Young Sherlock Holmes: Knife Edge (28 page)

‘Nobody told me this trip was going to be dangerous,’ Matty murmured to nobody in particular. ‘Is it too late to go back home?’

Outside, the carriage was waiting to take Sherlock, Mycroft
and Crowe back to the castle. As they got in, Sherlock spotted Rufus Stone and Matty leaving the hotel and heading towards the
quayside.

‘Do you think they’ll be able to find enough men to help them?’ he asked.

Mycroft nodded. ‘You can usually find enough men on a quayside to do almost anything, up to and including taking control of a small country. In this case, Mr Stone merely needs
five or six
reliable men who aren’t worried that they might – actually, that they almost certainly
will
– get involved in a fight. Or perhaps double or triple that number if, when he
examines the map of the local area, he finds several places that would serve equally well as the site of a hijack and kidnapping. The problem he will have is making sure they understand and follow
their instructions,
but he is naturally at home in their environment, and he talks the same language as the working man.’ A wistful expression flashed across his face, so briefly that
Sherlock almost missed it. ‘I doubt that I would have that ability. I would merely get their backs up, while Mr Stone will have them eating out of his hand.’ He paused, considering the
words he had just uttered. ‘That was
a badly mixed set of metaphors, but I think you understand what I am trying to say.’

The carriage rattled along, taking them back to the castle. As they got closer, Mycroft beckoned to Amyus Crowe, who was staring out of the window, and said: ‘While Sherlock takes Mr
Stone’s theatrical make-up kit up to his room and begins the process of disguising himself as Mr Albano, you and I need to
stage a loud argument in the hall, so that the agents of this
mysterious third party can hear us.’

‘What do we need to say?’

‘You need to tell me that you have made a separate deal with Mr Albano, on behalf of the US Government, and that you will be taking him away shortly. Oh, and that reminds me – you
need to ensure that this carriage and its driver wait outside the castle to take
you away later. It would be embarrassing if, after making all that noise about leaving, you were not able to do
so.’

‘Point noted,’ Crowe said. ‘What else?’

‘I, of course, will remonstrate loudly with you, telling you that you have no authority to make a separate deal. You will respond that, with the death of Sir Shadrach Quintillan, the
arrangement as originally struck, with the auction
process and the four bidders, is dead, and that you are making your own arrangements. Throw your weight around. Make yourself unpleasant and
boorish.’

‘Do you think that will be believed?’

Mycroft smiled. ‘The perception of Americans, especially American businessmen, is that they believe money is the solution to any problem. It isn’t, of course – it is actually
the
cause
of most problems.
But that is immaterial – the other international representatives and, more importantly, the agents of the third party, will quite happily believe that an
American would go outside the agreed process and make a side deal in a way that they wouldn’t believe about any of the others.’

‘The perception of an Englishman, of course,’ Crowe added, ‘is that he’d still take part in an auction if he
was the only bidder, and happily bid against himself, just
because he’d given his word that an auction would be the way things were done.’

‘And quite right too.’ Mycroft nodded firmly. ‘If we were all to renege on our agreements, what kind of world would this be? We English have to provide a good example for
others to follow.’

‘It’s a good thing Ah know you’re jokin’ with me, Mr Holmes.’

Mycroft raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

As the carriage entered the grounds of the castle, Sherlock reached down to check that he still had the theatrical make-up box with him.

‘Are you happy with being left to apply your disguise on your own?’ Mycroft asked him.

Sherlock nodded. ‘Yes. After the time you and I spent in Moscow, when I completely failed to recognize a dining
room full of disguised Paradol Chamber agents, even though I had spent the
past few days with them, I spent a while studying the techniques of theatrical makeup. There’s a theatre in Farnham, and I used to go down there and watch the actors putting on their make-up.
They ended up teaching me a lot about the things you can do with putty, greasepaint, hair and spirit gum. I got pretty good at it.’

‘Did they ever offer you a job on stage?’

Sherlock smiled. ‘I did a couple of walk-on roles in some plays they were doing. I really enjoyed the experience. I’d like to do it again.’

