Young Sherlock Holmes: Knife Edge (19 page)

‘The shape of a woman,’ Holtzbrinck said.

‘A shape which you
believed
was a woman.’ Sherlock shrugged. ‘Have you ever looked at a cloud
in the sky and thought it looked like a dragon? The mind can play
tricks.’

‘You accuse me of trickery?’ Albano protested in his high-pitched voice. ‘Ectoplasm, when touched by human hands, becomes manifest as an ordinary substance. Every psychic knows
that! You have proved nothing!’ He stared defiantly around the table, his white false eye seeming to stare at everyone at once. ‘I will
not listen to these accusations any
more!’

He turned to go, but found Amyus Crowe standing directly behind him.

‘Oh, you will stay,’ Crowe said genially. ‘The moment you used mah dear wife’s memory as a prop in your obscene game you lost any claim to bein’ treated with
respect. Sit
down
.’

Albano sat abruptly, white-faced.

‘An’ you,’ Crowe added, pointing at Quintillan, who
was quietly ordering a foot-servant to wheel him away, ‘you stay where you are. We have things to say that we want you
to hear.’ He turned back to Sherlock. ‘Go on, son. You’re doin’ fine.’

‘The whole thing is a series of tricks, one after the other,’ Sherlock said, ‘designed to convince you that Ambrose Albano can communicate with the dead, so that you would all
bid whatever resources
your countries had granted you.’

‘Tricks?’ Von Webenau seemed mesmerized. ‘But what about the writing on the slate? How was that done? I am a scientist, and I cannot see how it was accomplished.’

‘Elementary,’ Sherlock said. He walked around the table to where Albano was sitting and reached into the right side of his jacket, to where he knew the white thimble had to be
hanging from its
elastic. He had a bad moment when it wasn’t where he expected, but after a few seconds of moving his fingers up and down he felt a hard object. He pulled it out into the
open. As the elastic tightened it jerked Albano’s jacket out of shape.

‘This thimble has chalk on the end. Albano used it to write on the slate. The elastic snapped it back out of sight when he had finished with it.’

‘But the messages disappeared,’ Holtzbrinck pointed out.

‘Wiped away by his white gloves. White chalk against white gloves – invisible.’

Holtzbrinck and von Webenau exchanged glances. They seemed genuinely shocked. Sherlock had the impression that, for whatever reason, they had really wanted to believe in Albano’s
powers.

Count Shuvalov leaned forward. ‘You are very convincing about
the writing on the slate and the ectoplasmic materialization. The information about Herr Holtzbrinck’s brother Fritz and
–’he glanced apologetically at Amyus Crowe – ‘my American colleague’s wife could have been obtained by standard investigation beforehand. I work in intelligence
– I know how these things are done.’ He paused, staring intently at Sherlock. ‘But the disappearance of Mr Albano
from the carriage before it crashed – surely you must admit
that such a thing would be impossible to fake. That was no trick. The man really did disappear.’

‘There was a disappearance,’ Sherlock said quietly, ‘but it wasn’t by Mr Albano.’ He glanced at the four foreign dignitaries. ‘The carriage crash was faked to
give Mr Albano an opportunity to make himself look even more powerful –
to make it look as if he was so valuable to the spirits on the astral plane that they would transport him there and
back if he was threatened. But there was no kidnap.’

‘We all saw four kidnappers,’ Holtzbrinck pointed out.

‘No, we saw three kidnappers – the driver and the two men who got out and grabbed Mr Albano. The fourth figure we saw was just a shape – a silhouette inside the carriage.
It
was easily accomplished by hanging up a coat with a black scarf bundled up to form a head.’

‘Four men ran away,’ von Webenau said.

‘Yes,’ Sherlock agreed. ‘And one of them was Mr Albano.’ He stared at the men, one after the other. Shuvalov was already ahead of him, as was Crowe, but he had to
persuade von Webenau and Holtzbrinck. ‘When Albano was thrown inside the carriage, he quickly
put on the coat that was hanging up there, and wound the scarf around his face. When the coach
crashed, which it was supposed to do, he ran away with the other three men.’ He turned to Quintillan. ‘Were they servants, or did you hire them from the village?’

Quintillan just stared at him darkly.

‘It doesn’t really matter,’ Sherlock continued. I was just interested to know.’ He turned
to Amyus Crowe. ‘Have I left anything out? I think I’ve covered
everything of importance.’

