Young Sherlock Holmes: Knife Edge (32 page)

Mr Kyte, with his unstoppable
momentum, ran straight on to the point of the spear. It embedded itself deep in his chest. Only the axe head and the two curved horns on the other side stopped
him.

Sherlock stood up shakily. Mr Kyte’s head turned, and his eyes stared deep into Sherlock’s soul. There was rage in them, but there was also surprise, and there was an increasing
sadness.

‘The only person who decides when
I die is me,’ Sherlock said quietly.

Mr Kyte opened his mouth to answer, but all that came out was a thin trickle of blood that mixed with the red of his burned beard. One moment he was alive, a vital force in the world, and the
next moment he was dead – nothing but a slab of unresponsive, unfeeling flesh.

It took Sherlock a full half-hour before he felt able to move, and a half-hour
more for him to laboriously climb up through the darkened rooms of the folly, floor after floor. Eventually one of
the windows in the rooms opened out into fresh air and bright sunshine. He climbed out into the vividly green Irish countryside, almost falling, to find Mycroft, Rufus Stone, Matty, Amyus Crowe and
Virginia standing waiting for him. Virginia took a step forward, hand to her mouth,
but stopped before she reached him.

‘You took your time,’ Mycroft said. His tone was acerbic, but Sherlock could see concern and relief in his eyes. ‘Do I take it from your leisurely arrival that Mr Kyte has been
dealt with?’

‘You know the way that some men collect butterflies, pinned to cardboard?’ Sherlock asked wearily.

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Because I think I’ve just started a collection
of my own.’

‘Ah.’ Mycroft nodded. ‘The lesser spotted criminal, I see. There is obviously a whole story behind that, and one which I look forward to hearing – over dinner.’

‘Who was responsible for lowering the tower?’ Sherlock asked.

‘That was Niamh Quintillan. When she knew that you had gone into the caves, and that the ledge had crumbled behind you, she realized that your only way
out was for her to move the tower so
that a window was aligned with the tunnel along which you were running.’ He paused. ‘She knew all about the tower, and how to operate it. She was much more a part of her father’s
plans than perhaps we had thought. She was, by the way, very concerned about your safety.’

‘What will happen to her?’

Mycroft shrugged. ‘She was party to a rather large
act of fraud. It is entirely a matter for the Irish authorities to deal with, although there are three Emperors, an Empress and a
President who might wish to influence the result. Her act in saving your life will count in her favour.’

‘And what now?’ Sherlock asked. He knew that he should feel elated at his survival, but he just felt tired, and sad.

‘What do you want to happen now?’
Mycroft asked.

Instead of answering, Sherlock walked across to where Virginia was standing watching him. She opened her mouth to speak, but he put a finger on her lips to stop her. Taking his finger away, he
moved forward, slipped his arms around her, and kissed her.

After what might have been a few seconds or a few minutes – he wasn’t sure – he broke off the kiss and moved back. He
looked at Matty, who was gazing at him with a distinctly
unimpressed look on his face.

‘Let’s go home,’ he said.

Usually, with these Young Sherlock Holmes books, I write a little afterword going through some of the research material that I gathered while putting them together (it’s
really just a way of proving that I didn’t make it all up). The problem with
Knife Edge
, of course, is that it’s not set against a particular set of historical events, it
doesn’t include any ‘real’ historical
characters and it’s not set in a particularly foreign location (well, not if you’re British, anyway – if you’re
living in the Republic of Korea then Ireland is probably as unusual as the surface of Mars). This was a deliberate decision on my part. Having written five books in a row that placed Sherlock
against a backdrop of real events, realistically described journeys and (some) real
people, I thought it was probably about time to set something in a more ‘invented’ location and to
let him spend some time there rather than keep moving around. So although Galway is real and I spent several very pleasant days there soaking up the atmosphere, I have taken several liberties with
its geography. There is no castle with the same name or the same layout as the one in this book, and
I may have underestimated slightly the distance between the town and the nearest set of high
cliffs. If any of you are reading this in or around Galway (hello, Dubray Books!) then I hope you will forgive me. There is, sadly, no legend of a Dark Beast in or around Galway either. That would
belong more properly in my other series of books – Lost Worlds.

A great deal of this book involves
spiritualism – the belief that it is possible to contact the dead. Victorian England went through quite a long and intense flirtation with spiritualism
during the time that Sherlock Holmes is supposed to have been alive, probably because the period between around 1850 and 1900 marks the time at which the British started to move away from
supernatural explanations for things happening and towards
scientific ones. Spiritualism is, at its core, a pseudoscientific way of getting in touch with supernatural entities, so it hits both
buttons at once. The trouble was that a large number of clever confidence tricksters took advantage of this flirtation, using tricks much like the ones Ambrose Albano and Sir Shadrach Quintillan
use in this book, and which are described brilliantly in the book
Servants of the Supernatural: The Night Side of the Victorian Mind
by Antonio Melechi (Random House, 2009). I am not going
to tread on anyone’s beliefs by saying whether or not I personally believe that the dead can be engaged in conversation, but Sherlock in this book maintains a properly sceptical attitude. In
fact, in the short Sherlock Holmes story ‘The Sussex Vampire’ (which does not
include real vampires), Arthur Conan Doyle had Holmes say, ‘The world is big enough for us. No ghosts
need apply.’

Having said that, Arthur Conan Doyle himself developed a strong interest in spiritualism and communication with the dead in his later life. He even published a book entitled
The History of
Spiritualism
in 1926. This belief was probably because he lost a brother and a son in
the First World War, and somehow could not let go of their memories. Despite his highly rational
upbringing and training as a doctor, he somehow failed to bring his sharply logical mind to bear on some of the obvious frauds and cheats who pretended to be mediums, and who fleeced gullible and
grieving members of the public of their money.

The magic tricks and techniques that Sherlock learns
from Ambrose Albano in Chapter Twelve are, by the way, all real. The Magic Circle frowns on having these things revealed, but there are books
out there that will take you through the basics of close-up magic. The one I have found particularly useful is
The Ultimate Compendium of Magic Tricks
by Nicholas Einhorn (Hermes House,
2009). Do try these tricks at home. They won’t make you into an
instant magician – you’ll need countless hours of practice for that – but the book is fully illustrated with
thousands of photographs and it will show you the different ways to pre-prepare your tricks and to misdirect the audience’s attention while you are performing them. After that, it’s up
to you.

And that about wraps it up. I’ve had a great deal of fun writing this book – probably
more than on all the previous ones. Partly that’s because, as I said earlier, it’s
all set in one location, which means the characters (and the author!) can spend time getting to know the place without fear of suddenly being whisked off in a steam-train, a paddle steamer or a
horse-drawn carriage to somewhere else, but partly (if I am being honest) because it reminds me of all Enid Blyton’s The
Famous Five books I used to read as a kid, which were full of caves,
castles and smugglers. Alas, real life isn’t.

Until next time . . .

Books by Andrew Lane

Red Leech

Black Ice

Fire Storm

Snake Bite

Knife Edge

First published 2013 by Macmillan Children’s Books

This electronic edition published 2013 by Macmillan Children’s Books
a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-0-230-76639-6

Copyright © Andrew Lane 2013

The right of Andrew Lane to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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