Young Sherlock Holmes_ Death Cloud - Andrew Lane [61]
Using his knees to guide the horse, and instinctively tugging on the left side of the reins for emphasis, Sherlock pulled the animal around. Matty did likewise. The boys urged their horses forward into a gallop again. The house loomed before them, dark and forbidding.
Glancing to left and right, Sherlock saw masked men coming round both sides of the house, armed with a collection of revolvers, shotguns, fowling pieces and pitchforks. The only direction was straight on, towards the main doors of the house.
Matty began to slow. He glanced round uncertainly.
Sherlock galloped past his friend, yelling: ‘Follow me!’ Left and right were blocked, as was behind. He could almost hear his brother Mycroft’s voice saying: ‘When all other options are impossible, Sherlock, embrace the one that’s left, however improbable it might be.’
His horse, sensing his intentions, jumped the few steps up to the portico in front of the house and headed unerringly for the wide front doors.
Sherlock ducked as his horse galloped through the open doors and into the entrance hall, feeling the lintel of the doorway brush his hair. The horse’s hoofs skidded and clattered on the tiled flooring, nearly unseating Sherlock before the animal could get its footing again. The darkness of the hall confused him for a moment, but his eyes adjusted within seconds and he urged the horse forward, past the marble stairs and towards the back of the house. Masked servants ran out of doorways and then fell back, terrified by the two horses that almost filled the space. Rather than head for the servants’ areas, Sherlock guided the horse sharply right, pushing open a door into what he suspected – based on its placement and comparing it with Holmes Manor – was a drawing room. He was right.
The room was spacious and bright, with large glazed double doors leading out on to a veranda. And, as Sherlock remembered from the escape earlier, the doors were open!
Within seconds, he and the horse were galloping through the drawing room and out on to the veranda. He heard a commotion as Matty’s horse knocked aside furniture in the room behind him, and then the clatter of hoofs on the flagstones of the veranda.
Ahead, across the field of beehives, he caught sight of a smaller back gate, through which provisions and supplies were probably delivered. It looked unguarded. He raced for it, the horse’s mane whipping against his face and the breeze rushing past his ears. The boxy shapes of the beehives formed a geometrical grid through which the horse galloped in a straight line. Clouds of bees took flight behind them, but the horse was too fast for them and they just milled and roiled in confusion.
The back gate was locked, but it only took a moment for Sherlock to dismount and throw the bolt back. He turned and looked across the grounds of the house as Matty cantered up beside him. Masked men, armed, were massing on the other side of the field of beehives. They obviously didn’t want to risk entering the area. One or two of them were already batting at the air as the angry bees attacked the first thing that came to hand.
‘I thought that went well,’ said Matty. ‘Shall we stay and watch?’
‘Let’s not,’ said Sherlock.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Amyus Crowe finished cleaning the cuts on Sherlock’s face with a flannel and a liquid that smelt sharp and stung wherever he touched it, then walked across his cottage and sat in a wicker chair. It creaked beneath his weight. He pushed back with his feet, balancing the chair on its two back legs, and rocked it gently. All the time his eyes were fixed on Sherlock.
Beside Sherlock, Matty shifted uncertainly, like an animal that wanted to run but didn’t know which direction was safe.
‘Quite a story,’ Crowe murmured.
Assuming that Crowe’s words were just a way of breaking the silence while he was thinking, Sherlock kept quiet. Crowe rocked back and forth, all the while staring at Sherlock. ‘Yep, quite a story,’ he said after a while.
Crowe’s level gaze was making Sherlock edgy, so he looked away,letting his eyes drift