Death Cloud

Chapter Twelve

Waterloo Station was a bustling mass of humanity heading in all directions and carrying all kinds of boxes, parcels, suitcases and trunks, all beneath a massive roof of arched metal and glass. The warmth of the sun was magnified by the glass, making the station hotter than the streets around it. Trains heaved themselves into their platforms and disgorged clouds of steam and even more people, which added to the warmth. Sherlock could feel sweat gathering beneath his collar.

Amyus Crowe engaged a porter straight away and got him to retrieve their bags from the train. The porter then led them outside, to where a line of hansom cabs were picking up passengers from a long queue. An additional halfpenny tip persuaded their porter to take them along the line to where newly arrived cabs were letting out their passengers before joining the line of waiting ones. A few moments’ dickering and they were climbing aboard a cab through one door as its previous occupants were exiting the other.

Amyus Crowe seemed to be familiar with London, and told the cabbie to take them to the Sarbonnier Hotel. The cab trotted off, with Sherlock leaning out of one window to see the sights and Matty leaning out of the other.

The scale of buildings was immense compared with Farnham, Guildford and the other towns that Sherlock was used to. Many of them reached up five or six storeys. Several had columns supporting porticoes above their front doors and rows of sculptures along their rooflines, some obviously of human figures and others of mythical creatures with wings, horns and fangs.

Within a few moments they were heading across a bridge that spanned a wide river.

“The Thames?” Sherlock asked.

“It is,” Crowe agreed. “One of the most dirty, congested and evil rivers it has been my displeasure to experience.”

Clattering off the bridge on the other side of the river, the hansom made a few turns and ended up outside a long building constructed of orange stone. The driver hopped down and helped unload the bags. Three porters emerged from a rotating door at the front of the building and took the bags away.

Once inside the impressive lobby — white pillars with sculpted bases, a mosaic set into the ceiling and rose marble tiles on the floor — Amyus Crowe strode across to a long wooden desk.

“Three rooms, for two nights,” he said to the uniformed man behind the desk.

The man nodded. “Of course, sir,” he said, reaching up to retrieve three keys from a board behind him. Turning back, he added, “Perhaps you would care to sign the guest book, sir.”

Crowe signed with a flourish, and the concierge handed him the keys. They were attached to large brass balls, probably so that they couldn’t be lost easily, Sherlock guessed.

“Sherlock and Matthew, you will have one room,” Crowe said, handing them a key. “Virginia will have a room to herself and I will have the third room. Your bags will be taken up to your rooms. Matthew, I suggest you and I head for somewhere we can get you some clothes and toiletries.” He gazed critically at Matty. “And a haircut,” he added. “Sherlock, Virginia — I suggest you take a walk outside. Turn right and walk to the end of the street, and you’ll find something that might interest you. Be back in an hour for lunch. If you get lost, ask someone to direct you back to the Sarbonnier Hotel.”

Taking Crowe at his word, Sherlock led Virginia outside and turned right. The two of them were immediately dragged along by the throng of people who were heading in the same direction. Worried that they might be separated, Sherlock reached out his hand to guide Virginia closer to him. Instead, her hand clasped his warm and soft, for a moment. His heart felt like it was beating twice as fast. He glanced at her, startled. She smiled back, uncharacteristically shy.

It only took a few minutes before they were at the end of the block of buildings. The road widened out into a vast open plaza which was dominated by a tall column which rose up from a central pedestal. For a moment Sherlock thought that a man was standing on top of the pillar, and his mind suddenly ricocheted back to Holmes Manor, and his uncle talking over dinner one night about the ascetic religious hermits who abandoned their lives and their families to live on top of poles, meditating on the nature of God and eating only what was thrown up to them by passers-by. A moment’s attention showed him that the figure on top of the column wasn’t a man, but a statue which had been carved to look as if it was wearing naval uniform.

“Who is it?” Virginia asked, entranced.

“I think it’s Admiral Nelson,” Sherlock replied. “Which makes this Trafalgar Square. It commemorates a famous naval victory in 1805.”

At the base of the pillar were two fountains whose spray glowed with all the colours of the rainbow in the bright sunlight. This was the heart of London. This was the central point of an Empire that stretched to the other side of the globe.

And somewhere nearby, Sherlock’s brother Mycroft was probably sitting at his desk, helping to run it.

