Young Sherlock Holmes: Death Cloud Read online

  Sherlock couldn’t think of a suitable response to that. They kept walking in awkward silence for a while.

  ‘Where have you been,’ Virginia asked eventually.

  ‘Guildford. There was someone I wanted to see.’ Remembering, he delved into his jacket and took out the letter that Professor Winchcombe had written. ‘I need to get this to your father. Do you know where he is?’

  ‘Still looking for you. You were supposed to have a lesson.’

  Sherlock glanced at her to see whether she was serious, but there was a slight smile on her lips. She looked down at him, and he turned his face away.

  ‘Give me the letter,’ she said. ‘I’ll see he gets it.’

  He held the letter out to her, then pulled it back. ‘It’s important,’ he said hesitantly. ‘It’s about the two men who died.’

  ‘Then I’ll see he gets it straight away.’ She took the letter from his outstretched hand. Her fingers didn’t touch his, but he could almost imagine that he felt their heat as they passed close. ‘Those men died of the plague, didn’t they? That’s what people are saying.’

  ‘It’s not the plague. It was bees. That’s why I had to go into Guildford – I needed to talk to an expert in diseases.’ He realized he was talking faster, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. ‘I found a yellow powder near both bodies. I wanted someone to tell me what it was, so I took some of it into Guildford. It turns out it was pollen. That’s why we decided that bees were responsible.’

  ‘But you didn’t know that when you found the powder,’ Virginia pointed out.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or when you collected the powder and carried it all the way to Guildford.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘For all you knew, it might have been something that caused the plague. Something contagious.’

  Sherlock felt he was being backed into a corner. ‘Yes,’ he said, drawing the word out to something that sounded more like ‘Ye-e-e-s’.

  ‘So you risked your life based on the fact that you thought everyone else was wrong and you could prove them wrong.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ He felt obscurely embarrassed. She was right – getting to the bottom of the mystery had been more important to him than his own safety. He might have been wrong – he didn’t know much about diseases or how they were transmitted. The yellow powder might have been something the men’s bodies had produced as a result of an illness, like dry, infected skin – something that could have contained the disease and passed it on. He’d been so consumed by puzzle-solving that he hadn’t thought of that.

  The rest of the journey back to Farnham was conducted in silence.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘You disappoint me, boy.’

  Sherrinford Holmes was sitting at the massive oak desk in his study, Amyus Crowe stood behind his left shoulder and Mrs Eglantine stood behind his right shoulder, her black clothes blending so well with the shadows that only her face and hands were visible. What with Uncle Sherrinford’s long white beard and the various different Hebrew, Greek, Latin and English Bibles that were stacked all over his desk it was, Sherlock reflected, like being disciplined by God, with two avenging angels standing behind his throne, an effect spoilt only by the fact that Uncle Sherrinford was wearing his dressing gown over his suit.

  Sherlock’s face burned with shame and with anger. He wanted to protest that he’d done what he did for the best reasons, but one look at his uncle’s face told him that arguing wouldn’t help. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said after a long moment passed and he realized that his uncle was awaiting a response. ‘I won’t do it again.’

  ‘Your father – my brother – entrusted you into my care, with an understanding that I would continue with your moral education and prevent you from falling into bad company or bad ways. I am mortified to find that I have failed in both of those tasks.’

  Another long pause. Sherlock felt under pressure to say that he was sorry again, but he had a feeling that repeating himself would be taken as a sign that he was being cheeky. ‘I know that I shouldn’t have gone all the way into Guildford by myself,’ he said eventually.

  ‘That is the least of your trespasses,’ Uncle Sherrinford pronounced. ‘This very morning you crept out of this house before the sun was up like a common criminal—’

  ‘His bed wasn’t even slept in,’ Mrs Eglantine interrupted. ‘He must have left before midnight.’

  Sherlock could feel his shoulders trembling with the effort of keeping his anger in check. He knew that she was lying – he had slept, for a few hours, and had left just before dawn – but he couldn’t contradict her despite a burning desire to tell the truth. She was trying to get him deeper into trouble, and arguing with her would just be taken as defiance, and punished appropriately.

  ‘I will write to your brother,’ Sherrinford continued, ‘telling him that the trust I placed in you has been betrayed. And you will not be allowed to leave this house for the next week.’

  ‘If I may,’ Amyus Crowe drawled from behind Sherrinford, ‘I’d like to say a word or two on the boy’s behalf.’ He reached into his dazzlingly white jacket and removed an envelope. ‘The letter which the boy brought back from the eminent Professor Winchcombe has calmed fears of an outbreak of bubonic plague in the area. Taking that sample of pollen to be identified shows evidence of a strong will, an independent turn of mind and a reluctance to take things on trust – all attributes that should be encouraged, I would say.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that the boy should escape punishment, Mr Crowe?’ Mrs Eglantine asked in a silky voice.

  ‘Not at all,’ Crowe rejoined. ‘I would suggest that rather than ban him from leavin’ the house entirely, you make it so that the only time he can leave is with me. That way I can continue to uphold the agreement I made with his brother.’

