Knife Edge

CHAPTER THREE

‘Sir Shadrach,’ Mycroft boomed as he climbed the stone ramp towards the front door. ‘It is a pleasure and an honour to meet you.’ He stopped a little way down, so that he was not towering over the man in the bath chair. He held out a hand, and Quintillan took it, shaking twice and then relinquishing it. ‘I am—’

‘Mycroft Holmes, representing the British Government,’ Quintillan said. ‘Your fame precedes you, Mr Holmes. Welcome to my home.’ He glanced at Sherlock. ‘I suggest that your man takes your bags and puts them in your room.’

‘I did not bring a servant,’ Mycroft explained smoothly. ‘This is my… brother, Sherlock. He has the ability to think logically, and to observe dispassionately, which I find to be rare and valuable.’

‘Then your brother is welcome here,’ Quintillan said. His voice was deep and warm. ‘Please, come inside. We have refreshments prepared for you.’ He glanced over his shoulder briefly. ‘The gentleman standing in the shadows of the doorway is, as you will already have realized, Mr Ambrose Albano. Permit me to introduce you.’

Sherlock had been trying not to stare at the man, despite his striking appearance, but now that Albano had been formally introduced he felt that he could look without appearing rude.

Albano was slim and tall, with white skin and large but thin hands. His suit seemed to fit him badly: it was too large around his chest and his limbs, but the sleeves were so short on him that his bony wrists stuck out, and the hems of his trouser legs hovered far enough above his shoes that his socks were clearly visible. His milk-white face, shadowed by the wide-brimmed hat, was pocked with circular scars from some childhood disease. His front teeth were prominent, and his nostrils flared, giving him a look rather like a horse, but it was his left eye that attracted Sherlock’s attention like a magnet. It was the colour of milk mixed with water, and it had no pupil or iris.

He didn’t step forward to offer his hand either to Mycroft or to Sherlock. Instead, he stared at them both. ‘Doth mine eye offend thee?’ he said, noticing the way Sherlock was looking at him. His voice was high-pitched, and sounded strangely like someone letting the air out of a balloon.

‘I’m sure that my brother doesn’t wish to appear rude,’ Mycroft said before Sherlock could say anything.

‘I would imagine,’ Sherlock said, speaking not to Mycroft but to Albano, ‘that people either try to ignore your eye, or fixate on it to the exclusion of all else. I was merely trying to work out what had happened to you. An accident, I presume?’

‘Sherlock…’ Mycroft warned.

‘Your brother is very direct,’ Albano said. ‘I appreciate that. He is right — most people either pretend that nothing is wrong, or they stare and then stutter when they try to speak.’ He raised a hand to his left temple. ‘The answer is simple: I was injured when I was young. I was chopping wood with an axe. A chip of wood flew up and penetrated my left eye. The eye could not be saved. For many years I wore an eyepatch, but when I was in my early twenties I journeyed to India, where I met a holy man. He told me of a stone, a special stone, that was the eye of a statue in one of the local temples. This stone, he said, was rumoured to be strong in magical qualities, and had been used in times past to see beyond the veil of this world and into other planes of existence. I became obsessed with this stone. Eventually, and through circumstances too complicated to relate now, it came into my possession. I took it to be no coincidence that the stone was just the right size to be placed into my own, vacant, eye socket. That is how I brought it home — wearing an eyepatch so that nobody would see it and comment on it.’

‘And was the holy man correct?’ Sherlock asked. ‘Does the stone allow you to see beyond this world?’

‘I believe you are here to decide that for yourselves,’ Albano said, smiling a thin smile.

‘Indeed so,’ Mycroft rumbled. ‘Now — I believe that refreshments were mentioned?’

‘Silman will take you to the dining room, where a selection of cakes and sandwiches have been prepared.’ Sir Shadrach indicated the severe-faced woman standing behind him. ‘Silman is my butler.’

‘A… female… butler,’ Mycroft said, raising his eyebrows. ‘How novel.’

