Young Sherlock Holmes: Knife Edge (14 page)

No, he decided. It was always better to know the truth, no matter how much it hurt, because that hurt was the kind you got when a wound was beginning to heal.

‘How is Virginia?’ he asked quietly.

‘The short answer is: she’s growin’ up. She ain’t the girl you knew a year or two back. Hell, she ain’t the girl Ah knew a year or two back, an’ Ah’m
her papa.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Ah
know that you had feelin’s for Virginia, even though Ah wasn’t sure you knew it, an’ Ah know she reciprocated, at least in her
way. The trouble is that you were gone for over a year, an’ it happened just as she was growin’ up. She got to thinkin’ about boys, an’ marriage, an’ the future,
an’ you just weren’t there. There’s an old saying, Sherlock – “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”.
It means that something you’ve got is better
than something better that you actually haven’t got. Ah think she thought about waitin’ for you. Ah think she thought real hard about that, but in the end she just didn’t know if
you were ever comin’ back. She had to make a choice – wait on a promise, or take what was there in front of her.’

‘So she met someone else, just like that?’

Crowe
frowned. ‘It wasn’t “just like that”, son. It took a considerable period of time. Travis an’ Virginia met naturally, just like you and she met, at the
cottage. He rides like he was born in the saddle, so he an’ Ginnie just got talking straight away. He’s a fine, upstandin’, good lookin’ boy, and she couldn’t help
bein’ impressed. She kept him at arm’s length for nearly six months, but eventually
she came to me one night an’ asked me if Ah thought you were ever comin’ back.’ He
paused, and grimaced. ‘Ah had to be honest, Sherlock. Ah had to tell her that there was a strong chance you might get caught up in some adventure, or decide to stay in one of the countries
that you saw, or maybe even go to India to look for your father. You might even have met another girl and fallen for her.
An’ even if you did come back, Ah told her that it might be a year or
more, and that you’d have changed. She thought about that, an’ Ah guess she made her decision. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. So she an’ Travis got more serious,
an’ he proposed to her.’ He sighed deeply. ‘Ah can’t say Ah don’t wish things were different, but hopin’ for what ain’t goin’ to happen is just plain
foolishness. We have to accept the world the way it is.’

Sherlock found that he didn’t want to accept the world the way it was. He wanted it back the way it used to be. He wanted to
change
the world.

But that wasn’t fair on Virginia. She had made her choice. Trying to win her back would be like pretending her opinions had no validity, that they weren’t important to him, that only
his
desires had any importance, and that wasn’t a message he wanted to send. He had to let her make her own choice.

‘Is there any chance,’ he asked quietly, feeling the dead weight of unwanted emotion in his heart, ‘that she might change her mind, now I’m back?’

Crowe shrugged. ‘You know how stubborn Ginnie gets. The only thing that can change her mind is her. Best thing you can do is just
be around, be a friend, talk to her and let her decide
what she wants to do.’ He frowned. ‘But there isn’t too much time. Ginnie an’ me, we’re leaving for the States after these psychic shenanigans are over. Ah’ve
been called back, partly because the US Government wants me to report in person about this Mr Albano, but partly because the Pinkertons have got work for me to do. With Bryce Scobell
dead,
there’s no threat to us any more.’

‘Going back?’ Sherlock whispered. His heart, which had felt heavy before, now felt like it was filled with lead and sinking through his chest.

‘Things change, Sherlock,’ Amyus Crowe said simply.

‘When I grow up, I don’t
want
things to change. I want to live somewhere that never changes, and I don’t want my friends to change either.’ He knew
he sounded
petulant, but he couldn’t help himself.

‘Your brother Mycroft feels much the same. That’s why he spends most of his time at the Diogenes Club. That place hasn’t changed since he started it, an’ it never
will.’ He paused. ‘Speakin’ of your brother, Ah ought to go and check in with him, see how he is, but before Ah do – tell me about China. What was the place like? Ah hear
rumours
that you did some great service for the American Navy while you were out there, an’ Ah would truly like to know more about that.’

