Young Sherlock Holmes: Death Cloud

by Andrew Lane

  But he had to save Virginia.

  The thought spurred him to a final effort. He twisted, pulling his arm out of the jacket sleeve and falling to the flagstones as the whirring disc hit the wall, gouging a shallow rut and scattering sparks and fragments of stone. The Baron cursed, and tried to pull his sword from between the stones.

  If Sherlock couldn’t beat Maupertuis with his skill as a swordsman, he would beat him with the power of his brain. All he had to do was work out a single vulnerability, something he could exploit. And it had to be something to do with the way Maupertuis was moving, or being moved. That was his weakness. Sherlock tried again to strike out at the ropes and cords that held Maupertuis up but the Baron was alert to that, and parried Sherlock’s blade effortlessly with the spinning saw in his left hand while his right arm jerked the blade free.

  Backing away, Sherlock nearly stumbled over the remains of the chair where he had been sitting, which had been smashed apart by the Baron’s sword. The wood clattered as he kicked it, and a fragmentary plan materialized in his mind. Without waiting to think it through, Sherlock bent down and picked up the largest chunk of the chair with his left hand – a piece that incorporated most of an arm, part of the seat and a carved leg. As the Baron slashed down at Sherlock’s unprotected forehead, Sherlock raised the piece of chair. The Baron’s blade embedded itself deeply in the wood. Before the Baron could pull it out, Sherlock pushed backwards, raising the sword above the Baron’s head. The back of Sherlock’s hand rasped against one of the ropes holding Maupertuis up. He twisted the wood, bending the sword nearly out of the Baron’s grip, and tucked it behind several other ropes, then let it twist back again. Caught between the ropes, the chunk of the wooden chair hung in the air, suspended. Sherlock let go, then grabbed first one, then another of the remaining ropes and cords and, using all his strength, tangled them up behind the wood.

  ‘What are you doing?’ the Baron screamed, but it was too late. The ropes holding him up were now a cat’s cradle, pinned in place by the wooden chair leg and arm. Maupertuis dangled helplessly. The servants in the darkness at the end of the room exerted all their strength, but to no avail. They couldn’t dislodge the remains of the chair from the ropes.

  Stepping back, Sherlock swept his sword through the ropes, severing five or six of them. Tension suddenly released, they twanged away into the corners of the room. The Baron’s arms dropped, and his head lolled to one side.

  ‘You will pay for this,’ he hissed.

  ‘Send me an invoice,’ Sherlock said calmly. He turned to where Virginia was standing, ready to leap to her aid, only to see her bring the sharp-edged iron helmet of the suit of armour heavily down on to Mr Surd’s head. He dropped to the floor, unconscious and bleeding.

  ‘I was coming to help,’ Sherlock said.

  ‘Strange,’ Virginia replied. ‘So was I.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘Thank heavens for Baron Maupertuis,’ Sherlock said in a heartfelt whisper as he slammed the door of the dining room shut behind them. There was no lock on the door, so he threw his weight behind a teak cabinet that stood beside it. Its legs squealed on the tiles as it shifted.

  ‘Why?’ Virginia snapped, adding her weight to his. The cabinet slid across the door, preventing it from opening. ‘What’s he ever done for us?’

  Baron Maupertuis’s servants must have reached the door out of the dining room, because it suddenly opened a crack and thudded against the cabinet. They rattled it a few times, but the cabinet didn’t move.

  ‘He likes everywhere he lives to look the same. That’s how I know where the stables will be. Come on!’ He led the way through the back of the house to an outside door, and when he was certain that none of Maupertuis’s servants were outside he and Virginia hurried around the side of the chateau and found the stables. Judging by the position of the sun, it was mid-morning. They’d been kept drugged for at least a night, possibly more.

  Ever practical, Virginia immediately began to saddle two horses. ‘What are we going to do, Sherlock? We’re in a foreign country! We don’t even speak the language!’

  ‘Actually,’ he blushed, ‘I do.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Speak the language. A little, anyway.’

  She turned and gave him a funny look. ‘How come?’

  ‘My family is descended from a French line on my mother’s side. She used to insist that we learn the language. It was our family heritage, she said.’

