Young Sherlock Holmes: Knife Edge (21 page)

Virginia shook her head. ‘I’m
tired,’ she announced, ‘and I’m hungry, and I need a bath and a change of clothes before I go riding with Niamh. I’m going to
head back.’

‘All right,’ Sherlock said, glancing at the tower again, ‘I’ll come with you.’

‘I don’t need an escort,’ she said angrily. ‘I can find my own way safely.’

‘Look,’ Sherlock suddenly snapped, ‘I didn’t
choose
to go away. I was
kidnapped
. I was drugged,
and when I woke up I found myself on a ship heading for
China.
It wasn’t my choice!
’

‘I know.’ She nodded, then said again, ‘I know. But you never wrote to me. You never bothered to get in touch.’

‘I was on a ship headed for China,’ he repeated, more softly. ‘It wasn’t like there was a scheduled postal service.’

‘You wrote to your brother,’ she pointed out. ‘But you didn’t write
to me.’

‘I didn’t know what to say.’

‘That’s the problem.’

She turned and walked away. Sherlock watched her go, feeling torn. On the one hand he wanted to go with her; on the other hand he wanted to take a look at the folly.

His mind flashed up a memory from over a year ago: her sleeping in a rough stone hut on the Scottish moors while he, awake, watched her. He remembered the
firelight making her face and her hair
glow. He knew that he would never forget that sight, and the feelings that had filled him then, but also that he would never be in that situation again.

Sighing, he turned and followed Virginia. Women, he decided, were not logical and they were not predictable, and they seemed actively to encourage that behaviour in men. He wasn’t sure
that he wanted
to play that game.

Lunch had just finished when – ‘Gentlemen,’ a voice announced.

Sherlock, along with the other representatives – Mycroft, Crowe, von Webenau, Holtzbrinck and Shuvalov – turned to look at the doorway. Sir Shadrach Quintillan was blocking the space
with his bath chair, the ever-present Silman standing behind him.

‘Are you ready for the final, the conclusive, the absolutely
unfakable test?’ he continued. There was a smile on his face, and he looked relaxed, but Sherlock could sense a tension
about him. Maybe it was the way his hands were resting on his lap, with the fingers twisted together.

‘We are, I think, prepared for anything you can throw at us,’ Mycroft said. ‘But we warn you – after the charades of last night, we are in no mood for any more
trickery.’

‘There will be no trickery,’ Quintillan promised. ‘You will all be invited to inspect every feature of the demonstration. If you spot any sign of fraud then we will stop
immediately, and I will abandon any plans that I have to further persuade you.’

‘Very well,’ Herr Holtzbrinck said. ‘Let us proceed.’

Von Webenau coughed to attract attention. ‘Will the demonstration be in the same
room as before?’ he asked.

‘No. We required a special room – an isolated one.’

‘A room, I suppose, that has already been chosen and prepared by you?’ Mycroft said acerbically.

Quintillan grimaced. ‘Unfortunately, for reasons that will become obvious once we get there, the room needs to be on the top floor, where it cannot be observed or overseen by anyone
outside, but I am happy
for you to choose which room it is yourself. In fact, I anticipated your request.’ He beckoned forward a floor-servant who was holding a bowl containing many slips of
paper. ‘I have had my servants chalk numbers on all the rooms on the top floor,’ he said. ‘There are equivalent numbers on the slips of paper in this bowl. Please – will
someone take a number?’

The representatives looked
at each other for a moment, then at some unspoken agreement von Webenau walked over and took a slip of paper from the bowl. He unfolded it, and read out,
‘Twenty-four.’

‘Is everyone happy for that to be the number chosen?’ Quintillan asked.

‘No,’ Mycroft said loudly. ‘I wish von Webenau to choose another number.’

‘Very well.’ Quintillan gestured to von Webenau, who screwed up the
first piece of paper, placed it on the table beside the bowl and plucked another out. He opened it up.
‘Thirty-five,’ he announced.

Quintillan turned to Mycroft. ‘Mr Holmes?’

‘I am content,’ Mycroft rumbled. ‘I merely wanted to establish that the bowl wasn’t filled with slips of paper all of which had “Twenty-four” written on
them.’

‘Then if we are happy to use room thirty-five,
please – follow me.’

