimate the usefulness of geographical knowledge.’

Matty stared at him. ‘So what’s our next move?’ he asked eventually.

Sherlock pondered for a moment. He’d been debating this question himself. ‘I suppose we could go back and talk to the ticket collectors and the guards at the station here,’ he said slowly, ‘but they must see hundreds of passengers a day, and there’s no guarantee that they would remember Mr Crowe. Besides, if he continued to be as careful as he was back in Farnham, then he would have got off at an earlier station and maybe hired a cart to bring him and Virginia to Edinburgh.’

‘If he’s here at all,’ Matty pointed out. ‘After all, you’ve only got a dead rabbit’s head pointing you here. It’s not much to go on. I still reckon we might have gone off in completely the wrong direction.’

‘Despite Rufus vanishing?’ Sherlock asked.

Matty shrugged. ‘You’ve got a point. The clue was probably a good one, but now that it’s got us here, what do we do? Wait for another one to come along?’

‘Matty,’ Sherlock said slowly, ‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – you may not be a genius, but you can bring out the genius in those around you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Amyus Crowe left a clue that would bring us to Edinburgh, if we understood it properly. Why did he do that? We’ve not asked ourselves that question yet.’

‘Because he wanted us to follow him,’ Matty replied.

‘Exactly. He
wanted
us to follow him. He wasn’t just saying “Goodbye – I’m off to Edinburgh!” He wanted us to know exactly where he was heading, and the only reason for that was because he wanted us to come after him. He wants our help. Now we’re here, he’s not going to leave us dangling. He’ll leave another clue around, one that will lead us right to where he is.’

‘Why couldn’t he do that from the start?’ Matty asked.

‘Because all he knew was that he and Virginia were heading to Edinburgh. Once he was here he would find somewhere to settle down in peace – somewhere he wouldn’t be detected. Not a hotel then. More likely a cottage somewhere outside the town that he could rent. Once he knew his address, he would find a way of letting us know.’

‘But he doesn’t know where we are,’ Matty pointed out.

‘So he would leave a message somewhere that we could see it no matter where in the town we ended up.’ He thought back to the newspaper that he had read on the train. In particular he remembered the page of classified advertisements that had so fascinated him: messages from one person to another, or one person to a group of people, either in plain language or in code. ‘He’ll place a classified advertisement in the local newspaper,’ he said with certainty. ‘He knows that’s one of the places I’ll look.’

‘But what if we missed it? What if he put the message in yesterday?’

Sherlock shook his head. ‘He wouldn’t know what day we were going to be here. If I know Amyus Crowe, he would pay for the advert to be in all week.’

Matty nodded. Either what Sherlock had said made perfect sense to him or he was willing to take it on trust. ‘Then let’s get a local newspaper. Let’s get all of them.’

‘How many are there?’ Sherlock asked, wondering if they were going to have to plough their way through ten or twelve newspapers, or whether Amyus Crowe would have put the advertisement in all of them.

‘Three,’ Matty said. He turned to go, then turned back. ‘You’ll have to read ’em,’ he pointed out, ‘cos I can’t read. And I ain’t got any money on me, so you’ll have to buy ’em as well.’

They found a newspaper vendor just outside the park and bought copies of all three Edinburgh newspapers for that day, then went back into the park and sat on a bench where Sherlock could read them. He couldn’t help but notice that the Edinburgh murder story – the one he’d seen in the copy of
The Times
on the train – was the front-page story on all three papers. The first one – the
Edinburgh Herald
– was representative of them all:

The Black Reavers?
The name of the gang struck a chord in Sherlock’s mind. It made them sound dangerous, even sinister. He was about to move on to the classified section of the newspaper when he spotted the name again, this time in a report directly beneath the paragraphs on Sir Benedict Ventham’s poisoning:

He moved on to the classified section. It wasn’t as large as the one in
The Times
– barely half a page. Most of the advertisements seemed to be from households requiring a maid, a cook or a butler (‘references essential’), with a handful advertising lost property (‘Found in King’s Street, a lady’s brooch – emeralds set in gold. Prospective owners must apply in writing with full description of item before collection can be arranged’). Nothing struck him as being the kind of thing that Amyus Crowe would have written.

Just in case, he checked the letters pages as well. These mostly seemed to be complaints about factual inaccuracies in previous editions of the paper, or comments on the lack of manners of the lower classes, but one letter in particular caught his eye, and he read it out to Matty:

The letter made Sherlock think about the two skeletal figures that he’d seen – the one in the tavern the night before and the one in the street only half an hour ago. Was this what the letter was referring to? Was there a spate of people who looked like dead bodies walking the streets and, if so, what did it mean?

He pushed the thought aside. Interesting though these speculations were, they didn’t help with the immediate task – finding Amyus Crowe and Virginia, or Rufus Stone.

In the
Edinburgh Star
the classified adverts were skewed more towards notifications of upcoming dances (or ‘cèilidhean’, as they seemed to be known), lost pets and horses for sale. One in particular caught his attention: ‘Parakeet missing, can recite entirety of
Hamlet
and selected poems of Tennyson. Reward paid for return.’ A parrot that could recite the whole of
Hamlet
? Sherlock couldn’t believe it.

It was in the
Edinburgh Tribune
that he found what he was looking for. Nestled among the usual set of advertisements was one that immediately stood out.

‘That’s it,’ Sherlock said, pointing to the advertisement.

‘I can’t read,’ Matty explained patiently.

Sherlock read the advert out to Matty, who frowned. ‘Bit long-winded,’ he said, ‘and a bit creepy as well. Don’t strike me as the kind of place ordinary people stay.’

‘It’s not a real hotel,’ Sherlock said.

‘How do you know?’

Sherlock indicated the first three words. ‘The
Sigerson
Hotel. My father’s name is Siger – Siger Holmes. That makes me Siger’s son. The advert is aimed at me.’

Matty looked dubious. ‘Could be a coincidence. Maybe there
is
a Sigerson Hotel.’

‘Possible,’ Sherlock conceded, ‘but these adverts are paid for by the word. There are a lot of words here – more than you need to tell people how good your hotel is, but enough to contain a hidden message.’