by Andrew Lane
The yard gave out on to a narrow alley that ran between buildings. Stone turned right and walked fast. Sherlock had to break into a near-run to keep up.
‘So what do we do?’ he asked breathlessly.
‘We head for the the British Embassy and throw ourselves on the mercy of the Ambassador, that’s what we do.’
‘No!’ Sherlock stopped dead.
‘Come on,’ Stone urged. ‘We’re at risk every moment we stay on the street.’
Sherlock stood where he was: stubborn; defiant, and bone-achingly tired. ‘We have to get to my brother,’ he said grimly.
‘Look, lad, he’s far beyond our help now. The best thing we can do is let the diplomatic staff sort things out. That’s the kind of thing they live for, frankly: urgent diplomatic crises. That and cocktail parties. If we’re lucky, they might be able to get to Count Shuvalov before Wormersley or Mrs Loran do.’ He glanced back in the direction of the cafe. ‘It depends on whether they managed to get out of there in one piece. We may have scotched their plans already’ He smiled. ‘Or scorched them.’
‘Their plans may not depend on them being present,’ Sherlock pointed out. ‘Mr Kyte wasn’t in the cafe. There’s no way he could have disguised himself. Maybe he controls the assassination attempt.’
Stone stared at Sherlock for a moment. ‘I recognize that expression. You had that same look in your eye when you were trying to master scales and arpeggios back on the SS Scotia. You’re a stubborn cuss, aren’t you?’
Sherlock shrugged, momentarily embarrassed. ‘It’s a family trait,’ he muttered.
Stone exhaled heavily. ‘All right,’ he conceded, ‘let’s at least go to the building where Shuvalov’s office is located. We might be able to pass a warning note to the security guards on the door, or something.’
‘Do you know where his office is?’
‘Lubyanka Square.’ Stone smiled mirthlessly. ‘It’s a well-known address in Moscow, although few people who get in ever get out again.’ He checked his watch. ‘We haven’t got much time. If Wormersley’s timings were correct, Mycroft will be brought in to see Shuvalov in about twenty minutes.’
Sherlock looked around. ‘I don’t see any cabs!’
‘No time to wait,’ Stone said. ‘And we can get there faster on foot by cutting through alleyways.’
Stone led the way, running through the alleys and streets as if he’d lived in Moscow all his life. Sherlock sprinted after him. Buildings flashed past: different colours, but similar blocky architecture. People moved out of their way as they ran, not willing to make eye contact. Flocks of starlings and sparrows took flight as the two of them plunged in among them. The air was bitterly cold, and even as Sherlock felt warm sweat trickling down his ribs and spine from the exertion he could also feel his face tingling as the snow crystals in the wind whipped against his skin. He imagined that his cheeks were covered by thousands of tiny cuts left by the crystals. The thought reminded him of Mr Kyte’s face, and the small cuts around his eyes, cheeks and nose. What had caused them? he wondered. He supposed he would never know.
His heart pounded in time with his footsteps. He’d run races at school, but they had been short and intense – just a dash for the ribbon. This was a marathon: unending, almost unendurable.
The thudding of his footsteps vibrated up his legs, rattling every bone in his body. Snow was underfoot everywhere. At one point, while racing across a road and dodging the various carriages and wagons, Sherlock’s foot hit a patch of ice and skidded backwards. For one terrible moment he thought he was going to fall. His arms windmilled helplessly as his body pitched forward and he tried to keep his balance. The moment seemed to last forever, but finally he bumped into a passing Russian woman, bundled up in layers of clothes, and managed to regain his stability. ‘Sorry!’ he called back over his shoulder.
He tried to force his legs to move faster. Stone was well ahead of him.
The fluttering of startled starlings and sparrows taking flight around him became mixed up with a fluttering in the corners of Sherlock’s eyes. The world seemed to close in on itself as he chased the fleeting shape that was Rufus Stone.
Eventually, Stone began to slow down. It took the length of an entire alleyway for him to come to a stop. Sherlock drew up beside him, lungs burning. He sucked in great breaths of air, bending over with his hands on his knees. It was like breathing fire. Stone was leaning against a nearby wall, coughing.