Silman pulled Quintillan out of the doorway, turned the bath chair around and pushed him out of sight. Everybody else followed, but Mycroft paused by the table. He reached into the bowl and
removed a handful of slips of paper. He opened them up, one after the other, and glanced at them.

‘What’s the verdict?’ Sherlock asked.

‘They are all different.’ Mycroft threw
the papers back into the bowl. ‘I felt that I had to make absolutely sure.’

Out in the hall, Silman pushed Quintillan across to the ascending room. Ambrose Albano was already standing there, looking pale but resolute. The sun, shining from high in the sky, reflected off
his false eye and created a blaze of white light on his cheek.

‘We will travel to the top floor,’ Quintillan announced.
‘It will be a tight squeeze, but I suggest that I travel first, with Mr Crowe, Herr Holtzbrinck and von Webenau. I will
send the ascending room back down again, and Mr Ambrose can follow with the two Mr Holmeses, plus Count Shuvalov. Does anybody disagree with this intention?’

Nobody spoke out, so Silman opened the door and pulled Quintillan backwards into the ascending room. Holtzbrinck,
Crowe and von Webenau followed. The door closed, and the contraption began to
rise.

The group left in the hall looked at each awkwardly. No words were exchanged.

Once they were all together again on the top floor, Silman pushed Quintillan along one of the connecting corridors and the other men followed. Each of the doors had a number chalked on it, but
Sherlock noticed that they were
not in consecutive order. He made a mental note of the numbers as he passed the doors: 15, 42, 11, 49, 27
. . .

Silman kept pushing the bath chair down the corridor to a room which had the number 35 on it. A key was sticking out of the lock.

‘This is where the demonstration will take place,’ Quintillan announced.

Silman turned the key, pulled it out of the lock and pushed the door
open, and Quintillan gestured to the assembled representatives to enter.

‘Why aren’t the numbers in order?’ Sherlock asked.

Quintillan turned to look at Sherlock. ‘I am informed that those who dwell in the spirit world have a dislike of order and organization,’ he explained. ‘They much prefer things
to be random – more like nature than mathematics.’

‘It is true,’ Albano confirmed
from the back of the group. ‘Many times I have been informed by those who have crossed over to the Other Side that they much prefer things to be
disordered.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Sherlock said, but he was remembering the letters on the table for the séances on the previous nights. They had been in alphabetical order, and nobody had made a
comment then – not the spirits and not Ambrose Albano.
There was something odd here about the random numbers.

The group all entered the room with the exception of Albano. He hung back, saying, ‘For reasons that you will understand shortly, I should stay here. It will make the demonstration even
more convincing.’

The room was empty – no carpets, no curtains, no paintings on the wall. There were two openings – the door that they had come through
and a window. There was also a hook on one wall
where a painting would have hung, and a patch of lighter wall beneath it that showed where a painting had been. The room was so bare that it looked as though it had been pre-prepared for their
arrival. Sherlock was about to say something when Count Shuvalov beat him to it.

‘Are all the rooms on this level so bare?’ he asked.

‘This level
of the castle is not used,’ Quintillan confirmed. ‘There is, therefore, no point in furnishing them.’

‘Could we check another room?’ Mycroft asked.

Quintillan stared at him. ‘There comes a point,’ he said, ‘when suspicion turns into active insult. You were allowed to choose a room at random, and you were allowed to then
change the choice. There was no way I could have known that we would
end up in this room. That should be enough for you, Mr Holmes.’

Mycroft subsided, but Sherlock caught a flash of expression on his face. Rather than annoyance, it was a look of amusement. Mycroft obviously had some suspicion that this was still a trick,
albeit a more complicated one. Sherlock was of the same opinion.

‘Now, gentlemen,’ Quintillan announced. ‘Please feel free to examine
this room from top to bottom and from side to side. Check all of the stones in the wall and the flagstones
in the floor for secret entrances. I want you to be assured that there is no way in and no way out.’

While Mycroft, Sherlock and Amyus Crowe stood off to one side, the other three men thoroughly investigated the walls, floor and ceiling. They all conferred for a few moments, and then
turned to
Quintillan.

‘There is, as you indicate, no way into or out of the room with the exception of the window and the door,’ Holtzbrinck stated firmly. ‘We have also checked for holes through
which someone might observe the room or influence what is inside. There are no holes or other gaps, and all the stones are secure.’

