Young Sherlock Holmes: Knife Edge
Read Young Sherlock Holmes: Knife Edge Online
Authors: Andrew Lane
Dedicated to Gary Howell, Andrew Bird, Keith Solder, Diana Gimber (now Diana Solder), Cliff Shaeffer and Arlene Baxter (now Arlene Harvey), friends in my teenage years
and, thanks to Facebook, still friends now. Where did those years go?
My thanks go to Polly Nolan, for yet another sensitive but thorough editing job; to Pedro Albano, for the (in his case unwitting) use of his wonderful
name, and to Andrew F.
Gulli of the
Strand Magazine
, for turning down one of the central ideas of the book as a short story and thus allowing me to use it in this novel, but then commissioning me to write
something else instead.
CHAPTER ONE
Arms wrapped around the taut, sea-dampened ropes, the hemp fibres rough against his cheek, Sherlock Holmes watched from a position high up in the
Gloria Scott
’s
rigging as the ship ploughed through the tumultuous ocean. Above him, seagulls cried like hungry babies. He could taste salt on his lips from the spray that filled the air. He’d lived with
that taste for months now.
He wondered what life would be like without it, without the constant pitching and tossing of the deck beneath his feet, without the regular
crack
of the sails
suddenly filling with wind, without the constant shouts of the sailors and the orders barked by ship’s First Mate, Mr Larchmont.
The sky above was grey and heavy with unshed rain. The sea was grey as well. For months he had been used
to seeing blue skies above him during the day and black, star-splattered skies at night,
of seeing jade waves sparkling like jewels all around the ship. But now everything seemed to have the vibrancy sucked out of it. The sky and the sea were both the colour of the smoke that poured
out of factory chimneys in England’s industrial areas.
He was nearly home.
Somewhere just over the horizon
was the west coast of Ireland – the closest point to England that the ship was going to dock on this trip and the point at which he planned to get off and
find his way home. He hadn’t planned to leave England on the
Gloria Scott
, all that time ago. He had been ripped away from his family and friends, kidnapped and sedated and hidden
away on the ship by a secretive organization known as the
Paradol Chamber. He had crossed the Chamber by accident several times over the past two years, enough to make them want to get rid of him.
Or perhaps they had done it because they wanted him to do some work for them in China, where the ship had been heading. Perhaps it was a bit of both. As far as he could tell, the Paradol Chamber
never did anything for only one reason. They had plans nestled
inside plans nestled inside yet more plans, like intricate clockwork mechanisms.
According to Mr Larchmont, the
Gloria Scott
would dock in Galway at the Spanish Arch and stay for a few days before heading to Antwerp. That was where the cargo that they had loaded in
Shanghai would sell for the most money. Sherlock was going to disembark in Galway, take his pay like any regular member of the
crew, and head across Ireland to Dublin. From there he could get a
ferry to Liverpool, then travel down towards London on the train.
To what? That was the question he kept asking himself. Back to Holmes Manor, in Hampshire? Back to his aunt and uncle as if he had never been away? Or maybe back to his close family, if his
father had returned from India and his mother had recovered from
her lingering illness. And what of his friends – would Matty still be there, or would he have set out along the canals for
some other place where he could survive on his wits? Would Rufus Stone still be teaching violin and chasing girls in Farnham, or would Sherlock’s brother, Mycroft, have sent him somewhere
else to collect information for the British Government? What about Sherlock’s teacher,
Amyus Crowe? And what about Crowe’s daughter Virginia?
His hand crept up to touch the outside of his shirt. Inside, in a leather pouch strung around his neck, folded up small, was the letter that Virginia had written to him, and given to brother
Mycroft to pass on. He had read it on the quayside in Shanghai, and his world had caved in on him in a way that he wouldn’t have believed possible.
Dear Sherlock,
This is the hardest letter that I have ever had to write, and probably the hardest letter that I ever will write. I attempted it so many times, and given up each time, but your brother
is here visiting my father and he tells me that if I want this letter to get to you then this is my last chance. I owe you some kind of explanation of what has happened,
so here it is. I wish
it were different.
You have been gone for a long time, and your brother tells me that you are likely not to return for a while – if you ever do return. I know the way your mind works, and I know that
you like new and interesting things. I guess that going to China will show you lots of interesting things, and I wouldn’t blame you for a moment if you decided
to stay out there, in the
Orient, and make a new life for yourself.
I may have been fooling myself, but I think that you and I had some kind of special connection, in that year we spent together. We certainly shared a lot of experiences. I felt about you
in a way that I hadn’t felt about anyone else in my life, and I could see from the way you looked at me that you felt the
same way about me. The trouble is that time moves on. In your
absence my father started tutoring the son of an American businessman who is living just outside Guildford. I met him one day, when he came to visit my father, and we ended up talking for
hours. Since then we have been spending a lot of time together. He can ride as well, almost as well as I can. He’s tall and thin, like you,
but his hair is fairer and his skin tans
easily. He makes me laugh. His name is Travis – Travis Stebbins.