‘You will find a great many things about Cloon Ard Castle are the reverse of what you might expect. I have a woman for a butler, a woman for a gardener and women for footmen. My cook and my maids, however, are men. Why should things not be reversed, once in a while? Shaking up the established order of things can be… exhilarating.’

‘As long as we are not expected to sleep on the ceiling and take dinner before lunch and lunch before breakfast then I am sure that we will adapt,’ Mycroft said diplomatically.

‘Good.’ Quintillan clapped his hands together. ‘You are a man of the world, Mr Holmes. I think that some of the other representatives were taken somewhat aback by my idiosyncratic arrangement of servants.’

‘The… other representatives?’ Mycroft raised an eyebrow questioningly. ‘I was under the impression that I was the only representative here. Are there other departments of the British Government also represented? I can see that the Home Office might have a use for being able to communicate with the dead, given that they are in charge of the police, but I can assure you that I am negotiating on behalf of the entire British Government, not just the Foreign Office.’

‘That is well understood, Mr Holmes. No, these are representatives of other nations, not other government departments.’

Mycroft was so surprised that he took a pace backwards and almost stumbled down the stone ramp. ‘Other nations?’ he asked. ‘Sir Shadrach, I was under the impression that this was an exclusive arrangement. I did not — and by “I did not” I mean “the British Government did not” — realize that we were in competition for Mr Albano’s particular and recondite skills.’ He sounded, Sherlock thought, almost outraged, although Sherlock was sure that at least some of the emotion in his brother’s voice was faked for effect.

Sir Shadrach shrugged, still smiling. ‘Mr Albano’s talents are highly valued, and highly sought after,’ he said. ‘We would be foolish, would we not, to restrict ourselves to just one bidder when there is an entire world out there who could use him?’

‘And who else is here?’

‘The Tsar of Russia has sent a representative, and he has brought a manservant with him. The German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire have both sent representatives who have travelled alone — I will provide them with servants from my own staff. I believe the American President has dispatched a representative as well, but he is still on his way — travelling with someone else. I hope he arrives in time for the auction.’

‘The auction?’ Mycroft shuddered. ‘Dear me, how plebeian.’

Sherlock glanced up at Mr Albano. It struck him that the man’s pale skin probably reacted badly to sunlight, which was why he was standing in semi-darkness. ‘What about you, Mr Albano?’ he called. ‘How do you feel about being auctioned off like a Chinese vase?’

Albano’s paper-thin voice floated down the stairs: ‘My gifts are intended for the greater benefit of mankind. I do not need such a vulgar thing as money. I leave that to my patron, Sir Shadrach Quintillan. I just wish to be sure that what I do is bringing benefit to the masses, and that communication with the spiritual world can enable us all to grow towards a better understanding of God’s plan.’

‘And I suppose that the nation offering the highest reward will, by definition, be the one that will use spiritualism to bring the greatest benefit to the masses and illuminate God’s plan the best,’ Mycroft rumbled.

‘You understand us,’ Quintillan said. ‘I am glad. Now, please, come inside. Sunlight fatigues Mr Albano, and we need him to be on top form for his demonstrations. I will have my footmen fetch your luggage and take it to your rooms. Silman?’

Mrs Silman, the butler — Sherlock couldn’t bring himself to think of her as just Silman — pulled the bath chair back inside the castle. Mr Albano slipped into the shadows like a fish vanishing beneath a rock. Mycroft turned to Sherlock and shrugged. ‘This is not what I wanted, and not what I expected,’ he said quietly. ‘I am sure that the resources of the British Government can outbid the Austro-Hungarians and the Germans, but the Americans and the Russians are something of an unknown quantity. We will have to tread carefully, and keep our eyes open.’