They wandered around Trafalgar Square for a while, watching the people and looking at the fine buildings which lined the roads around, and then they headed back to the hotel. They were just in time: Amyus Crowe was standing in the foyer, waiting for them. With him was a boy of about Matty Arnatt’s age, but with neat hair and decent clothes and a scowl on his face. It took Sherlock a few moments to realize that this was Matty.

“Don’t,” Matty warned. “Just... don’t.”

Sherlock and Virginia laughed.

Together, the four of them went into the dining room and ordered lunch. They were surrounded by women in silks, crinolines, peacock feathers and hats and gloves, and men with shining moustaches in frock coats, but nobody gave them a second glance. They were accepted as a family, taking in the sights of the capital city of the most important country on the face of the planet.

Sherlock had lamb cutlets, which were perfectly cooked — bloody in the centre — and came with potatoes and beans. Matty and Amyus Crowe both went for steak and kidney pudding, while Virginia, more adventurous, risked chicken served with a French sauce with peppercorns and cream.

As they were eating, Amyus Crowe bought them up to date on the reason they were there.

“I telegraphed ahead to a man I know in this fair city,” he said between mouthfuls of food. “A business associate of sorts.”

Sherlock wondered briefly what kind of “business’ Crowe was involved with, as he had never mentioned it before, but the American continued speaking.

“I told him which road the convoy of carts were coming in on, and asked him to intercept them and find out their ultimate destination. I told him where I’d be stayin”, and he’s just sent a telegram back to tell me that the carts ended up unloading their various boxes and suchlike at a warehouse in a place called Rotherhithe. He told me where the warehouse was located.”

“Rotherhithe?” Sherlock asked.

“It’s a few miles downriver — an unsavoury location where sailors take their entertainment between voyages and goods are stored before being loaded on to ships. Not a place where you want to be after dark.” He shook his head unhappily. “I wouldn’t normally risk taking you there, but this is too big. The Baron’s up to something, an’ it’s important enough that he’s willing to kill for it. Already has. He’ll no more baulk at disposin’ of the two of you than he would steppin’ on a spider. The trouble is that we need to check that the boxes on the carts are the beehives you saw back in Farnham, and that means I need you to come to Rotherhithe to take a look, Sherlock. But I warn you — it might be dangerous. Really dangerous.”

Sherlock nodded slowly. “I’ll take the chance. I want to find out what’s going on — why he keeps trying to kill me.”

Crowe glanced across at Matty, who was shovelling peas into his mouth with a spoon. “As for you, young man, I guess that you’ve seen your fair share of wharves and warehouses, given that you spend your life travelling around in a narrowboat. And I guess too that you can handle yourself in a fight.”

“If a fight starts,” Matty said through a mouthful of peas, “I run. If I can’t run, I punch low and I punch hard.”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself.” Crowe nodded. “I’ll come with you, of course, but we may have to separate to watch different areas.”

“And what about me?” Virginia’s voice was high-pitched with indignation, and her violet eyes flashed dangerously. “What do I do?”

“You stay here,” Crowe said darkly. “I know you can handle yourself in a scrap, but you don’t know what can happen to a young woman in Rotherhithe. The people who live there are worse than animals. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to you, not after –’ He stopped abruptly. Looking across at Virginia, Sherlock saw her eyes suddenly glisten. “Stay here,” Crowe repeated. “If we get separated, we need to know that there’s someone back here who can take messages and pass them on. That’s your job.”

Virginia nodded, not saying anything.

Crowe looked back at the two boys. “When you’re ready,” he said, “we’ll head off.”

As they crossed the foyer of the hotel, Sherlock turned and looked back at Virginia. She was staring at him. She tried to smile, but the expression turned into a worried twist of her lips. He smiled back at her reassuringly, but he suspected that the expression on his own face wasn’t much more convincing.

Instead of taking a hansom cab to Rotherhithe, Crowe led the two boys to the side of the Thames, where stone steps stained green with algae led down into a foul-smelling brown river. The far bank was hidden by a haze of smoke and a brownish miasma that seemed to be rising from the river itself. A boat was bobbing up and down on the water. Its owner sat in the bows, smoking a pipe.

“Rotherhithe,” Crowe said grimly, tossing a coin. The boatman nodded, catching the coin deftly and biting it to make sure it was real. Crowe and the boys settled into the stern while the boatman set to, facing backwards and pulling the boat through the water with his oars.