Sherlock spent the next hour or so telling Amyus Crowe in great detail about his adventures both on board the
Gloria Scott
and in Shanghai. Crowe was particularly interested in the
grotesque Mr Arrhenius, and his feral daughter. Sherlock explained about the USS
Monocacy
and the plot to blow it up and start a trade war, and the way he detected the location of the bomb
and the bomber. At the end of the story, Crowe applauded.

‘You sure don’t have a simple life, Sherlock. Ah’m jealous of the adventures that happened to you, Ah’m proud of the way you used your mind to solve problems an’
get out of danger, an’ Ah’m grateful on behalf of the US Government
for what you did. War in the Far East may be to the benefit of certain businessmen, but it’s not
somethin’ the President would wish to happen, an’ Ah have that on the highest authority. But Ah’m concerned about the possible involvement of the Paradol Chamber. Are you
an’ Mycroft sure that there’s a connection?’

Sherlock shrugged. ‘There’s no real evidence, but the indications are that
the Paradol Chamber want a war in the Far East just as little as your President does. Or, rather, if there
is going to be a war, then they want it to be at a time of their choosing. I’ll probably never know if I was really working for them or not, but I think it’s likely.’

Crowe nodded. ‘They do seem to be a complicated bunch. Ah hope we’ve seen the last of them, but Ah suspect we haven’t.’
He started to lever himself out of the armchair,
which was so small compared to his bulk that it threatened to come up with him, snugly fitting around his hips. He pushed it down. ‘Ah’m goin’ to pay mah respects to your brother
now. What about you, son?’

Sherlock looked around, checking that nobody was in the doorway. ‘I’m going to investigate Mr Albano’s room while he’s still safely disappeared.
I want to see if I can
work out how some of his tricks were accomplished. I need to give some thought to how he vanished, too.’

‘Good idea. Let me know what the results are.’

They left the drawing room together and headed for the ascending room. Sherlock showed Crowe how to operate it, and they rose together to the second floor. Sherlock left Crowe outside his
brother’s room, returned
to the ascending room and headed for the third floor. He walked along the corridor towards the second tower, where Sir Shadrach Quintillan, Niamh Quintillan and
Ambrose Albano had their rooms.

Niamh had already shown him who was in which room, and he stopped outside Ambrose Albano’s door. Nobody was around, and he twisted the doorknob and entered quickly. It was only when he was
standing
in the centre of the room that it occurred to him that Mr Albano might well have crept back there after his faked kidnapping – if it really had been faked – to hide out.
Fortunately the place was empty.

He looked around, mentally cataloguing everything so that he could make sure he left the room looking like it hadn’t been searched. Albano was fastidious and meticulous: everything was in
place and carefully lined up. Sherlock started on the wardrobe, where Albano’s clothes were hung. He went through all the pockets, and checked that nothing had been hidden between the
garments or behind them, but he failed to find anything. He then went through the drawers in the bureau, but the folded shirts, undershirts, socks and handkerchiefs hid no secrets. Sherlock even
knelt and looked
beneath the bed, but apart from several pairs of highly polished shoes there was nothing of interest there either.

The next step was to check behind the paintings and framed prints that were hung up on the wall, and then to look on top of the wardrobe. Again: nothing. He pulled the bureau out from the wall
and checked behind it, but apart from finding a line of dust on the floor his efforts
were wasted.

Remembering the time he had searched the room of Mrs Eglantine – his aunt and uncle’s former housekeeper, back at Holmes Manor – and found what he was looking for hidden on a
rope hanging outside, he opened the window and looked out to see if anything had been hung down from the window ledge, but the stone brickwork of the castle was unadorned by any additions. He
pulled up
the rugs, but there were no papers beneath them and no areas of the stone flooring that looked like they might be capable of being levered up to reveal a hole beneath.

Coming back to the centre of the room, he looked around again in frustration. He was beginning to run out of ideas.

Glancing again at the bed, he noticed that there was a frilly valance running around the edge of the mattress.
It hung in folds halfway towards the floor. Previously he had only looked at the
floor under the bed, but he suddenly saw that near the foot of the bed the valance was caught up, as if someone had lifted it and tucked it beneath the mattress and then forgotten to pull it out
again.

