Red Leech

Chapter Five

Mycroft and Crowe started discussing ship timetables and ports of embarkation and disembarkation. Sherlock got bored very quickly. His mind kept attacking the problem, trying to find something that would mean Amyus and Virginia Crowe wouldn’t have to leave England.

“You still don’t know what the men look like,” he pointed out after a few minutes. “You can track them, but how will you know when you’ve found them? As long as they keep the man with the burn scars out of sight, they’ll just be three men. There’s nothing particularly distinctive about them, apart from their accents, and I’m assuming that once you get to a dock with a ship heading for America there’s going to be a lot of American accents around.”

“You can tell me the details of what they look like,” Crowe pointed out. “I’ve already trained you in lookin’ for the small details that distinguish one face from another — the outline of the ears, the hairline, an’ the shape of the eyes. We might even be able to come up with a couple of sketches based on your descriptions. Virginia’s a dab hand with a pencil.”

“I’m not sure that will be enough.” Mycroft mused. “The recollections of one witness — even one as observant as my brother — can often be mistaken, and affected by stress. It’s something I have long been interested in — the way the human mind can invent details and convince itself that they are true. I suspect there are many innocent men incarcerated in British prisons based on the uncertain recollections of one person. Once you have been told that you are looking for a man with a beard, suddenly all you can see is men with beards. No, whatever Sherlock remembers needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.”

Sherlock was about to protest that he had a perfect recollection of all four men, but something held him back. He sensed that the argument was beginning to swing back in his favour, with Mycroft and Crowe realizing that the problem was bigger than they had thought, and he didn’t want to do anything to disrupt it.

But at the same time that his heart was trying to stop Amyus and Virginia Crowe from leaving, his head was telling him that this was important. Both Mycroft and Crowe were looking as serious as he had ever seen them. He wasn’t sure that he completely understood the potential ramifications of what was going on — how could four men, one of them certifiably insane, affect the politics of an entire nation? — but he could tell that what was at stake here dwarfed his petty problems. It he could help, he should, regardless of the cost to himself.

It was a strangely grown-up thought, and he didn’t like the implications.

“Matty’s seen them as well,” he said suddenly, his words only momentarily behind his thoughts.

“What do you mean?” Mycroft asked, turning his head.

“I mean that Matty saw the man who pulled me into the house — the man who might be John Wilkes Booth — and then later, when he rescued me, he saw at least two of the other three men. One of them was unconscious — neither of us got a good look at him. If you want a description but you’re worried about the reliability of my memory, then why not get Matty over here? Between the two of us you could probably get a good description — especially if you ask us separately, rather than together. That way neither of us will inadvertently affect what the other is saying.”

“The boy has a point,” Crowe rumbled. “Two heads are better than one. Mayhap I could send Virginia to pick the boy up. She knows where his narrow boat is moored.” He nodded to himself. “A sketch based on both their memories would be far closer to the truth than one based on the memories of either one alone.”

Mycroft gazed levelly at Sherlock. “I understand that you don’t want Mr Crowe or his daughter to go,” he said quietly. “And yet you provided a suggestion that made it more likely they would go. You are thinking like a man, not a boy. I’m proud of you, Sherlock. And Father would be as well.”

Sherlock turned away so that Mycroft would not see the sudden glistening of his eyes.

Oblivious to the exchange between the two brothers, Crowe had levered himself up out of the tight chair and lumbered towards the door of the cottage. “Ginnie!" he yelled, opening the door. “I have need of you!" He stood there for a moment, until he was sure that she was on her way, then he came back and stood beside the chair.

Virginia Crowe appeared in the doorway. She glanced at Sherlock, and smiled. As usual, he was struck by the sheer amount of colour about her — the redness of her hair, the brown tan on her skin, the smattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose, and the violet shade of her eyes. She made other girls look like black and white drawings.

“Yes, Father?”

“Got an errand for you. I need you to ride over an’ fetch the Arnatt boy from his boat. Tell him I need to ask him a few questions about today. Tell him he ain’t in trouble, but I need his help.”

She nodded. “You want me to bring him back on Sandia?”

“Quicker that way. The horse can take both your weights. He’s a small lad.”

“But scrappy,” Sherlock added in Matty’s defence.

“Of that I have no doubt,” Crowe said. He looked over at Virginia. “Be fast, now.”