‘The attack on your brother?’ Crowe prompted.

‘Ah yes.’ He looked from von Webenau to Holtzbrinck and then to Shuvalov. ‘That was nothing to do with the séance, or the attempt to get money from your governments.
That was an attempt to reduce the playing field. I presume someone thought that the
British Government, being the closest and perhaps the one with the most resources, was most likely to win the
auction for Mr Albano’s services, so they decided to take my brother out of the running.’

‘An’ do you know who?’ Crowe asked.

‘I originally suspected that the attacker had gained access to the library from a secret passage,’ Sherlock said, ignoring the question. ‘However, I now
suspect there was a
much more prosaic explanation. I believe that the attacker was hiding behind the curtains in the library.’ He glanced around at the group. ‘You are all intelligent men, and the attack
was clumsy – badly thought out and badly managed.’ He turned suddenly, and pointed at Count Shuvalov. ‘Count – why did you dismiss your manservant earlier?’

Shuvalov stared at Sherlock
for a long moment. ‘He was incompetent. He did not meet my standards. I sent him back home, in disgrace.’

‘You mean he attacked my brother without being ordered to, therefore risking an international incident? He acted independently of you, thinking he was helping you, and so he had to
go.’

Shuvalov shrugged. ‘You may believe what you wish,’ he said, ‘but believe
this –
I would never
order an attack so clumsy, especially against a man for whom I
have much friendship. There are other, better ways to ensure that the Russian Empire succeeds in this auction for the psychic’s services –’ he gazed at Quintillan –
‘
if
the psychic’s powers are real. I think our friend here has convincingly demonstrated that they are not, and I thank him for it.’

Quintillan stared at Crowe
and Sherlock, and then scanned his gaze across the other delegates.

‘I realize how this looks,’ he said slowly. ‘I understand that you think you have been duped – that you believe Mr Albano and I are conspiring to get you to pay us money
for something that does not exist. But it
does
exist. I assure you, Mr Albano’s powers are
real
.’

‘Then why the tricks?’ Sherlock asked.

Quintillan
raised a hand to his forehead. ‘It is . . . embarrassing to explain.’ He gestured to Ambrose Albano. ‘Would you mind?’

Albano stepped forward. ‘I confess,’ he said, ‘that there
have
been tricks, but they were intended not to fool
you
, but to protect
me
. My powers are
–’ he shrugged – ‘fragile. They come and they go. When Sir Shadrach arranged this demonstration I was physically in good health.
I was able to demonstrate my powers at will,
whenever I was called upon to do so.’ He sighed. ‘But in the intervening time I have suffered a fever. I was confined to bed for several weeks. The doctors feared for my health. I was
on the verge of death. I recovered, thanks to the care of my good friend Sir Shadrach, but while my strength has returned, my ability to summon spirits and to cross
to the Other Side has not. Not
perfectly, anyway. I can sometimes receive messages from the other side, but not reliably. I begged Sir Shadrach to call off the demonstration and the auction, but he said that it had taken so long
to arrange that we could not cancel now. He also pointed out that if I were to fail at some or all of the demonstration, then you would go back and tell your respective
governments that I had no
powers, that I was a fraud and a fake, and not a very good one either. So, yes, we cheated. We concocted a series of magical illusions that gave the impression of a successful séance. I am
truly sorry for that.’ He held his hands out, seeking forgiveness. ‘We let panic persuade us into a foolish course of action.’

‘So your case,’ von Webenau said, ‘is that you
do
have psychic powers, but that you cannot actively control them. You do not know when and if they will
work.’

‘That is exactly the case,’ Albano said. ‘What I can add is that my powers have been gradually coming back to me, and that I fully expect, within a month, to be back at my full
psychic strength.’

‘And we should take your word for that?’ Crowe said heavily.

‘Absolutely
not,’ Quintillan answered quickly. ‘We understand that this explanation, whilst every word is true, may not be very convincing, and so I would suggest two things.
Firstly, given that Mr Albano’s powers are returning by degrees, we arrange a final demonstration that cannot be faked. Everything can be inspected beforehand for evidence of trickery, and
that inspection will leave you convinced that
the only answer is that psychic powers are involved. Secondly, you will be convinced by the fact that the auction is conducted on the basis that we are
proposing Mr Albano as a partial psychic, not a complete psychic, and that the money bid by you on behalf of your governments reflects this.’ He looked from person to person. ‘Is this
acceptable, gentlemen?’