Sherlock found the journey strange and disturbing. Water sloshed in the bottom of the boat and there were things floating in the river that he tried hard not to look at: human waste, dead rats and lengths of sodden wood covered in weeds. The smell was so appalling that he had to breathe through his mouth, and even then he was sure he could taste the smell as it coated his tongue and the back of his throat. It made him gag. At one point another boat emerged from the murk and passed close to them. Someone shouted a curse, and their boatman replied with a gesture that Sherlock had never seen before but could translate pretty well.

It took twenty minutes or so to make the journey to Rotherhithe, and they disembarked on a set of steps that were almost indistinguishable from the ones that they had started from. Crowe led the way up to the top.

A narrow alley cobbled with rough stones ran along the riverbank, curving away to either side. Crowe led Matty and Sherlock along it, past the towering edifices of warehouses and brick walls, following the edge of the malodorous Thames and keeping to the shadows wherever possible. After ten minutes or so he stopped. Opposite them was one of the taverns that could be found everywhere across the metropolis. The jangly music of a badly tuned upright piano emerged through the doorways and the windows, along with a jumble of voices singing different words to the same tune. Several women stood in a doorway and eyed Amyus Crowe with interest before turning away when they saw Sherlock and Matty.

“I believe the warehouse is just around the corner,” Crowe murmured. His attention was focused all around them, looking for threats. “I suggest we check out the lay of the land and settle down for a while,”

“What if we’re seen?” Sherlock asked.

“I used to be a hunter, back in Albuquerque,” Crowe said. “I tracked some of the most dangerous beasts around. There’s things you can do to minimize the chances of gettin’ discovered. Don’t make eye contact, for a start, cos all animals spot eyes straight away. Look at things out of the corner of your eye — it’s more sensitive than lookin’ straight, although you don’t make out colours too well. Don’t move if you can help it, cos the eye is set up to spot movement, not things that are still. Wear dull clothin’ that doesn’t have any colours that you wouldn’t see in nature — grey for stone, green for moss, brown for earth. And don’t wear any metal, cos metal ain’t found in nature in any great quantities. Follow those rules and you can stand against a brick wall and folk’ll just let their eyes move over you an’ on till they find somethin’ more interestin”.”

“It sounds like magic,” Sherlock said, unconvinced.

“Most stuff does till you know how it’s done.” He glanced critically at the two boys. “Those cuts on your face will help you blend in, Sherlock, but you’re both a mite too neat for this neighbourhood. Need to dirty you up a bit.” He looked around. “OK, I need you to roll around on the cobbles for a while. Get some dust into your clothes.”

“Won’t that be suspicious?” Sherlock asked.

“Not if you got a reason for it,” Crowe explained. “Matty, shove young Sherlock here in the chest.”

“What?” Matty responded.

“Just do it. An’ Sherlock, you punch him on the shoulder right back.”

The light of understanding dawned in Sherlock’s mind. “And we end up scrapping in the dirt, which helps our clothes to blend in and establishes us as part of the area. If we weren’t local, we wouldn’t be fighting in the road.”

“Exactly,” Crowe said approvingly.

Sherlock was about to ask how long they ought to fight for when Matty shoved him hard in the chest. “I told you!" he shouted.

Sherlock suppressed the sudden urge to punch Matty in the jaw, and instead hit him on the shoulder. “Don’t you dare,” he yelled, feeling slightly embarrassed.

Matty launched himself at Sherlock, bringing him to the ground. Within moments the two of them were rolling around, clouds of dust rising around them. Sherlock got a grip on Matty’s arm, but Matty’s fingers closed in Sherlock’s hair and pulled his head back.

Sherlock was on the verge of forgetting that it was a pretend fight when Amyus Crowe’s huge hands closed on his and Matty’s shoulders and hoicked them upright. “All right you two, break it up,” he said, using his “English’ voice again, but gruffer this time.

The two boys stood facing each other, trying to suppress smiles despite the danger of their situation. Sherlock glanced down at himself. His jacket was torn at the sleeve, and everything was covered in dust and horsehair and stuff that he didn’t even want to think about.

“Don’t worry,” Crowe said. “It’ll wash off. And if it doesn’t, we’ll just buy more clothes. Possessions can always be replaced. A good hunter knows that anything material can be sacrificed in pursuit of the prey.”

“What kind of animals did you hunt?” Matty asked.

“I didn’t say they were animals,” Crowe murmured.

Before either of the boys could ask him to clarify his statement, he walked off. They followed, exchanging uneasy glances.

