Young Sherlock Holmes: Knife Edge (27 page)

‘Why not?’

‘Sir Shadrach is dead because we are all here. His murder
has something to do with the auction. We didn’t directly
cause
his death, but if none of us had turned up then he
would still be alive. I think we have a moral responsibility to find his murderer and bring him or her to justice.’

There was silence in the room for a few moments.

‘I recognize the expression on his face,’ Mycroft said sadly. ‘It means that we are not getting out of here
until he is satisfied.’

‘Must be a family trait,’ Crowe murmured.

Mycroft checked his watch. ‘Gentlemen, I think that the time has come for us to take some positive action. Come with me.’

He moved towards the door of the library. Sherlock and Crowe exchanged glances, and then followed.

Mycroft led them out into the castle hall and towards the main door. Silman was in the hall,
and moved to intercept him.

‘As you requested, Mr Holmes, all of the other representatives are remaining here. I presume that you will also be staying?’

‘I will,’ Mycroft boomed, ‘but I have just realized that my brother has not been questioned by the police. He was out in the castle grounds all morning. By the time he
returned, the police sergeant was leaving. I will take him into Galway
now, if you would be so kind as to arrange a carriage. Mr Crowe here has kindly offered to go with us, just in case anyone was
worried that we are going to head straight for the train station and leave.’

Silman looked uncertain. Crowe smiled reassuringly. ‘We all have to stay until the investigation is complete, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Ah have no reason to disbelieve Mr Holmes
when he says that
he an’ his brother will return, but there’s an old saying in mah country – “Put your faith in God, but always tie your horse up”. You know
Ah’ll be back because Ah’m leavin’ mah daughter under your roof.’

Silman nodded. ‘Thank you, Mr Crowe. I will organize a carriage right away.’

When she was out of earshot, Crowe said: ‘Where
are
we goin’?’

Mycroft’s face was unreadable. ‘As I
said, we are going into Galway.’

The carriage arrived barely ten minutes later – a four-wheeler with a single horse attached. They all climbed in, and the carriage set off towards the main gates of the castle. Watching
the castle recede in the distance, Sherlock found that he had mixed feelings. Although it wasn’t home, he had got used to it over the past few days.

Then again, he thought,
where
was
home now?

The carriage rattled downhill, along rutted roads and past irregular fields, overgrown furze bushes, clumps of ash and rowan trees and the occasional thatched cottage, until it reached Galway.
Mycroft banged on the roof as they approached the hotel in which he and Sherlock had stayed just after Sherlock’s arrival on the
Gloria Scott
.

‘Wait here for us,’ he called
up to the driver as the carriage slowed to a halt. ‘We will be less than an hour, in my estimation. If you wish to take a break then do so, as
long as you are back within the hour.’

The three of them headed into the hotel.

‘Still not sure what we are doin’ here,’ Crowe rumbled.

‘We are seeking reinforcements,’ Mycroft replied enigmatically.

Sherlock glanced around to see who
these potential reinforcements might be. Within a handful of seconds it was obvious, and he felt his heart suddenly get a lot lighter.

Matty Arnatt and Rufus Stone were sitting in armchairs in the hotel lobby.

‘Sherlock!’ Matty shouted across the lobby, making heads turn. He rushed across and skidded to a halt in front of his friend. He didn’t seem to know whether
to hug Sherlock or shake his hand. In the end he settled for punching Sherlock hard in the shoulder. ‘I wasn’t sure you were ever coming back!’

‘There were times,’ Sherlock admitted, smiling in delight, ‘when
I wasn’t sure either.’

‘’Ow long you been away?’

‘Don’t you know?’

‘Don’t have a calendar, nor a watch. There’s been a whole load of snow between you leaving and you coming back, so I reckon it’s been nearly a year.’

‘That much and some more,’ Sherlock said ruefully.

‘Albert’s dead.’ Matty’s face was serious. ‘Just stopped trottin’ one day, fell down and died, right in front
of me.’

‘Virginia told me, in a letter.’

‘Got a new ’orse, though, name of ’Arold.’

Mycroft placed his hands on their shoulders. ‘Heartwarming though this reunion is, there are some important matters we need to discuss. Let us make ourselves comfortable and
talk.’

Rufus Stone was standing up when Sherlock and the others got over to him. He nodded at Mycroft and at Amyus Crowe,
but he shook Sherlock’s hand warmly.