After a minute or so both of them had recovered enough to talk.
‘We’re on Lubyanka Square,’ Stone puffed. He jerked his head, indicating the building across the road. ‘That’s the Headquarters of Section Three.’
Sherlock let his gaze run up the building. It was more like a fortress: small, narrow windows with bars in front of the glass, smooth red stonework that nobody could climb, turret-like towers on the corners from which guards would have a good view along the sides of the building and could, presumably, fire at any attacking mob.
Across the road was a handful of wagons, carriages and carts, pulled up against the pavement so that their drivers could rest. Presumably too, so that any important and therefore high-tipping Russians leaving the building could be assured of finding transport straight away.
‘Which office belongs to Count Shuvalov?’ Sherlock asked hoarsely.
Stone’s eyes scanned the various windows. ‘I won’t point,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to attract any more attention than we’ve already managed with our little athletic display. Let your gaze fall on the tower to the left, then let it drift along the edge of the roof until you come to an open window that’s larger than the rest and set out slightly from the building. That’s his office.’ He paused to cough again. ‘Note the extra bars, and the fact that there’s no way to get to it from below, the side or above. No ledges. The glass is darkened so that nobody outside could aim at a target inside, and if you look around you’ll notice that it’s the tallest building in the vicinity. There’s no vantage point for a marksman. Inside is just as bad: reports are that you have to go through six different security checkpoints before you get to the guards outside the door of his office – and they are hand-picked by Shuvalov himself. I really can’t see how Wormersley can hope to assassinate the man.’
Sherlock stared up at the office window. He checked his watch. Nearly three o’clock! If the Paradol Chamber were correct – and he suspected they were always correct – Mycroft would be on his way to the office right now!
He glanced around, looking for anything out of the ordinary, anything that might give a hint as to what was going to happen next.
And he noticed something.
‘No birds,’ he pointed out.
‘What?’
‘No birds. This city is full of starlings and sparrows, but where are they now? I can’t see any.’
Stone glanced around. ‘You’re right, but I’m not sure what point you’re making.’
‘What frightens birds away?’
The violinist shrugged. ‘Cats?’
‘Cats, yes, and other birds. Birds of prey.’
Stone frowned, then his eyes widened in understanding. ‘That falcon Mycroft told me about, back in the museum in London! You think that’s Wormersley’s plan?’
‘Look at the office window,’ Sherlock urged. ‘Nobody could get to it, not from the outside and not from the inside, from what you’ve said. But a bird could fly there.’
‘And do what? The bird isn’t going to able to stab or shoot Shuvalov, and if it just attacks him with its claws then there’s no way Wormersley can make it look like Mycroft’s responsible for the attack.’
Sherlock’s thoughts were firing off in all directions. ‘When that falcon attacked me in the museum, it had something attached to its claws – some kind of sharp blade. Imagine that Mycroft has been taken to Shuvalov’s office, through all those security checks. It’s just Shuvalov and Mycroft in the office. Wormersley’s trained falcon flies in through the open window and makes straight for
Shuvalov. It slashes the blade across his throat, cutting deeply, then it flies out again. Shuvalov cries out, perhaps, or maybe Mycroft calls for help. Shuvalov’s guards run in. All they see is Shuvalov bleeding to death from a cut throat and Mycroft standing there, in a room where no other person could get in or out!’
‘But Mycroft won’t have a knife,’ Stone pointed out.
‘It doesn’t matter. All the evidence is against him. They’ll assume he just threw the knife, or the razor blade, or whatever, out of the window!’
‘I’m not sure . . . What if the window was closed?’
‘Then they would probably use a slingshot and stone to smash it so that the falcon would fly inside. In the confusion afterwards they would assume that Mycroft had smashed it trying to escape. This is the Paradol Chamber. They think of everything! It makes sense! I never understood why I was attacked with a falcon of all things. Who takes a live falcon to a museum of stuffed birds? They must have been training it there, using the museum as a base of operations.’