  Sherrinford Holmes considered for a moment, stroking his beard with his right hand. Then, ‘Very well,’ he pronounced. ‘We will effect a compromise. You are confined to this house for the rest of this day and the next. Following that, you will stay in this house at all times except when you are being tutored by Mr Crowe. When in the house you are to stay in your room except for mealtimes.’ His lips twitched. ‘Although I will allow you to take any books you wish from my library to pass the time. Use it wisely to improve yourself, and to reflect upon your actions.’

  ‘I will, sir,’ Sherlock said, having to force the words out. The tension in his shoulders eased somewhat. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Now go, and do not return until dinner.’

  Sherlock turned and left the study. He desperately wanted to argue, to point out that what he had done had been right, but he knew enough about the way the adult world worked to realize that arguing would just make things worse. Right didn’t matter. Obeying the rules did.

  He headed up the wide, carpeted stairs to the first floor, then the narrower wooden ones to the eaves, where his room was located. He lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, letting his thoughts churn and roil inside his head.

  The rest of that day and the whole of the next passed in a blur. Sherlock’s body, tired and battered by his adventures, took the opportunity to repair itself through as much sleep as it could get, but when he was awake he found his thoughts fluttering aimlessly, like moths around a candle flame. What was going on? What exactly was Baron Maupertuis planning, and who was going to stop it?

  He spent some time trying to compose a letter in his head to his brother, not because he expected Mycroft to do anything but because he wanted to tell someone he trusted what had been happening. Eventually, when he had got the wording the way he wanted it, he set it down on paper.

  Dear Mycroft,

  I wish I could tell you that i have been following your advice, and throwing myself into a mixture of studies in Uncle Sherrinford’s library and ramblings around the local countryside, but I seem to have got myself into trouble and I do not know what to do next. The good news – if there is any – is that I have made two friends. One of
them is called Matthew Arnatt, and he lives on a narrowboat on the canal. I think you might like him. The other is Virginia Crowe. She is the daughter of Amyus Crowe, who says he is teaching me about nature and about observing the world around me, but I think he is actually teaching me how to think. I wish you had not thought it necessary to find a tutor for me during the holidays, but of all the tutors you might have found I think Mr Crowe is the best

  Strange things have been happening here in Farnham, and I wish I could talk to you about them. A man’s body was discovered in town, covered in swellings, and another here in the grounds of Holmes Manor. The Townspeople thought it might be the plague, but a man named Professor Winchcombe proved that they were killed by hundreds of bee stings. I think the bees are somehow connected to a man named Baron Maupertuis, who owns a warehouse in Farnham, but I do not know how.

  The warehouse burned down, destroying any evidence. I will tell you how that happened when I see you.

  In short, life here is more interesting than I expected – when I can get out of the house. I am presently confined to my room for having gone to Guildford to see Professor Winchecombe, but that is another story that I will you when I see you.

  Is there any news of Father? Is he still on his way to India, and do you have any more information on when the problems there might be over?

  Give my love to Mother and our sister. Please visit soon.

  Your brother,

  Sherlock

  After finishing and blotting the letter, he left it on the table in the hall at lunchtime, to be collected by a maid and delivered to the post office in Farnham. When he came down again for dinner the letter was gone. Mrs Eglantine was passing through the hall, her face appearing to float in the shadows, and she smiled mirthlessly at him. Had she seen the letter? Had she read it? Had it even made it as far as the post office, or had she destroyed it? Sherlock told himself that he was being foolish – what reasons did she have for doing that? – but Mycroft’s warning echoed in his head. She is no friend of the Holmes family.

  Lying in his room, these thoughts kept running through his mind. The distant gong for dinner broke him out of a half-doze, and he headed down to the ground floor. Mrs Eglantine was just leaving the dining room. She glanced at him with a sneer on her lips, and walked away.

  Sherlock didn’t feel hungry. He stared at the door for a few moments, trying to will himself to eat something just to keep his strength up, but he couldn’t face it. He turned round and began to head across to the library to see if he could find any books about bees or beekeeping.

  Halfway across the hall, he noticed a letter on the silver platter on the side table. Had it not been there before, or had he just not noticed it? For a moment he thought it might be another letter from Mycroft, so he picked it up. His name was on the front, along with the address of the manor house, but it wasn’t Mycroft’s writing. It was more rounded. More . . . feminine. How could that be?

  Sherlock looked around, half-convinced that he would find Mrs Eglantine standing in the shadows, watching, but the hall was empty apart from him. He took the letter, opened the front door and stood in the early evening sunlight but still in the doorway so that he couldn’t be accused of leaving the house.

  There was a single sheet of paper inside. It was a pale lavender in colour. On it, below his name and address, was written:

  Sherlock,

  There is a fair being held on the meadow below the grounds. Meet me there tomorrow at nine o’clock in the morning – if you dare!

  Come alone.

  Virginia

  He felt dizzy for a moment, and took a deep breath. Virginia wanted to see him? But why? On the two occasions they’d met up he’d got the impression that she didn’t like him that much. They certainly hadn’t said very much to each other. And yet, now she wanted to meet him – alone?

  But he couldn’t go! He’d been forbidden to leave the house!

