Young Sherlock Holmes_ Death Cloud - Andrew Lane [28]
Glass shattered, and liquid splattered across wood. Silence, for a moment, and then an ominous crackling as the flames from the wick of the lamp took hold of the oil-soaked wood.
Clem and Denny had set fire to the barn.
Panic threatened to overwhelm Sherlock. He wanted to run, but he didn’t know where to go, so he ended up just twitching back and forth on the spot. A taste like sour metal flooded his mouth, and his heart was pounding so hard that he could feel the pulse in his throat and his temples. For a minute or so he couldn’t think straight, couldn’t connect two thoughts together in a sensible way, but gradually he quashed the panic by repeating to himself that there had to be a way out. All he had to do was to work out what it was. He could feel his racing heart gradually slowing down to normal and the twitching in his legs and arms receding.
The sudden smell of smoke began to fill the barn. Tiny flames were beginning to find their way like curious fingers through the joints between the boards of the doors.
Think, he told himself. Think harder than you’ve ever done in your life.
He looked carefully around the barn. Most of the boxes had been taken away by Clem and the rest of the men, and Sherlock still didn’t know what had been inside. The crates he had hidden behind were still stacked over by the locked side door, but they were empty.
He ran across to the side of the barn and threw his shoulder against the wooden wall. The wood shook under the impact, but nothing bent or broke. He tried again. Nothing. If he was intending to break it down he was going to need an axe, or a hammer, or something. Not a shoulder.
Desperately looking around the barn for some kind of tool he could use to break the wall down, or prise the boards apart, his gaze suddenly snagged on the spare cart that had been left, abandoned, to one side. It looked functional, and the man, Clem, had indicated that it would have been used if they’d had enough boxes. Could Sherlock somehow use the cart to get out? Could he even move it?
There was only one way to tell. Sherlock ran across and grabbed one of the shafts that a horse would have been strapped between to get the cart moving. It came up easily in his hands. He tugged experimentally on it, but the cart didn’t move. He tugged again, harder, and the cart shifted fractionally, but the other shaft was still resting on the barn floor and Sherlock’s efforts were just pushing it further and further into the dirt and stopping the cart from moving.
Logic. Use logic. If he couldn’t pull the cart, perhaps he could push it. Abandoning the shaft, Sherlock threw his weight against the front of the cart, where the driver would sit. It moved! The entire cart rolled a few inches backwards! He thanked whatever deity was watching over him for the mysterious Baron, whoever he was, who had so impressed his workers with his cautiousness that they had not only arranged for a spare cart but kept the axles greased as well. Then he took a few paces backwards and rushed at the cart, thrusting his shoulder hard against the wood. It was the same shoulder he had thrown against the barn wall, and he felt a spike of red-hot pain flash downward through his arm and up his neck, but the cart rolled a couple of feet backwards before coming to a halt.
Smoke drifted across Sherlock’s face, making his eyes sting. He turned, and saw that flames were licking their way up the main doors and on to the lintel. Logically, the barn doors would be weakened by the fire and would be the ideal place to smash the cart through, if he could move it far enough and fast enough, but he would have to turn the cart around in order to aim it at the doors, and besides, the flames scared him. His only realistic chance was to try and smash the cart through the wall at the back of the barn.
Ignoring the sharp pain that radiated through his shoulder, Sherlock braced his hands against the front of the cart and pushed his feet into the soft dirt of the barn floor, knees bent. His body was almost horizontal,