  Virginia reached out to touch his arm. ‘You don’t talk about her,’ she said. ‘You talk about your father and your brother, but not her.’

  ‘No,’ Sherlock said, feeling his throat close up. He turned away so she wouldn’t look him in the eye. ‘I don’t.’

  Virginia tightened the final strap on the horses. ‘So, given that you do speak the language, where do we go? Do we ask for help?’

  ‘We head for a port,’ Sherlock said. ‘Maupertuis gave the instruction to release the bees. If we don’t stop them, they’ll kill people. Maybe not as many as Maupertuis expects, but some British soldiers will still die. We have to stop them being released.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘One thing at a time,’ he said. ‘Let’s get to the coast. From there we can send a telegram to my brother, or something. Anything.’

  Virginia nodded. ‘Saddle up then, master swordsman.’

  He grinned. ‘You were pretty magnificent in there as well.’

  She grinned too. ‘I was, wasn’t I?’

  Mounting their horses, they rode away from the chateau just as shouts began to ring out and an alarm bell began to peal. Within moments, Sherlock knew, they would be too far away to catch.

  In the nearest village they stopped to ask where they were. They were both hungry, but they had no French money, and all they could do was look longingly at the sausages hanging up in the shop windows and the bread rolls, as long as Sherlock’s arm, that were stacked up on trays. A farmer told Sherlock that they were a few miles from Cherbourg. He pointed them to the right road, and they kept going.

  Virginia glanced over appraisingly at him at one point. ‘Not bad,’ she said. ‘You ride like it’s a bicycle, not a living creature, but still – not bad.’

  They stopped again, half an hour later, on the edges of a pear orchard, and filled their pockets with pears which they ate as they rode on, the juice trickling down their chins. The countryside flashed by, familiar and yet different from what Sherlock was used to in England. His head pounded like the thundering of his horse’s hoofs. He needed to work out what they were going to do when they reached Cherbourg.

  By the time they got there, he had no clearer an idea.

  The town was built on the side of a hill that led down towards the glittering blue waters of a harbour. The hoofs of the horses clattered on the cobblestones, and they were forced to slow down to an amble so they could get through the crowds that were thronging around the various stalls and shops lining the winding streets. It was a scene that could have been anywhere along the south coast of England, apart from the style of the clothes, and the preponderance of cheeses on the stalls.

  Sherlock and Virginia dismounted and, reluctantly, left their horses tethered to a fence. Someone would look after them. He tested his language skills to the limit by asking whether there was a telegraph office around, and was devastated to find that the nearest one was in Paris. How were they going to get word to Mycroft now?

  They had to find a ship and get back to England. That was their only hope.

  They found the harbourmaster’s office, and asked about ships or boats sailing to England. There were several, the harbourmaster told them. He laboriously went through the names. Four were local boats that took goods for market – cheeses, meats, onions – back and forth. He could put in a good word for them with their captains.

  The fifth was a British fishing boat that had docked unexpectedly that morning.

  It was named Mrs Eglantine.

  Hearing the name was like
having a bucket of cold water thrown into his face. For a frozen moment Sherlock was convinced that Mrs Eglantine – his uncle and aunt’s housekeeper – was the mastermind behind this whole thing, but then better sense prevailed. Someone was using the name like a flag, to attract his attention. And they had.

  The Mrs Eglantine was a small boat, tucked into a pier on the edge of the dock. Fishing nets were strung around it like cobwebs. Amyus Crowe and Matty Arnatt were waiting for them beside its gangplank.

  Virginia rushed into her father’s arms. He swung her up into the air and hugged her close. Sherlock pounded Matty on the back.

  ‘How did you know where to find us?’ he asked. ‘How did you even know which country to look in?’