Crowe stopped at a corner and glanced round it. “Warehouse is across there,” he said quietly. “Sherlock, you stay here. Hunker down on the ground an’ play with somethin’ — some stones if you can find ’em. Remember — don’t make eye contact, but watch what’s goin’ on out of the corner of your eye. Matty, you come with me. You can cover the back, an’ I’ll move back and forth between the two of you.”

“What are we looking for?” Sherlock asked.

“Stuff that’s out of the ordinary. Somethin’ that might tell us what’s goin’ on here.”

Crowe and Matty walked off, Crowe’s hand on Matty’s shoulder, and Sherlock followed instructions, settling down on his haunches and pulling one of the cobbles from the mud. He rolled it back and forth. It was a boring game, but it was enough to make him look like part of the scenery, and he found he was still able to see what was going on around him out of the corner of his eye while ostensibly playing his game.

The warehouse was a brick building with a front made up almost entirely of a large pair of wooden doors, hinged so that they opened outward on to the street. There was nothing obviously suspicious about it, and Sherlock wondered whether they were actually watching the right place, or just a randomly chosen building.

Amyus Crowe wandered back after what seemed like hours, but was probably closer to half an hour. Although he was wearing the same clothes as before, and he hadn’t dirtied them as noticeably as Sherlock and Matty, he looked dishevelled. His jacket was buttoned up wrongly, giving him a lopsided appearance, and his shirt was hanging out of his trousers. He was weaving slightly, and staring at the ground directly in front of his feet. He stopped near Sherlock and slumped against the wall.

“Everythin’ OK?” he murmured.

“Nothing’s happened,” Sherlock replied, equally quietly.

“You all right?”

“I’m bored.”

Crowe chuckled. “Welcome to the hunt. Long stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of exhilaration and terror.” He paused, then went on: “I think I might wander into that there tavern for a while, see what’s bein’ said.”

“Fine. Couldn’t send me out a glass of water, could you?”

“Son, you’re prob’ly better off drinkin’ out of the Thames than the water from any tavern around here. If you’re hungry or thirsty just register the fact an’ then push it to one side. Don’t dwell on it. A human being can go three, four days without water. Just keep tellin’ yourself that.”

“Easy for you to say.”

Crowe laughed.

“Can I ask you something?” Sherlock said, wanting to keep Crowe there for a few moments more.

“Sure.”

“What are you doing in England? What is that “business” you mentioned earlier?”

Crowe smiled without humour, and glanced away, not meeting Sherlock’s gaze. “Not to be a tutor, that’s for sure,” he said softly, “although that’s becomin’ an interestin’ pastime. No, I was retained by... well, let’s say the American government to make it easy, to seek out men who’d committed crimes, atrocities, the most terrible things durin’ the recent Civil War an’ escaped the country before the hand of justice could come down on their shoulder. That’s how I came to know your brother — he signed the agreement that allows me to be here. An’ that’s why I’ve been developin’ a network of useful people, especially in docks and ports. So when you told me that the Baron was accelerating his plan, whatever that may be, I just sent out the word to look for his carts. An’ I got to say, I was surprised that my people found them so easily.” He looked back at Sherlock. “Satisfied?”

Sherlock nodded.

“Not many people I’ve told that to,” Crowe added. “Grateful if you’d keep it to yourself.” He moved away before Sherlock could say anything more.

Sherlock continued playing his game, rolling the cobble back and forth, as the minutes slid away, one after the other. He kept watch on the warehouse doors, but they were firmly closed and nothing was stirring. He was beginning to think that they were all on a wild goose chase.

A sudden escalation of noise from behind him almost made him turn and look, but he stopped himself just in time. He let the cobblestone run a little further, turning to retrieve it and letting his eyes drift upward to take in the tavern. One of the doors was open and a group of men were emerging, obviously the worse for drink. They bantered for a moment, then turned and walked towards him. He concentrated on his stone, listening to whether they were saying anything about the warehouse, or the beehives, or Baron Maupertuis, or anything related to the mystery.

“When’re we hauling out?” one of them said.

“First light tomorrow morning,” another replied. There was something familiar about the voice, but Sherlock couldn’t quite place it.

“Who’s got the roster?” a third voice asked.

“It’s in my head,” the second man replied. “You head off to Ripon, Snagger goes to Colchester, the lad Nicholson here gets an easy ride to Woolwich an’ I get to go back to Aldershot.”

“Can’t I go to Ascot instead?” asked a Northern-accented voice — presumably the lad Nicholson.

