Knife Edge

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘Well,’ Amyus Crowe said as he settled himself into a comfortable armchair, ‘this ain’t exactly the set of circumstances Ah imagined our next meetin’ to take place under.’ The springs creaked beneath his weight.

‘Me neither,’ Sherlock replied.

They were sitting in the castle’s reception room — the same one in which Sherlock had earlier talked to his injured brother. The past twenty minutes had been a bustle of activity as Crowe had presented his credentials to Sir Shadrach Quintillan, introduced his daughter, met the other representatives and overseen the transfer of their luggage to their rooms. Virginia had avoided Sherlock all the while, although he had been painfully aware of her presence. When refreshments were offered Crowe accepted, while Virginia pleaded tiredness after the long journey. Sherlock remembered how sea travel had affected her on the way to and from New York, and wasn’t surprised when she went to her room to lie down.

Or maybe, a rebellious part of his mind said, she just doesn’t want to talk to you.

‘Where’s Holmes Senior?’ Crowe asked.

‘Ah. He’s resting in his room after being attacked this morning in the library.’

‘Attacked?’ Crowe’s face creased in concern, the leathery wrinkles almost hiding his eyes. ‘An’ is this somethin’ to do with this psychic fellow — Albano — or is it just a random attack?’

Sherlock shrugged. ‘Probably the former, but the motive is unclear. Either someone wants to improve their chances at the auction by taking out the likely competition, or someone else wants to force up the price by making it look like Albano is worth fighting for. That means the pool of suspects is pretty much everyone in the house.’

Crowe nodded. ‘That’s a succinct analysis of the situation. Future events will prob’ly tell us which one it is.’

‘How so?’

‘Well, if the attack was designed to get rid of competition then there’re likely to be more attacks on other representatives. If you want to reduce the pool of contenders then you don’t just take out the one.’ He smiled. ‘Of course, you don’t take out all the contenders, because that kind of gives the game away as to who is responsible. Last man standin’, an’ all that.’

‘What if the attack was designed to make Albano a more valuable commodity because he’s worth fighting for?’

‘Then Albano will reappear,’ Crowe pointed out. ‘There ain’t no point in biddin’ for something that’s vanished. He’ll come back with some kind of cockamamie story to make himself look important and powerful.’ He paused for a moment. ‘How is your brother? Will he… recover?’

‘He was lucid and talking when he regained consciousness. The injury doesn’t look too serious. Apparently a doctor has been called in to examine him. I don’t know whether he’s attended yet or not — I had to walk down to the town to send a telegram on Mycroft’s behalf.’

‘Knowin’ your brother, the telegram was prob’ly somethin’ along the lines of “Send fine wines and cream cakes: the caterin’ here is not ideal”.’

Sherlock smiled. ‘Actually the catering is very good. Certainly last night’s meal met with Mycroft’s approval.’

‘So you’ve met Ambrose Albano, an’ presumably had the chance to see his act?’

Sherlock was about to answer when he suddenly realized that he wasn’t talking to a friend any more, he was speaking with a potential competitor. He wondered with a flash of concern what Mycroft would have wanted him to do — tell the truth, say nothing or try to make out that Albano was probably a fake in order to reduce the likelihood that Crowe would make a serious offer on behalf of the American Government. He shook his head. This was complicated. What was the best thing to do?

The best thing, he decided, was to tell the truth and damn the consequences. He knew and trusted Amyus Crowe; and, more to the point, so did his brother. Besides, Crowe might well wonder himself whether Sherlock was telling the truth or telling a lie, in which case Sherlock might as well tell the truth anyway, on the basis that whatever he said might not be believed.

‘Wise move,’ Crowe said softly. ‘Always tell the truth, if you can. It’ll confuse the hell out of your enemies — an’ you know Ah’m not an enemy.’

‘How did you know what I was thinking?’ demanded Sherlock.