‘Good to see you again, kid. I had visions of you settling down in China and learning how to play one of those abominable stringed instruments that you see in waterfront bars in
Limehouse.’

‘Tempting,’ Sherlock replied, ‘but the violin is hard enough. I have been practising, by the way. All the time.’

‘There’s always going to be at least one fiddle
player on a working ship,’ Stone said, smiling. ‘The trouble is they rarely practise their scales, despite the proximity
of so many fish.’

Sherlock winced at the joke. ‘It’s good to be back,’ he said.

Mycroft gestured at them all to sit down. ‘No doubt you are wondering,’ he said to Sherlock and Crowe, ‘why these two unsavoury characters are here.’

‘You sent them a telegram.’ Sherlock
shrugged. ‘It’s obvious.’

‘You did
not
decode that telegram.’ Mycroft scowled.

‘No, but you asked me to send an urgent telegram after you were attacked, and now Rufus and Matty are here. There’s a clear connection to be made.’

‘Indeed.’ Mycroft didn’t seem mollified. ‘Knowing that I was coming here to Galway, and knowing that I would be meeting you and that we might end up with a situation
that
we could not handle, I took the precaution of putting Mr Stone on alert. I did not specifically ask him to bring young Matthew, but I did not rule the possibility out.’

‘We relocated to Liverpool,’ Stone said, ‘and waited for further instructions. The minute we got Mr Holmes’s telegram, we set out for Ireland.’

‘But I sent the telegram to London,’ Sherlock said, and then caught
himself with an exclamation. ‘Of course – you had someone resend the telegram to the intended
recipients.’

‘Never, if you can help it, give away either your intentions or your agents,’ Mycroft said. He clapped his hands together. ‘Now – I need to brief the two of you on recent
events.’

Succinctly, Mycroft summarized everything that had happened. While he spoke, pots of tea and plates
of sandwiches and cakes were brought to them.

‘You’re taller than you used to be,’ Matty whispered to Sherlock while Mycroft was speaking. ‘And you’re thinner as well. And you’ve got a tan.’

‘You’re smaller than you used to be,’ Sherlock countered.

‘That don’t make any sense. People don’t get smaller as they grow up. That’s why it’s called growing
up
.’

‘I was joking.’ Sherlock
paused for a moment. ‘But you are bigger around the waist. Too many pies filched from the market stalls?’

‘There’s this woman who runs a baker’s,’ Matty explained with a sniff. ‘She’s kind of adopted me. She feeds me stuff all the time, even when I don’t
want it.’ A puzzled look crossed his face. ‘I’ve never not wanted food before. It’s a strange feeling.’

‘It’s called “feeling full”,’
Sherlock pointed out. ‘Get used to it.’

‘So,’ Mycroft said, glaring at the two of them, ‘we have something of a conundrum. Who killed Sir Shadrach Quintillan, and why?’

‘From the sound of it, there are three different groups of villains involved,’ Stone said, picking up a sandwich. ‘Firstly, you have Sir Shadrach and Mr Albano, supported by
the castle staff and possibly Quintillan’s
daughter. They were involved in faking the psychic events so they could make a tidy profit from auctioning off Albano’s services, and in
arranging the fake kidnapping in order to make him seem more important.’

‘Agreed, and obvious,’ Mycroft said.

‘Secondly, you have the person who attacked you – Count Shuvalov’s assistant, but acting outside his authority.’

‘Again,’ Mycroft said,
‘you state the obvious.’

‘And thirdly, you have the mysterious person or persons who want to sabotage the entire auction process, and have done so by killing Sir Shadrach Quintillan.’

Sherlock frowned. ‘How can you be sure they want to sabotage the auction process? The whole thing was trickery from start to finish.’

‘But from what your brother has said, the knowledge that the third
demonstration of psychic powers was a trick is known only to the five of us here. For that reason, it couldn’t have
been any of the international representatives who killed Sir Shadrach. They obviously still believe in Ambrose Albano’s powers, and want the auction to happen. They wouldn’t have
sabotaged it.’

‘The violinist has a point,’ Crowe rumbled. ‘There’s a third party somewhere here,
an’ we don’t know who they are.’

‘We know some things about them,’ Sherlock pointed out. ‘We know that they believe in Ambrose Albano’s psychic abilities, we know that they don’t want any of the
great international nations to have access to those abilities, and we know that they want to use those abilities themselves.’