Entering the darkness of the castle behind his brother, Sherlock saw that they were in a massive stone hall. Suits of armour from various periods of history were posed around the walls, beneath hanging tapestries and the stuffed and mounted heads of horned stags. Of to the left was a stairway that led upward, spiralling around the four walls of the tower with balustrade-lined balconies on each floor; to either side and in front of them were arched entrances to other rooms. Oddly, each balustrade appeared to have a section cut out of it, a gap people could fall through if they weren’t paying attention. In an attempt to prevent this from happening there were velvet ropes hanging across the gaps, attached by hooks, but Sherlock wondered about the point of it all.

In the centre of the hall was a strange contraption that appeared to be a scaffold made out of wood. Four beams, one at each corner, rose all the way up from the floor to the distant roof. Cross-beams ran horizontally and diagonally across every few feet. In the centre of the scaffolding was a box, large enough for three or four people, with a glass-fronted door that faced out into the centre of the hall. Ropes led from the roof of the box up to a set of wheels half hidden in the shadows of the roof.

‘This building is the castle keep,’ Quintillan announced, breaking into Sherlock’s observations. ‘Most of the rooms are in this section of the castle. There is another tower, however, a smaller one, where I and Mr Albano have our rooms.’

‘What about the servants?’ Sherlock asked.

Quintillan looked puzzled, as if it had never occurred to him that his servants had to live somewhere when they weren’t waiting on him, but Mrs Silman stepped forward. ‘I and the other servants have rooms in the castle walls,’ she said. ‘The walls link the two towers, and run around the outside of the castle grounds.’

Quintillan noticed Mycroft and Sherlock staring at the contraption. ‘You are probably wondering what that is,’ he said smugly. ‘Allow me to explain…’

‘No need,’ Mycroft said. ‘The principle is obvious by inspection. Sherlock — perhaps you would care to elaborate on the details.’

Sherlock assumed that Mycroft wanted him to demonstrate the intellectual capabilities of the British representatives to Sir Shadrach Quintillan. He cast a more careful eye over the wooden structure, noting the way the wooden box fitted snugly within the four pillars, apparently with small rollers bridging the slight gap, and the way the door opened outward, into the hall. ‘It appears to be a device used for reaching the upper floors of the building without having to use the stairs. The box is large enough for several people, and I presume that it is raised by means of the rope by some outside power-source. I would suggest that steam or, more likely, compressed air or a hydraulic liquid system would be the best solution.’ He turned to Quintillan. ‘I presume that the rising room is used because your own rooms are on an upper floor and you cannot use the stairs.’

‘Why compressed air or hydraulic liquid rather than steam?’ Mycroft asked, testing him.

‘Steam power would require a fire to be kept perpetually burning for the eventuality that someone wanted to use the rising room, which might only happen a few times a day. That would be a terrible waste of coal.’

Quintillan clapped his hands together. ‘Very good,’ he said, although his tone of voice indicated that he was slightly miffed at being denied the opportunity to explain the contraption to his guests. ‘The device is known as an “ascending room”. It was built especially for me by a team of American engineers — such ascending rooms are becoming more and more common in New York, I believe. The air is kept under pressure by an ingenious system which uses the local tides as a source of energy. We have strong tides at this part of the coast, and the cliff on which the castle is built is riddled with natural and man-made tunnels through which the waters rise and drain away. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to rest for a while before dinner.’

Silman indicated the room off to Sherlock and Mycroft’s left. ‘Please, help yourselves to refreshments in the dining room. I will return later to show you to your own rooms where you can prepare for dinner.’

Mycroft bowed slightly in Quintillan’s direction. ‘Of course,’ he said smoothly. ‘I look forward to speaking with you later, and convincing you that the British Government can best meet your requirements.’