  ‘You got to remember, I’m a tracker by trade,’ Crowe said. ‘When you didn’t return to the hotel, and when we realized that Ginny was missin’, we tried to retrace your steps. I heard about the fire in the Rotherhithe Tunnel, an’ a little bit of questionin’ established that a boy fit-tin’ your description was seen running away. Meanwhile, Matty here traced the boat that took Ginny to the docks. By the time we got there, Maupertuis’s ship had sailed, but we found a dockmaster who remembered seein’ both of you taken on board. Dragged on board, he said. The ship set sail, but he remembered hearin’ the sailors saying as to how it was a short trip across the English Channel to Cherbourg. So we hired ourselves a fishin’ boat and headed on over to look for you. We arrived here only shortly after Maupertuis’s ship did. Either they were slow, or they stopped somewhere along the way. Not sure which.’ His voice was as solid and thoughtful as ever, and his words gave nothing away about his mental state, but Sherlock thought that he looked older somehow, more tired. He kept his arm around Virginia’s shoulders, pulling her close. She didn’t seem to want to pull away. ‘I found out that the Baron had a place nearby, an’ I was just about to hire some local men to form a posse when you showed up. A useful confluence of paths, I would say.’

  ‘It makes sense,’ Sherlock said. ‘We were heading for the nearest port to Baron Maupertuis’s chateau. That was obviously where his ship would dock, and you were following his ship. The chances were we would all end up in Cherbourg at some stage.’ He smiled. ‘The only amazing thing is that you found a boat named after my uncle’s housekeeper. What are the odds of that?’

  ‘She used to be called the Rosie Lee,’ Crowe said, smiling back. ‘I reckoned as to how a more familiar name might attract your interest, if you was in the area an’ lookin’ for a way back to England. I was goin’ to rename her the Mycroft Holmes, but her captain informed me in no uncertain terms that ships an’ boats get women’s names.’

  ‘You expected us to escape from the Baron?’

  Crowe nodded. ‘I’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t. You’re my pupil, an’ Ginny’s my kin. What kind of teacher would I be if you’d both just sat back an’ let yourselves be kept prisoner?’ His words were jocular, and there was a smile on his face, but Sherlock could sense a deep undercurrent of unease, perhaps even fear, within Crowe that their appearance had only just begun to wear away. He reached out with a big hand and grabbed Sherlock’s shoulder. ‘You kept her safe,’ he said, more quietly. ‘I thank you for that.’

  ‘I know that everything you did to get here was logical,’ Sherlock said, just as quietly, ‘and it all worked, but what if it hadn’t? What if we’d never escaped, or if we’d gone a different way, or if you’d been at one end of the dock and we were at the other, getting on a different boat? What then?’

  ‘Then things would have turned out differently,’ Crowe said. ‘We are where we are because things happened the way they did. Logic can shorten the odds considerably in your favour, but there’s always random chance to contend with. We were lucky – this time. Next time – who knows?’

  ‘I don’t expect there to be a “next time”,’ Sherlock said. ‘But we still need to stop the Baron’s plans.’

  ‘What are they?’ Crowe asked, face creasing in puzzlement. ‘I’ve pieced some of it together, but not everythin’.’

  Quickly, Sherlock and Virginia explained about the bees, the contaminated uniforms and the plan to kill off a substantial proportion of the British Army as it rested in its barracks in England. Crowe was as sceptical as Sherlock about the plan’s efficacy, but he agreed that there would be some deaths, and that even one death was too many. The bees had to be stopped.

  ‘But how can the bees find their way across the sea to the mainland, an’ then find their way to the barracks?’ Crowe asked.

  ‘I’ve been reading about them in my uncle’s library,’ Sherlock replied. ‘Bees are amazing creatures. They can distinguish between hundreds of different scents, at concentrations far far smaller than a human would require, and they can travel for miles in search of the source of those scents. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were possible.’ He paused, remembering. ‘He talked about a Fort. He told his man – Mr Surd – that the bees had to be released from a Fort. Are there any fortifications along this coast, or along the coast of England, that he might be using?’

  ‘It’s not that kind of fort,’ Matty Arnatt interrupted.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s forts built out in the English Channel, round Southampton and Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, like islands,’ he said. ‘They was put there in case Napoleon ever invaded. Most of them are deserted now, cos the invasion never came.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Virginia asked.

  Matty scowled. ‘My dad was stationed on one of them when he was in the Navy. He told me all about them.’

  ‘So what makes you think Maupertuis is using one of them?’ Sherlock asked.

  ‘You said as how he hates the British cos of what happened to him. Don’t it make sense that he’d use one of the forts that we built to defend ourselves against the French back against us?’

