Young Sherlock Holmes: Knife Edge (8 page)

‘Please,’ Quintillan said, ‘take your seats.’

The four international representatives sat down, while Silman moved Quintillan’s bath chair into the gap. This left two empty seats. One was obviously reserved for Ambrose Albano; the
other for the mystery American.

Mycroft waved at
Sherlock. ‘Seat yourself!’ he called.

Sherlock glanced at Quintillan, who looked around at the other representatives. ‘Does anybody have any objections?’ he asked. The Russian, Austrian and German shook their heads.
Quintillan nodded at Sherlock. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘feel free to join us.’

Sherlock turned to Niamh. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘But duty calls.’

‘I’ll watch from the sidelines,’
she said.

Silman moved to the doorway and pulled a set of drapes across the gap. With the light from the hall cut off, the room was much darker. Sherlock sat down at the table.

Ambrose Albano walked across to join the others at the table. As he sat down, Sherlock noticed how, in the shadows, his false eye looked like a black hole in his face.

From his pocket, Albano produced a wooden
plaque about the size of his hand. It was rounded at the back, and pointed at the front.

‘This,’ he said solemnly, ‘will allow the spirits to communicate with us. If they have messages to send, then they will move this wooden plaque to the letters and numbers
around the edge of the table, spelling them out. In order that you don’t think I am manipulating this plaque, we will all have our
hands on it. I will not be able to move it myself without
you all knowing, but the spirits will allow it to move regardless of my hand, or your hands. But first . . .’

Theatrically, he raised his gloved hands into the air. With his left hand he pushed his right sleeve up, almost to the elbow, and repeated the same gesture with his right hand and left
sleeve.

‘As the magicians say,’
he proclaimed, ‘I have nothing up my sleeves but my arms. There are no tricks here – only genuine communications from the dead.’

Sherlock glanced across the table at Mycroft. His brother looked at him soberly.
Watch carefully
, he seemed to be saying.
Take nothing for granted.

Albano seemed to catch something of the communication between the two brothers. He glanced from Mycroft to Sherlock
and back. ‘And in case any amongst you believe that I have secreted
objects beneath the table which I will later use as props: please, go ahead and check.’ He stared at Sherlock. ‘Be so kind as to look beneath the table, young man.’

Sherlock glanced at his brother, who nodded in agreement. Sherlock ducked beneath the table. The underneath was bare wood, with no props or tricks attached there.
Sherlock reached up and touched
it, rapping it gently with his knuckles. There was no hollowness, no indication of any hidden areas.

Returning to his seat, Sherlock said, ‘I can confirm that there is nothing beneath the table that shouldn’t be there.’

‘Thank you.’ Albano raised a hand and clicked his fingers. Silman, the butler, approached him, holding an object the size of a large,
thin book. Albano took it from her and handed it
to Sherlock. ‘Please, tell us what this object is, young man.’

Sherlock looked at it. ‘It’s a slate – like the kind they use in schools. You can write messages on it in chalk.’

‘And is there any chalk?’

Sherlock turned the slate over and gazed at the back. ‘I can’t see any chalk.’

‘Good. Is there anything else you can tell us about
the slate?’

‘It’s framed in wood, and it has a wooden back.’ Sherlock tried to prise the wooden back off, and failed. ‘It seems to be very robust – I can’t pull it
apart.’

‘Please – pass it around the table. Let everyone check it.’ He smiled thinly. ‘After all, as far as the other representatives are aware, you may be my secret
assistant.’

Sherlock passed the slate to Mycroft,
who glanced at it and handed it straight on to von Webenau. From him it went to Count Shuvalov, to Quintillan and then to Herr Holtzbrinck. The German
representative handed it back to Ambrose Albano, who held it in both hands. ‘Then let us start,’ he proclaimed. ‘Later I will demonstrate the power that makes me different from
other psychics – the ability to specifically call on particular named
spirits to communicate with – but for now I will merely see which spirits are closest and wish to
communicate.’ He closed his eyes and threw his head back. ‘I call upon the great spirits of the astral plane! I call across the Great Divide that separates the living from the departed.
Is there anybody there? Is there a spirit willing to converse with us? Is there a spirit willing to act as interlocutor
for the Other Side?’