‘’Ow do you figure that out?’ Matty asked. He was following the conversation
with interest.

‘Because they killed Sir Shadrach, but left Ambrose Albano alive. If they wanted to stop any of the Empires from using the psychic then they would have killed Albano instead.’

Matty nodded. ‘Fair point.’ He frowned, thinking. ‘So why didn’t they kidnap this Albano bloke earlier? If it ’ad been me, I would’ve grabbed ’im first
chance I got.’

‘They didn’t grab him earlier,’
Mycroft explained, ‘because your friend Sherlock had exposed him as a fake during the second séance. They were probably getting
ready to pack up and go home, knowing that the international representatives were going to do the same thing, when Sir Shadrach staged that miracle come-back using the trick with the painting. That
put them on the alert again. We need to arrange an opportunity
for them, and not give them enough time to make anything more than a rudimentary plan.’

‘We also know that they have an agent inside the house,’ Sherlock added. ‘They must have, in order to get information on the progress of negotiations, and also to have got Sir
Shadrach out without anyone noticing. That gives us an edge.’

Mycroft nodded. ‘We can provide them with false information
to bring them out into the open, just by discussing it openly in the house.’

‘Ah see,’ Crowe said. ‘Make them think that there’s a deal goin’ down an’ that Ambrose Albano is about to be whisked away by one of us. They’ll have to
move rapidly then to keep hold of him.’

Sherlock frowned. ‘Where
is
Albano? I haven’t seen him since last night.’

‘He has locked himself in his room,’ Mycroft
said. ‘He is terrified that he might be killed next. He was interviewed by the police, but through a locked door. I think we can
assume he’ll want to stay there.’ He looked around the group. ‘What I propose is this. First: Sherlock, Mr Crowe and I return to the castle. Second: I brief Ambrose Albano to keep
quiet and stay in his room. Third: Mr Crowe makes a big noise about having been ordered
by the US President to make a deal with Mr Albano and tells everyone that he and Albano will be leaving
within the hour. Fourth: Mr Stone and young Matty hire a coach and horses and get them to turn up at the castle later this afternoon. Fifth: Mr Stone and I work out where, along the route that the
coach will take back to Galway, would be the logical place for an attack to take place.
Sixth: Mr Stone and young Matty wait there, along with some locals that Mr Stone will have to hire.
Seventh—’

‘I think we understand the plan,’ Sherlock interrupted, ‘but how will we make it look like Mr Crowe is taking Mr Albano away if he’s locked in his room?’

‘That,’ Mycroft said, ‘is a very good question.’ He turned to Rufus Stone. ‘Did you bring the things that I asked for?’

‘I did.’ Stone lifted up a case that was beside his chair. ‘Theatrical make-up, wigs, all kinds of stuff to make one person look like another.’

Mycroft looked at Sherlock. ‘You, Sherlock, have the general build and the thinness of Mr Albano. With some pale make-up and a black wig you could, at a distance, be an acceptable
substitute – and we know that this mysterious third party
will
be observing
from a distance. They have to.’

Crowe shifted in his seat in concern. ‘What about that singular crystal eye of his? Difficult to fake that. Could give the game away.’

‘Ah.’ Mycroft thought for a moment. ‘An eyepatch is probably the only answer. That or Sherlock has to keep his head down.’

‘Not so,’ Sherlock said. ‘Leave it to me – I think I can do better.’

Mycroft looked around
the group again, meeting everyone’s gaze. ‘Does everyone know their assigned parts in this? Is everyone reasonably content that those parts can be
accomplished?’

‘One question,’ Rufus Stone said. ‘When I and these local thugs that I have yet to hire leap out from hiding and stop the kidnap attempt, what is our aim? I doubt we can make
arrests, and I don’t want to get anyone into a fight
to the death with a desperate criminal.’

‘I want to flush out whoever is responsible for giving the orders.’ Mycroft’s face was stony. ‘If there is an obvious leader then take them, and let the rest escape. If
not then take anyone you can and we can question them at our leisure to find out who they are working for and where they are based.’ He looked around the table. ‘Are we all
clear?’

Crowe, Stone, Sherlock and Matty looked at each other, then back at Mycroft. They all nodded at once.

‘Very well, let us begin. I do not need to tell you how important this is, or how dangerous.’