Crowe shook his large head.
‘It is not acceptable. We have a name for people like you in America. We call you “flim-flam men”. You are confidence tricksters, nothing more, and
this is just a rather pathetic attempt to stop us from leaving.’

‘The British Government agrees with the American Government,’ Sherlock said, feeling a thrill run through him as he said the words. He liked the idea that he was speaking directly
on
behalf of the British Government, and he was sure that his brother would have said the same thing, albeit probably with a lot more words.

‘I understand,’ Quintillan said sadly. ‘And I thank you, gentlemen, for your honesty.’ He turned to face von Webenau, Holtzbrinck and Shuvalov. ‘And what about you,
gentlemen? What is your answer?’

Von Webenau and Holtzbrinck looked at Count Shuvalov,
as if he was the leader of their little group. He nodded once, gravely. Von Webenau turned back to Quintillan. ‘We will see your final
demonstration,’ he said.

‘But we are sceptical,’ Holtzbrinck added, ‘and we will be looking at you with critical eyes. You will need to provide a demonstration that is completely convincing to us. If
you can do that then the auction can go ahead.’

‘With a reduced number of bidders,’ von Webenau said. He glanced at Sherlock and Amyus Crowe and shrugged apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, but if you are out then you are out.
You cannot come back in if the demonstration is convincing.’

‘Suits me,’ Crowe rumbled.

Sherlock nodded. ‘Agreed.’

‘With one proviso,’ Count Shuvalov said. He spoke quietly, but he spoke so rarely that everyone listened.
‘This young man has a good mind, and has exposed trickery that might
have fooled some of the more credulous amongst us.’ He smiled. ‘And I count myself amongst that number. I insist that he be allowed to watch the final demonstration, and to look for any
evidence of trickery. I also insist that Mr Crowe be present as well, on the basis that the more eyes watching this demonstration, the
better. They do not take part in the auction, if there is an
auction, but they watch everything.’

Quintillan looked at Albano, who nodded.

‘Yes,’ Quintillan said, ‘your conditions are acceptable.’

‘And I,’ Sherlock said boldly, ‘insist that the demonstration is held tomorrow, in daylight, not at night. Daylight is a great exposer of hoaxes and trickery.’

‘Again,’ Quintillan said,
‘your condition is acceptable.’ It seemed to Sherlock, however, that he didn’t seem particularly happy about it.

‘Now I need to rest,’ Albano said, ‘in order to conserve my energy for the demonstration. I propose that it occurs after lunch.’

‘We will reconvene tomorrow, after lunch,’ Quintillan said. ‘Until then, gentlemen, you must amuse yourselves.’

He gestured to Silman, who had
been standing behind him all the while, so stationary that everyone had forgotten she was there, and she wheeled him out. Ambrose Albano followed.

‘Very clever,’ Crowe said, approaching Sherlock. ‘He’s managed to turn defeat into a qualified victory. Those fools –’ he gestured to where von Webenau,
Holtzbrinck and Shuvalov were clustered together, talking in low voices – ‘
want
this thing
to be true, and so they’re willin’ to let this pair of tricksters have
another bite of the cherry.’

‘At least we won’t be wasting British or American money,’ Sherlock pointed out. ‘And we get to watch, and to see exactly how the trick is done.’

‘Ah suspect that this trick will be the granddaddy of all tricks,’ Crowe warned. ‘We’ll need to watch carefully.’ He seemed to notice some expression
in
Sherlock’s face. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘I was just thinking,’ Sherlock said, ‘that Sir Shadrach’s daughter isn’t going to be best pleased with me.’

Crowe nodded. ‘That’s the problem with the truth, son. It don’t please a lot of people, because it upsets the neat little applecart of their world. Don’t mean that you
should avoid the truth, though. You should never do that. You just
need to be aware that you’ll have fewer friends because of it, but also that the ones who stay will be better
friends.’ He turned towards Shuvalov, von Webenau and Holtzbrinck. ‘Ah suggest we get a good night’s sleep. Let’s think on what has happened tonight, an’ talk it over
tomorrow mornin’. Are we in agreement?’

The three other men nodded.

‘What about Mr Holmes?’ Count Shuvalov
asked. ‘Will
he
be in agreement with this plan?’