Young Sherlock Holmes: Fire Storm (5 page)

‘She’s a strange woman,’ Sherlock confirmed.

‘I got some biscuits I baked earlier,’ Cook confided. ‘Do you want a couple, to keep you goin’ before tea?’

‘I’d love some,’ he said, smiling. ‘In fact, I’d happily miss tea and just eat your biscuits.’

‘It’s nice to ’ave someone who appreciates my cookin’,’ Cook said, beaming. She seemed more cheerful now.

After wolfing down three of Cook’s biscuits, Sherlock headed back into the house. He wasn’t sure that he’d made much progress, but he seemed to have established that Mrs Eglantine had somehow blackmailed her way into the house and that she was searching for something. The gold plates that had been mentioned in her notes? He supposed it was possible, but it sounded a little unlikely. Why would there be gold plates, of all things, in his aunt and uncle’s possession? What would they want such a thing for? He’d been living there for over a year now, and he’d never seen any plates apart from the porcelain ones that were used every day and the bone-china ones brought out on Sundays and when anyone visited. Neither of those sets of plates had any gold at all on them, not even gold-leaf edging.

Suddenly he couldn’t face the prospect of staying in the house for the rest of the day. It seemed to be weighing down on him like a heavy coat. He had to get out. For a few seconds he thought about heading over to see Amyus Crowe – and Virginia – but he felt as if there was more that he could do concerning Mrs Eglantine. If she was in Farnham, sourcing fresher vegetables than Cook had got, then perhaps he could find her and watch her for a while from hiding. After all, perhaps the vegetables were just an excuse. Perhaps she had a different reason for going into town.

He left by the front door and headed for the stables, where his horse was kept. He thought of it as
his
horse, although he’d effectively stolen it from the evil Baron Maupertuis, back when he’d first arrived at Holmes Manor. Fortunately the Baron hadn’t appeared to ask for it back, and the horse seemed perfectly happy to stay with someone who looked after it and rode it regularly. He’d named it Philadelphia, as a kind of joke. The horse didn’t seem to mind.

Saddling Philadelphia up the way he’d been taught by the groom who worked for the Holmes family, he cantered out of the grounds and along the road that led to Farnham. He’d got pretty good at riding over the past few months, ever since getting back from the eventful trip that he and his brother had made to Russia.

That trip, he reminded himself as the horse calmly trotted along past the tall trees of Alice Holt Forest, had involved the mysterious Paradol Chamber – the international gang of criminals who had also been involved with the colossal schemes of Baron Maupertuis. Nothing had been heard of them since their plan to discredit Sherlock’s brother Mycroft and assassinate the head of the Russian Secret Service had fallen apart, but Sherlock knew that they were still out there, somewhere. He occasionally asked Mycroft about them, but Mycroft professed himself to be as mystified as Sherlock as to what they were up to. The only certainty was that somewhere in the world they were up to something.

The outskirts of Farnham crept up on Sherlock before he knew it: solid red brick buildings with tiled roofs replacing the thatched cottages that had been scattered along the road from Holmes Manor. Rather than ride into the town centre, and risk having Mrs Eglantine see him, he left the horse tied up at a stables he’d used before on the outskirts of town, tipping the ostler a few pence to feed and water it. He walked the rest of the way.

If Mrs Eglantine was telling the truth about vegetables, then she would be at the market. Sherlock headed over towards where it was held, in the shadow of a two-storey building with colonnades all the way around. The marketplace was filled to capacity with stalls selling all manner of foodstuffs, from fruit to fresh beans, from smoked meat to shellfish.

He couldn’t see Mrs Eglantine anywhere, but he did see Matty standing by a vegetable stall. He looked as if he was waiting for something to roll off in his direction.

Matty caught sight of Sherlock and waved. Sherlock saw his friend’s gaze flicker back to the stall, and a look of momentary indecision cross his face before he walked over.

‘Waiting for lunch?’ Sherlock asked.

‘I don’t really separate stuff out into “meals” as such,’ Matty admitted. ‘I just eat whenever I can.’

‘Very wise. Have you seen Mrs Eglantine around?’