‘It’s pretty simple, although it makes for a good parlour trick. You hesitated after Ah asked the question, indicatin’ that you were havin’ doubts about tellin’ me. Your gaze flickered upward, to where Ah presume Mycroft’s rooms are. You were wonderin’ what he would want you to say. You looked back at me, but your eyes weren’t focusin’ on my face — they had that look that people get when they’re rememberin’ somethin’. Ah guessed that you were rememberin’ everythin’ you an’ Ah have been through together. You then glanced down an’ to the right, which is a sign that you were puttin’ your thoughts in order logically before tellin’ them to me. People who are lookin’ to lie often glance down an’ to the left. It’s a strange thing, but worth knowin’. Somethin’ to do with which side of the brain you’re usin’, Ah believe — the analytical side, or the side that we use to construct stories.’

‘Very clever. You’ll have to teach me how to do that.’

‘If we get a chance to have any more lessons,’ Crowe said, and there was a sad tone in his voice that Sherlock didn’t like. ‘Now,’ he continued briskly, ‘your thoughts on Mr Albano.’

‘He’s a fake,’ Sherlock said immediately. ‘I haven’t worked out how he manages his tricks yet, but I’m certain that they are tricks.’

‘What kind of things has he been doin’?’

‘Chalk messages appearing on slates, wooden plaques moving to point to letters in order to spell out other messages, the production of some kind of substance that is apparently called “ectoplasm” that can take the shape of a supposed spirit…’

‘The standard repertoire, then. Nothin’ cleverer than that.’

‘Exactly.’

‘An’ your brother concurs?’

‘He does.’

Crowe nodded slowly. ‘Ah suspect that Mycroft an’ Ah are in the same position, bein’ less convinced ourselves than our respective governments are. From what you’ve said Ah can’t imagine Ah’ll be any more convinced when Ah’ve seen him in action mahself.’

‘So how did you get to be the American representative?’ Sherlock asked.

‘You tell me, son.’

Sherlock thought for a moment. ‘The invitation went out late enough that the American Government didn’t have time to send someone over from America; or perhaps they didn’t think the likely reward was worth the expense and effort of such a trip. They looked for people they trusted who were closer geographically. There would be the Embassy staff in London, of course, but for some reason they chose you instead.’ Sherlock closed his eyes briefly, to help himself concentrate. ‘I presume they needed someone whom they trusted and who also had a reputation for not being taken in by trickery, and that led them straight to you.’

‘Precisely.’

Sherlock thought about what they had been talking about for a moment. ‘That kidnapping,’ he said. ‘How was it arranged, do you think?’

‘Ah don’t know, son — Ah wasn’t here. What did you see?’

Sherlock closed his eyes again, recalling the events and putting them into logical order, aware that Crowe had just pointed out that closing the eyes was a sign of remembering. ‘I’d only just arrived back from town myself, so I was looking at events from out near the road. Everybody else was nearer the castle, so between us we had a view from both sides. Albano was outside the castle, apparently leaving. He was having some kind of argument with Sir Shadrach — with the benefit of hindsight I suspect it had something to do with the attack on Mycroft. Perhaps he was scared. Anyway, he had just set off, walking towards where I was, when a carriage raced in from the road. The carriage stopped by Mr Albano. Two men jumped out, but I saw a third man inside. They all had scarves over their faces. And, of course, the driver makes four men in total. The two men knocked Albano over, put a sack on his head and threw him into the carriage. They got back in, and the driver drove off, but the carriage seemed to veer off the path when it got outside the walls, and it crashed. Four men raced away, and they all still had scarves over their faces. I had the carriage in sight the whole time, from before the kidnapping until it crashed, and Mr Albano never got out, but when I and the other two representatives ran over to it he wasn’t there. The carriage was empty.’

Crowe nodded slowly. ‘A fine and succinct account, young man. Your brain hasn’t got slack while you’ve been away. Now, a couple of things occur to me. Coincidences, things that stand out as being different. Firstly, it was lucky for the abductors that Mr Albano was outside the castle just at the moment they drove in. If he’d been inside, what would they have done? Gone lookin’ for him?’

