Young Sherlock Holmes_ Red Leech - Andrew Lane [35]
It was well and truly night when they arrived back, and Mycroft was standing in the doorway.
‘Sherlock!’ he called, ‘I was—’ He stopped. His voice, it seemed to Sherlock, was higher pitched than normal. He seemed to be struggling with some great emotion.
‘It’s all right,’ Sherlock said tiredly. ‘We’re fine. I mean, Mr Crowe has been shot, we have a prisoner and we didn’t get Matty back, but we’re all still alive.’
‘I had no way of knowing what had happened,’ Mycroft said as Sherlock slipped off Sandia’s back. ‘There were several courses of action open to me, but I was not sure which one was best.’
‘Shouldn’t you have caught your train by now?’ Sherlock asked.
Mycroft shrugged. ‘If necessary, I can find a comfortable hotel for the night.’
‘But won’t your superiors be annoyed when you don’t turn up to work tomorrow?’
Mycroft frowned, as if the concept of a ‘superior’ was a curious concept. ‘Yes,’ he said, drawing the word out. ‘I suppose so.’ He brightened. ‘Although what is happening here may well have a direct impact on international relations, and so does fall within my ambit. If necessary, however, I can always charter a special train to take me back to London overnight.’
Sherlock gazed at him, wide-eyed. ‘You can do that?’
‘I have never had to, so far, but I believe my Terms of Reference do permit me the occasional indulgence, yes. Now, tell me everything.’
While he and Virginia helped Amyus Crowe off his horse and the four of them went inside, leaving the American unconscious and strapped to Sherlock’s horse, he told his brother the events of the night since they had left the cottage earlier. Virginia filled in some details that he had missed, and when he was talking about the fight with the American he felt Virginia’s hand resting on his arm in concern. Mycroft too winced at how close Sherlock had come to death on several occasions.
‘It is not clear what the best course of action is,’ Mycroft said eventually, when they were all settled in chairs with drinks in front of them. ‘Until your prisoner wakes up, we seem to have made use of every bit of information we have. Time and resources are not on our side.’
‘I could wake him up,’ Crowe said quietly. And then have a quiet word with him. Civilized, like.’
‘Forceful questioning is not an option,’ Mycroft said warningly. ‘The man may be a villain in at least two countries, but he has the right to be treated in a civilized manner until he is actually convicted of a crime, and even then he is not something that can be treated roughly at the behest of anyone in authority. As one of the oldest and one of the youngest civilized countries, Britain and America have an obligation to set an example to the rest of the world. If we act barbarically then we have no right to stop anyone else from acting barbarically and the world will slide into anarchy’
‘Even if politeness leads to the injury or death of someone we should be protectin’?’ Crowe asked.
‘Even then,’ Mycroft said. ‘We must maintain the moral high ground, no matter what tempts us down into the valleys of iniquity.’
‘I have an idea,’ Sherlock said, surprising himself. It was true, something was rolling around in his mind like a marble in a tin tray, but he hadn’t quite figured out the full implications of it yet.
‘Go on,’ Mycroft said. ‘If it can prevent Mr Crowe from pulling out our prisoner’s fingernails with a pair of pliers then I, for one, am all for it.’
‘That man – the American – jumped out of the carriage to stop us when it looked like we might prevent the carriage getting them to the docks and out of England.’
‘Correct,’ Crowe rumbled.
‘From what he said to me, he was prepared to send a telegram to the others telling them that he’d either succeeded or failed.’
‘Accepted,’