Rebel Fire (7 page)

Berle hesitated for a moment, looking at something on the dresser.

“What about this thing?” he asked Ives.

“What thing?”

Berle reached out and picked up a jar. It was made of glass, and the top was covered with a piece of muslin cloth held on with string. From where he stood Sherlock could see that tiny holes had been pricked into the muslin with a sharp knife. It was the kind of thing a kid would do to keep a caterpillar or beetle alive—cover the top of the jar so that the creature couldn't escape but punch some airholes in the top so that it could still breathe—but he couldn't see any insects or other creatures inside. The only thing in the jar was a mass of glistening red stuff, like a piece of liver or a massive clot of blood.

Ives glanced at it dismissively. “We take it with us,” he said. “The boss wants it. He wants it almost as bad as he wants Booth, here.”

Berle shook the jar dubiously. “You sure it's still alive?”

“It had better be. The boss ain't a man known for his patience when it comes to being let down, an' this thing's come all the way from Borneo.” His face fell into concerned lines. “I once heard that a servant of his dropped a pitcher of iced mint julep on the veranda one time. Duke just looked at him, not sayin' anythin'. The servant started to shake, an' he backed away down the garden to where it ended in a riverbank, shakin' all the time and cryin', an' he walked backwards into the river an' just disappeared, out of sight. Like he was hypnotized. Never seen again. Duke once said there are alligators in that river, but I don't know if he's tellin' the truth.”

Berle looked dubious. “I would've thought Duke would use one of those two things he has on leashes. Ain't they supposed to be his killers?”

“Maybe he just wanted to make a point. Maybe those things weren't hungry.” Ives shook his head. “It don't matter. That thing's comin' with us, all the way home.”

He pushed Sherlock down the corridor towards the stairs with the barrel of the gun.

“What are you going to do to me?” Sherlock asked.

“Can't shoot you,” Ives mused. “Not unless you give me no choice. If a kid's body is found with a ball in it then there'll be some kind of investigation, and the house with four foreigners in it is going to be the first place the police look. Could inject you with an overdose of one of Berle's drugs, I suppose, but that's a waste. We might need those drugs, the rate Booth's getting through them. No, I think I'll just suffocate you with a rag in your mouth. That way there's no obvious sign of violence. There's a quarry a few miles away. I'll put you in the cart, cover you up with some sacking, and drive you out there. There's plenty of holes in the ground I can throw you into. If you're ever found, the authorities'll assume you just fell in and hit your head.”

“Is it really so important?” Sherlock asked.

“Is what so important?”

“Whatever you're doing here? Is it really so important that you need to kill me to make sure nobody ever finds out?”

Ives laughed. “Oh, people'll find out all right. The world will find out in time, but that's a time of our choosing.”

Sherlock was at the top of the stairs by now, and Ives gestured to him to head down, towards the first floor. Reluctantly Sherlock obeyed. He knew he had to make a break for it sometime, but if he tried now Ives would shoot him and find some other way of disposing his body so that it would never be found. Apart from causing Ives some momentary inconvenience, Sherlock was pretty sure that running now would achieve nothing. Maybe he'd get a chance when they got out into the open air.

Heading down the stairs, he felt something underneath the sole of his shoe; something lying on the carpet runner. Before he could see what it was, Ives had pushed him onward. Sherlock turned, curious, just in time to see a length of string suddenly pull tight across the stairs, from banister to panelled wall. It was the string, lying on the carpet, that he had stepped on.

Ives's foot caught under the string as he was going down to the next step. His body kept on moving while his foot stayed where it was, trapped. His eyes widened comically as he fell forward. His hands scrabbled for the wall and the banister, his right hand banging the revolver against the panelling of the wall before he dropped it. Sherlock stepped to one side as Ives fell past him. The man hit the stairs with his shoulder and rolled in an ungainly way, over and over, until he hit the first floor and lay sprawled across the landing.

