Young Sherlock Holmes_ Fire Storm - Andrew Lane [36]
No, this was stupid, he told himself. It was just a room.
He went in. Like her father’s room, the bed was neatly made and the wardrobe was empty. No personal possessions sat on the dresser or the windowsill.
He thought he could detect a trace of her perfume in the air. Strange – he hadn’t even known she wore perfume, didn’t think she was the kind of girl who would wear perfume, but if he closed his eyes he could imagine she was standing just behind him.
Just as he was about to leave, he caught a flash of colour from her pillow. He turned, and bent towards the bed.
There, on the pillow, was a single strand of her copper-red hair.
Something caught at his heart and squeezed it, hard. He suddenly felt as if he couldn’t breathe.
‘Anything?’ Matty called from downstairs.
‘Nothing,’ Sherlock called back, feeling the grip on his heart relax. His voice sounded high-pitched to his own ears. ‘You?’
‘Nothing. No food in the kitchen cupboards or the pantry. Washing-up’s all done. That means they took the food wiv ’em. In my experience that definitely means they’re not comin’ back.’
Sherlock descended the staircase, having to duck to avoid hitting his head. As he re-entered the downstairs room his gaze focused again on the pinholes in the plaster of the opposite wall. He hadn’t realized there had been that many things pinned to the wall.
‘Not a trace,’ Matty said. ‘They’re gone for good. Good riddance to them.’
Sherlock shook his head violently. ‘Amyus Crowe wouldn’t just up and leave without saying goodbye. Even if something urgent happened and he had to go straight away, he would have left a message. And Virginia . . .’ He stopped, not wanting to finish the sentence. He still wasn’t sure what feelings Virginia had for him, although he was becoming increasingly aware of his feelings for her. ‘Well,’ he finished lamely, ‘she would have said something as well. We need to keep looking.’
Before Sherlock could move, Matty articulated Sherlock’s greatest worry. ‘Yeah, it must have been those two blokes in the market. They must have come here and taken Mr Crowe and Virginia. Either that or Mr Crowe somehow got wind that they were on their way, and he and Virginia scarpered. But why would someone be after Mr Crowe?’
Sherlock thought for a moment, remembering the little snippets that Amyus Crowe had let slip about his past life in America – hunting down escaped criminals after the War Between the States. ‘I think Mr Crowe made a lot of enemies in America. That might be why he came here with Virginia. Maybe something in his past has caught up with him.’
‘Must be something really scary if he ran away rather than face up to it. You know how big and how fierce he is. I can’t imagine Mr Crowe taking fright at anything less than a rampaging elephant.’
Sherlock gazed across at him. ‘When have you ever seen an elephant?’
Matty scowled. ‘I seen pictures, ain’t I?’
‘No, something is definitely wrong.’ He slammed his balled fist into his thigh angrily. ‘I just need to work out what it is.’
‘Maybe outside?’ Matty suggested.
‘We could take a look,’ Sherlock agreed. ‘Let’s restrict ourselves to the walls of the cottage and a couple of feet out, otherwise we’ll end up searching the whole countryside.’
They headed out of the door, Sherlock automatically turning right and Matty turning left. Sherlock scanned the brick walls of the cottage and the straw roof, his gaze tracking up, down and up again as he walked. He passed two windows and a wisteria vine that was growing out of the ground and up the wall, but he couldn’t see anything that looked out of place. He wondered if anything had been tucked into the straw of the roof, either from inside or outside, but he rejected the idea. If Amyus Crowe had left a message then he would have put it somewhere easier to access, somewhere he knew that Sherlock would look.
About halfway around the building he nearly tripped over something lying on the ground. For a moment he thought it was a snake, and he stepped back hurriedly, but it wasn’t moving, and it was