‘Good point,’ Sherlock said. ‘They had to know he was going to be outside at that exact moment, and the only person who knew that was, I suppose, Albano himself.’

‘Precisely. The second point is: it was lucky for us that everyone just happened to be outside watching Mr Albano walkin’ away. Everyone got to see the abduction and, more importantly, the vanishin’ trick. Every trick needs an audience.’

‘Again,’ Sherlock said, ‘that was down to Mr Albano. He was the one who had the argument. If it started inside then people would have taken notice and moved to watch, then followed him and Sir Shadrach outside. They were the perfect audience.’ He took a deep breath. ‘So, it was a trick, and it was arranged by Mr Albano himself, or at least with his knowledge and assistance. Which means that we can expect him to reappear in a little while, as you said.’

‘There’s another point,’ Crowe said.

‘What is it?’

‘You tell me.’

Sherlock thought for a moment. ‘If we’re right, and Albano arranged the kidnapping and the disappearance himself, or at least knew that they were going to happen, then it was important that the crash happened inside the grounds of the castle, because that was the only way those of us who were there would know that he had disappeared. If the crash had happened half a mile down the road then we wouldn’t have been there, and we might, when we finally did get there, have assumed that Mr Albano had just wandered off. The mysterious disappearance only works because it happened in front of our eyes. That means the crash was deliberately arranged to occur exactly where it did. But how?’

‘Oh, many ways.’

‘But what about the disappearance from the carriage? How did he manage that?’

Crowe frowned in disapproval. ‘Ah’m surprised at you, Sherlock. That’s the simplest thing of all. There’s only one answer. Go figure it out yourself.’

‘Oh!’ Sherlock said suddenly, changing the subject. ‘I forgot to tell you. One of the servants died. I don’t know if there’s any connection to anything else, or whether it was just a tragic coincidence, but I found her outside. There wasn’t a mark on her, but she had a horrified expression on her face, and her shoes were missing.’

‘Hmm. Difficult to see how that ties in with anythin’ else. That kind of horrified expression can be a sign of a weak heart givin’ way — Ah’ve seen it before. Let’s park that one for now.’ His gaze softened. ‘But Ah guess there’s a question you’ve been avoiding, all the time we’ve been talkin’. You want to ask it now, or you want to pretend there’s nothin’ wrong?’

Sherlock felt a sudden obstruction in his throat that stopped him from saying anything for a moment. He wanted to ask about Virginia, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. Would it be best just to pretend that nothing was wrong, and continue onward with a smile on his face?

No, he decided. It was always better to know the truth, no matter how much it hurt, because that hurt was the kind you got when a wound was beginning to heal.

‘How is Virginia?’ he asked quietly.

‘The short answer is: she’s growin’ up. She ain’t the girl you knew a year or two back. Hell, she ain’t the girl Ah knew a year or two back, an’ Ah’m her papa.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Ah know that you had feelin’s for Virginia, even though Ah wasn’t sure you knew it, an’ Ah know she reciprocated, at least in her way. The trouble is that you were gone for over a year, an’ it happened just as she was growin’ up. She got to thinkin’ about boys, an’ marriage, an’ the future, an’ you just weren’t there. There’s an old saying, Sherlock — “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”. It means that something you’ve got is better than something better that you actually haven’t got. Ah think she thought about waitin’ for you. Ah think she thought real hard about that, but in the end she just didn’t know if you were ever comin’ back. She had to make a choice — wait on a promise, or take what was there in front of her.’

‘So she met someone else, just like that?’

