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Matty got to the door first. He turned to say something to Sherlock. Before he could, Sherlock pushed him backwards and ducked. A pole sliced the air above his head, and a sharp-edged hook embedded itself in the door frame.

‘Get out!’ Sherlock yelled. ‘Quickly!’

Matty scooted backwards into the room on hands and feet. Sherlock swung around to confront the man who had attacked him. He was tugging at the pole, trying to free it from the door frame. His friend was about ten feet behind him, approaching with violence in his eyes. Harkness had grabbed a ladder from somewhere and was climbing up the side of the vat into which the boxes had been dumped, obviously hoping that he could rescue something from the mess that Sherlock had made of his raw blackmail material.

Sherlock offered up a rapid prayer that he would fall in, before quickly following Matty inside the storeroom. He slammed the door shut, knowing that it would only buy them a few seconds.

Matty was already over by the window. He turned, saw Sherlock and made a step with his hands: palms up and fingers interlaced. ‘You get up,’ he said. ‘Pull me after you.’

The door behind Sherlock shuddered as something slammed into it.

Sherlock took three steps across the room, bent, grabbed Matty’s legs and hoisted him up to the window. ‘Get out!’ he said. ‘I’ll follow.’

Matty looked as if he wanted to argue, but he was already half out into the street. Sensibly he struggled forward rather than backwards.

The door burst open. One man was framed in the doorway, with the other man visible behind him.

‘You little whelp!’ the first man snarled. He stepped forward, pole upraised.

Sherlock grabbed another pole from the bundle that had been stacked against the wall. He stood, pole held diagonally across his body, feet planted apart, knowing that it was going to come down to a fight. It sometimes seemed to him that he could use all the logic in the world and things would often still come down to a fight.

The man was average height, with a paunch, but the battered nature of his ears, and the bend in his nose, suggested to Sherlock that he had a history of boxing – probably illegally, in rings set up in fields, rather than using Queensberry Rules. He stepped forward, holding his pole diagonally as well, but the other way. He smiled.

‘I’ll be Little John,’ he said, ‘and you can be Robin Hood.’

‘This isn’t a kids’ game,’ Sherlock said.

‘Too right,’ the man said. He suddenly struck out with his pole, trying to smash Sherlock’s knee with the bottom end. Sherlock blocked with his own pole. The sudden shock as they clashed vibrated up his arm and made his teeth ache.

The man nodded, acknowledging Sherlock’s unexpected manoeuvre. He lashed out again with the bottom end of his pole, but it was a feint. He reversed direction suddenly, bringing the top down towards Sherlock’s head. Sherlock raised his pole with both hands, preventing the man’s weapon from knocking him out and probably splitting his skull, but before the poles could touch the man had reversed his strike again, bringing his pole up towards Sherlock’s groin. Sherlock twisted to one side, but the pole struck his right hip. He fell to one knee just in time to see the pole scythe sideways an inch above his head.

Desperately Sherlock climbed back to his feet, ignoring the spasms of pain that shot from his hip down towards his knee. The man was off balance, and Sherlock reached out with his pole and caught the back of the man’s shoe with the hook on the end. He pulled, and the man fell backwards, swearing. He hit the ground with a thud that sent a vibration through the wooden flooring.

The second man stepped over his fallen comrade. He was more cautious, weaving his pole from side to side in an attempt to deceive Sherlock as to the direction the first strike would come from. He feinted once, twice, then drew the pole back and lashed out at Sherlock as if he was holding a spear rather than a quarterstaff. As Sherlock jerked backwards he realized that the sharp