  His thoughts raced, trying to come up with a justification that would allow him out of the house the next morning without getting into trouble. Surely there had to be a logical argument that he could construct that would stand up to scrutiny by Uncle Sherrinford. Virginia had asked him to meet her. From what little he knew about her, he could tell that she was more independent than English girls of her age. She could ride a horse – properly, not just side-saddle – and she was perfectly capable of going off on her own. But if she had been English, she wouldn’t have been going to the fair if she wasn’t with her family. And that meant it would be reasonable for Sherlock to interpret the letter as being an invitation to meet her and her father, which meant he could leave the house without violating the terms of his agreement with his uncle. Sherrinford would not believe that a girl could arrange to meet a boy without her family being present. Sherlock knew better, but if challenged he wouldn’t let on.

  A momentary thought threw him – what if someone from Holmes Manor were at the fair? – but a further thought persuaded him that neither his uncle, his aunt or Mrs Eglantine were likely to be there, and if any of the maids or cooks or workers were there they probably wouldn’t even recognize him.

  He spent the rest of the evening and much of the night alternately convincing himself that he should go next morning and that he shouldn’t. By the morning he still wasn’t sure, but as he came down the stairs for breakfast he found himself thinking about Virginia’s face, and he decided that he would. He really would.

  He checked the time on the grandfather clock. It was a little after eight o’clock. If he started now, and used the bicycle, he could just about get there in time. He knew where the castle was – perched on a hill above the town – and he guessed that the common was a patch of meadow a short distance below the castle.

  Should he leave a note? After recent events, he thought it might be wise, so he dashed off a quick explanation on the back of the envelope, saying that he was off to see Amyus Crowe, and left it on the silver platter, then half-walked and half-ran to where he had left the bicycle, ducking beneath the windows as he passed them and staying behind walls wherever possible.

  His head was whirling with thoughts and speculations as he rode. He had never really had a proper female friend before. There was his sister, of course, but she was older than him, and her interests were different – painting, crochet, playing the piano. And, of course, there was her illness, which had kept her secluded and bedridden for large parts of Sherlock’s childhood. He’d never really made friends with anyone in the area around his parents’ house, let alone with girls, and Deepdene School was a school for boys. He wasn’t entirely sure how to behave with Virginia, what to talk about or how to act.

  Cycling into Farnham, he took a side road which headed uphill, towards the castle that he could see perched above the town. He struggled on until his legs began to burn, then dismounted and walked, pushing the bicycle beside him. By the time he got to the castle grounds, he was exhausted.

  Spread out across the meadow, illuminated by the morning sun, Sherlock could see a cross-section of human life. Like a miniature town in its own right, booths and rope-edged rings had been set up on either side of broad, grassy alleys down which people were wandering and pointing out the sights. A haze of smoke hung above everything, and the smells of cooking meat, animal dung and people made Sherlock’s nose itch. There were areas for jugglers, for boxing, for stick-duelling and for dog fights. Mountebanks were selling patent medicines made from who knows what, fire-eaters were pushing flaming coals on metal prongs into their mouths and locals were pulling grotesque faces for the prize of a hat, racing for the prize of a nightgown and eating hasty puddings with a cash prize for the one who could eat the most.

  He scanned the crowd, looking for Virginia’s distinctive copper hair, but there were so many people that he couldn’t tell one from another. She hadn’t specified where to meet, so his only options were to wait and hope she came to him or to dive into the crowd looking for her. And he had never been very good at waiting.

  W
ith some trepidation, Sherlock left his bicycle leaning against a fence on one side of the paddock. He wasn’t entirely sure it would be there when he returned, but the sheer press of people meant that he wasn’t going to be able to keep it with him.

  The first thing he came to as he walked across the meadow was a large barrel filled to the brim with water. People were clustered around it, laughing and urging each other on. The surface of the water appeared to be boiling, leading Sherlock to suspect that something was being cooked inside, but there was no fire underneath. One of the crowd, a thin youth with a spotted handkerchief knotted around his neck, was trying to impress a rosy-cheeked girl in a white frock who stood beside him. He handed a coin over to the man who apparently owned the barrel, grasped the sides with both hands and abruptly thrust his head into the water.

  Sherlock gasped, still half-convinced that the water was boiling, but the boy seemed to be coming to no harm. He was wiggling his head from side to side in the water, apparently searching for something, darting it forward every few seconds and then pulling it back. At last he withdrew his head entirely. Water streamed down his face and neck and on to his clothes, but he didn’t seem to care. There was something clenched between his teeth – something silvery that wriggled frantically, trying to escape. For a moment Sherlock couldn’t work out what it was, and then he realized. It was an eel, barely longer than a man’s finger. Sherlock moved on, amazed. He’d heard of bobbing for apples, but bobbing for eels? Incredible.

  ‘See the most extraordinary sheep in the world!’ a barker cried from in front of a booth. ‘See a sheep with four legs and the half of a fifth ’un. You’ll never see another one like it!’ He caught Sherlock’s gaze as the boy passed by. ‘You, young sir – see the most amazing sight on God’s green earth. You’ll never forget it. Girls will hang on your every word as you describe the incredible sheep with four legs and half of a fifth ’un.’