Young Sherlock Holmes: Death Cloud Read online

  They were bloody boils on the face of a corpse.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Amyus Crowe pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Sherlock. From another pocket he took a metal flask, flattened and curved to fit the shape of his body. It had a band of leather around it. He unscrewed the top and poured a brownish liquid on to the handkerchief that Sherlock was holding, soaking it. A nose-prickling, eye-watering smell rose up from the sodden material.

  ‘Brandy,’ Crowe said in reply to Sherlock’s dubious expression. ‘Just in case whatever killed this man is infectious. We don’t want to catch whatever it is that took him away from this world.’ He pulled another handkerchief from a different pocket and did the same thing.

  ‘Whatever killed him?’ Sherlock asked, puzzled. ‘Surely it was a disease of some kind. Look at his face!’

  Crowe’s bright blue eyes fixed on Sherlock’s face. He gazed at the boy with interest for a few moments, still holding the handkerchief. ‘Do you believe that illness is just something that happens – that diseases just develop in a body with no help?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Sherlock admitted. ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’

  ‘But you know that diseases can move from one person to another, if you touch them or are close to them.’

  ‘Yes . . .’ Sherlock said cautiously, wondering where this was going.

  ‘Then doesn’t it make sense that somethin’ moves from the ill person to the well person and makes them ill in their turn?’

  Sherlock remained silent. He knew that this was going to turn into another lesson, no matter what he said.

  ‘I was in Vienna a few years ago,’ Crowe said. ‘I met a man named Ignaz Semmelweis. He was a Hungarian, working with women who were about to give birth. He noticed that the women who were attended by doctors or medical students had more chance of dyin’ from puer-peral fever than the ones who were attended by midwives. Intelligent man, Semmelweis. Many other doctors would have left it there, but he realized that these physicians had often come to the births directly from autopsies. He made the doctors wash their hands with water and lime before examinin’ pregnant women, and the rate of mortality from puerperal fever plummeted in his hospital. Obviously the lime was killing or destroyin’ somethin’ on the doctors’ hands that otherwise would have transferred from the corpses to the women.’ He held the handkerchief up. ‘Hence the brandy. Has a similar effect.’

  ‘What kind of something’?’ Sherlock asked.

  Crowe smiled. ‘The Roman writer Marcus Terentius Varro wrote ‘. . . there are bred certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes, which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and there cause serious diseases.’ Not the kind of classics you studied at school, I guess. People have been talking about these minute creatures for centuries, but the medical profession just ain’t taken it seriously.’

  ‘But couldn’t we just leave the body here and tell someone?’ Sherlock asked. ‘Wouldn’t that be safer – for us?’

  Crowe looked around at the trees and bushes. ‘Too much chance of a fox or a badger comin’ upon it and eatin’ its fill. I never met this fellow, but I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, alive or dead. No, he’ll have to be removed from the woods at some stage for burial, so now’s as fine a time as any. We’ll be safe as long as we don’t touch him, and wear these face masks.’

  Crowe tied the handkerchief gingerly around his face. The fumes from the brandy made his eyes water. He laughed, the deep lines round his eyes creasing like linen. ‘I never said it was good brandy,’ he said. ‘Mind you don’t get a taste for it. Now, run off and fetch a wheelbarrow from the gardens. Bring it back here, sharp.’

  Leaving Crowe bent over the body, and shoving the handkerchief in his pocket for later, Sherlock retraced his steps rapidly through the woods, back towards the house. He navigated his way using the various trees, bushes and fungi that Amyus Crowe had pointed out along the way, racing through the underbrush and feeling the grasses whipping at his ankles as he ran. The scent of dry bracken and of lavender mingled in his nostrils. He could feel the sweat springing out on his forehead and between his shoulder blades, trickling down his cheeks and his spine.

  Bursting out of the woods and into the stretch of open ground that separated them from the house, he paused for a moment to catch his breath and cool down. The afternoon sun blinded him momentarily, as physical as a blow to the head. He bent over, hands on his knees, taking gulps of the warm air. Sounds that had been muffled to silence by the trees – the chopping of wood, the distant grunting of pigs, someone singing – were suddenly clamouring for his attention.

