Young Sherlock Holmes_ Fire Storm - Andrew Lane [109]
He settled down into his uncle’s leather chair, soothed by the smell of the books and the manuscripts that surrounded him. On the desk he could see the pile of sermons, letters and suchlike that his uncle had asked him to sort through, before Josh Harkness, Gahan Macfarlane and Bryce Scobell had infiltrated his life. It all seemed so long ago.
The sermon in front of him was one he had already looked at – an attack by a vicar somewhere up in the Midlands on various heresies and schisms within the Church. Sherlock’s gaze caught on the phrase ‘Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ halfway down the page, and it was as if a light had suddenly gone on in his brain.
Gold plates. Mrs Eglantine had been looking for gold plates, because she had overheard Sherlock’s Uncle Sherrinford talking about them. She had been obsessed with the idea that somewhere in the house was hidden a stash of gold plates – a treasure of some kind – but she had never found them.
There was a treasure, but it wasn’t the kind she had been anticipating.
Sherlock called to mind what he had read about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – or the Mormons, as they were also known – while he was in his uncle’s library. The movement had begun in America about forty years before, led by a man named Joseph Smith Jr. He had claimed that he had in his possession a sacred text called the Book of Mormon, which he told people was a supplement to the Bible. When asked where this sacred book had come from, Smith claimed that when he was seventeen years old an angel named Moroni told him that a collection of ancient writings, engraved on golden plates by ancient prophets, was buried under a hill near New York. The writings told of a tribe of Jews who had been led by God from Jerusalem to America six hundred years before Jesus was born.
Golden plates.
Sherlock felt a laugh bubbling up in his chest. Mrs Eglantine must have overheard Sherrinford Holmes talking to Aunt Anna about the golden plates of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Had he mentioned the word ‘treasure’ as well? Had he said to her something like, ‘I shall treasure this letter, my dear, as it gives me everything I need to argue that the golden plates of the Mormons never existed,’ and had Mrs Eglantine overheard the words ‘treasure’ and ‘golden plates’ and drawn a completely erroneous conclusion? Without asking her, Sherlock would never know, and he devoutly hoped that he would never meet her again, but it seemed likely. The treasure she had so diligently searched for was a chimera. A complete illusion.
Sherlock laughed again. He would tell his uncle, of course, as soon as he returned, but he didn’t think Sherrinford would be too distressed by the news that there was no treasure. He wasn’t a man who cared much for worldly goods.
In the midst of laughing, Sherlock smelled something sweet. It was a familiar smell, vaguely medicinal. He knew it from somewhere, but he couldn’t quite place it. For a moment he thought that Mrs Mulhill had returned with the tray of biscuits she had promised, but the room was empty apart from him.
He tried to stand up, but his vision began to blur. He put a hand on the desk to steady himself, but he missed. He fell forward, head impacting on the blotter, but he didn’t feel the impact. He didn’t feel anything apart from a delicious lassitude. A warm mist closed in around him, and he slept.
Vague visions, like a collage of pictures, filled his mind. A black carriage. Ropes. A pad that smelled sweet and cloying placed across his mouth. The sky. A face, red-bearded and wild-eyed, that he recognized but could not put a name to . . .
When he woke up, everything was different.
He was buried in the midst of a pile of thick, tarry ropes in a small room. The walls, the floor and the ceiling were made of rough wooden planks. His head