Sherlock glanced over the edge of the banister from where he stood halfway up the stairs. Beneath him, in the shadows of the first floor, he saw Matty, his pale face staring up at him, his hand holding one end of a piece of string. Sherlock traced the string up to the banister and across the stairs to where a nail had been roughly pushed into the gap between the skirting board and the wall. The string was tied to the head of the nail.

“You were lucky the nail didn't pull out when his weight was pulling on the string,” Sherlock observed calmly, although his heart was beating fast and heavy in his chest.

“No,” Matty corrected, “
you
were lucky it didn't pull out. It made no difference to me. He didn't know I was here.”

Sherlock descended to the first-floor landing and bent to check on Ives. The man was unconscious, with a nasty red mark on his forehead. Sherlock picked up the gun. No point taking any chances.

Matty joined him. “What is it about you and other people's houses?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I have to keep getting you out of trouble.” He glanced up the stairs. “What's going on up there? I saw the cove with the burned face pull you into the house, and then I saw two other coves pitch up in a wagon. Next thing I know, there's three of you out on the roof. I saw guns, so I thought I'd better come in and get you.” He shook his head. “For a kid with a big brain you spend a lot of time a prisoner. Can't you just talk your way out of trouble?”

“I think,” Sherlock said, “that it's the talking that gets me
into
trouble, sometimes.” He paused. “Where did you get the string from?”

“In me pocket, of course,” Matty replied. “You never know when you might need string.”

“Come on,” Sherlock said. “Let's get out of here.”

“There's another bloke downstairs,” Matty pointed out, “but he's knocked out. At least, he was when I came up. We'd better be careful in case he's awake by now.”

The two of them crept down the stairs to the ground floor and past the reception room where the man whom Sherlock had first seen unconscious and bleeding—Gilfillan, Ives had called him—was now lying on the sofa and snoring. Sneaking by, they headed out of the front door, out of the garden and down the road to where Matty had hitched the horses.

“Did you find out what you needed to know?” Matty asked as they mounted the horses.

“I think so,” Sherlock said. “There's four men in the house, and they're all American. At least, three of them are—I never heard the other one speak. One of the men is disturbed in the head, and one of them is a doctor looking after him. The other two I guess are guarding him, making sure he doesn't escape. They must have left one man in charge when the other two went out—maybe to get food or something—and the disturbed man, whose name is John Wilkes Booth, knocked him out. He assumed I was part of some kind of plot against him, which is why he pulled me into the house.”

“But what are they doing here in England in the first place?” Matty asked.

“I don't know, but there's something going on. This isn't just a rest home for mad assassins.

“Mad
assassins
?”

“I'll tell you all about it when we get to Holmes Manor.”

The ride back to Farnham took over an hour, and Sherlock's spirits fell with every mile they travelled. How was he going to explain to Mycroft and to Amyus Crowe that his quiet little investigation had ended with the four men in the house alerted that someone knew they were up to no good? If he'd thought about it properly, he would never have gone near the house.

Mycroft's carriage was still outside Holmes Manor when they got there.

“Well,” Matty said after they'd put the horses in the stables, “good luck.”

“What do you mean, good luck? Aren't you coming in with me?”

“Are you joking? Mr. Crowe scares me, and your brother terrifies me. I'm going back to the narrowboat. Tell me all about it tomorrow.” And with that he turned and walked off.

Taking a deep breath, Sherlock entered the hall, crossed to the library, and knocked on the door.

“Come in,” his brother's voice boomed.

Mycroft and Amyus Crowe were sitting together at a long reading desk over to one side of the library. A huge pile of books was sitting in front of them—histories, geographies, philosophies, and three very large atlases which had been opened to show a map of what looked to Sherlock like the Americas.

Mycroft looked Sherlock up and down critically.

“You have been assaulted,” he said, “and not by someone your own age.”

“Or from this country,” Amyus Crowe rumbled.

“In fact,” Mycroft said, glancing at Sherlock's shoes, “there were two assailants. One of them was mentally deficient in some way.”