‘Excellent,’ Quintillan said. ‘Now, please examine the window.
I wish you to assure yourself that nobody could climb up here from outside.’

Von Webenau went across to the window and opened it. He leaned out, looking left and right, up and down. ‘The wall is sheer,’ he said, pulling himself back inside, ‘with no
handholds or footholds.’

‘What about ivy?’ Shuvalov asked.

‘No plants of any kind,’ von Webenau confirmed. ‘Nothing that would allow
a climber any purchase.’

‘What about upward?’ Mycroft called. ‘Could a climber get down from the roof?’

Von Webenau leaned out again and stared up. ‘There is a considerable overhang,’ he shouted back into the room. ‘I cannot see any way that a person could climb down from
above.’

‘Besides,’ Quintillan said as von Webenau pulled his head in and closed the window, ‘I will be demonstrating
shortly that nobody could climb down without leaving traces.’
He glanced at Count Shuvalov. ‘Count, could you please confirm that there is no way that anybody outside could see into this room.’

Shuvalov walked across to the window. Von Webenau moved out of his way. Shuvalov gazed out for a few moments. ‘I can see no way that any person outside could see in,’ he said
eventually. ‘The trees
and bushes are too low to permit a sight of anything apart from the ceiling, even with a telescope.’

‘Thank you,’ Quintillan said. ‘I think that we are ready to proceed.’

‘What about a curtain?’ Amyus Crowe asked. ‘That would ensure nobody could see in.’

‘Ah,’ Quintillan said, ‘but we must allow a means of entry for the spirits. A curtain could block their access.’

‘Really?’ Crowe
look sceptical, but he didn’t pursue the question.

‘Indeed. Also –’ Quintillan smiled – ‘either you or Mr Holmes could argue that someone was concealing themselves in the curtains. If there are no curtains then
there is nowhere for anyone to be concealed, yes?’

Crowe shrugged. ‘If you say so, Sir Shadrach.’

A noise at the door made them all turn. Four servants entered, each carrying
a large painting in a heavy, ornate frame. One was a painting of a man in military uniform, one of a horse, one a
classical scene with men in togas standing and arguing in a temple, and one a landscape with trees and hills. They placed the paintings in a line against the wall with the hook in it, and left.

‘We have four paintings,’ Quintillan announced. ‘Each painting is different from the
others. In a moment we will all leave, with the exception of Mr Sherlock Holmes. While the
rest of us go up to the roof and I demonstrate that no climber could get down without leaving a trace, young Mr Holmes will choose one, and one only, of the paintings and hang it on the wall. Only
he will know which painting he chose. I would also ask Mr Holmes to choose which way he hangs it: normally,
upside down, or rotated either to the left or to the right. Mr Albano will already have
been blindfolded and will have wax earplugs placed into his ears. He will be completely unable to see or hear anything, and yet, through the aid and assistance of the spirits, he will know which
painting Mr Holmes chose to hang on the wall and what orientation he has chosen.’ He looked over at Sherlock.
‘Is your role in this clear, young man?’

‘It is.’

‘And you know why I have chosen you for this important task?’

‘Presumably because I was the one who exposed the tricks last night,’ Sherlock said.

‘That is correct. Of all of us, you are the one who cannot be in league with any trickery.’ He looked around. ‘Now, gentlemen, let us leave young Mr Holmes to make his
choice.’ He glanced
back at Sherlock. ‘Wait until we have all left and the door is closed,’ he said. ‘Place the key in the lock so that nobody can see in through the
keyhole, then choose and hang a painting. Wait until you hear my voice calling from above. Do you understand?’

‘I do.’

‘And do not, on your life, tell anyone which painting you have hung up, or which way you have hung it.’ He paused. ‘Very
well.’ He gestured to Silman, who handed the room
key to Sherlock then wheeled Quintillan out. The others followed.

Through the open door, Sherlock could see Ambrose Albano. One of the servants had tied a thick piece of material around his eyes. He stood there, blindfolded, head cocked to one side as if
wondering what was going on around him.

Another foot-servant appeared from the
corridor. She was holding a long wooden pole. She handed it through the door to Sherlock.

‘Keep the pole,’ Quintillan said. ‘You will need it later.’