She glanced again at Sherlock, looking as if she wanted to say something, maybe ask him if he wanted to go with her, but instead she turned and left. Within a few moments Sherlock heard the high whinny of Virginia’s horse welcoming her, the jangle of reins and the diminishing sound of hoofs on hard earth.

Crowe and Mycroft got back to discussing ways of getting across the Atlantic Ocean faster than the four Americans. It all seemed to depend on which ship they took and which port they sailed from. Some ships were faster than others. Sherlock picked up from the discussion that some of the newer ships didn’t just rely on wind and sails to take them across the sea but supplemented that with powerful steam engines driving massive wheels, like those of a water mill, which had wooden paddles spaced around their circumference. The motion of the paddles against the water, powered by the steam engines, would push against the water and move the ship forward, even if there wasn’t any wind. Was there anywhere the steam engine could not go, any problem it could not solve? What would come next, he wondered — carts and carriages driven by steam filling the roads and taking men from London to Liverpool in a few hours? And perhaps even further — could man one day reach the moon using steam-driven craft?

Shaking his head to dislodge these incredible thoughts, he returned to listening to Mycroft and Amyus Crowe discussing politics, travel and revolution.

The talk went on, and Sherlock found himself fading in and out of it. The politics was above his head, although every now and then Crowe would bring it down to earth with an example of the number of people who died at a particular place or time, or how a particular town had been razed to the ground to make a point.

Eventually, he heard the rapid drumbeat of approaching hoofs. He went to the door, ready to welcome Virginia and Matty.

Outside, in the early evening light, he could see Sandia — Virginia’s horse — approaching. The dark mass on its back had to be Virginia and Matty, and for a moment Sherlock found himself jealous of Matty’s closeness to her. Only for a moment, though.

As Sandia got closer the dark mass on her back resolved into one figure rather than two. It was Virginia, and she pulled Sandia to a halt just beside Sherlock. Her eyes were wild, and her hair had been pulled by the wind into a tangled mass.

“Where’s Matty?” Sherlock asked.

She jumped down from the horse’s back and pushed past him, running into the cottage. Sherlock followed.

“They’ve taken Matty!" she cried.

“What do you mean?” Mycroft said, rising from the table.

“I got to the narrow boat, and I got him to come with me,” she said in a rush. “We were both on the back of Sandia. We got to just down the road, and there was a tree down across it, blocking the way. It wasn’t there when I went out, I swear. I thought about jumping it, but with Matty on Sandia’s back with me I wasn’t sure we could make it, so I stopped so Matty and I could shift the tree. Two men ran out of the woods at us. They must have been hiding in the bushes. One of them hit Matty around the head. It must’ve knocked him out, because he didn’t fight any more. The other man came for me. He tried to grab my hair, but I bit his hand. He pulled away, and I ran for Sandia. I jumped on her back and rode away. When I looked back, the two of them were carrying Matty away’ Her face was white and shocked. “I just left him there!" she cried, as if she’d just realized what had happened. “I should have stayed and rescued him, or gone back for him.”

“If you’d done that, likely as not you’d have been taken too,” Crowe pointed out. He moved across the cottage with surprising speed for such a large man and pulled her to him in a rough embrace. “Thank the Lord you’re safe.”

“But Matty!" Sherlock cried.

“We’ll get him back,” Mycroft promised, levering his bulk up from his chair. “It’s obvious that—"

Before he could complete the sentence there was a crashing of glass, and something heavy flew through the air from the shattered window and thudded against the floor. Crowe ran for the door and threw it open. From outside, Sherlock could hear hoofs thudding into the earth as someone raced away on horseback. Crowe cursed volubly. There were words in there that Sherlock had never even heard before, although he could guess at their meaning.

Sherlock bent to pick up the object that had been thrown in through the window. It was a large stone, about the size of two clenched fists held together. A length of string was tied around it, fastening a torn piece of paper to the stone’s surface.

Mycroft took the stone from Sherlock’s hands and put it on the table. Deftly, he took a knife from the table and sliced through the string. “Best to preserve the knots,” he said to Sherlock without turning his head. “They may tell us something about the man who tied them. Sailors, for instance, have a whole set of peculiar knots they use that have not found their way into the knowledge of the general populace. If you have a few days to yourself I really would commend to you a study of knots.”