Crowe frowned. ‘It wasn’t “just like that”, son. It took a considerable period of time. Travis an’ Virginia met naturally, just like you and she met, at the cottage. He rides like he was born in the saddle, so he an’ Ginnie just got talking straight away. He’s a fine, upstandin’, good lookin’ boy, and she couldn’t help bein’ impressed. She kept him at arm’s length for nearly six months, but eventually she came to me one night an’ asked me if Ah thought you were ever comin’ back.’ He paused, and grimaced. ‘Ah had to be honest, Sherlock. Ah had to tell her that there was a strong chance you might get caught up in some adventure, or decide to stay in one of the countries that you saw, or maybe even go to India to look for your father. You might even have met another girl and fallen for her. An’ even if you did come back, Ah told her that it might be a year or more, and that you’d have changed. She thought about that, an’ Ah guess she made her decision. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. So she an’ Travis got more serious, an’ he proposed to her.’ He sighed deeply. ‘Ah can’t say Ah don’t wish things were different, but hopin’ for what ain’t goin’ to happen is just plain foolishness. We have to accept the world the way it is.’

Sherlock found that he didn’t want to accept the world the way it was. He wanted it back the way it used to be. He wanted to change the world.

But that wasn’t fair on Virginia. She had made her choice. Trying to win her back would be like pretending her opinions had no validity, that they weren’t important to him, that only his desires had any importance, and that wasn’t a message he wanted to send. He had to let her make her own choice.

‘Is there any chance,’ he asked quietly, feeling the dead weight of unwanted emotion in his heart, ‘that she might change her mind, now I’m back?’

Crowe shrugged. ‘You know how stubborn Ginnie gets. The only thing that can change her mind is her. Best thing you can do is just be around, be a friend, talk to her and let her decide what she wants to do.’ He frowned. ‘But there isn’t too much time. Ginnie an’ me, we’re leaving for the States after these psychic shenanigans are over. Ah’ve been called back, partly because the US Government wants me to report in person about this Mr Albano, but partly because the Pinkertons have got work for me to do. With Bryce Scobell dead, there’s no threat to us any more.’

‘Going back?’ Sherlock whispered. His heart, which had felt heavy before, now felt like it was filled with lead and sinking through his chest.

‘Things change, Sherlock,’ Amyus Crowe said simply.

‘When I grow up, I don’t want things to change. I want to live somewhere that never changes, and I don’t want my friends to change either.’ He knew he sounded petulant, but he couldn’t help himself.

‘Your brother Mycroft feels much the same. That’s why he spends most of his time at the Diogenes Club. That place hasn’t changed since he started it, an’ it never will.’ He paused. ‘Speakin’ of your brother, Ah ought to go and check in with him, see how he is, but before Ah do — tell me about China. What was the place like? Ah hear rumours that you did some great service for the American Navy while you were out there, an’ Ah would truly like to know more about that.’

Sherlock spent the next hour or so telling Amyus Crowe in great detail about his adventures both on board the Gloria Scott and in Shanghai. Crowe was particularly interested in the grotesque Mr Arrhenius, and his feral daughter. Sherlock explained about the USS Monocacy and the plot to blow it up and start a trade war, and the way he detected the location of the bomb and the bomber. At the end of the story, Crowe applauded.

‘You sure don’t have a simple life, Sherlock. Ah’m jealous of the adventures that happened to you, Ah’m proud of the way you used your mind to solve problems an’ get out of danger, an’ Ah’m grateful on behalf of the US Government for what you did. War in the Far East may be to the benefit of certain businessmen, but it’s not somethin’ the President would wish to happen, an’ Ah have that on the highest authority. But Ah’m concerned about the possible involvement of the Paradol Chamber. Are you an’ Mycroft sure that there’s a connection?’

Sherlock shrugged. ‘There’s no real evidence, but the indications are that the Paradol Chamber want a war in the Far East just as little as your President does. Or, rather, if there is going to be a war, then they want it to be at a time of their choosing. I’ll probably never know if I was really working for them or not, but I think it’s likely.’

Crowe nodded. ‘They do seem to be a complicated bunch. Ah hope we’ve seen the last of them, but Ah suspect we haven’t.’ He started to lever himself out of the armchair, which was so small compared to his bulk that it threatened to come up with him, snugly fitting around his hips. He pushed it down. ‘Ah’m goin’ to pay mah respects to your brother now. What about you, son?’

