Young Sherlock Holmes_ Fire Storm - Andrew Lane [4]
‘I’m . . . not good with emotion,’ Sherlock admitted in a quiet voice.
‘I am,’ Stone said quietly. ‘Which means I can help.’ He placed a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder for a moment and squeezed, then took it away. ‘Now be off with you. Go and find that American girl and spend some time with her.’
‘Virginia?’ His heart quickened at the thought, but he wasn’t sure if it was happiness or terror that made it speed up. ‘But—’
‘No buts. Just go and see her.’
‘All right,’ Sherlock said. ‘Same time tomorrow?’
‘Same time tomorrow.’
He threw the violin into its case and half climbed, half slid down the ladder to the upper landing, then thudded down the stairs to the ground floor. Stone’s landlady – a woman of about Stone’s own age, with black hair and green eyes – came out of the kitchen to say something as he ran past, but he didn’t catch what it was. Within seconds he was out in the crisp, cold sunlight.
Farnham was as busy as it ever was: its cobbled or muddy streets filled with people heading every which way on various errands. Sherlock paused for a moment, taking in the scene – the clothes, the postures, the various packages, boxes and bags that people were carrying – and tried to make sense of it. That man over there – the one with the red rash across his forehead. He was clutching a piece of paper in his hand as if his life depended on it. Sherlock knew that there was a doctor’s surgery a few minutes’ walk behind him, and a pharmacy just ahead. He was almost certainly heading to pick up some medicine after his consultation. The man on the other side of the road – good clothes, but unshaven and bleary-eyed, and his shoes were scuffed and muddy. A tramp wearing a suit donated by a church parishioner, perhaps? And what of the woman who passed by right in front of him, hand held up to push the hair from her eyes? Her hands looked older than she did – white and wrinkled, as if they had spent a long time in water. A washerwoman, obviously.
Was this what Rufus Stone had meant about seeing the wood instead of the trees? He wasn’t looking at the people as people, but seeing their histories and their possible futures all in one go.
For a moment Sherlock felt dizzy with the scale of what he was staring at, and then the moment was gone and the scene collapsed into a crowd of people heading in all directions.
‘You all right?’ a voice asked. ‘I thought you were goin’ to pass out there for a moment.’
Sherlock turned to find Matthew Arnatt – Matty – standing beside him. The boy was smaller than Sherlock, and a year or two younger, but for a second Sherlock didn’t see him as a boy, as his friend, but as a collection of signs and indications. Just for a second, and then he was Matty again – solid, dependable Matty.
‘Albert isn’t well then,’ he said, referring to the horse that Matty owned, and which pulled the narrowboat he lived on whenever he decided to change towns.
‘What makes you think that?’ Matty asked.
‘There’s hay in your sleeve,’ Sherlock pointed out. ‘You’ve been feeding him by hand. Usually you just let him crop the grass wherever he happens to be tied up. You wouldn’t feed a horse by hand unless you were worried he wasn’t eating properly.’
Matty raised an eyebrow. ‘Just because I sometimes likes to give ’im ’is grub,’ he said, ‘there’s no need to make a song an’ dance about it. Albert’s the closest thing to family I got.’ He shrugged, embarrassed. ‘So I likes to treat ’im sometimes wiv somethin’ special.’
‘Oh.’ Sherlock filed that away for later consideration. ‘How did you know I was here?’ he asked eventually.
‘I could hear you playing,’ Matty replied laconically. ‘The whole town could hear you playing. I think that’s why Albert