  Straightening up, he found himself looking at a figure in the distance, sitting on a horse. They were just beyond the gateway leading out into the road, the other side of the high wall. The horse was stationary, and it looked to Sherlock as if the figure was watching him. He squinted, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sun, but in the moment that his hand blocked his gaze the horse moved on and the figure was gone.

  Putting the figure from his mind, Sherlock found a wheelbarrow near the henhouse, and quickly pushed it back through the woods to where the body lay. He found Crowe going through the man’s pockets.

  ‘Nothing to say who he is,’ he said without looking round. His voice was muffled by the handkerchief. ‘Do you recognize him?’

  Sherlock gazed at the swollen face, feeling his stomach rolling uneasily. He tried to see past the boils and the redness to the features beneath. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said eventually, ‘but it’s difficult to tell.’

  ‘Look at the ears,’ Crowe said. ‘People’s ears are quite distinctive. Some don’t have ear lobes, some are crinkly and some are like perfect shells. It’s a simple way to tell people apart, especially if they’re tryin’ to disguise themselves.’

  Sherlock bit back his immediate response that the man lying dead on the ground was hardly in a position to be disguising his identity, and concentrated instead on his exposed left ear. He noticed it had a distinct nick in the skin, about halfway up, as if it had been caught by a knife in a fight somewhere, or by an axe while he was chopping wood. The thought triggered a memory: he had seen this man before. But where?

  ‘I think he works for my uncle,’ he said at last. ‘I saw him driving a cart.’

  ‘When was that?’ Crowe asked.

  ‘Only this morning.’ Sherlock frowned. ‘But he looks like he’s been ill for days. He was fine when I saw him.’

  ‘Instructive,’ Crowe murmured. ‘Very well; let’s get him into the wheelbarrow and back to the house. Your vinegar-faced housekeeper can send for the local sawbones.’

  ‘Sawbones?’

  ‘Doctor,’ Crowe laughed. ‘You never heard the word “sawbones” before?’

  Sherlock shook his head.

  ‘They’re called that because not so long ago that was about all they could do – amputate fingers or toes, hands or feet, arms or legs if there was an accident.’ Crowe snorted. ‘Fortunately, civilization has advanced somewhat since then.’ He bent down towards the body, then straightened up again and glanced over at Sherlock. ‘Remember – don’t touch his skin,’ he warned. ‘Just his clothes. Best not to take chances.’

  The journey through the woods took them nearly half an hour. Amyus Crowe pushed the wheelbarrow with the dead body balanced awkwardly inside. Sherlock ran ahead of the wheelbarrow, bending down and removing stones and branches that might catch the wheel or cause Crowe to trip. The dead man’s hands flopped up and down whenever the wheelbarrow went over a bump, making it look as if he was trying to struggle up into a sitting position. Sherlock tried not to look.

  By the time they saw the house Sherlock’s breath was coming in short gasps, and he could feel his muscles burning with fatigue. Someone must have caught sight of them, because Mrs Eglantine was already striding out towards them.

  She met them as they were emerging from the tree-line.

  ‘You will no
t,’ she said stiffly, ‘bring that thing anywhere near the house.’

  ‘This thing,’ Crowe rebuked her calmly, ‘is one of your master’s workers. I know he’s dead, but I think he deserves a little respect nonetheless.’

  Mrs Eglantine folded her arms. ‘Worker or not,’ she said, ‘I will not have him taken anywhere near the house. Look at him. I don’t know if it’s smallpox or the plague, but the body needs to be burned.’

  ‘I agree,’ Crowe said, ‘but first I want a doctor to see it. And, of course, his family needs to be told. Be so kind as to send for a doctor from the town. In the meantime, is there somewhere we can store the body?’

  Mrs Eglantine sniffed. ‘There is a shed over by where the manure is piled,’ she said. ‘It’s not used for anything. Put him in there.’ She paused. ‘We can burn the shed afterwards,’ she added, then turned and headed back to the house.