A memory flashed up in his mind, and he plunged his hand into his jacket pocket. There, nestling next to the glass bottle from the Diogenes Club, the one from the dead man’s jacket, was the small shape of the dead mouse he’d found in the train on the way from Dunkerque to Moscow and forgotten about. It fitted perfectly into his palm. ‘And this must have come from its food supply,’ he said urgently. ‘I found it on the train. Mr Kyte must have been looking after the bird – that’s why he spent so much time in his compartment during the journey. He was keeping it calm and fed, making sure it didn’t escape.’
‘Let’s assume you’re right.’ Stone glanced around. ‘Where will they be flying it from?’
‘Somewhere close at hand. Possibly a building – if they could get access to the roof or an empty room.’ Sherlock looked around urgently. ‘Or somewhere on the street, maybe.’
His gazed snagged on a black carriage that was stationary on the other side of the street. It was just like the other carriages that rattled past, but something about it drew Sherlock’s attention. Perhaps it was the bulk of the driver, or the unsuccessful way he was trying to hide his bushy red beard beneath a scarf.
‘Over there,’ he said urgently. ‘That carriage.’
Stone followed his gaze. ‘That’s Mr Kyte.’
‘I thought so.’
‘Wormersley will be inside. With the falcon, if you’re right.’ His gaze switched to the building that was home to the Third Section. ‘We have to go to the front desk – get them to take a warning note up to Count Shuvalov.’
‘No time!’ Sherlock said.
Over at the carriage, the window facing the building had been pulled down to leave a gap.
Something appeared in the dark square that was all Sherlock could see of the carriage’s inside. An arm – an arm with a brown-feathered bird sitting on it. Maybe it was the bird that had attacked him at the museum in London, maybe it was a different one, but it looked just as lethal.
A low whistle cut through the air: three notes; the same kind of whistle Sherlock had heard at the museum.
‘A flat, E, G sharp,’ Stone murmured.
The falcon took off, bounding into the air with a thrust of its legs and then pushing down hard with its wings once, twice, three times, hauling itself into the sky. It coasted for a moment, orienting itself, then flapped its wings again, gaining more and more height. The sun glinted cruelly off two curved metal blades attached to its legs, just above the claws.
The man in the carriage – Wormersley? – whistled again, different notes this time, and the falcon adjusted its course, curving slightly to the left and straightening up. The whistles were guiding it to the correct window! Wormersley had probably trained it on a replica of the building, or something painted to look the same, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He was aiming the bird right where he wanted it to go.
‘We’re too late,’ Stone said.
‘No,’ Sherlock said, and there was such certainty in his voice that he even surprised itself. ‘No!’
He clenched his fist, the one that was holding the dead mouse, and drew it back. Balancing himself with his left arm outstretched in front of him, he threw the mouse the way a fielder would throw a cricket ball.
The tiny corpse arced through the air towards the open window. Sherlock whistled, trying to replicate the sound of Wormersley’s commands. The falcon’s head twisted round to see who else dared signal it. The dead mouse, just beginning its long drop back to the ground, caught its eye. The falcon twisted in mid-air and dived. The mouse was falling under gravity, but the falcon propelled itself forward with two powerful strokes of its wings and then folded them close to its body. It shot through the air, its path converging with that of the mouse.
Its beak opened and then closed, and the mouse was gone, swallowed whole.
More whistles filled the air as Wormersley tried urgently to regain control of the bird, but hunger had won out over training. Falcons had to be kept hungry, Sherlock knew, otherwise they would lose interest in what their handlers wanted them to do. The bird coasted in a broad curve back towards the carriage. Towards the closest thing it had to a nest at the moment: the covered box that Wormersley had been given at the cafe.
In the square of darkness inside the carriage, Sherlock saw Wormersley’s face floating like that of a ghost, a mask of twisted frustration.
Sherlock thought of the signals that he’d heard in the museum: the signals that had instructed the falcon to attack. He forced his brain to remember the notes. He could play the violin – to a degree. He could read music. He could surely identify a musical note if he had to.
He whistled loudly repeating the phrase that he remembered.