Sherlock glanced around at the faces of the others. They held a range of expressions, from rapt attention to mild disbelief. The latter expression was, of course, on his brother’s
face.

Sherlock looked over at the doorway, where Silman stood. Behind her, he could just make out Niamh’s face in the darkness of the hall. She smiled at him.

‘I can feel someone approaching,’
Albano said.

Von Webenau looked around anxiously.

‘On the astral plane,’ Quintillan whispered. Von Webenau settled back in his chair, relieved.

Ambrose convulsively half rose out of his chair, as if he had been electrocuted, then slumped back into a seated position. His eyes were still closed. His gloved hands, which were still holding
the slate, fell to his lap. ‘Identify yourself!’
he called in a strained voice.

There was silence for a few moments, during which Sherlock waited for some kind of response – a voice perhaps, or some movement of the wooden plaque towards the edge of the table, but the
eventual form of the reply took Sherlock by surprise. Albano brought his hands out from below the table, still holding the slate, but it wasn’t blank any more. There was a
message scrawled on
it in chalk.

Albano held the slate up and turned it around so that everyone else could see it. ‘Please,’ he said in a strained voice, ‘someone, read the message out.’

‘
My name is Invictus
,’ Herr Holtzbrinck quoted. ‘
I have been selected to be your guide for this night
.’

‘Amazing!’ von Webenau murmured.

Sherlock glanced at Mycroft, whose gaze shifted from Sherlock
to the table and back. Intuiting his intent, Sherlock ducked his head beneath the level of the tabletop, looking for some evidence
that he had missed. Maybe Ambrose had a piece of chalk under there, held between his knees, or some chalk had been attached to the underneath of the table so that Albano could have written the
message himself? But there was nothing. Albano’s trousers were black,
and there would have been some evidence of chalk dust. Sherlock straightened up and shook his head briefly. Mycroft
nodded, a scowl on his face. It was obvious to Sherlock that he didn’t know how the trick had been accomplished either. If it was a trick.

‘Are you willing to act as our guide, seeking out those spirits of the dead who have messages for friends or relatives who are still living?’
Albano called. Eyes tightly shut, he
moved his head around as if looking for something. His hands, Sherlock noticed, were in his lap again, still holding the slate.

The silence in the room was heavy with expectation. After a moment or two Albano’s head twitched. He brought the slate out again and held it up. It was covered with scrawled chalk marks,
but they were different from last time.

‘
I stand ready to assist
,’ Herr Holtzbrinck read out, ‘
but the others do not have the power to write, as I do. They will use the plaque
.’ The final
words were written in smaller letters, and squeezed together, as if the spirit named Invictus had suddenly realized that it was running out of space. Somehow Sherlock found the idea of a spirit
making a misjudgement like that rather comical.

Albano held the slate up in his right hand. Silman moved forward to take it from him. He reached out to place his fingertips on the wooden plaque which had been sitting on the table all that
time. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘all of you, place your fingertips alongside mine.’

The six others around the table all leaned forward and did as Albano had asked. It felt to Sherlock as if the plaque were
trembling slightly. He looked around to see if anyone’s hand was
obviously shaking, but he couldn’t see any unusual movements.

‘Is there anybody there?’ Albano asked.

Nothing happened for a long moment, long enough that Sherlock thought that nothing
was
going to happen, and then the plaque suddenly shot across the table towards the word
‘Yes’, dragging their hands with it. Count Shuvalov
sucked his breath in, while von Webenau’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

‘Do you have a message for someone here?’

The plaque slowly drifted back to the centre of the table, and then jerked back towards the ‘Yes’.

‘Who is the message for?’

Again, the plaque drifted back towards the centre of the table, and then jerked back towards the rim again, but this time, instead of heading for
the ‘Yes’, it went off at an angle,
towards the alphabet of letters that ran around the edge of the table. Laboriously, the plaque pointed to the ‘H’, the ‘E’, the ‘R’ . . .

‘Herr Holtzbrinck,’ Sherlock murmured, but if the spirit heard, then it ignored him, and kept on spelling out the name until it got to the final ‘K’.