Mycroft shuddered. ‘The theatrical life is not one for a Holmes to live. Too Bohemian. I still see you in banking, Sherlock.’

‘I wouldn’t enjoy banking, but I could make it
look
like I did.’

‘Yes,
very funny.’

The carriage clattered across the drawbridge and into the central area of the castle. As it drew up to the main doors, Sherlock realized that he had been using humour to disguise his own
feelings of nervousness. It had suddenly dawned on him that he was going to put himself in danger, disguised as a man who was of interest to some mysterious gang who were quite happy to commit
murder to further their own aims. This was not what he had thought he was coming back home to do.

It did, however, seem to be the kind of thing that kept happening to him.

He thought about what his brother had said, about him taking up a career in banking. He honestly couldn’t see that happening. He wasn’t going to go into the Civil Service, like his
brother, either, and he
certainly
wasn’t going to join the Army like his father. But what did that leave? Going back to sea? Setting up a trading company and importing foodstuffs and
silk from China?

It suddenly occurred to him that the past few days, when he had been set a series of problems to solve and had pretty much solved them all, had been some of the best fun he’d had for ages.
He
liked
solving problems. It satisfied
an itch inside his brain. He had particularly liked seeing the expressions on the faces of von Webenau, Herr Holtzbrinck and Count Shuvalov when he
explained how the séances had been arranged, and the expression on his own brother’s face when Mycroft had seen the cardboard model of the tower. It had been a thrill, and he wanted to
see if he could get that thrill again. The problem was that
he didn’t see how he could make that into a career. The closest he could come to it would be joining the police force, but he
really didn’t see himself in uniform, and his experience of the police, albeit limited so far, was that they turned up at the scene of a crime, said some things that were already obvious to
everyone, and arrested the nearest suspicious-looking man.

Mycroft and Amyus
Crowe got out of the carriage, and Sherlock followed with the box of theatrical make-up. While Mycroft strode into the hall and Crowe talked to the carriage driver, Sherlock
headed for the stairs.

He went directly to Ambrose Albano’s room, making sure that he was not observed by any of the servants. Fortunately the corridor was empty when he arrived, and he knocked on the door.

Albano’s
voice came from inside: ‘Go away! I’ve already told you – I don’t intend coming out of this room until I have a police escort that will take me to safety!
It’s
dangerous
out there!’

‘It’s Sherlock Holmes. I wanted to ask you a question.’

A pause, then: ‘You may ask any question you like, as long as the answer doesn’t involve me opening that door.’

‘That could be a problem. I wanted
to borrow one of your suits, and your hat.’

‘On the face of it, that would require me to open the door, so the answer is “No”.’

Sherlock thought rapidly. ‘What if you were to bundle a suit and your hat up and drop them out of the window? I could go downstairs and catch them when you dropped them.’

‘That would work,’ Albano replied. ‘But I would need to know why you wanted them. It
sounds as if you intend something suspicious, and I don’t like suspicious
things.’

‘I can’t tell you what I’m doing,’ Sherlock said patiently, ‘but I can assure you that it’s intended to ensure your safety.’ He paused, then said:
‘It’s misdirection, of a sort. You should appreciate that.’

Albano seemed to think for a while, then he said: ‘Then the answer is “Yes”. You have a quick
mind, agile fingers and a natural ability with magic tricks. I can see you making
a fine magician, one day. If your misdirection distracts attention from me then all the better. So, yes, I will lend you a suit and my hat, and I will await with interest the results. You will come
back and tell me what you’ve done?’

‘I will,’ Sherlock promised. ‘Give me five minutes to get downstairs, then
open your window and look for me.’

It all went perfectly smoothly. Sherlock made his way outside the castle and waiting on the grass until a window opened far above him. He gestured to Albano to wait until he had checked left and
right for watchers, and then indicated that the psychic should throw down the bundle. It fell straight into his arms, wrapped in a belt. He waved his thanks and
heard the window close above
him.

Part of him had wanted to tell Albano that he had figured out how the trick with the paintings had been done, but he knew that would have been a bad idea. He knew he hadn’t been observed
getting the clothes, but there was no knowing who might be listening, and it would have destroyed Mycroft’s plan if it had become common knowledge that the last demonstration
of
Albano’s powers had been as fake as the first two.

