Stone Cold (21 page)

‘And did he ever try to force himself to stay awake to see what was actually happening?’ Sherlock pressed.

‘He said that he frequently tried to stay awake, using all kinds of methods to stave off sleep, but that whatever he tried, sleep managed to creep up on him, and if he woke up later on
then it was to find himself in the middle of the orchard. And in addition—’

‘Those evenings when he
tried
to keep himself awake,’ Sherlock interrupted, ‘did they
always
end up with him falling asleep?’

Weston frowned, and thought for a minute. He turned to his wife and said, ‘You read the letters too, my dear – what exactly did he say?’

‘As I recall,’ Marie replied, closing her eyes and frowning, ‘he said that there were some evenings when he managed to stay awake all night, and nothing happened, but there
were some evenings when he fell asleep and
then
awoke to find that the house had moved.’ She gazed at Weston with sympathy in her expression. ‘You must face it, Ferny – the
balance of his mind was disturbed. It was obvious that he was hallucinating – probably after drinking too much of his family cider.’

Weston shook his head. ‘Mortimer Maberley was the most stable of men. I do not see him as someone in the grip of mental imbalance – even now, given what he said in the
letter.’

‘It does look,’ Matty said slowly, ‘as if, on the evenings when he was awake, keeping watch, that he managed to somehow stop the movement of the house from happening, perhaps
just by
being
awake.’ He glanced at Marie Weston apologetically. ‘
If
he was in his right mind.’

‘Or,’ Sherlock pointed out slowly, ‘the reverse is true – that he only went to sleep against his will when some force decided to move the house.’ He shrugged.
‘We have two alleged facts – Mr Maberley unwittingly falling asleep despite his precautions and the house apparently moving. We do not yet know which event caused the other – if
indeed they are linked.’ He smiled. ‘If, of course, either event is true.’ He turned to Weston. ‘Did you write back?’

‘I did.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I was sympathetic, and I asked many of the questions that you have asked. He wrote back with the answers that I have given you. His letters since then have become increasingly frantic. He
fears to leave the house now, in case it isn’t there when he returns. I fear that he may do something drastic if this situation is not resolved.’

Sherlock was about to ask what Weston thought he could do about it, but then a thought struck him. Actually, not so much a thought as a memory. The theatre, in London, a few weeks back, where he
and his brother Mycroft had spent an evening listening to the violinist Pablo Sarasate. He remembered in particular the intermission between the halves of the performance, when he had left his
brother sitting in a window seat in the theatre’s bar. A man had come up to Mycroft and handed him a letter, and Mycroft had said – Sherlock had to ransack his brain to retrieve the
errant memory – ‘The Mortimer Maberley problem again – I don’t know what he thinks I can do!’

The Mortimer Maberley problem
. Mycroft knew about it!

‘You told me,’ he said to Weston, tightly controlling his tone of voice and his words, ‘that you used to drink in a tavern with my brother Mycroft. Did Mortimer Maberley drink
with you?’

‘He did,’ Weston replied. ‘They got on very well. Why do you ask?’

‘Because,’ Sherlock said bitterly, ‘I am beginning to realize that I am not here by accident.’

‘Perhaps you are here as part of God’s great design,’ Weston said firmly. ‘Mortimer Maberley needs my help, but I am unable to give it. I cannot travel more than a few
miles from this house without provoking attention, and I cannot investigate Maberley’s situation in a manner that might solve his problems. It may require discussion with local villagers, or
liaison with the local police, and I am not able to do that.’ He indicated his face with a wave of his hand. ‘The minute people see my face they stop listening to what I say.’

‘And you want Matty and me to investigate for you,’ Sherlock said levelly.

‘You have broken into my house, you have wreaked havoc among my specimens and you have invalided my servant George. I think you owe me.’

‘You have broken the law by stealing body parts from the mortuaries at Oxford and elsewhere,’ Sherlock pointed out. ‘Whatever we might owe you is cancelled out by the fact that
we were investigating your wrongdoings.’

The two of them stared at each other for a long moment, neither willing to back down. Eventually Marie Weston exclaimed, ‘Oh, Ferny – this is foolish! You cannot involve these two
children
in a problem that isn’t even yours! It would be wrong to send them to Mortimer’s house.’