‘That housekeeper?’ Matty shuddered. ‘I try to stay away from her. She’s bad news.’

‘Yes, but have you
seen
her?’

Matty nodded over towards a stall selling fresh trout laid on grass. ‘She was over there a few minutes ago. Said the fish was too small.’

‘Did you see which direction she went?’

He shrugged. ‘Long as she was heading away from me, I didn’t really care. Why? What’s up?’

Sherlock debated whether to tell Matty about the confrontation between Mrs Eglantine and his uncle, but he decided to keep quiet. That was a private family matter – at least for the moment. ‘I just need to know where she is,’ he said. ‘I think she’s up to something.’

‘Shouldn’t be too hard to find her,’ Matty said. ‘She dresses like every day is a Sunday, an’ someone’s died to boot . . .’

As the two boys moved across the marketplace, pushing past the various vendors, customers and browsers who filled the place, Sherlock caught fragments of conversation from all directions.

‘. . . an’ I told ’im, if ’e comes back without it I’m leavin’ . . .’

‘. . . you gave me your word that the deal was already made, Bill . . .’

‘. . . if I see you with that lad again, girl, I’ll wallop you so hard your head will be spinning for a week . . .’

One voice in particular snagged his attention. It was accented, American. He recognized the accent from talking to Amyus Crowe, and from his time in New York. He turned his head, thinking that maybe it was Crowe who was speaking, but the face that he found himself looking at was younger: all sharp planes and hard edges. The man’s hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and beneath the hair it looked to Sherlock as if his right ear was missing. All he could see there was a mass of dark scar tissue. His clothes were dusty and well-travelled, and he was speaking to a companion who had short blond hair and a face covered in circular scars, the kind you got from a bad case of smallpox.

‘. . . will flay us alive and turn our skins into hats,’ the man with the missing ear was saying.

‘We need to find Crowe and his daughter. They’re our only chance!’

‘Well, we know what’ll happen to us if we
don’t
find them. Remember Abner?’

‘Yeah.’ The dark-haired man’s face twisted with an unpleasant memory. ‘Don’t do nothing but stare at the wall now, after what the boss did to him. It’s like there’s nothing left inside his head, apart from what he needs to breathe and to eat . . .’

They were walking in one direction and Sherlock and Matty were walking in another, and that was all Sherlock heard before the two men were out of earshot. It sounded serious though. Sherlock decided to go and see Mr Crowe as soon as he could. Crowe needed to know that someone was looking for him.

By the time he had formulated the thought, he and Matty were across the other side of the marketplace.

‘Wait here for a minute,’ Matty said. He dashed away, towards the two-storey colonnaded building on the edge of the marketplace. Sherlock lost him as he vanished into the shadows. He was about to turn away and scan the crowd for signs of a black-clad woman when Matty’s head appeared above the parapet, running along the roof of the building. He waved at Sherlock. Sherlock waved back, amazed at how quickly Matty had got through the building. The scruffy barge boy scanned the crowd with his keen gaze. Within moments he was pointing at something.

Mrs Eglantine?
Sherlock mouthed, trusting to Matty’s skill at lip-reading to pick up the words.

Pork pie!
Matty replied. Sherlock couldn’t tell if he was actually making any sound or not, but the movement of his mouth was clear enough. Matty grinned.
Only
kidding!
he mouthed.
She’s over there!

Sherlock gave him a thumbs-up, and Matty’s head disappeared from the parapet.

Sherlock plunged into the crowd of shoppers and market traders, heading in the direction that Matty had indicated. He scanned the heads of the people in front of him, looking out for Mrs Eglantine’s distinctive scraped-back hairstyle. Within the space of a few moments he had seen virtually every variation of hair and headwear possible: black, red, blond, grey, white and bald; straight, curly, pig-tailed and close-shaven; bare-headed, bonneted, scarved, flat-capped, bowler-hatted . . . everything apart from a woman with black hair pulled back so that it looked like it was painted on her scalp. Finally he spotted her. She was standing right on the edge of the marketplace with her back to him. She was talking to a short man with hair that was long, oiled and brushed back to either side of his head, leaving a parting dead centre. His skin was blotchy, and his jacket was shiny with old dirt and grease at the shoulders, elbows and cuffs. He wasn’t the kind of man with whom Sherlock would have thought Mrs Eglantine would associate.