The thing I need to tell you is that he has made it plain that he wants me to be his fiancée one day, and then later on to be his wife. For a while I just laughed it off, thinking
he was infatuated with the first American girl he’d met in England and that he would soon
find someone else. But that didn’t happen, and I’ve started to realize how much I
like him. I wouldn’t be unhappy with him, and I know that he would take care of me. If I said no, and waited for you to come back, I might be waiting for a long time.
And what if you’ve met someone else while you’re away? What would I do if I waited three years for you and then you arrived back with
a Chinese wife?
I’ve asked my father what to do, but he won’t give me any advice. He thinks a lot of you, and I know that he wishes you were here. I think that’s one of the main
reasons he stays in England – so that one day he can see you again, and take up teaching you where he left off. But he wants me to be happy, and safe, and I think that part of him yearns
to be free
of any responsibilities and able to ride off wherever he chooses, and camp out under the stars. He’s not domesticated.
Neither are you, of course, and you never will be. That’s probably the main difference between you and Travis – I can imagine him standing by a fireside, cradling a child in
his arms, but I don’t think that your future includes children, or domestic happiness. I
hope you understand.
I still see Matty, from time to time. He pops up out of nowhere, stays for a few hours, then he vanishes again. I think life in Farnham suits him – he’s put on some weight
since you left. Albert, his horse, died, but he has another one now – a big thing with shaggy fetlocks called Harold. He (Matty, not Harold) keeps asking if I’ve heard from
you.
Your brother says he will include my letter along with his, but what he will never tell you is that he misses you terribly. He is different now to the way he used to be – more
restrained, more morose. Even Father has commented on it.
I wish there was more to tell you, but life continues pretty much the way it did before you left, with the major exception that you are not here.
I wish you were. I wish things were
different from the way they are, but life has put us on different roads, and there’s no turning around and going back.
I have written enough. If I keep on writing then I will start to cry, and my tears will blot the words so much that you won’t be able to read them. Which might be a comfort for
you.
With love,
Virginia
The ink was violet, Sherlock had noticed when he first read it. The colour of her eyes. He had never seen violet ink for sale in any stationer’s shop. Perhaps she had
brought a supply with her to England from America. The letter wasn’t postmarked, of course, because it had been included with Mycroft’s letter and hand-delivered. The envelope was of a
stiff card with a noticeable weave
to it, so tracing the maker would present little problem, if he ever needed to. Two small stains beside Sherlock’s name on the front of the envelope
indicated that Virginia had, indeed, begun to cry.
Travis Stebbins. He tried to picture a face to go along with the name, but it was futile. People’s names rarely said anything about their appearance, or vice versa. Sherlock couldn’t
help
but imagine a tall, muscular boy with an open, tanned face. Handsome. Strong.
He wished Virginia well in her life. He really did. Everything she had said had been true – he
had
been gone a long time, and he
might
not have ever come back, and even
if he had come back he
might
have met someone else while he had been away. He couldn’t have expected her to wait for him.
But he wished she
had.
The coast of Ireland appeared as a long smudge against the horizon. Mr Larchmont stomped across the deck shouting orders to the crew to trim the sails, adjust course and, of course, look lively.
When he came to the side of the ship he stared up. Sherlock expected him to inquire, with assorted curses, what exactly Sherlock thought he was doing hanging there when there was work to be
done,
but his faded blue eyes just regarded the boy quizzically.
‘Not the way you thought it would be, I warrant,’ he said gruffly.
‘Not the way
what
would be, sir?’
‘Your return. It never is.’ He paused, still gazing up at Sherlock. ‘Let me tell you the great secret of a sailor’s life, son. You can never go back. The reason is that
the place you think you’re going back to is not
the way you remember it, partly because it has changed, partly because you have changed, but mostly because you aren’t remembering the
truth, just a shiny memory that masquerades as the truth. That’s why most sailors stay on the high seas. It’s the only thing they can go back to time and time again that doesn’t
change.’ He gazed out at the distant horizon. ‘I remember when I first went to sea,
I’d just got married. I was away for over a year. When I got back I didn’t recognize my
wife on the dockside, and she didn’t recognize me as I came down the gangplank. We were strangers to each other.’ He looked at Sherlock, then back at the horizon. ‘If you want to
stay, there’s always a place for you,’ he said, and then stomped away before Sherlock could respond.
Sherlock stayed in the
rigging for a while longer, until a grey line appeared on the horizon. For a while it looked like a wave, bigger than usual, but gradually it resolved itself into low
hills that rolled on into each other. Mr Larchmont shouted to the sailors on deck to trim the sails and change course five degrees to the south. Sherlock scrambled further up the rigging to where
the spar crossed the mainmast,
and set about helping to bring the sails under control. The damp wooden timbers of the ship creaked as it came gradually about, heading for where the navigator
estimated Galway Bay was to be found.