Mrs Silman pushed Sir Shadrach Quintillan towards the ascending room. Mr Albano, still half hidden by shadows, nodded to Mycroft and Sherlock, and followed them. Mrs Silman opened the door and backed in, pulling Quintillan with her. Mr Albano slipped in beside the bath chair. Mrs Silman closed the glass door and pulled on a lever on the side of the box. With a loud hiss and a shudder, the box began to rise into the air. To Sherlock it looked like some magical trick, and he had to remind himself that it was powered entirely by water under pressure. The box continued to rise in a stately and slow manner, passing the first and second balconies, and Sherlock suddenly realized the purpose of the gaps in the balustrades that he had noticed earlier. There must be an equivalent door on the far side of the box, he realized, through which the occupants could gain access to the balconies. Indeed, when the box shuddered to a halt on the third floor, Sherlock could distinctly hear the sound of a door being opened, although the one that faced out into the emptiness of the hall remained mercifully shut. Fortunately, a wooden brace between two of the pillars would have stopped anyone falling out if it had been opened.

‘I can understand how proud Sir Shadrach is of his box of tricks,’ Mycroft said, ‘but there are several such devices already in London. I am lobbying to have one fitted in the Diogenes Club.’

‘Why?’ Sherlock asked. ‘There are only two floors to the Diogenes.’

‘Exactly,’ Mycroft huffed. ‘And they expect me to walk up the stairs every time I wish to take lunch or dinner. Outrageous.’ He frowned. ‘And talking of food, are you hungry?’

‘After the meal we had back in Galway?’

‘It would be rude not to take at least some refreshments, given that our host has been so gracious as to point them out. I must admit that a small snack before dinner would go down very well, just at the moment. I have expended quite a lot of energy today.’

Mycroft led the way into the dining room. It proved to be twice the size of the hall, high-ceilinged, and with a massive oak table in the centre. Plates of cakes, sandwiches and other comestibles were scattered along its length.

A footman — a female footman in tails, trousers and a striped waistcoat, Sherlock noticed — stepped forward. ‘Can I offer you some tea, gentlemen?’ she asked.

‘That would be most acceptable,’ Mycroft rumbled.

Another man was standing on the other side of the table, staring at them with interest. He walked around the table and approached them, a hand extended towards Mycroft. ‘You must be the British representatives,’ he said in a strongly accented voice. ‘I am Herr Doctor Holtzbrinck. Six months ago I would have been representing Prussia; now I am representing the unified German Empire.’ As Mycroft delicately shook his hand, Herr Holtzbrinck stared at the two of them with his head held to one side. ‘Mr Holmes, I believe?’ he said to Mycroft.

‘You know me?’

‘I have seen your file,’ Holtzbrinck said. ‘It is very thick. Very comprehensive.’

‘Holtzbrinck, is it?’ Mycroft said dismissively. ‘I do not believe we have a file on you.’

‘That,’ the German said quietly, ‘is exactly as it should be.’

The footman — footwoman, Sherlock corrected himself — returned with a tray containing a pot of tea, cups and saucers, and a jug of milk. She placed it on the table near them and commenced pouring two cups of tea.

‘And what do you make of this… auction?’ Mycroft asked Holtzbrinck.

‘The process itself is sound,’ the German answered, ‘but the question we must all be asking ourselves is: are we bidding on a genuine article, or on a fake?’

‘Indeed,’ Mycroft agreed. ‘But how can we tell? We are being asked to commit a large amount of money on trust.’

‘I believe that demonstrations of Herr Albano’s mystical abilities have been arranged for later. Whether or not they constitute sufficient proof is another question.’

‘And the other representatives? Have you met them?’

Holtzbrinck nodded: a precise little snap of the head. ‘The Austro-Hungarian representative is a Louis-Adolphe von Webenau. He is very proper, very upright. A statistician, I believe. The Russian representative is a Count Pyotr Andreyevich Shuvalov. Given the chaos in France at the moment, with the establishment of their Third Republic, there is no French representative.’

Mycroft raised an eyebrow. Sherlock opened his mouth to say ‘Don’t you know Count Shuvalov?’ but Mycroft’s right hand, hidden from Holtzbrinck behind his trouser leg, flapped to attract Sherlock’s attention. It seemed that Mycroft didn’t want Holtzbrinck to know that he and the Russian representative were acquainted.