“You go where you’re told, sunshine,” the second man responded. As he was talking, he passed close to Sherlock. His foot caught the cobblestone, kicking it across the alley. Unwittingly, Sherlock glanced up and met the man’s gaze.

It was Denny, the man who Sherlock had followed back to the warehouse in Farnham, the man who had been there when his friend Clem jumped on the narrow-boat to attack Sherlock and Matty. The man who worked for Baron Maupertuis.

So much for being invisible. Denny’s face instantly flushed with anger.

Sherlock rolled away as hands reached for him. He sprang to his feet and sprinted off down the alley. He wanted to run towards the tavern where Amyus Crowe was, but the men were between him and the tavern door. Instead he found himself running further and further away from Crowe, from Matty and from anything he knew.

Footsteps thudded behind him, echoing off the walls of the buildings as he ran past them. His breath rasped in his throat and his heart pounded like a living thing trapped inside his ribcage and fighting to get out. Twice he felt fingers touch the back of his neck and scrabble for a grip on his collar, and twice he had to tear himself loose with a frantic burst of energy. His pursuers were growling beneath their breath as they ran, but apart from that, the thud of their boots and the sound of his heart, the chase was conducted in complete silence.

He could see as he got halfway down that the alley finished in a brick wall. Sherlock’s eyes widened. He was trapped! He turned, desperately trying to work out if he had enough time to run back and find another way, but the men were closing in on him. There were five of them, he noted in a kind of terrified calm, and they were all holding knives or heavy sticks. He wasn’t going to get out of this alive.

A voice suddenly sounded very clearly in his head, and he couldn’t tell whether it was his brother’s voice, or Amyus Crowe’s voice or his own, but it said: “Alleys and roads lead from one place to another. An alley that ends in a brick wall is illogical. It has no purpose, and therefore should never have been built.”

Sherlock swung back and let his gaze scan the brickwork of the alley. No doors, no windows, nothing but a patch of shadow in one corner where the lacklustre sunlight could not penetrate.

And if there was a way out, that was where it would be.

He ran into the shadows. If there had been nothing there then he would have run straight into the brickwork, knocking himself out, but instead there was a slender gap. A means of escape.

The narrow walkway ran between two buildings. He raced along it, hearing shouts of frustration from behind him as the men tried to find the dark way out. Single file they stumbled into the walkway after him, the grunts of their breath echoing from the steep brick walls.

Zigzagging through the darkness, Sherlock stumbled out into a wide road lined with doors. He ran on, sensing boots hitting cobbles behind him, and skidded left into another alley, gaining himself a few yards more. A dog sprang out of a gap in the wall as he passed, but he was gone before its teeth closed on empty air. Instead, it turned on the men chasing him. Sherlock heard furious barking and the sound of cursing as the men tried to get away from it. He winced at the noise of a boot thudding into something soft. The dog whimpered and scrabbled away.

Scooting round another corner, he ran full tilt into a man and woman walking along the side of the Thames, sending the man sprawling and himself spinning backwards.

“You little beggar!" the man shouted, heaving himself back to his feet. “I’ll teach you what for!" He started pushing the sleeves of his jacket up, revealing muscle-swollen forearms covered with blue tattoos of anchors and mermaids.

“Don’t touch him, Bill. He didn’t mean it!" The woman clutched at her companion’s arm. Her skin was white with badly applied make-up, her lips a crimson slash, her eyes shaded with black powder. The effect was to make her face look like a skull. “He’s only a kid.”

“I thought he was a thief,” the man growled again, but less aggressively this time.

“There’s men after me,” Sherlock said through his heavy panting. “I need help.”

“You know what they do to boys round here,” the woman said. “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Bill, do something. Help the lad.”

“Get behind me,” Bill said. Sleeves pushed up, he was obviously itching for a fight not too concerned who it was with. Sherlock slipped behind the man’s massive bulk as his pursuers came around the corner.

“Stop right there,” Bill said, his voice low and full of the promise of violence. “Let the kid be.”

“Not a chance,” said Denny, who was at the forefront of the five men. He brought his hand up, and he was holding a knife. Light trickled along the edge of the blade like a glowing liquid. “He’s ours.”

Bill reached out to take the knife, but Denny tossed it from his right hand to his left and punched it forward, into Bill’s chest. The man fell to his knees, coughing blood, a disbelieving look on his face as if he couldn’t accept that these moments, here in this alley, would be his last.

Denny smiled at Sherlock as Bill fell forward on to the cobbled surface of the road. “With you,” he promised, “it won’t be so quick.”