  ‘A lovely lady,’ Crowe murmured.

  Sherlock led the way round the house to where the manure was stacked prior to being spread across the vegetable patches and the orchards. The smell was rank and warm despite the brandy-soaked handkerchief, penetrating his nose and mouth and coating his throat with a bilious tang.

  The shed was dilapidated, and Sherlock and Crowe had to remove piles of broken wood and rusty farm implements before they could manoeuvre the body inside. Sunlight spearing in through holes in the roof and walls illuminated the body in hand-sized patches, leaving the rest of it mercifully in darkness. It looked to Sherlock like some grotesque life-sized doll that had been carelessly thrown away, arms and legs dangling over the edges of the wheelbarrow.

  ‘No point in both of us stayin’,’ Crowe said, stepping outside and removing his handkerchief. ‘You head back to the house. Get one of the maids to run a bath for you – a hot one. Scrub yourself down with carbolic soap. Change your clothes, and leave the ones you’ve got on out for burnin’, if you have enough spare. If not, get the maid to take them away for washin’.’

  After his bath, when his skin was red and raw from scrubbing with the dark red carbolic soap, Sherlock dressed in his spare clothes and left the house. He could still smell the tarry scent that the soap had left on his skin, and his eyes stung. Coming round the corner of the house, wiping the persistent tears from his eyes, he saw Amyus Crowe standing outside the dilapidated shed in conversation with a burly man in a black frock coat. That must be the local doctor. As Sherlock got closer he could hear the doctor’s high-pitched, arrogant voice saying: ‘We need to alert the civic authorities. This is the second body we’ve found displaying similar symptoms. If this is the plague then we need to take precautions right away. Tomorrow’s fair will have to be cancelled and all the public houses closed in order to prevent the spread of the disease. Heavens, we may even have to cordon off the roads leading in and out of the town until the danger has passed!’

  ‘Hold your horses,’ Amyus Crowe said in his slow, deep voice. ‘We’ve only got two bodies. Two raindrops don’t make a rainstorm.’

  ‘But if you wait until the rain is pouring down before you put your umbrella up, you’ll get soaked,’ the doctor rejoined.

  Suddenly Sherlock realized that he knew more than they did. The body, the boils, the cloud of smoke – all this was exactly what Matty Arnatt had seen when the man in town had died. What was the smoke?

  ‘Let’s at least wait until we can get an expert to look at the bodies.’

  The doctor shook his head in annoyance. ‘What expert? I can perform an autopsy, but the sight of those swollen buboes is enough for me. We have to assume that we’re dealing with bubonic plague and act accordingly.’

  Crowe raised a reassuring hand. ‘I’m acquainted with a lecturer in tropical diseases who lives in Guildford. Professor Winchcombe. We could send for him. I’ll write a letter.’

  ‘Write if you wish,’ the doctor said, ‘but while you’re doing that I’ll be talking to the mayor and the town council, and the Bishop of Winchester as well.’

  ‘What’s he got to do with it?’ Crowe asked.

  ‘Farnham Castle is the official residence of His Grace.’

  Sherlock moved closer, but Amyus caught sight of him and waved him away. Sherlock felt a flash of irritation. It was he who had found the body, but now Crowe seemed to want to keep him out of it. What did Crowe expect him to do – hang around until the conversation was finished and then just pick up their lesson where it had stopped? He had better things to do with his time. If Crowe wanted to complain, let him write to Mycroft.

  Feeling irritation churning inside him, Sherlock turned and walked away into the woods.

  Once he was in the trees, the house was lost from sight within moments. The ground gave spongily beneath his feet as he walked. All around there was a slight crackle of vegetation drying out in the afternoon sunshine and the occasional rustle as a bird or a fox moved in the underbrush. The smell of damp leaves rose from the ground, covering the nostril-tingling traces of brandy that he could still smell and the more pungent traces of carbolic. There were no trails, no paths through the bushes to follow, and Sherlock found himself having to step carefully over fallen trees and skirt around hawthorn bushes in order to make any progress.