‘Forgive us,’ Mycroft said smoothly, ‘but I am beginning to feel slightly faint with hunger. If I do not fill a plate immediately then I cannot say what the consequences will be.’

‘I would never stand between an Englishman and a table of food,’ Holtzbrinck said. He bowed slightly. ‘Later, perhaps?’

‘Indeed.’ Mycroft led the way over to the loaded table. ‘I presume you recognized the name of Count Shuvalov?’ he said quietly.

‘Wasn’t he the man we met in Moscow? The man that the Paradol Chamber wanted to assassinate and frame you for it?’

‘The very same. I felt it might be advantageous to hide our acquaintance with Count Shuvalov from Herr Holtzbrinck. Thank you for following my lead.’ Mycroft picked up a plate and moved along the table, examining each dish with interest.

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’ Mycroft asked. He took a fork from the table and began to load his plate with slices of cold meat, chunks of marinated fish and arrangements of vegetables in various sauces.

‘Why didn’t you want Herr Holtzbrinck to know that you and Count Shuvalov are friends?’

‘There are several reasons,’ he replied, spearing some cheese with his fork and adding it to his plate. ‘Partly it is because Herr Holtzbrinck would immediately suspect that we and the Russians were conspiring together against Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and America, even though we are not, and he might react unpredictably. Partly, of course, it is because my acquaintance with Count Shuvalov might well give us the opportunity to arrange a conspiracy against Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and America, and I do not want Herr Holtzbrinck to work that out before it actually happens. Mostly, however, it is because I do not know whether Count Shuvalov wishes to acknowledge our friendship in this forum or not. I need to talk to him alone first, in order to find out to what he wishes us to admit.’

‘Is your whole life like this?’ Sherlock asked.

‘Like what?’

‘Double- and triple-guessing the actions not only of everyone around you, but also of yourself?’

Mycroft considered for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘Yes, I believe it is. It is called “international diplomacy”.’

Sherlock laughed quietly. ‘I don’t think I could do the job that you do, Mycroft. My thoughts are very direct: A always leads to B in my world. Your thoughts twist and turn in all directions, apparently depending on the time of day, the ambient temperature and the wind direction.’

Mycroft turned and gazed sympathetically at Sherlock. ‘And that,’ he said quietly, ‘is why I envy you. My mind is already affected by what I do. I can never unwind those twists and turns. Your mind, by contrast, is so much simpler — and therefore so much happier.’

‘I thought,’ Sherlock said, before the conversation got too personal, ‘that Count Shuvalov never went out in public because of the fear of assassination. I thought he travelled with bodyguards at all times.’

‘That was true, when he was in charge of the Third Section — the Russian secret police. His role changed while you were in China. People come into and slip out of favour with the Tsar all the time in Russia — it is an occupational hazard. Count Shuvalov’s fortunes are on the wane — he is no longer the second most important man in Russia, and therefore is no longer of interest to the Paradol Chamber, or anyone else. I am sure he sleeps a lot more soundly in his bed now. I am, however, glad to find out that he is still proving of use to the Tsar. This may not be the most important diplomatic mission he could be on, but it has the potential to become important.’ He looked at Sherlock. ‘Are you not intending to eat?’

‘I’ll save myself for dinner.’

‘As you wish.’

A man with white hair and fluffy white mutton-chop whiskers entered the room. His clothes were very formal. He glanced from Mycroft to Sherlock and then to Herr Holtzbrinck.

‘Von Webenau,’ Mycroft said smoothly, moving towards the man before Herr Holtzbrinck could. ‘I have heard so much about you. My name is Mycroft Holmes…’

Abandoned, Sherlock glanced at the food, but he was still not hungry. He thought briefly about engaging the German representative in conversation, but he was worried that he might accidentally say something of which Mycroft would disapprove, so he moved instead over to the doorway and out into the hall. There was nobody around, and he crossed over to the strange contraption of wooden pillars, wooden beams and rope. The ascending room was still up on the third floor, where Quintillan had left it.