  Crowe nodded. ‘The boy has a point. And although his ship left London a while before Matty an’ me could hire ourselves a boat, they only arrived in Cherbourg just before us. They must’a stopped off at one of those forts to leave the beehives behind.’

  ‘But there’s loads of them,’ Matty said. ‘We ain’t got time to search them all.’

  ‘He wouldn’t want the bees to have to fly too far,’ Sherlock pointed out. ‘We’re looking for the fort nearest the coast. And he’d want them to be close to a fair-sized Army base. We need a map of England and the coast, and we need to draw lines between every offshore fort and every British Army base. We’re looking for the shortest line.’ He glanced between Amyus Crowe and Virginia’s amazed faces. ‘Simple geometry,’ he said.

  ‘What do we do once we’ve found the right fort?’ Matty asked.

  ‘We could head back to the British coast, send a message to Mycroft Holmes,’ Crowe rumbled. ‘He could send a Royal Navy ship out to the fort.’

  ‘Too much of a delay,’ Sherlock said, shaking his head. ‘We need to go there ourselves. Now.’

  In the end, they did both. The Mrs Eglantine, formerly and soon to be again the Rosie Lee, set out from Cherbourg while Crowe and Sherlock drew lines on maps and identified the most likely fort. When they drew near, several hours later, the sun was heading for the horizon and the English coast was a dark line in the distance.

  ‘This fishing boat’ll be spotted straight away,’ Crowe pointed out. ‘Even with the sails down the mast’ll be seen, assumin’ they’re keepin’ watch – and if I were them, I would be.’

  ‘There’s a rowing boat lashed to the side,’ Sherlock said. ‘I spotted it when we boarded. Matty and I can row across to the fort. You keep going to England. Raise the alarm.’

  ‘How about if I row to the fort and you, Matthew and Ginnie head for the coast?’

  ‘We can’t sail,’ Sherlock pointed out. His heart was thudding fast within his chest at the thought of what he was volunteering for, but he could see no alternative. ‘And besides, the Admiralty and the War Office will believe you before me.’

&n
bsp; ‘Logical,’ Crowe conceded reluctantly.

  ‘Wherever you land,’ Sherlock continued, ‘if you’re near Portsmouth Dockyard, Chatham Dockyard, Deal, Sheerness, Great Yarmouth or Plymouth, there are semaphore stations. If you give them a message they can flash it across country via the chain of semaphores, all the way to the Admiralty. It’s probably quicker than a telegram.’

  Crowe nodded, smiled, then stuck out his huge, calloused hand and shook Sherlock’s hand. ‘We’ll meet again,’ he said.

  ‘I’m counting on it,’ Sherlock replied.

  Sherlock and Matty slipped into a rowing boat and rowed hard and fast towards the location of the fort. A rowing boat could get in close without being seen, whereas a fishing boat, no matter how inconspicuous, would be noticed. As they had agreed, Crowe and Virginia carried on towards the English coast, where they could send a message alerting the government.

  Virginia stood on the side of the Mrs Eglantine as it drew away from the rowing boat, staring at Sherlock. He gazed back, wondering if he would ever see her again.

  The sea was grey-green and choppy as the two boys pulled on the oars. The fort was a dark blob on the horizon that never seemed to get any closer, no matter how hard they rowed. Sherlock could taste salt on his lips. He wondered how he had ever managed to get himself tangled up in this strange adventure.

  After a while, he looked up to find the fort was just a few hundred feet away: a mass of wet, seaweed-encrusted stone that seemed to erupt from the waters of the English Channel. Somehow, they had managed to close in on it without noticing. It seemed empty, deserted. He scanned the crenellated rim, where only a few decades ago British forces would have been watching the sea for approaching French warships. He could see nobody. Nobody at all.

  The rowing boat coasted the last few feet to the black bulk of the fort. It ended up at the base of a set of water-slicked stone steps that led upward.

  Quickly, Matty tied the rope to a rusted iron bar that had been cemented into a gap between the stones. The two boys scrambled up the steps. Sherlock nearly lost his footing, and Matty had to grab him to stop him toppling into the water.