Young Sherlock Holmes_ Fire Storm - Andrew Lane [49]
Sherlock looked around, wondering if it was worth asking someone if they had seen a big man in a white suit and hat with a younger girl in tow at some stage in the past day or two. Asking the people who were catching trains wouldn’t do any good – the chance that they might have also been there at the same time as Amyus and Virginia Crowe was slim – but it might be worth talking to the ticket-office clerks or the station guards. Or, he thought, as his gaze scanned the walls of the arrivals and departures hall, he could talk to the beggars and pickpockets who moved like ghosts through the crowd, invisible and unnoticed apart from the occasional cries of ‘I told you – I haven’t got sixpence, and even if I did I wouldn’t give it to you!’ and ‘My wallet! Where’s my wallet?’ that marked their progress. The beggars and pickpockets would always be there, he suspected – day and night. This was their place of work and their home as well.
He stopped himself before he could walk across to the nearest beggar and offer him sixpence for some information. Amyus Crowe had tried to explain to him a while back about the problem of trying to confirm something you already knew. Sherlock was as certain as he could be that Crowe and Virginia were making for Edinburgh and had gone through King’s Cross on the way. Having a beggar tell him that yes, a big man in a white suit and hat had been there, with a girl, wouldn’t change his certainty – it would just be extra information. On the other hand, having a beggar say that no, he hadn’t seen a man or a girl fitting that description wouldn’t mean that they hadn’t been there. The beggar couldn’t be expected to remember every single person who had been through the station concourse. ‘The sensible man,’ Crowe had said, ‘don’t look to confirm what he already knows – he looks to deny it. Finding evidence that backs up your theories ain’t useful, but finding evidence that your theories are wrong is priceless. Never try to prove yourself right – always try to prove yourself wrong instead.’
The trouble was, in this case, if Sherlock’s theory was that Amyus Crowe and Virginia had travelled through King’s Cross, the only way to prove that theory wrong was to discover that they had travelled from a different London terminus – and that would mean a day wasted while they checked Paddington, Euston, Liverpool Street and the other major stations. They didn’t have time to do that.
‘You look pensive,’ Rufus Stone said, clapping him on the shoulder.
‘Just thinking through a problem,’ Sherlock replied. ‘I was wondering whether it was worth asking after Mr Crowe, but I think it would just be confusing.’
Stone nodded in agreement. ‘Even if he bought a ticket here, it wouldn’t have been for Edinburgh. He would have disguised his trail the same way he would have done leaving Farnham.’ He looked around. ‘We’ve got a while before the train, and my stomach is thinking my throat has been cut while it wasn’t looking. Let’s grab some food before we board the train – my treat.’
Stone was as good as his word. He found a chestnut seller on the fringes of the waiting crowd and bought three bags of hot nuts. He and Sherlock had to blow on them before they were cool enough to eat, but Matty seemed to have a throat lined with brick. He just swallowed them straight down, one after the other, smiling all the time.
After they had eaten their fill, Stone led Sherlock and Matty across the concourse towards the platforms. He showed their tickets to the guard, and they boarded the train. It was, in all respects that Sherlock could see, identical to the one that had taken them from Farnham to Waterloo.
‘It’s going to be a long journey,’ Stone said, settling down in a small compartment. ‘Make yourselves comfortable. Get some sleep, if you can. There’s two things a man should grab whenever he can – sleep and food. You never