Holtzbrinck glanced around the table. ‘My apologies,’ he murmured.
‘I had no idea . . .’

‘Who are you?’ Ambrose asked. ‘Identify yourself.’

The plaque shuddered, and then set off again around the table. Within thirty seconds it had spelled out F-R-I-T-Z.

‘Does this name mean anything to you?’ Ambrose asked, looking at Holtzbrinck.

‘Fritz was my brother,’ the German representative said. His voice sounded tremulous, as if he were in the grip of
some strong emotion.

‘And has he passed across the Great Divide?’

Holtzbrinck nodded, once. ‘It was a boating accident, five years ago. He drowned.’

Albano turned his attention back to the air above the table. ‘What is your message, Fritz Holtzbrinck?’

The plaque moved again, from letter to letter. Sherlock found himself jerked across the table as the plaque tried to reach letters
that were opposite him, and he could see the others pulled in
similar directions when the plaque moved his way. He tried to spot if anyone was deliberately pushing the plaque – Albano, or any of the others – but it was impossible to tell. It did
feel to him, however, as if the plaque were moving of its own accord.

I am happy here
, the message read.
Do not mourn for me. Helga must stop
grieving and make a new life for herself
.

‘Helga was Fritz’s wife,’ Holtzbrinck said quietly. He seemed to be suppressing some heavy emotion. ‘They had only been married for two months when he died. She was, and
still is . . . how do you say it? . . . distraught.’ He turned his face towards the empty air in the centre of the table. ‘Are you in heaven, Fritz?’ he asked. ‘Or are you
in hell?’
There was a pleading expression on his face.

Sherlock glanced at Mycroft. He could tell what his brother was thinking –
The German is getting sucked in to the theatricality of the occasion!

The plaque spelled out a new message.
There is no heaven and there is no hell. There is only the life beyond the veil.

‘Very cryptic,’ Mycroft mouthed to Sherlock. Turning to face Albano, he said
more loudly, ‘The message is in English, I notice. Is that usual for German spirits?’

‘The language of the spirit plane is universal,’ Albano said smoothly. ‘When we hold the séance in English, the messages appear in English.’ He turned back to
Holtzbrinck before Mycroft could ask another question. ‘Do you have any final message for your brother?’ he asked.

The plaque moved again. Sherlock
tried to guess what the message was from the initial letters, but it took him a while to work out that the spirit – if it was a spirit – was spelling
out:
Believe in the life beyond life. Believe that we all move on to a better place. Do not mourn for us, but celebrate our lives
.

Herr Holtzbrinck was breathing heavily by the time the message was complete. His eyes glistened with unshed tears.
‘Do not go,’ he murmured. ‘Please!’

‘It is too late,’ Ambrose announced. ‘The spirit of your brother has returned to the formless void, whence all things come and to where all things go.’ He paused.
‘Another spirit approaches. Invictus tells me so.’

Sherlock glanced at the plaque, waiting for it to move, but it stayed where it was. Instead, Ambrose threw his head back and, staring at
the ceiling, pronounced: ‘I can feel a spirit
moving within me! This is a powerful spirit. It wishes to manifest itself in this room – to become visible to us!’

Sherlock and the others seated around the table looked around, expecting to see some ghostly form moving through the room, but instead Ambrose convulsed in his chair again. He brought his arms
around his body, clutching himself,
and coughed once, twice. His hands came up to his head, open and grasping at the air, then they moved to cup his mouth, and he coughed into them as if trying to
expel something from his lungs.

To Sherlock’s astonishment, something white and misty began to emerge from Ambrose’s mouth. It was as if he were breathing out some vaporous substance into the centre of the room,
but instead of
dissipating, the substance retained its form, expanding above the table until it began to look like a shroud concealing a face. Albano’s hands waved in the air, as if trying to
contain the substance, to stop it from spreading. If he concentrated, Sherlock could almost see features inside the dark centre – the features of a beautiful young woman, looking like a
portrait done in oils.

He
felt his heart beating fast. A strange terror edged his thoughts. This was not what he had been expecting. Table-tapping, yes. Messages, perhaps. But a spirit materializing in the centre of
the room? No – absolutely not!