Sherlock looked around, checking that nobody was in the doorway. ‘I’m going to investigate Mr Albano’s room while he’s still safely disappeared. I want to see if I can work out how some of his tricks were accomplished. I need to give some thought to how he vanished, too.’

‘Good idea. Let me know what the results are.’

They left the drawing room together and headed for the ascending room. Sherlock showed Crowe how to operate it, and they rose together to the second floor. Sherlock left Crowe outside his brother’s room, returned to the ascending room and headed for the third floor. He walked along the corridor towards the second tower, where Sir Shadrach Quintillan, Niamh Quintillan and Ambrose Albano had their rooms.

Niamh had already shown him who was in which room, and he stopped outside Ambrose Albano’s door. Nobody was around, and he twisted the doorknob and entered quickly. It was only when he was standing in the centre of the room that it occurred to him that Mr Albano might well have crept back there after his faked kidnapping — if it really had been faked — to hide out. Fortunately the place was empty.

He looked around, mentally cataloguing everything so that he could make sure he left the room looking like it hadn’t been searched. Albano was fastidious and meticulous: everything was in place and carefully lined up. Sherlock started on the wardrobe, where Albano’s clothes were hung. He went through all the pockets, and checked that nothing had been hidden between the garments or behind them, but he failed to find anything. He then went through the drawers in the bureau, but the folded shirts, undershirts, socks and handkerchiefs hid no secrets. Sherlock even knelt and looked beneath the bed, but apart from several pairs of highly polished shoes there was nothing of interest there either.

The next step was to check behind the paintings and framed prints that were hung up on the wall, and then to look on top of the wardrobe. Again: nothing. He pulled the bureau out from the wall and checked behind it, but apart from finding a line of dust on the floor his efforts were wasted.

Remembering the time he had searched the room of Mrs Eglantine — his aunt and uncle’s former housekeeper, back at Holmes Manor — and found what he was looking for hidden on a rope hanging outside, he opened the window and looked out to see if anything had been hung down from the window ledge, but the stone brickwork of the castle was unadorned by any additions. He pulled up the rugs, but there were no papers beneath them and no areas of the stone flooring that looked like they might be capable of being levered up to reveal a hole beneath.

Coming back to the centre of the room, he looked around again in frustration. He was beginning to run out of ideas.

Glancing again at the bed, he noticed that there was a frilly valance running around the edge of the mattress. It hung in folds halfway towards the floor. Previously he had only looked at the floor under the bed, but he suddenly saw that near the foot of the bed the valance was caught up, as if someone had lifted it and tucked it beneath the mattress and then forgotten to pull it out again.

He got back down to his knees and pulled the valance completely clear, then looked beneath the bed again, this time paying particular attention to the underside of the mattress.

A box was hanging beneath the bed. Hooks at each corner suspended it from the metal springs. Sherlock studied it carefully, to make sure he knew exactly how to put it back again, and then he reached underneath and gently unhooked it. It was about the size of a shoebox. Placing it on the carpet, he undid the catch securing the lid and lifted it up.

Inside was a mass of white material, very fine and very light. The weight of the lid had been holding it down, but with the lid released it puffed up, lifting up with it the other object inside the box, almost as if it were bringing it to Sherlock’s attention.

It took a few moments to work out what the other object was. It was white and small, and it had one rounded end and one that was flat. Something sharp was protruding from the rounded end, while the flat rear appeared to be attached to a length of cotton that finished in a small hook. Sherlock picked it up gingerly, and realized that the bit he thought was flat was actually hollowed out. That, along with its size, immediately told him what it was, and what it was for. It was a thimble, something meant to fit over the end of a finger, and the sharp bit projecting out of the end was a splinter of chalk. The length of what he had taken to be cotton was actually elastic.

He smiled to himself, and nodded. During the séance, Ambrose Albano had been wearing white gloves. If the white thimble had been hidden up his sleeve, or inside his jacket, he could have pulled it out and slipped it over a finger without it being noticed. That way he could have written messages on the slate while he was holding it underneath the table. Once he had finished, he could just have pulled the thimble off his finger and the elastic would have snapped it back out of sight. Ingenious. Simple, but ingenious.

