Young Sherlock Holmes: Knife Edge (17 page)

‘The carriage crashed,’ Quintillan said. ‘Perhaps the sudden shift
in weight as your corporeal body vanished somehow unbalanced it. We all saw it crash, and we saw four masked
men run away. That would be the driver, the two men who snatched you and the third that was inside the carriage.’

Again, Crowe glanced over at Sherlock. The message was plain: Albano and Quintillan between them were making a bit of a play over the number of men that were seen. But
why?

‘Did you manage to capture the men?’ Albano asked. ‘Who were they?’

Quintillan shook his head. ‘They ran off. All attempts to trace them have failed.’

‘No doubt the employees of some unscrupulous foreign power that was not invited to this auction,’ Herr Holtzbrinck said grimly.

‘But where did you go?’ von Webenau pressed. ‘What was it like?’

Albano smiled, and shook his
head. ‘There are no words to explain. The astral plane is . . . unlike anything you have ever experienced. Time flows differently there. The spectrum has five
more colours than we are used to on earth, and there is no need of conversation as thoughts can be heard directly. Food and drink do not exist – instead, the spirits of the deceased feed off
the very light itself, which provides all the
nourishment they need. It is a beautiful, remarkable place. I wish I could have stayed, but my rescuers explained that I was needed back on earth. I
am, they said, destined to be the bridge that connects the worlds of the living and of the dead. So, when they determined that it was safe for me to return, they placed me back here, with you
–’ he threw his arms wide – ‘my friends.’

It was,
Sherlock had to admit, a very convincing dramatic performance. If he hadn’t seen the paraphernalia of Albano’s tricks hidden in the man’s room and discovered that the
carriage had been sabotaged then he might even have been taken in.

‘But surely you can tell us
something
of the astral plane?’ von Webenau pressed. ‘Did . . . did anybody there give you any messages for anybody here?’

‘There were spirits eager to talk to me,’ Albano admitted. ‘I told them to wait – that there would be a chance this evening to hold another séance during which
they could talk with those here.’ He looked over at Quintillan. ‘That will be all right, will it not? The séance will still take place?’

‘I fear you may be too fatigued,’ Quintillan said. ‘Perhaps we should let you rest.’

Sherlock
was fairly sure that Quintillan was protesting for effect rather than seriously. The sudden protests from Holtzbrinck and von Webenau made Sir Shadrach raise his hands up in surrender.
‘Very well – we will go ahead.
If
you are sure you are strong enough.’

‘I will have to be,’ Albano said, raising a hand to his head. ‘The spirits on the astral plane are depending on me.’

Dinner, when
it arrived, was just as varied and as interesting as it had been the night before. The soup was seafood again, but instead of being cream of turtle it was a lobster bisque. The main
course was braised rabbit in a cream and mustard sauce, with asparagus and sea kale as accompaniments. The dessert was a trifle.

All the way through the meal the talk was of what had happened to Ambrose Albano.
The Austro-Hungarian, German and Russian representatives pestered him with questions about what it had been like
on the astral plane, how he had felt when he was there and whether or not he had met any famous dead spirits. Albano answered the questions with long and convoluted replies, accompanied by much
arm-waving and elegant, flowery descriptions, but Sherlock noticed that his answers contained
a lot of words and not very many hard facts.

Sir Shadrach Quintillan acted as a kind of orchestrator, Sherlock noticed. He asked some questions, but they were very generic and easy to answer, and his main role seemed to be to interrupt
politely if the questioning became too intense or pointed and move the conversation on to something simpler which Albano could illustrate with more ambiguous
examples. Sherlock wasn’t sure
whether the other guests had spotted Quintillan’s role as distracter-in-chief, but the American representative certainly had. Amyus Crowe’s face was fixed in an interested smile, but
his right eyebrow was raised in a manner that Sherlock knew expressed scepticism and irritation. He didn’t ask any questions, which was probably for the best. Sherlock suspected
that if he
did, then he would try to trick or trap Albano, and with Crowe’s sharp mind it would be a massacre.

