Young Sherlock Holmes_ Fire Storm - Andrew Lane [55]
They had stopped before a tall terraced building with a sign saying ‘The Fraser Hotel’. The cab pulled away into a turn, back towards the main thoroughfare, and Sherlock noticed with part of his mind that the road sloped downward ahead of them. The rest of his mind was taken up with marvelling at the castle that had been revealed as the cab pulled away. It was enormous and dark, but the fact that it was built on a hill that was partly hidden by mist made the castle look as if it was a vast storm cloud hanging over the town.
‘What now?’ Matty asked.
Sherlock felt the absence of Rufus Stone weighing heavily on his mind. With Rufus gone he felt vulnerable, uncertain. Two kids, alone in Edinburgh. What could they do?
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
CHAPTER NINE
After dumping their bags Sherlock and Matty headed down the hotel’s staircase and out into the town. The sun had dropped beneath the horizon, and the darkness of the night was leavened by gas lamps and by flaming torches attached to brackets on the stone buildings. People were already thronging the streets, crossing from one tavern to another apparently in search of a better time than they were already having. Avoiding all of the activity as far as they could, the two of them found a relatively civilized tavern where they could sit in a corner and eat a gammon pie each, washed down with a watery beer which the barman seemed to have no problem serving them. However, when Sherlock asked for a pitcher of water the man just looked at him with a scowl on his face.
Every few minutes a different person tried to sit down beside them and engage them in conversation. Sometimes it was a woman with more make-up than was necessary and wearing clothes that looked as if they hadn’t been washed in a while, but more often it was an unshaven man in a stained suit or a grey collarless shirt and braces. Matty always said the same thing – ‘Our dad will be here in a minute, and he wouldn’t like it if he found you here’ – and they quickly left with a muttered apology or a curse. The first time it happened Sherlock just shrugged it off, but after the third time he stared at Matty with a question in his eyes. Matty avoided his gaze. ‘There’s some strange people around,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t matter what town you’re in, they always try and make friends with you if you’re a kid alone. You learn early on not to have anything to do with them.’
Sherlock didn’t ask any questions. It was obvious that Matty didn’t want to go into details, but once again he was glad to have his friend with him.
For a while they discussed what to do about Rufus Stone. It was clear that they had both secretly hoped that they would find him, or at least a message from him, at the hotel. The fact that there was nothing had rattled them more than they wanted to admit.
‘We could go to the police,’ Matty suggested. ‘Tell them that he’s gone missing.’
‘The trouble is that we don’t actually know what has happened to him, so there’s not much the police can do. It’s not like we saw him being abducted. They’ll say he just missed the train and he’ll turn up tomorrow. Worse than that: they’ll worry about two kids alone in Edinburgh. They’ll assign a guardian to us, or place us in some philanthropist’s home until Rufus arrives. That’s the last thing we want.’
Matty nodded. ‘I can see that. What about your brother, though? We could send him a telegram, tell him what’s happened.’
‘And within an hour he’ll send a telegram back telling us that we have to return to London until he knows what’s happened to Rufus. If he does that, then I won’t be able to disobey him – I’ve tried that before, and it never works out well. No, we need to be here. It’s best that we don’t tell anyone what’s happened.’
‘What do you think’s happening to Rufus?’ Matty asked quietly, not looking at Sherlock.
Sherlock sighed. He’d been trying not to think too hard about that.