  He had entered the woods at a different point to the one he and Crowe had used earlier, and he wasn’t sure where he was. Within a few moments he couldn’t see the house, and he found his bearings were uncertain. He might just as well have been in the middle of the forest as at its edge, and if he wasn’t careful then he might keep walking until he was in the middle. There was no way to check direction, and although he tried to catalogue the shapes of trees that he passed, he found they all ended up looking the same.

  Something was drawing him deeper into the woods, something primal that he didn’t understand. Some people talked about towns and cities as if they had their own personalities, and Sherlock had experienced something of that in London, on his occasional visits with his father, and to a lesser extent in Farnham with Matty Arnatt, but he could feel a different kind of personality here. Something timeless and dark. Whatever it was, it had seen the death of the farm worker and it didn’t care, just as it hadn’t cared about any of the hundreds, thousands, millions of animal and human deaths it had witnessed over the millennia.

  Shaking off his feelings, he found himself stumbling over the ruts left by the wheelbarrow, and tracked them back to the area of the woods where he had discovered the body. The vegetation which had been crushed beneath the corpse had sprung back now, and there was no trace of where it had been lying. He only knew the exact location by where the wheelbarrow ruts stopped.

  Sherlock stared at the ground, not exactly sure what he was looking for. He tried to visualize what the dead man’s last few moments had been like. Had he staggered into the clearing, delirious, and dropped to his knees before collapsing full-length on the ground, or had he been walking, unaware that he was ill, before suddenly passing out and lying unconscious while the boils on his face and hands developed? There ought to be some way of telling from his footsteps. If he had been delirious then they would wander about, whereas if he had been walking normally then they would be in a straight line. It might be useful for the doctor to know how quickly the disease had come on, and if nothing else then he might impress Amyus Crowe with his deductive skills.

  Sherlock crouched down and examined the ground closely. The man’s boots had made a distinct impression in the soil – the heel on one foot was worn down compared with the other, and Sherlock found that he could easily distinguish the man’s footprints from his own and from Amyus Crowe’s. He traced them back into the trees. They were odd; sometimes the footprints pointed one way and sometimes another, as if the man had been twirling around. Dancing, perhaps? No, that was stupid. Dizzy? That was more likely. Perhaps the illness – whatever it was – had affected his sense of balance.

  Sherlock followed the doodle-like path of the footprints away from the clearing until a point where they suddenly straightened out. From ther
e they led away in a straight line, diverting every now and then around a tree or a fallen trunk, heading away from what he assumed was Holmes Manor. It looked as if whatever had affected him had come on suddenly: one minute he was apparently walking normally, the next staggering in circles as if drunk, and then, shortly afterwards, falling over. And then dying.

  Returning to the area where the nature of the footprints changed, Sherlock stood still, looking around in puzzlement. Something about the ground in the vicinity was bothering him. He gazed at the trees, the bushes and the grass for a few moments, trying to work out what the matter was, and then he realized. The grass was a slightly different colour – more yellow than the grass elsewhere in the woods. Sherlock knelt and touched his finger to the ground. It came away stained and dusty. Something had been scattered there – something that didn’t belong.

  Sherlock rubbed the tips of his fingers together. They were greasy. Whatever that yellow powder was, it didn’t feel like anything else he could think of. He panicked for a moment, heart beating fast, as it occurred to him that the yellow powder might have caused the man’s illness, but a few moments’ thought persuaded him that diseases didn’t come from patches of powder. They were transmitted, person to person. Poison was another possibility, but what poisons caused a man’s face and hands to erupt in boils?

  Thinking fast, Sherlock took from his pocket the envelope containing the letter he had received that morning from Mycroft. He removed the letter and placed it back in his pocket, then held the envelope by its edges so that it gaped open like a tiny mouth and scooped it along the grass. Some of the yellow dust transferred itself into the envelope. Quickly he closed it again and stowed it in a different pocket. He didn’t know if it was important, but Amyus Crowe might recognize the dust.