Young Sherlock Holmes_ Red Leech - Andrew Lane [19]
The third man – the burly one with the blond hair – was standing in the doorway. He still had the gun.
‘How’s Gilfillan?’ he asked.
‘Nasty head wound,’ the small, bald man replied, still arranging the madman on the bed. ‘He’ll have one hell of a headache when he wakes up, but I think he’ll be OK.’ He sniggered. ‘He’s got a thick skull. You’d have to hit him a lot harder to cause any significant damage.’
‘I might just do that,’ the burly man snarled. ‘Damn fool, letting Booth get the drop on him like that. He could’ve derailed the entire plan. The last thing we need is Booth running wild across the countryside, especially in his current state.’
Booth! Sherlock tried not to react, but inside he felt a warm glow of satisfaction. The man was John Wilkes Booth, not John St Helen.
The burly man was still talking. He gestured at Sherlock with his gun. ‘And now, because of him, we’re saddled with a witness.’
The bald man stopped what he was doing and looked up at Sherlock for the first time. ‘What are we going to do with him, Ives?’
The burly man – Ives – shrugged. ‘I don’t see we’ve got much of a choice,’ he said.
The bald man was suddenly nervous. ‘Look, he’s just a kid. Can’t we just, you know, let him go?’ He turned towards Sherlock. ‘You ain’t seen anything, have you, kid?’
Sherlock tried to look terrified. It wasn’t hard. ‘Honest, guv,’ he said, putting as much sincerity into his voice as he could muster, ‘I’ll forget all about it. I promise I will.’
Ives ignored him. ‘What’s the verdict on Booth?’
‘The sedative worked a treat. He’ll be out for a few hours.’
Ives nodded. ‘That gives me enough time, then.’
‘Enough time to do what?’
Ives raised the long-barrelled revolver and pointed it directly at Sherlock. ‘To kill the kid and dump his body. Rule number one, remember – never leave anyone behind who’s seen your face.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Sherlock felt a shudder run through him. They were going to dispose of him, just throw him away like a sack of potato peelings! He glanced back and forth between the two men, looking for a way to escape, but Ives was standing in the doorway and the small, bald man was between Sherlock and the window. And even if he managed to get out of the window, where would he go? They would just follow him out, corner him and either push him off or shoot him and watch him fall.
‘Please, mister, I ain’t seen nothing,’ he whined, trying to buy himself some time.
‘Don’t come the innocent with me, son,’ Ives growled. He moved back into the corridor and gestured to Sherlock to follow him. ‘This way, and be quick about it.’ He glanced over at the short, bald man – who Sherlock assumed had some kind of medical training, as he seemed to be the one Ives deferred to when it came to injuries and insanity. ‘Berle, you secure Booth good and proper, and then you look to getting Gilfillan up and moving. I want to clear out of this place. There’s too many people already who’ve spotted something odd. I guarantee our friend here didn’t sneak around because he was looking for some lost ball, but because of some kind of dare, or because he wanted to see what we were doing.’
Sherlock moved out into the hall. He glanced back at Berle, who wouldn’t meet his gaze. ‘Please, mister, don’t let him hurt me,’ Sherlock whined, but Berle turned away, back to the unconscious John Wilkes Booth. ‘Sorry, kid,’ he murmured, ‘but there’s too much at stake here. If Ives says you got to die, then you got to die. I ain’t going to get involved.’
Berle hesitated for a moment, looking at something on the dresser.
‘What about this thing?’ he asked Ives.
‘What thing?’
Berle reached out and picked up a jar. It was made of glass, and the top was covered with a piece of muslin cloth held on with string. From where he stood Sherlock could see that tiny holes had been pricked into the muslin with a sharp knife. It was the kind of thing a kid would do if they were keeping a caterpillar or beetle alive – cover the top of the