Sherlock peered between the wooden beams, into the area that the ascending room would occupy when it returned to ground level. There was a hole in the floor, about five feet deep, and looking up at the underside of the ascending room Sherlock could see that as well as the thickness of the base there were various metal protuberances that would need to be accommodated so that the floor of the room would be level with the floor of the hall. The base of the hole looked as if it was made out of a sheet of wood, and Sherlock thought he could see hinges on one side. Maybe there was machinery beneath it.

Raising his gaze and looking around the wooden scaffolding, Sherlock noticed two slabs of metal, one on either side of the shaft. Ropes from them led upward, past the ascending room, into the roof. Thinking about it for a moment, Sherlock realized that they were counterweights for the weight of the room. Pulling the weight of the ascending room up three floors would take a lot of work, and would leave the room in a potentially dangerous situation, but if there was a similar weight on the other end of the rope then the two weights would balance each other, reducing the amount of work that needed to be done and increasing the safety of the whole thing. It was, he decided, quite clever, although he wasn’t sure that he would ever want to travel in it.

A lever was set into a slot on one of the pillars. Sherlock assumed that if he pulled it then the ascending room would return to the ground. He wondered whether he ought to try it out.

‘Scared?’ a voice said.

He turned. Behind him stood a girl of about his own age. Judging by the darkness of her skin, she was probably related to Sir Shadrach Quintillan. His daughter, perhaps? Her eyes were brown and filled with a lively curiosity; her hair was black and curly.

‘Fear is a natural reaction when confronted with something unknown or unexplained that might have the power to kill or injure you,’ he said. His voice sounded like he was lecturing, and internally he cursed. ‘In this case,’ he went on, still sounding to himself like he was reciting a lesson, ‘it’s just a simple system of counterbalanced weights. There’s nothing to be scared of. It’s just simple mechanics.’

‘Try saying that when you’re in the ascending room, going upward, looking down on a hard stone floor that’s getting further and further away by the second, and you hear the rope holding the room up creak.’

‘Yes,’ he said drily, ‘I can imagine that would cause a little flutter of the heart.’

‘Are you one of the representatives?’

He nodded. ‘Well, I’m with one of the representatives, which probably means that, for all practical purposes, I get counted as a representative as well.’

‘From England?’

‘Yes.’ He stared at her for a long moment. ‘And you’re Sir Shadrach Quintillan’s daughter.’

‘You seem very sure of that.’ She put her head to one side, gazing at him speculatively. ‘You’re just guessing, aren’t you?’

‘I never guess. Your confidence indicates that you live here, rather than being a visitor, like the representatives, or a servant. The colour of your skin and the underlying bone structure of your face are similar to those of Sir Shadrach, while your age suggests that you’re either his daughter or his niece, rather than his sister or his wife. If you were his niece then that would suggest the existence of a brother or sister who haven’t been mentioned yet by anyone, so it’s simpler to assume that you are his daughter.’

‘Like I said: a guess.’

‘Are you his daughter?’

She gazed at him, smiling. ‘Yes,’ she conceded eventually, ‘I’m his daughter. My name is Niamh. It’s spelled N-i-a-m-h but pronounced “Neeve”. Niamh Quintillan.’

‘As I said: his daughter.’

‘Just because you’re right doesn’t make it any less of a guess.’

‘So, if he’s a “Sir” and you’re his daughter, does that make you a Lady? Or will it, in time?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m certainly no lady. It’s a non-hereditary title. That means it dies with father when he dies. I’m just a commoner, and always will be.’

Sherlock smiled, despite himself. ‘Believe me, there’s nothing common about you.’

She mock-curtsied. ‘You’re very charming.’

‘I have to be: I’m talking to a knight of the realm’s daughter. So how did your father come to be a “Sir” in the first place? The title must have been appointed by Queen Victoria.’

‘That’s what happened. We’re from Barbuda. My father—’

‘Barbuda?’ Sherlock interrupted. He’d never heard of the place before.