Sherlock drifted closer, deliberately looking away from the two of them so that they wouldn’t notice they had an eavesdropper.

As he got closer he heard the man say: ‘Time’s gettin’ on, darlin’, and there’s still no sign of the thing turnin’ up. You sure it’s in the ’ouse?’

‘There is nowhere else for it to be,’ Mrs Eglantine said in her cold, precise voice. ‘And you don’t need to remind me how long I’ve been working in that
place
.’

‘Anythin’ I can do to speed things up?’ the man asked.

‘’You can get rid of that brat Sherlock,’ she snapped. ‘He’s always snooping around, and he’s too clever for his own good.’

‘You want him gone temporary, like, or permanent?’

‘So permanently,’ she hissed, ‘that I want him cut up and scattered over such a large area that nobody will ever be able to find all the bits.’

CHAPTER THREE

Sherlock felt his mouth drop open in shock. He knew Mrs Eglantine disliked him to the point of hatred, but the fact that she hated him enough to want him
dead
– enough to actually ask someone to
kill
him – that was a shock. What had he ever done to her? Apart from question her position and challenge her authority, that was.

The man with the oily hair was saying something, and Sherlock concentrated on hearing what it was.

‘I’ll take that into consideration,’ he said, ‘I surely will, but the problem is that I could be seeing a nice return on what I know about that hoity-toity Holmes family, but I’m holdin’ back. Rather than get them to pay me a guinea a week to keep their secret, I’m usin’ that influence to keep you employed by them.’ He sniggered. ‘Let’s face it, who would employ a sour-faced harridan like you if they didn’t have to? I’m losing money on this deal while you get a nice little job and a wage.’

Mrs Eglantine started to speak, but the man held up a hand and she stopped.

‘I know what you’re going to say,’ he said. ‘You’re going to tell me that when you find this treasure of yours that’s hid in the house, you’ll split it with me and we’ll both be rich. The trouble is, that treasure is what’s known as “hypothetical” – I ain’t seen it and I ain’t convinced that it exists. On the other hand, the money the Holmes family could be paying me to keep their secret is real. Cash in hand, if you like – or beer in belly, in my case. So I got to ask myself, am I better off with a smaller amount of real money or a larger amount of hypothetical money?’

Mrs Eglantine sniffed. ‘We had an arrangement, Mr Harkness,’ she said. ‘If you go back on that now, then nobody will ever trust you again.’

‘I’m a blackmailer,’ Harkness pointed out calmly. ‘The only thing people trust me to do is reveal their secrets if I don’t get paid regular.’ He sighed. ‘Look, we’ve had a good thing going over the years, darlin’. You ferret out family secrets wherever you work and bring them to me, and I use them to make a few quid on a regular basis, but since you got wind of this supposed treasure the whole thing’s gone to pot. Why can’t we go back to the way things were?’

‘Firstly,’ Mrs Eglantine said icily, ‘I am
not
your “darling” and I never will be, and secondly, the trivial way you blackmail the local townspeople over their petty thefts and even pettier romances barely brings you in enough money to fund those big bets you like to place on the horses and the illegal boxing. If you ever want to make anything of yourself, I am your only chance.’

Harkness sighed. ‘You’ve got a sharp but persuasive tongue in your head, Betty. All right – I’ll go along with it for another month. But just a month, you hear? After that I’m getting my hooks into the Holmes family and soaking them for whatever cash I can.’

‘To you,’ she replied, ‘I am Mrs Eglantine.
Never
take the liberty of calling me by my first name.’ She seemed to thaw slightly, reaching out to touch his arm. ‘I’m near to finding it, Josh – I
know
I am. I just need a little more time.’ She paused for a moment. ‘And I need that interfering brat Sherlock out of my way. Can you do that for me?’

‘I’ll get some of my lads on it,’ he promised. ‘You got time for a bite to eat?’