“And both men were armed with pistols,” Crowe added.

“How do you know these things?” Sherlock asked, amazed.

“A trifling matter,” Mycroft said, waving his hand airily. “Explaining it would waste time. More important is, where did you go and why were you attacked?”

Reluctantly Sherlock told them both everything that had happened, ending with the realization that he still had Ives's pistol tucked into the back of his trousers. He pulled it out and put it on the desk in front of the two men.

“Colt Army model,” Crowe observed mildly, “.44 calibre, six rounds. Fourteen inches from hammer to the end of the barrel. Replaced the Colt Dragoon as the preferred weapon of the U.S. Army. Accurate up to around a hundred yards.” His fist slammed down on the table, making the gun jump. “What in the name of God and all his angels did you think you were doin', goin' to that house?” he shouted. “You've alerted Booth an' his handlers to the fact someone's on to them! They'll clear out like greased lightnin'.”

Sherlock bit the inside of his lip, trying to stop himself responding. “I just wanted to take a look,” he said eventually. “I thought I could help.”

“You've not helped; you've actively hindered,” Crowe exploded. “This is a business for grownups. You ain't got the skills or the knowledge to do it properly.”

Part of Sherlock's mind—a dispassionate, detached part—noticed that Amyus Crowe's accent became thicker when he was angry, but the greater part was cringing at the knowledge that he had let down two of the three men whose opinion mattered most to him in the world. He opened his mouth to say “Sorry,” but his mouth was dry and he couldn't get the word out.

The expression on Mycroft's face was of disappointment rather than anger. “Go to your room, Sherlock,” he said. “We will call for you when”—he glanced at Crowe—“we can be more assured of a calmer discussion. Now go.”

Feeling his cheeks burning with shame, Sherlock turned around and walked out of the library.

The hall was stifling in the afternoon heat. He stopped for a moment, head hanging, letting the feelings drain away from him and waiting until he felt he could face the long climb up to his room. His head hurt.

“No longer the favoured child?” said a voice from the shadows.

Sherlock glanced up as Mrs. Eglantine glided out from the cubbyhole beneath the stairs. She was smiling nastily. Her black crinoline dress moved stiffly around her, and the sound of it brushing against the floor was like someone whispering in a distant room.

“How is it that you manage to survive in this house, being so rude to everyone?” he asked mildly, knowing that he had nothing to lose. Things were already as bad as they were going to get that day. “I would have fired you years ago, if I was in charge.”

She seemed surprised by his reaction. The smile slipped from her face. “You have no power here,” she snapped. “
I
have the power in this house.”

“Only until Uncle Sherrinford dies,” Sherlock pointed out. “Neither he nor Aunt Anna has any children, so possession of the house will pass to my father's side of the family. And then you need to step
very
carefully, Mrs. Eglantine.”

Before she could say anything in response, he headed up the stairs to his room. Looking down from the first-floor landing, he could still see her standing there.

He lay down on his bed, flung an arm across his eyes, and let the whirl of thoughts in his head take him over. What had he been thinking? Mycroft and Crowe had both warned him off from helping. What exactly was it that he had been trying to prove?

He must have drifted into a doze after a while, because the light in the room seemed to suddenly change, and he had pins and needles in his arm from where it was awkwardly crossing his face. He got up and slowly went downstairs; more to find food than for any other reason. He was suddenly ravenous.

The maids were setting the table for dinner. Mycroft was just emerging from the library. There was no sign of Amyus Crowe.

Mycroft nodded at Sherlock. “Feeling better?” he asked.

“Not really. I did something stupid.”

“Not for the first time, and probably not for the last time. Just make sure you learn a lesson from this. Making a mistake is excusable the first time. After that it becomes tedious.”

One of the maids emerged from the dining room with a small gong in a frame. Without looking at Mycroft or Sherlock she banged the gong once, loudly, and then retreated back into the dining room.