Every now and then, during the meal, Sherlock became aware that either Virginia or Niamh was looking at him. He glanced back, but they looked away quickly. He felt awkward; as if there were
something going on that he wasn’t quite aware of, a subtext to the glances that was lost
on him.

He did notice, in passing, that Count Shuvalov’s manservant was missing. The burly Russian with the severe haircut wasn’t at his usual place, standing behind his master. Instead, one
of the castle servants was filling in.

Sherlock did ask Ambrose a few questions of his own. During a lull in the conversation, he said with apparent naivety: ‘Were you scared when you were threatened
in the carriage?’

Albano smiled in a kindly way. He had already answered that question during his speech when he had first reappeared, and he obviously thought that Sherlock had forgotten, in his nervousness at
replacing his brother at the table. That wasn’t the case: Sherlock remembered the answer very well, but he wanted Albano to repeat it so that he could use the answer as the basis
for his real
question. It was like bowling an easy ball to a cricket batsman, knowing that he would take the easy course and hit it to where you wanted it to go – where a fielder was waiting to catch
it.

‘I
was
scared,’ Albano said, as if talking to a child. ‘The kidnappers, whoever they were, threatened to kill me if I did not cooperate with them.’

‘But if the astral realm is so warm
and peaceful, and so full of interesting spirits,’ Sherlock said innocently, ‘then why be scared to die? Why should
anyone
be
scared of death any more?’

Albano struggled with an answer. Sherlock didn’t take his gaze off Albano’s face, but out of the corner of his eye he could see Amyus Crowe grinning.

‘Death, it is true, is merely a portal between this place and a better one,’ Albano
said slowly and eventually, ‘but sometimes the transition can be . . . painful. There are
many ways to die, and I suspect that my kidnappers would have chosen a particularly unpleasant one for me. I confess, with some embarrassment, that although I am not scared of death, I am not keen
on being hurt, especially for any length of time.’ He smiled. ‘Does that answer your question, young man?’

‘Do you wish you were still there?’ Sherlock asked innocently in response.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘If the astral plane is so welcoming and comfortable, do you wish you had stayed there?’

Albano frowned. ‘Well, to an extent, yes, I suppose I do. Existence there is so much more peaceful than it is here.’ His voice took on a more dramatic tone, as he started slipping
into what Sherlock
recognized as a standard answer which he had used several times, with variation. ‘There is no pain, no unhappiness. There is only . . . peace and great joy.’

‘Then why did you come back?’ Sherlock asked simply.

‘I . . . I still had work to do here.’ Albano looked as if he wished he were somewhere else. ‘And, of course, I could feel the mental call from the gentlemen here, who wished
me to return so that I could bring them the glad tidings from the Other Side. Does that . . . does that answer your question?’

‘It does, thank you,’ Sherlock said. Before Albano could say anything more, he added: ‘Do bad people go to the astral plane?’

‘What?’ Albano’s face was creased in confusion.

‘Well, you said that the astral plane was a warm and peaceful place filled with friendly
spirits, but there have been a lot of evil people in history. Are they on the astral plane too,
because you haven’t mentioned them? If they
are
there, are they still evil? If your kidnappers had been killed in the carriage crash, instead of escaping, would they have ended up on
the astral plane with you? What would you have talked about?’

Albano’s silence this time was longer than before.
Quintillan tried to interrupt, but Amyus Crowe raised a hand to stop him.

‘It’s a good question,’ Crowe said, ‘and I’d like to hear the answer.’

‘There are many . . . ah, degrees, or . . . or levels . . . of existence in the astral plane,’ Albano said slowly. ‘Which level you end up in depends on your deeds during
life.’

‘So it’s like heaven and hell,’ Virginia interrupted from further
down the table. ‘Just like we get taught in church.’

‘It’s not like heaven and hell at all,’ Albano snapped. ‘Those are absolute and opposite things. The astral plane is more
nuanced
than that, more subtle. The
concepts taught by the Christian church need to be updated to reflect the reality.’

It would have been easier, Sherlock thought, if he’d just said that he didn’t know. He’s got
himself into a hole now.

‘So there’s no concept of punishment for sin in the astral plane?’ Herr Holtzbrinck asked, confused. ‘That seems unreasonable and unfair.’

