Young Sherlock Holmes_ Death Cloud - Andrew Lane [53]
Cycling into Farnham, he took a side road which headed uphill, towards the castle that he could see perched above the town. He struggled on until his legs began to burn, then dismounted and walked, pushing the bicycle beside him. By the time he got to the castle grounds, he was exhausted.
Spread out across the meadow, illuminated by the morning sun, Sherlock could see a cross-section of human life. Like a miniature town in its own right, booths and rope-edged rings had been set up on either side of broad, grassy alleys down which people were wandering and pointing out the sights. A haze of smoke hung above everything, and the smells of cooking meat, animal dung and people made Sherlock’s nose itch. There were areas for jugglers, for boxing, for stick-duelling and for dog fights. Mountebanks were selling patent medicines made from who knows what, fire-eaters were pushing flaming coals on metal prongs into their mouths and locals were pulling grotesque faces for the prize of a hat, racing for the prize of a nightgown and eating hasty puddings with a cash prize for the one who could eat the most.
He scanned the crowd, looking for Virginia’s distinctive copper hair, but there were so many people that he couldn’t tell one from another. She hadn’t specified where to meet, so his only options were to wait and hope she came to him or to dive into the crowd looking for her. And he had never been very good at waiting.
With some trepidation, Sherlock left his bicycle leaning against a fence on one side of the paddock. He wasn’t entirely sure it would be there when he returned, but the sheer press of people meant that he wasn’t going to be able to keep it with him.
The first thing he came to as he walked across the meadow was a large barrel filled to the brim with water. People were clustered around it, laughing and urging each other on. The surface of the water appeared to be boiling, leading Sherlock to suspect that something was being cooked inside, but there was no fire underneath. One of the crowd, a thin youth with a spotted handkerchief knotted around his neck, was trying to impress a rosy-cheeked girl in a white frock who stood beside him. He handed a coin over to the man who apparently owned the barrel, grasped the sides with both hands and abruptly thrust his head into the water.
Sherlock gasped, still half-convinced that the water was boiling, but the boy seemed to be coming to no harm. He was wiggling his head from side to side in the water, apparently searching for something, darting it forward every few seconds and then pulling it back. At last he withdrew his head entirely. Water streamed down his face and neck and on to his clothes, but he didn’t seem to care. There was something clenched between his teeth – something silvery that wriggled frantically, trying to escape. For a moment Sherlock couldn’t work out what it was, and then he realized. It was an eel, barely longer than a man’s finger. Sherlock moved on, amazed. He’d heard of bobbing for apples, but bobbing for eels? Incredible.
‘See the most extraordinary sheep in the world!’ a barker cried from in front of a booth. ‘See a sheep with four legs and the half of a fifth ’un. You’ll never see another one like it!’ He caught Sherlock’s gaze as the boy passed by. ‘You, young sir – see the most amazing sight on God’s green earth. You’ll never forget it. Girls will hang on your every word as you describe the incredible sheep with four legs and half of a fifth ’un.’
He passed a booth where two puppets