He got back down to his knees and pulled the valance completely clear, then looked beneath the bed again,
this time paying particular attention to the underside of the mattress.

A box was hanging beneath the bed. Hooks at each corner suspended it from the metal springs. Sherlock studied it carefully, to make sure he knew exactly how to put it back again, and then he
reached underneath and gently unhooked it. It was about the size of a shoebox. Placing it on the carpet, he undid the catch securing
the lid and lifted it up.

Inside was a mass of white material, very fine and very light. The weight of the lid had been holding it down, but with the lid released it puffed up, lifting up with it the other object inside
the box, almost as if it were bringing it to Sherlock’s attention.

It took a few moments to work out what the other object was. It was white and small, and it had one
rounded end and one that was flat. Something sharp was protruding from the rounded end, while
the flat rear appeared to be attached to a length of cotton that finished in a small hook. Sherlock picked it up gingerly, and realized that the bit he thought was flat was actually hollowed out.
That, along with its size, immediately told him what it was, and what it was for. It was a thimble, something
meant to fit over the end of a finger, and the sharp bit projecting out of the end was
a splinter of chalk. The length of what he had taken to be cotton was actually elastic.

He smiled to himself, and nodded. During the séance, Ambrose Albano had been wearing white gloves. If the white thimble had been hidden up his sleeve, or inside his jacket, he could have
pulled it out and slipped
it over a finger without it being noticed. That way he could have written messages on the slate while he was holding it underneath the table. Once he had finished, he
could just have pulled the thimble off his finger and the elastic would have snapped it back out of sight. Ingenious. Simple, but ingenious.

He put the thimble to one side and examined the material. He already had an inkling
of what it was, but he wanted to make sure. He pulled it from the box and spread it out. It weighed almost
nothing – so light that it seemed to float in his hands. He examined it closely, and found several small tears in it.

This was almost certainly the ‘ectoplasm’ that had manifested from Albano’s mouth during the séance. It was so fine that it would crumple up into a small ball, barely
larger than the thimble. He must have had it hidden somewhere about his person.

Gingerly, he smelt the material. It had been washed recently – he could still detect the sharpness of carbolic. That was probably a good thing, if his suspicions about where Albano had
been hiding it were correct. Sherlock suspected that it had actually been in Albano’s mouth, pressed between his cheek and
his teeth. Crushed up that small, it wouldn’t have soaked up
much saliva, and it may have been chemically treated to repel moisture. Under the guise of choking, Albano must have pulled it free. He guessed that the material had been soaked in some kind of
chemical that glowed in the dark, making it look spookier in the shadows of the séance.

This wasn’t just ingenious: this was brilliant.
So simple, and yet so effective.

But how had the material expanded outward and floated in the air, and what about the face that had seemed to materialize inside the shroud? There were still questions to answer, but Sherlock
could see the broad strokes of the trick.

Genius.

Sherlock carefully packed the material back inside the box and placed the white thimble on top of it. He re-fastened
the lid, replaced the box beneath the bed, and pulled the valance back into
position.

He stood up and looked slowly around the room. There was, as far as he could see, no trace that he had ever been there.

Quickly he left. There was no knowing whether one of the servants would enter to turn down the bed or make up the fire or something, and it was obvious now that the servants had to
be
involved.

Leaving the room and closing the door carefully behind him, he returned to the castle keep and down to the ground floor. He saw nobody on the way. He stood in the hall indecisively for a few
moments, then headed out into the open air. He couldn’t stand being cooped up for too long.

The sky was even clearer than it had been earlier. Sherlock walked out of the castle, through
the main gate and across the drawbridge. He wasn’t sure where he was heading, but the sight of
the wreckage of the carriage used by the kidnappers caught his attention and he wandered across to it. He was aware of the stone bulk of the castle behind him, and also painfully aware that
Virginia was behind one of those windows. The thought made him feel self-conscious, and he found himself
walking stiffly, unnaturally.