Sliding the string to one side, presumably for later analysis, he unwrapped the paper from the stone and smoothed it out on the table.

“It’s a warning,” he said to Crowe. “We have your boy. Cease from your persecution of us. Do not attempt to follow us. If you leave us alone, he will be returned to you in three months — unharmed. If you do not leave us alone he will still be returned — in pieces, and over a period of some weeks. You have been warned.”’

Crowe was holding Virginia in his arms. “They obviously assume Matty is my son,” he said, “probably because they saw him and Ginnie on the same horse. They’ll realize their mistake soon enough when they hear him speak.”

“Not necessarily,” Mycroft pointed out. “They don’t know how long you’ve been here in England. In fact, they probably don’t even know you’re American. I think young Matthew will be safe enough for the moment. Now, what can we tell from the note?”

“Forget the note — we should go after them!" Sherlock cried.

“The boy is right,” Crowe rumbled. “There’s a time for analysis and a time for action. This is the latter.” He pushed Virginia away gently. “You stay here. I’m going after them.”

“And so am I,” Sherlock said forcefully. When Crowe opened his mouth to argue, he added, “Matty’s my friend, and I got him into this. And besides, two of us can cover more ground.”

Crowe glanced over at Mycroft, who must have nodded imperceptibly, because he said, “OK, young ’un — mount up. We ride now.”

Crowe headed for the door and Sherlock followed.

Outside, Crowe had already saddled one horse and was preparing a second for Sherlock. By the time Sherlock had mounted Crowe was already galloping away.

Sherlock pressed his heels into his horse’s flanks, and the horse began to gallop in pursuit.

The sun was heading towards the horizon, veiled by wispy clouds so that Sherlock could see it as a ball of red light. Crowe and his horse were racing ahead of him. He struggled to keep up. The thudding of his horse’s hoofs on the road transmitted itself up his spine, a constant vibration that made it hard to take a full breath.

How did Crowe know in which direction to go, he wondered. Presumably he’d made some quick calculation about the most likely road out of Farnham, if the men were heading to the coast. Southampton would be the obvious place for departure if they were going to America. But Crowe might have been wrong — the men might have been intending to embark at Liverpool, travelling up by train from London, which meant they would be leaving Farnham in an entirely different direction. For the first time, Sherlock realized that logical thought could only go so far, and that it produced a single answer only rarely. More often than not, logical thinking produced several possible answers, and you had to find another way to choose between them. You could call it intuition, or guesswork, but it wasn’t logic.

Cottages and houses flashed past too quickly to recognize. In the distance Sherlock could see a stone building on a hill: Farnham Castle, perhaps? The wind whistled past his ears, freezing them despite the heat from the day which had been absorbed by the earth and was coming back up from the ground. He thought he could hear the echo of his horse’s hoofs, but there was nothing for the sound to echo off. He glanced over his shoulder, and was amazed to see Virginia behind him, pressed close to Sandia’s neck. She flashed a grin at him. He grinned back. He should have known that there was no way she would have been kept away from the action. She really was unlike any other girl he’d ever met.

The three of them rode through a tiny hamlet of cottages clustered together. People scattered out of their way. Sherlock could hear raised voices behind them as they rode away. Ahead of them the road was empty until it curved away out of sight. How long would Crowe keep riding for before he acknowledged that they had gone the wrong way?

Virginia caught up with Sherlock. She glanced sideways, eyes almost glowing. Sherlock suspected she was enjoying herself, despite the urgency of their mission. She loved to ride, and this was a chance to ride like she’d never ridden before.

Ahead, past Amyus Crowe’s bulky body and wide white hat, which was somehow managing to stay on his head despite the speed at which the man was riding, Sherlock suddenly caught sight of a carriage. It was rocking back and forth as it pelted along the road, the wheels on one side leaving the road for a few moments before bouncing back as it went around a curve. Above it, Sherlock thought he could see the slender line of a whip flicking forward as the driver thrashed the horses to greater and greater efforts. Was Matty in the carriage? The driver was obviously making every effort he could to race along the road. If it wasn’t the Americans inside then it was a huge coincidence that someone else was so desperate to leave Farnham that they were willing to risk their lives doing it.

