Young Sherlock Holmes_ Fire Storm - Andrew Lane [75]
‘Well, this is Cramond,’ Rufus said as they began the descent into the village. ‘Any idea where we go now?’
‘We could always ask if anyone’s seen a big American bloke with a white suit and a white hat,’ Matty piped up.
‘I think he would have dumped the distinctive clothes,’ Sherlock observed. ‘And we’ve both been with him when he’s gone into taverns and other places to ask questions, and done it in an English accent so good that he might have been brought up a few miles from London. No, he’s got the hunter’s skill of being able to blend with the background so well that you just don’t notice him until he wants you to. By now he’ll have picked up a Scottish accent so perfect that you would think he was born in Edinburgh.’
‘So I repeat the question,’ Rufus said. ‘Any idea where we go now?’
Sherlock thought for a moment. ‘We know that he wants to be found by us, because he left a coded message for us. So he’ll have left a trail that only we can follow, or he’ll assume that I can work it out. He won’t be staying in the centre of the village, because he would be too visible. Despite anything he does with his accent and his clothes, he can’t disguise his height. Virginia is with him as well. So he’ll find a place out by itself, and he’ll probably keep Virginia hidden away.’ He let his mind run loose on the various parameters of the problem. ‘He won’t rent a cottage on the main roads in and out of the village,’ he mused, ‘because there would be too much chance of passing people seeing him. He would choose somewhere high up, so that he would be able to see anyone coming well in advance, and so that he would have the advantage of height. Anyone who found him would have to approach slowly, uphill, while he could throw rocks and stuff downhill at them.’ He frowned. ‘He might choose a place on top of a hill, so that he and Virginia could escape in any direction if they were attacked, but that would mean attackers would be able to come at him from any direction while he could only watch in one direction at any time – or two if Virginia was helping him. No, it’s more likely that he would choose somewhere towards the top of a hill but in a cleft or a dip or something, so that anyone coming at him would be forced into approaching from the front.’
‘That narrows it down,’ Rufus said. ‘We can ask around for cottages that meet that description.’
‘There’s a better way,’ Matty said.
‘What’s that?’
‘Kids my age.’ Matty thumped his chest in emphasis. ‘In every town an’ every village there’s kids like me. They go everywhere an’ see everything. You can’t stop ’em. Just find one an’ slip ’im a tanner. He’ll know where Mr Crowe is hiding.’
‘Better than that,’ Sherlock added, ‘he’s probably paying them. Mr Crowe knows that urchins –’ he glanced at Matty apologetically – ‘go everywhere and know everything. He’ll be slipping them a tanner each himself to watch out for strangers. They’ll be watching out for us, as well.’
Enthused by this strategy, they headed towards the centre of the village. Whenever they passed either an individual kid with unkempt hair and dirty clothes or a group of them together, Matty slipped off the cart and went to talk to them. Each time he came back he shook his head and said that they weren’t talking, but Sherlock couldn’t help notice that whenever their cart was pulling away, the lone kid or one of the group would slip off. They all headed in more or less the same direction.
‘Should we follow one of them?’ Rufus asked after a while. The cart was parked on a stretch of dirt road near the centre of the village.
‘No,’ Sherlock and Matty said together.
‘They’re probably reporting back to another kid, an older one who acts as a central point for messages,’ Sherlock explained.
‘He’ll send a runner to Mr Crowe,’ Matty added. ‘If we get near that older kid, he’ll just up sticks and run for it, and then we’ll be back at square one.’
‘Given the