Young Sherlock Holmes_ Fire Storm - Andrew Lane [70]
Sherlock frowned. ‘I didn’t see him. We searched the house.’
‘He was hiding outside somewhere. He’d made a hole in the side of the house and run a speaking tube from it, along the ground to his hidey-hole. He could hear everything you said.’
‘A speaking tube?’ Matty asked, puzzled.
‘The kind of thing the captain of a ship uses to talk to the engine room – a ribbed and waxed canvas tube. If you speak into one end, then someone with their ear against the other end can hear you clearly over hundreds of yards.’
‘Who’d’ve thought?’ Matty muttered, but Sherlock was kicking himself. He’d seen a tube just like that leading away from Amyus Crowe’s cottage, but he had thought nothing of it at the time. He vowed then and there never again to ignore something that was out of place or unusual.
‘He overheard you two in the house,’ Rufus continued, ‘then he crept out after you and heard you talking about Edinburgh in the paddock.’ He shook his head. ‘Once he notified his compatriots, all they had to do was keep track of us on the journey up to King’s Cross and then on to the train. They decided to take one of us at Newcastle so they could find out where exactly in Edinburgh Amyus Crowe was hiding – if indeed you’d got it right and he was in Edinburgh.’ Ruefully he looked at his bloodied hands. ‘They found out that I didn’t know anything more than the fact that he was somewhere in the city, so they kept me quiet and took me along for the ride just in case they could use me against you somehow. We were on the same train as you, but the man in charge – the one who asked you the questions – had booked a whole compartment so they weren’t disturbed, and they waited until the platform was empty before they got off. Once we all got to Edinburgh they set about finding a base to operate out of and give you two time to make contact with Mr Crowe – or him with you. Come this morning they decided to take you and find out if you knew anything more than me. Which apparently you didn’t.’
‘Actually,’ Sherlock said, ‘we do.’ He glanced at the newspaper on the floor – now a sodden mass. It didn’t matter – he had memorized the message. ‘What we still don’t know is why they are after Mr Crowe.’ He shifted his gaze to Rufus’s hands. ‘Are you . . . are you going to be able to play the violin again?’
‘Worried about your lessons? No refunds, lad.’ Rufus held his hands up in front of his face and flexed his fingers experimentally. He grimaced at the pain, but kept doing it. ‘The muscles and tendons are intact. The cuts and bruises will heal, in time. I won’t be attempting any Paganini in a hurry, but the rest of the repertoire is mine to command.’
Sherlock looked around. ‘What happened to the man who was asking the questions? The one with the walking stick with the gold skull on top?’
Rufus frowned. ‘Didn’t he go past you? I thought he went for the stairs.’
‘I didn’t see him.’ Remembering the man’s hand, caught in the light from the window, Sherlock added, ‘What was wrong with his skin?’
‘Ah, you noticed that?’ At Sherlock’s nod, Rufus went on: ‘He had tattoos all over: face, neck, hands, arms – everywhere.’
‘What kind of tattoos?’ Sherlock asked.
‘Names,’ Stone said. ‘People’s names. Some were done in black ink, but a few were in red. One in particular, across his forehead, was in red ink and larger than the rest.’ He looked up, meeting Sherlock’s gaze. ‘It was Virginia Crowe’s name,’ he said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sherlock’s heart went cold, but before he could ask Rufus why Virginia’s name should have been tattooed on the quiet man’s forehead the musician raised an eyebrow, as if he’d just caught up with something that had been said a few moments before. ‘You know where Amyus Crowe is?’
‘He left a message for us in the newspaper,’ Matty replied. ‘It was coded, but we worked it out.’
Sherlock gazed at Matty and raised an eyebrow at the ‘we’, but Matty just smiled back innocently.
‘Well done.’ Rufus looked around. ‘We should get out of here before our friend comes back.’
They went down the stairs together and