Sherlock pressed his horse to race faster, and it complied. The gap between Sherlock and Crowe narrowed, and he could see the carriage better. It was a four-wheeler, pulled by a team of two horses, and the springs were bouncing up and down as the wheels hit ruts, holes and bumps in the road.

Virginia drew alongside Sherlock’s left shoulder. He glanced across at her again. Her teeth were bared in what looked like a grin but which Sherlock suspected was more like a snarl.

Sherlock glanced right, at Virginia’s father. His gaze was fixed on the carriage ahead, and there was such volcanic force in his eyes that Sherlock was momentarily scared. He’d always thought of Crowe as being a gentleman to whom logic and the gathering of facts were more important than anything else, but Virginia had told him that Crowe had been a hunter of men, back in America, and often hadn’t brought them back alive. Looking at Crowe now, Sherlock could believe it. No force on earth could stop a man with that look in his eyes.

Crowe’s horse was foaming at the mouth, he was pushing it so hard. Tiny flecks of foam were caught by the wind and carried backwards, into the distance.

The road veered right, and the carriage ahead took the curve without slackening speed. The two wheels on the outside of the curve left the road and the carriage itself looked as if it was going to topple over and be dragged along the ground by the horses, but the men inside must have thrown their weight towards the left because it suddenly lurched sideways, and the wheels dropped to the ground.

Sherlock, Crowe and Virginia took the curve as well, their horses leaning sideways so that their hoofs could get a purchase on the road. Ahead of them, as they straightened out, Sherlock suddenly caught sight of a cart heading towards the careering carriage, loaded with bundles of freshly cut hay. The driver was frantically gesturing to the carriage to get out of the way, but he must have known that it was too late, because he swerved his cart off the road and into a ditch. The carriage thundered past, missing the back end of the cart by a few inches. Moments later, Sherlock, Crowe and Virginia galloped past as well. Sherlock glanced sideways, to check that the driver was all right. He was standing up in the front of the cart, gesturing at them in rage. And then they were past and he was receding into the distance behind them like a fragment of memory.

Movement at the side of the cart caught Sherlock’s attention. A man was leaning out, holding a stick of some kind. Sherlock thought it was one of the men from the house in Godalming but he couldn’t be sure. The man pointed the stick backwards along the road, towards the three riders, and flame suddenly blossomed at the end of it. He was holding a rifle!

Sherlock couldn’t tell where the bullet went. The carriage was bouncing so much as it tore through the night that the gunman could have no way of accurately aiming the gun, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t hit one of them, or one of the horses, by accident.

The man fired again, and this time Sherlock thought he could hear the sound of the bullet as it passed him by: a furious buzzing sound, like an angry wasp.

Crowe urged his horse to greater efforts, and for a moment he seemed to draw closer to the carriage. He was gripping the reins with one hand while the other was pulling at his belt. He withdrew a pistol, which he pointed at the man leaning out of the carriage. He fired, the recoil knocking his hand back and twisting his body in the saddle. The man with the rifle pulled himself back inside the carriage. Sherlock couldn’t tell whether he was injured, or just cautious.

They were racing along the side of a river now. Silvery light reflected from the surface of the water.

The man with the rifle appeared again, leaning out of the same side that he had before, but this time he was facing forward. He pointed the rifle ahead, and pulled the trigger. Again, flame burst like an exotic flower in the dusk. For a confused moment Sherlock thought he was shooting at the horses that were pulling the carriage, but he was firing over their heads! Sherlock realized immediately that he was trying to terrify them into galloping even faster than they already were, and it seemed to work. The gap between the carriage and the pursuing horses quickly widened as the carriage raced ahead. They couldn’t keep that speed up for long — the horses would quickly exhaust themselves — but he obviously had something else in mind.

The gunman disappeared inside the carriage again, but only for a moment. The door suddenly sprang open and the man dived out. He’d timed his dive perfectly and hit the mass of reeds and vegetation that lined the river bank. He vanished from sight, but Sherlock could track his path by the long ripped gap that appeared in the reeds as they slowed his progress.

Crowe slowed his horse for a moment, uncertain what to do, then urged it on, heading after the carriage rather than for the man, but Sherlock watched as the man emerged from the reeds. He was soaking wet, and there were gashes across his face from where the reeds had cut his skin.