He put the thimble to one side and examined the material. He already had an inkling of what it was, but he wanted to make sure. He pulled it from the box and spread it out. It weighed almost nothing — so light that it seemed to float in his hands. He examined it closely, and found several small tears in it.

This was almost certainly the ‘ectoplasm’ that had manifested from Albano’s mouth during the séance. It was so fine that it would crumple up into a small ball, barely larger than the thimble. He must have had it hidden somewhere about his person.

Gingerly, he smelt the material. It had been washed recently — he could still detect the sharpness of carbolic. That was probably a good thing, if his suspicions about where Albano had been hiding it were correct. Sherlock suspected that it had actually been in Albano’s mouth, pressed between his cheek and his teeth. Crushed up that small, it wouldn’t have soaked up much saliva, and it may have been chemically treated to repel moisture. Under the guise of choking, Albano must have pulled it free. He guessed that the material had been soaked in some kind of chemical that glowed in the dark, making it look spookier in the shadows of the séance.

This wasn’t just ingenious: this was brilliant. So simple, and yet so effective.

But how had the material expanded outward and floated in the air, and what about the face that had seemed to materialize inside the shroud? There were still questions to answer, but Sherlock could see the broad strokes of the trick.

Genius.

Sherlock carefully packed the material back inside the box and placed the white thimble on top of it. He re-fastened the lid, replaced the box beneath the bed, and pulled the valance back into position.

He stood up and looked slowly around the room. There was, as far as he could see, no trace that he had ever been there.

Quickly he left. There was no knowing whether one of the servants would enter to turn down the bed or make up the fire or something, and it was obvious now that the servants had to be involved.

Leaving the room and closing the door carefully behind him, he returned to the castle keep and down to the ground floor. He saw nobody on the way. He stood in the hall indecisively for a few moments, then headed out into the open air. He couldn’t stand being cooped up for too long.

The sky was even clearer than it had been earlier. Sherlock walked out of the castle, through the main gate and across the drawbridge. He wasn’t sure where he was heading, but the sight of the wreckage of the carriage used by the kidnappers caught his attention and he wandered across to it. He was aware of the stone bulk of the castle behind him, and also painfully aware that Virginia was behind one of those windows. The thought made him feel self-conscious, and he found himself walking stiffly, unnaturally.

No, he told himself, this is stupid. Just be yourself.

When he got to the wreckage he stopped thinking about Virginia and forced himself to consider the pile of wood instead. He knelt down and started sorting through it, uncertain at first what exactly it was that he was looking for. The wood had been flung in random directions during the fruitless search for Albano, and after a few minutes Sherlock found that he was unconsciously sorting it into more ordered piles, trying as best he could to replicate the overall shape of the carriage. Left-hand door over here, right-hand rear wheel over there, driver’s platform in front, and luggage rack at the back. Those bits of wood that he couldn’t identify he placed to one side until he could figure out where they went.

He pulled out a long rod that was almost certainly an axle. There was no way of knowing whether it was the front or the rear axle, of course. The second axle was buried further under the wreckage, but when he finally managed to excavate it he discovered that it was in several pieces. It must have been broken in the crash. He juggled the lengths for a few seconds, trying to work out how they would fit together. The bits where the wheels would have gone were obvious — they were worn and rubbed smooth by the constant rotation — and that gave him a head start on arranging the other pieces, but as he did so he realized something strange.

The broken ends weren’t broken at all — they looked as though they had been cut.

He stared at the axle for a few moments, thoughts whirling around his head. The carriage had been deliberately sabotaged. The axle had been sawn through so that it would snap if put under pressure. Albano had probably given the driver a particular manoeuvre to carry out that would do the trick at exactly the right time.

Sherlock stood up, and sighed. Crowe might think it easy to work out, but Sherlock still didn’t know how Albano had arranged his own disappearance from the carriage. He suspected, however, that it was also a form of magic trick.