Young Sherlock Holmes_ Red Leech - Andrew Lane [39]
‘And what about me?’ Sherlock asked, barely able to breathe.
‘You are the only one of us who saw the other men,’ Mycroft said gently. ‘I cannot tell you to do this, Sherlock. I cannot even in all conscience ask you. I can merely point out that Mr Crowe cannot apprehend the men if he cannot find them.’
‘You want me to go to America?’ Sherlock whispered.
‘I can tell Uncle Sherrinford and Aunt Anna that I have arranged an educational trip,’ Mycroft said. ‘Lasting perhaps a month or so. They will be against it, of course, but I think I can persuade them.’
‘Actually,’ Sherlock said, thinking about Mrs Eglantine and the strange power she seemed to exert in his aunt and uncle’s household, ‘I think you’ll find it a lot easier than you think to convince them to let me go away for a while.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
The docks at Southampton were a bustling mass of men, women and children dressed in their Sunday best clothes. Some of them were streaming like ants up the gangplanks leading from the dockside up to the decks of ships, some of them were coming down the gangplanks from other ships and gazing around, wide-eyed at the sight of a new country, while the rest were either saying goodbye to friends and relatives or greeting newcomers with open arms. And in and around them wove uniformed porters wheeling piles of luggage precariously piled on to trolleys and dock workers in rough clothes and bandannas moving goods on to and from wooden pallets. Above it all towered the wooden cranes that were taking net-covered pallets from the dockside up to the decks of the ships or from the decks down to the dockside, as well as the cliff-like wooden or iron sides of the ships and the masts and funnels that rose like a mathematical forest all around.
And everywhere Sherlock looked he could see evidence of a hundred crimes being committed: pockets being picked, fixed card games being played, netted bales of goods being cut open so that small items could be removed, children being separated from their parents for heaven knew what reason, and newcomers paying in advance for transportation to boarding houses and hotels that didn’t exist or were nothing like the florid descriptions that were being given.
It was humanity at its best and at its worst.
The past twenty-four hours had been possibly the most hectic in Sherlock’s life. Following the conference in Amyus Crowe’s cottage, and the unexpected decision that they would be going to America – a decision that Sherlock still couldn’t quite believe had been made – he and Mycroft had returned to Holmes Manor, diverting to Farnham to send a carefully worded telegram to the Post Office at Southampton Docks persuading Ives and Berle that Gilfillan had succeeded in stopping them. Once at Holmes Manor, Mycroft had gone into the library to talk with Sherrinford Holmes while Sherlock had headed up to his bedroom to pack his meagre possessions into the battered trunk that had once belonged to his father. Sherlock had slept badly, disturbed partly by his memories of the fight with Gilfillan and the stinging of his wounds but partly also at the excitement of being on the verge of leaving the country – for America! Breakfast was a strained affair, with neither Sherrinford nor Aunt Anna sure of what to say to him and with Mrs Eglantine smiling coldly from behind them. And then Sherlock had climbed into a carriage with Mycroft, watching as his trunk was hauled up and strapped to the back, and then they had set off for the long drive to Southampton.
On the way, Sherlock had found himself thinking about, of all things, the coded message that Amyus Crowe had found on Gilfillan’s unconscious body. He’d never really thought about codes before, but there was something about the rigorous way they were put together, and the logical processes that could be used to deconstruct them,