He held a rifle in his hands. He raised it as Crowe approached, took careful aim along the long barrel, and fired.

At the same moment the fire blossomed out of the barrel, Crowe threw his arms up to his face and fell backwards, out of the saddle. He hit the road, right shoulder first, and rolled over and over in the dirt until he lay still, like a dusty log. His horse rode on, but without Crowe urging it on it slowed to a canter, then to a trot, then to a halt. It stood there, apparently watching the carriage as it receded into the distance and wondering what all the rush had been about.

Virginia screamed, “Father!" as she pulled her horse to a skidding halt and threw herself out of the saddle. She pelted along the road towards him, regardless of the man with the rifle who was watching her approach.

And raising the rifle.

All this had happened within the space of a scattered handful of seconds. Sherlock dug his heels into his horse’s flanks. The horse surged forward.

“Down!" he shouted.

Virginia glanced back over her shoulder, saw him bearing down on her, and dived. As she rolled over, Sherlock pulled up on the reins. His horse jumped over her, seeming to sail through the air regardless of gravity.

The horse’s front hoofs hit the ground hard, and it stumbled, just as the gunman fired again. Sherlock didn’t even hear the shot. He was flung from the saddle and over the horse’s head. His mind was filled with the enormity of the ground as it rose up towards him. Time seemed to stretch out, and he found that he was wondering whether he would crack his skull or break both legs first. Something made him curl into a ball, tucking his head on to his chest and wrapping his arms around it while bringing his knees up to his stomach. He hit the ground and rolled, feeling stones bite into his flesh beneath his ribs, back and legs. The world flashed around him, over and over; dark, light, dark. He lost track of where he was.

After an eternity he came to a stop. Raising his head cautiously, he tried to work out where he had ended up. Everything was blurred, and he felt like part of him was still rolling over and over even though the feel of the stones beneath his hands and knees told him that he was stationary. His stomach clenched, and he had to stop himself throwing up. He could feel the rough burn of scratches across his whole body.

In the distance, the carriage in which Matty was being held as a prisoner was vanishing into a cloud of dust.

A shadow fell across him. He looked up. The man with the rifle was standing over him. He wasn’t sure, but it looked like it might have been the man who’d been knocked out by the lunatic, John Wilkes Booth. The other men had called him Gilfillan. His head was bandaged, and his eyes were full of vicious hatred.

“What is it with you kids?” he asked, raising the rifle. “Ah swear we’ve had more trouble from you in the past day than from the whole Union Army since the end of the War!"

“Give my friend back,” Sherlock snarled, climbing to his feet.

“Tough talk from someone who ain’t goin’ to be alive in a minute’s time,” the man said, smiling grimly. “We took the kid to stop you an’ that guy in the white hat from comin’ after us, but I guess that didn’t work out the way we expected. So ah’ll just kill you all now, and cable ahead to tell Ives to kill him, cos we don’t need him any more.” He took his finger off the trigger and showed the back of the hand to Sherlock. There was blood on it, and what looked like a set of teeth marks in the soft flesh between the base of the thumb and the first finger. “That girl bit me!" he protested disbelievingly.

“Yeah,” Sherlock said, “I bet you get that a lot,” and he whipped his hand around from behind his back, releasing the stones that he’d picked up from the ground. They flew through the air in blurs, hitting Gilfillan on his cheek, his forehead and his left eye. He threw up his hands to his face, dropping the rifle. It bounced once, twice on the ground. Sherlock rushed forward to grab it, but the man kicked it out of the way. His hand caught in Sherlock’s hair and he twisted. Sherlock cried out in a mixture of anger and pain, and lashed out with his foot. His boot connected with Gilfillan’s shin, and the grip on his hair suddenly released. Sherlock sprang back, looking for the rifle. He caught sight of it at the same time as the American, and they both dived for it. Sherlock got there first, fingers clutching at the stock and body rolling out of the way as the man cursed.

They both stood there for a moment, breathing heavily. The man wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

“You ain’t got the moxie,” he said. “Ah’m goin’ to come for that gun an’ ah’m goin’ to wrap it around your throat an’ choke the life from your scrawny body!"

He moved forward, and Sherlock raised the rifle menacingly.

“Don’t...” he said.

The man kept coming, a grimace stretching across his face and his dirty hands reaching forward for Sherlock.