Weston opened his mouth to answer, but Sherlock beat him to it.

‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I think it’s an interesting problem. I wouldn’t mind visiting Mr Maberley and having a look around. I can’t promise anything,
but—’

‘Are you serious?’ Matty asked.

‘Perfectly.’ Sherlock turned to look at his friend. ‘Doesn’t it strike you as interesting? I mean, a house that
moves
?’

‘No,’ Matty said honestly, ‘it strikes me as being
mad
.’

‘So you don’t want to come with me?’

‘That’s a trick question, isn’t it? Of course I’ll come with you.’ He glanced at Mrs Weston. ‘Someone has to keep ’im out of trouble. ’E can be so
single-minded ’e can see right what’s in front of ’im in great detail but ignore all the dangerous stuff that’s creepin’ up on ’im.’

‘In which case he sounds just like Ferny when he was on a case,’ Marie replied with a wan smile.

‘So,’ Matty said brightly, ‘what’s the pay like?’

Sherlock and Weston both turned to stare at him. ‘
Pay?
’ they both said in unison.

‘Yeah, pay. You want Sherlock ’ere to do a job, so you gotta pay ’im for it. You don’t expect a gardener to work for free, or a plumber.’

‘I thought we had established,’ Weston said patiently, ‘that you two have trespassed in my house, assaulted my servant and have been responsible for the death of several of my
animal specimens. I’ll deduct your “pay” from the damages you owe me.’

‘I thought we also established,’ Matty said, equally patiently, ‘that you’ve been engaged in illegal activities which we was investigatin’, that your servant
attacked
us
, not the other way around, an’ that your precious specimens had to be destroyed to stop them from killin’ people – like us an’ your servant. I think
we’re
the ones who are due damages – an’ that’s before we even discuss payment for services.’

‘Matty, what are you doing?’ Sherlock hissed.

‘Establishin’ your market worth,’ his friend replied.

‘Mr Weston and his wife don’t have any money. Look around. They have no wages coming into the household.’

‘They can afford a servant, and that bloke with the monkey,’ Matty pointed out reasonably, ‘an’ presumably those wax body parts don’t come free. I doubt you can
just pick up a poisonous snake in Oxford market, so someone has to be paid to find the specimens, collect them and send ’em ’ere. All that takes money, but ’e’s
expectin’ you to work for free?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Sherlock, you need an agent.’

‘It’s true,’ Ferny murmured, ‘that I receive a generous pension from the police force, and my dear wife manages all our finances in such a way that we never seem to be
short of money – I don’t know how she does it. I cannot, however, say that we are
rich
.’

Sherlock went to say something, but Matty shushed him.

‘We can discuss suitable remuneration when you return,’ Weston continued after a long pause. ‘When we see how much progress you have made towards a solution.’

‘That sounds fair,’ Sherlock said before Matty could argue further.

‘I will write a letter to Mortimer Maberley,’ Weston said, ‘explaining who you are and what you hope to achieve. That way he will at least let you inside his house. I will also
lend you two horses from the stables so you can ride there.’

‘’Orses, eh?’ Matty said brightly. ‘They don’t come cheap neither.’

‘When do you wish to set off?’

Sherlock glanced at Matty. ‘I think tomorrow morning, after breakfast.’

Marie Weston beamed. ‘Then you must stay here the night. We have spare beds. Ferny will cook a fine breakfast for you before you set off.’

They stayed awake for a while longer, talking not about the Mortimer Maberley case but instead discussing Weston’s theories about the effects of occupation or career on the human body, and
the symptoms caused by various poisons. While they talked, Weston took a sheet of paper from a desk in the bedroom and set about writing the letter of introduction to Mortimer Maberley that he had
promised.

‘You should read it,’ he said, ‘just in case you think I might be putting secret instructions in there.’

‘Like in
Hamlet,
’ Sherlock said, ‘where Claudius sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to the English court carrying a letter that asks the King to kill their friend
Hamlet, who is with them.’

‘Except that Hamlet has rewritten the letter so that it is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who are executed.’ Weston grinned. ‘I remember
Hamlet
being your brother’s
favourite Shakespeare play when he was here. You have obviously picked up his love of the Bard.’