‘It’s an island in the Caribbean, near Antigua. It’s part of the British Empire. Can I go on?’

‘Please.’

‘The local people were treated as slaves until forty years ago. When he was freed, my father joined the Royal Navy. I don’t know if he was the first former slave to join, but he was certainly in the minority. He served on a ship called HMS Euryalus. Queen Victoria’s second son, Prince Alfred, also served on the ship. There was some kind of accident while they were at sea, and my father saved Prince Alfred’s life. In recognition, and out of gratitude, the Prince persuaded Queen Victoria to give my father a knighthood.’ Her face clouded over, and she looked away from Sherlock. ‘That’s how my father came to be crippled. His back was broken in the accident. He decided he wanted to settle here in Ireland, near the country that he loved but not part of it, in a place where he could see the sea. He was gifted this castle by Prince Alfred.’

‘And your mother?’ Sherlock asked gently. He suspected that he already knew the answer.

‘Oh, she died.’ Niamh’s voice was very calm, very controlled. ‘Consumption. The climate here didn’t suit her. She never wanted to leave Barbuda in the first place. She had dreams that something bad was going to happen if she left, and she was right.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Thank you.’ She looked at him again, and Sherlock could see the unshed tears in her eyes. ‘What about you? Do you have family?’

Sherlock indicated the doorway to the dining room. ‘My brother is in there at the moment, filling in time between lunch and dinner by eating. Our father is in India with the British Army. Our mother is… ill.’ He looked away from Niamh, and then back again. ‘Nobody is saying what she is ill with, but I think it’s consumption as well. Pulmonary tuberculosis.’

‘Then I’m sorry.’ She shrugged. ‘It takes its time. It’s a waiting disease.’

There was something Sherlock wanted to ask but he wasn’t sure if he should. Sometimes, he had noticed, direct questions could cause people to become offended, or upset.

Niamh noticed that he was struggling to stop himself from saying something. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘You’re obviously bursting to ask a question.’

‘Your father’s interest in spiritualism — is it anything to do with the death of your mother?’

‘I think so. At least, he never showed much interest in the afterlife when she was alive.’ She caught herself. ‘We’re a Christian family, obviously, but heaven is something you don’t think too much about. It’s just a word you hear in sermons, or read in the Bible. But after mother died, father became… obsessed with the idea that he might be able to communicate with her again. He visited a lot of different psychics and mediums, but he wasn’t convinced by any of them. Then he met Mr Albano…’

‘So Mr Albano managed to establish communication between your father and the spirit of your mother?’

‘So he said. So my father said.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m not so sure. I’ve taken part in séances, but the messages that Mr Albano conveys from my mother are all so… generic. “It’s nice here, on the spirit plane.” “I miss you both and I’m watching over you.” That kind of thing.’

‘That’s one of the things that makes me hope that spiritualism isn’t true,’ Sherlock admitted. ‘The possibility that, if it is, we’re always being watched by hundreds of dead people. Everything we do is being observed. Everything.’

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that the spirits aren’t meant to concern themselves much with earthly things once they pass on.’

‘Yet they still turn up to séances, write messages on bits of slate and move tables around?’

‘Hey,’ she said, raising her hands defensively, ‘I’m not claiming to be an expert. I’m just relaying what I’ve heard.’ Her face suddenly became more serious. ‘Besides, if we’re talking about supernatural entities, there’s other things I’d worry about before I worry about the spirits of the dead.’

Sherlock was intrigued. ‘And what’s on top of the list?’

‘How about the Dark Beast?’ she said.

He smiled uncertainly. ‘What’s the Dark Beast?’

‘It’s some kind of sea creature that can come up on to the land and carry off sheep and cattle. Sometimes it even kills people. The smugglers who used to smuggle contraband up and down this coast, many years ago, were terrified of it — more terrified than they were of the revenue men.’

‘Oh really?’

She just stared back at him with no trace of a smile. ‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘I’ve seen it.’