Descending towards the carriage, the falcon heard the signal. Instead of readying itself for a landing on its handler’s outstretched arm, it spread its claws into two vicious instruments of destruction.
It plunged through the carriage window and into Wormersley’s face.
A scream burst from the inside of the carriage, and the whole thing rocked on its wheels as Wormersley struggled with the bird inside. Kyte, sitting on top of the carriage, twisted round to see what was happening. Startled, the horse that was attached to the shafts reared up on its hind legs.
‘Come on!’ Sherlock shouted to Stone. ‘You get Kyte – I’ll get Wormersley.’
‘But –’
‘Come on!’
He wasn’t going to let the Paradol Chamber get away, not if he could stop them. They had too many deaths on their hands, too much explaining to do. He was going to pull Wormersley out of that carriage with his bare hands and force him to tell Count Shuvalov exactly what he had planned to do.
Aware that Stone was heading past him, aiming for the preoccupied Kyte, Sherlock hurled himself at the nearest carriage door. As he got to it the door burst open towards him, knocking him backwards, into the street. Wormersley jumped out, pulling the falcon off his head as he did so and throwing it towards Sherlock. His face and shirt were streaked with blood, and there were beak marks in his forehead and slashes across his throat.
In a flurry of wings the falcon took flight. Training only went so far: all it wanted now was its freedom.
Wormersley rubbed his sleeve across his face, smearing the blood into a crimson mask from which his eyes blazed angrily.
‘You meddling, interfering brat!’ he screamed. ‘That plan was years in the making, and you ruined it in moments!’
‘Give up,’ Sherlock said. He was braced in case Wormersley made a move towards him. ‘There’s no way out.’
‘There’s always a way out.’ Wormersley reached behind him and pulled something out of the carriage. It looked like a hoop in his hand, a child’s toy hoop, but then he shook his hand and it uncoiled to the ground.
It was a whip, but not like anything Sherlock had ever seen before. Not like the one Mr Surd, Baron Maupertuis’s manservant, had used against him months ago. No, this one looked like it was made fr
om plaited metal, and attached to its tip was a sharp metal talon.
‘You remember I mentioned the Russian knout?’ Wormersley asked. ‘Well, you’re about to get much better acquainted with it.’
He lashed out suddenly, flicking the whip. The tip whined as it sliced through the air. Sherlock flinched to one side and the hooked metal tip brushed past his ear.
It caught on his jacket as Wormersley pulled it back.
Sherlock’s body jerked forward, pulling him off balance. He went sprawling to his hands and knees on the snow-covered ground.
Wormersley moved behind Sherlock and looped the knout round his throat. He pulled tight, snapping Sherlock’s neck back and cutting off his air supply.
Sherlock’s vision went red. He desperately tried to claw air into his chest, but nothing was getting past the steel links of the knout as they bit into his flesh. He scrabbled with his fingers, attempting to get them beneath the metal, but Wormersley was pulling so tight that there was no gap.
The red mist across his eyes started to turn black. The world receded into a fuzzy blur of light and noise.
Sherlock lashed backwards with his right foot, but Wormersley had moved his legs out of range, leaning forward to strangle Sherlock. His knuckles dug into the back of Sherlock’s neck.
‘Die!’ he hissed, bringing his head close to Sherlock’s left ear. ‘Just die!’
Trying to find some purchase on the ground, some leverage he could use to push himself upright, Sherlock’s hand brushed the outside of his jacket pocket. He felt something hard and curved inside – the spray bottle from the Diogenes Club. The one that had been used to drug Mycroft.
With his vision turning black and his ears filled with the thudding of his pulse, Sherlock used the last of his strength to pull the bottle from his pocket. He fumbled with it, trying to get his thumb on to the spring-loaded button on top. He didn’t even know which direction it was pointing, but he held it above his head and pushed the button frantically.
Behind him, Wormersley gasped. His hands went slack. Sherlock fell forward, pulling great gulps of air into his lungs. He turned over on to his back, raising his hands to ward Wormersley off if the man attacked again, but through the fading red mist Sherlock saw Wormersley standing still, staring into nowhere, with a dazed expression on his face.