‘It’s a family thing,’ Sherlock said.

He scanned the letter, which just contained a set of initial salutations and then a paragraph where Weston told Maberley that he was sending two boys – Sherlock Holmes and Matthew Arnatt
– to help sort out Maberley’s problems. Forestalling any protests on Maberley’s part, Weston added that although the boys might appear young, they were intelligent and
tenacious.

‘It looks fine,’ Sherlock said, handing it back. Weston sealed it in an envelope with some wax and passed it back to Sherlock.

When Weston went to sort out the bedding in their rooms, his wife looked beseechingly at Sherlock. ‘Please tell me that you won’t go ahead with this,’ she said piteously.
‘Dear Ferny gets these obsessions in his head and cannot let them go. Supporting him merely reinforces his obsessions. He needs to be able to let go of them.’

Sherlock was torn. On the one hand he wanted to aid Marie Weston in whatever way she needed, but on the other hand he was intrigued by the potential mystery. ‘I promise,’ he said
eventually, ‘that we will do our best to prove that Mr Maberley is imagining things, and that there is a simple explanation.’

The next morning they ate a huge breakfast of bacon, eggs and fried bread, they were introduced to the horses and they set out before the sun had climbed very far in the sky. Sherlock had the
letter to Mortimer Maberley tucked inside his jacket, while Matty had a hand-drawn map tucked inside his. Strangely, the house looked nowhere near as threatening in the warm morning light. Its
lines and angles appeared charmingly eccentric rather than sinister. Or perhaps it was just the knowledge of what was really inside that made it less malevolent.

‘How are you feeling?’ Sherlock called as they rode.

‘Could’ve done wiv a better night’s sleep,’ Matty called back. ‘I kept thinkin’ I could hear somethin’ slitherin’ under the bed. An’ then,
at breakfast, I was fine until I started wonderin’ if that was really bacon or if that Weston bloke had just fried up the meat from one of ’is snakes, so as not to waste it.’

‘You really do have an active imagination, don’t you?’ Sherlock said.

‘I say that, but if it
was
snake then we’re missing a trick ’ere in England. It was very tasty.’

The ride took nearly an hour. Eventually Matty announced that they were approaching Mortimer Maberley’s house. The countryside there was lush and green and relatively flat, with fields
interspersed with copses of beeches and the occasional orchard of apple or pear trees. There were low hills on the horizon.

The Maberley house was set back from the road, nowhere near any other properties. A fringe of bushes in the overgrown grounds hid the building from sight until Sherlock and Matty had tied their
horses up, made their way through the rusty gate and pushed through the shrubbery.

‘This must be the place,’ Matty said, looking at it aghast.

‘Do you think so?’ Sherlock responded.

The house was small – two storeys, with rooms either side of a central front door. It was also badly maintained – the thatched roof was mossy, and some of the bricks were crumbling
at the edges. What made it unique, however, was the wooden beams that had been set up at one end of the house, bracing it diagonally from roof to ground.

‘’E’s serious about this house-moving lark then?’

‘Serious enough to do something to stop it,’ Sherlock agreed.

‘Can’t be workin’, or we wouldn’t be ’ere.’

‘Let’s take a look around before we knock on the front door.’

Matty followed Sherlock as he headed towards the corner of the house where the wooden bracing beams were fixed. Standing there, Sherlock gazed out across the wild lawn to where the apple orchard
began – hundreds of trees about twice his height, spaced ten feet or so apart in a regular pattern. The lawn continued out under the trees and through the orchard without a break. There were
no apples on the trees – it was too early in the year for that.

He let his gaze fall to the grass between the house and the first row of trees. If the house had moved –
if
it had, he emphasized in his mind, rather than the whole thing being an
invention of the overheated mind of Mortimer Maberley – then there should be traces on the lawn. He could see nothing – no drag marks, no scuffing, nothing to indicate that anything
heavy had been pulled or pushed across there. In fact, looking back at the house, it was obvious that it didn’t just rest on the surface. No house ever did. There would be foundations dug
into the ground, if not a coal cellar as well. If the house did move, then what happened to all those underground parts – did they stay where they were, or did they move too? No, the whole
thing was just too stupid.