‘No,’ Albano said, and then quickly added, ‘Well, yes, but it is not punishment as we on earth would understand it . . .’

Sherlock risked a glance at Amyus Crowe. He nodded at Sherlock, and made a small clapping motion with
his hands.

‘You mentioned colours that the astral realm has which we do not,’ Quintillan interrupted. ‘Is there any way you can describe these new colours to us?’

‘Ah,’ Albano said, obviously relieved to have been rescued from a difficult conversation. ‘Yes, there is, for instance, a new colour located between green and blue which we
have no word for and no conception of, but which the
spirits of the astral plane call
elichori
. Staring at that colour can bring feelings of intense focus and concentration . .
.’

The conversation went on like that for a while, and Sherlock didn’t feel any great desire to interrupt again. He had already shown, to his own satisfaction, that Albano was making it all
up as he went along, and had no real coherent vision of the astral plane.

After plates of cheese and biscuits had been served, followed by small cups of coffee, Quintillan said to Albano, ‘My friend, I have no wish to put you under any undue stress, given the
terrible events that have befallen you, but do you feel strong enough to take part in a small séance? These gentlemen have travelled a great distance to see you at work, and it would be a
shame to deny them.’

Von Webenau and Holtzbrinck were nodding like eager puppies at this. Count Shuvalov was more restrained, sitting back in his chair casually, but he was nodding slightly in agreement. Amyus Crowe
glanced at Sherlock and shrugged as if to say:
Why not? Let’s let him demonstrate his tricks.

Albano took a deep breath. ‘This excellent dinner has helped to relax me,’ he said. ‘And the fact
that I was only recently in the astral plane means that I still feel a strong
connection to it. I believe I might be able to manifest a few spirit appearances, but I cannot promise anything. My passage there and back has stirred up the psychic currents, and the spirits may
not have the strength to make the journey across.’

Which was, Sherlock thought, a great excuse if the séance was a
failure: it sounded mysterious and convincing, but it meant absolutely nothing.

As he stood up, Sherlock surreptitiously removed a knife from the table and slipped it into his sleeve. The knife was made of silver, and was heavy. He could feel it pulling at the material. If
knocked against the table in the room where the séance was going to be held it would make a loud noise, and Sherlock
had a suspicion that he might need to do that, if only to throw Albano
off his game.

The seven men sitting around the table – including Sherlock – made their way to the drawing room where the séance had taken place the night before. Niamh Quintillan attempted
to appeal to her father to let her watch, but he said no. ‘You and Miss Crowe go to the sitting room. I’m sure you have a great
deal to talk about.’

Looking at the scowl on Virginia’s face, Sherlock wasn’t so sure, but he said nothing.

The arrangements were exactly the same as the previous night. They all sat around the table which was still marked with letters, numbers and the words ‘Yes’ and ‘No’, and
the blank slate was set on the table in front of Albano. The psychic made a big thing of asking someone – Amyus
Crowe this time, given that he had not been present the night before – to
examine the slate and the table to ensure that there were no tricks, no hidden messages, no extra slates, but Sherlock was sure that he would already have hidden the white thimble with the chalk
tip inside his jacket, held by the elastic cord so that it could be quickly pulled back when he had finished with it.

Outside the window, lightning flashed again, outlining the curtains with white light. Moments later, Sherlock heard thunder once more. It was, he thought, a perfect backdrop to a séance.
Albano and Quintillan couldn’t have arranged for anything better if they had tried.

Quintillan glanced around the table. ‘Gentlemen, are we all ready?’

Everyone nodded.

Albano placed his hands on
the table, palms down, and threw his head back. ‘Is there anybody there?’ he called. ‘Spirits of the astral plane, I ask again: is there anybody
there? Does anybody have a message for someone around this table? If you can, knock once for “Yes” and twice for “No”.’

Nothing happened. The tension in the room was so tangible that it was, Sherlock thought, almost like a form of ectoplasm in its
own right.

He wondered briefly if the spirit of the dead servant – Máire – might appear and answer questions about where she had died and why her body had been moved, but that was
perhaps too much to hope for. Nothing was
that
convenient.