Young Sherlock Holmes_ Death Cloud - Andrew Lane [84]
‘Just a job, sir,’ Mr Surd said from the end of the room.
Even though he had worked most of it out already, the sheer effrontery of the plot took Sherlock’s breath away. And appalling as it was, he couldn’t see any obvious flaws. If the bees were as aggressive as Maupertuis said, and if the uniforms were distributed as efficiently as he intended, then it would work. It would work.
‘My brother will stop you,’ Sherlock said calmly. It was his last hope.
‘Your brother?’
‘My brother.’
Sherlock heard a whispering from the darkness. It sounded like the gravelly tones of Mr Surd again.
‘Ah,’ Maupertuis said in his leaf-thin voice. ‘Your name is Sherlock Holmes. Your brother must therefore be Mycroft Holmes. A clever man. We had already marked him down as someone of interest to our group. It seems you take after him.’
‘I’ve already sent him a telegram telling him what’s going on,’ Sherlock said, as calmly as he could manage.
‘No,’ the Baron corrected, ‘you haven’t. If you had, there would be no need for you to have been investigating my boat. Mycroft Holmes would have sent his own agents in to do the work.’
His own agents? Sherlock had a sudden, sobering realization of the extent of his brother’s powers.
More whispering from the end of the room.
‘We may have to deal with your brother regardless,’ Baron Maupertuis whispered. ‘If your intelligence is an indication of his then he may well be able to work out our plans and try to stop them. You and he will die within the same week, possibly even on the same day. At the same hour, if I can arrange it, for I am a man who appreciates neatness. And it will save your parents the cost of arranging two funerals.’
The full cost of Sherlock’s arrogance suddenly descended upon him. By proudly working out the whole terrible plot and demonstrating his cleverness to Baron Maupertuis and then, worse, boasting about his influential brother, Sherlock had condemned them both to death.
‘I believe you have told me everything you know,’ Maupertuis continued, ‘and I am surprised at the amount you have determined. We obviously need to be even more secretive in future. Thank you for that, at least.’
‘Why London?’ Sherlock asked quickly, sensing that things were drawing to a close and that his – and Virginia’s – lives would shortly be terminated. ‘Why did you move the hives to London before shipping them here rather than, say, Portsmouth or Southampton?’
‘Your escape forced us to move earlier than planned,’ Maupertuis whispered. ‘There was no berth available in Portsmouth or Southampton, and the ship had been waiting in London for our instruction to move. It was inefficient, taking the hives to London, but it was unavoidable. And with that, your usefulness to me has ceased – yours, and that of the girl who sits beside you. I had intended to threaten her life in order to force you to talk, but no force had to be applied. If anything, shutting you up was the problem.’
Sherlock turned to Virginia, feeling his face flush with mortification, but she was smiling at him. ‘You stopped me being tortured,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Sherlock said automatically, not entirely sure whether he should actually take credit for it or not.
‘Mr Surd,’ Baron Maupertuis’s voice said from out of the dark. Although he whispered, his voice carried to every corner of the room. It was a voice used to command. ‘We need to accelerate our plans. Give the order. Release the bees from the Fort. By the time they find their way to the mainland and across country, the uniforms will have been distributed. And then confusion will reign!’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Baron’s words echoed chillingly around the dining room. Out in the darkness there was a rustle of activity as a servant left with his orders. Sherlock glanced at Virginia.