He headed back into the castle, and up to his room.

Once there, he locked the door and set to work making himself look like Ambrose Albano. He used a white foundation layer on his skin, and then brushed it with powder to make it even whiter,
using the reverse end of the brush to make a series of pockmarks in the make-up. His face
was thin enough to match Albano’s, but he did insert a couple of pads between his gums and his cheeks
to bring his lips away from his teeth and to emphasize his incisors in the same rather horsey way as Albano, and he put some springy material inside his nostrils to make them flare in a similar
fashion. There was a selection of wigs in the box as well; he picked one that more or less approximated
the length, straightness and colour of Albano’s hair, greased and brushed his own hair
back so that it was flat against his scalp, and slipped the wig on. He examined himself critically in the mirror. It wasn’t a bad likeness, he had to admit. The only problem was that his
eyebrows were too dark, so he carefully covered them with fake strips of hair in the same colour as the wig, attached
to his own eyebrows by spirit gum. If he was doing this for longer, or if he
was going to be observed close up, then he might have cut his own hair short, and perhaps shaved his eyebrows off, so that the illusion would be better, but he only had to look like Albano from a
distance.

He stripped off his own clothes and dressed in Albano’s suit. It was slightly too large, but it wasn’t going
to make him look like a child dressing up in his father’s
clothes.

The last thing he did was to take a ball of theatrical putty from the box and mould it into a curve, like a fragment of a hollow sphere. Using a bright white make-up that was usually used for
Oriental characters, he coloured the outer surface of the putty. Once he was happy with the result, he closed his left eye and pressed
the putty against his eyelid, pushing hard around the edge so
that it stuck.

Now he really did look like Ambrose Albano, fake eye and all. At least, from a distance.

As he was slipping the hat on to his head there was a knock on the door.

‘Who is it?’ he called.

‘Amyus Crowe. Your brother an’ I have caused all kinds of ruckus downstairs. He’s now talkin’ about breach of contract
an’ all kinds of stuff in the drawin’
room, so we can get down the stairs an’ out without any close observation. You ready?’

‘Ready as I’ll ever be,’ Sherlock muttered. ‘Yes,’ he called, and headed for the door.

Crowe looked him up and down critically. ‘Ah’m no judge of the dramatic arts,’ he said, ‘but Ah’d be convinced, if Ah saw you on a stage from a distance, that you
were Albano.’

They went down in the ascending room, as it removed the chance of them meeting someone on the stairs. When they got to the bottom, Crowe hustled Sherlock towards the door. Sherlock saw that the
carriage was still waiting outside. As they got to the doorway, Sherlock heard his brother shouting out, ‘There they go! That Yankee rogue is taking Albano away!’

‘Get in the carriage.’ Crowe muttered.
‘Fast, before they can see anything more than your back.’

Sherlock climbed in and settled back into the seat, pulling the hat down over his eyes. Crowe climbed in beside him. From the corner of his eye Sherlock could see a group of people clustering in
the doorway of the castle. He thought he could spot Mycroft’s impressive bulk at their head, but he didn’t dare turn his head to look in
case they glimpsed his face.

‘Go!’ Crowe called to the driver, who cracked the whip over the horse’s head. The carriage set off with a jolt. Sherlock felt himself pushed back into the padded seats.
Somewhere behind them he could hear voices shouting, but he was more concerned now with what was ahead of them. Somewhere in the next few minutes, on the way to Galway, there would be an attack
on
the carriage, with the intention of kidnapping him, and it was up to Rufus Stone and whatever rag-tag band he’d managed to hire in the past two hours to stop them.

The carriage approached the castle gates. Sherlock braced himself for a sudden right turn as they went through.

Instead, they turned left.

Sherlock, braced for a turn in the opposite direction, felt himself sliding
to one side. Crowe, similarly braced, fell into Sherlock. As they turned, Sherlock glanced out of the window to his
right, looking down the road that they should have taken. He saw another carriage, similar to theirs, that had been hidden by the wall. It started off in the opposite direction.