Young Sherlock Holmes_ Red Leech - Andrew Lane [4]
‘Incredible,’ Sherlock breathed. ‘I never knew. It’s not . . . intelligence . . . because it’s instinctive and they’re not communicating, but it looks like it’s intelligent.’
‘Sometimes,’ Crowe pointed out, ‘a group is less intelligent than an individual. Look at people: one by one they can be clever, but put them into a mob an’ a riot can start, ’specially if there’s an incitin’ incident. Other times a group exhibits cleverer behaviour than an individual, like here with the ants or with swarms of bees.’
He straightened up, brushing dirt and grass from his linen trousers. ‘Instinct tells me,’ he said, ‘that it’s nearly lunchtime. You reckon your aunt and uncle can make some space at the table for a wanderin’ American?’
‘I’m sure they can,’ ‘Sherlock replied. Although, I’m not so sure about the housekeeper – Mrs Eglantine.’
‘Leave her to me. I have bottomless reserves of charm which I can deploy at a moment’s notice.’
They wandered back across the fields and through coppices of trees, with Crowe pointing out clumps of edible mushrooms and other fungi to Sherlock as they went, reinforcing lessons that he’d taught the boy weeks before. By now, Sherlock was fairly sure that he could survive in the wild by eating what he could find without poisoning himself.
Within half an hour they were approaching Holmes Manor: a large and rather forbidding house set in a few acres of open ground. Sherlock could see the window of his own bedroom at the top of the house: a small, irregular room set beneath a sloping roof. It wasn’t comfortable, and he never looked forward to going to bed at night.
A carriage was sitting outside the front door; its driver idly flicking his whip while the horse munched hay from a nosebag that had been hung around its head.
‘Visitors?’ Crowe said.
‘Uncle Sherrinford and Aunt Anna didn’t mention anyone coming for lunch,’ Sherlock said, wondering who had been in the carriage.
‘Well, we’ll find out in a few minutes,’ Crowe pointed out. ‘It’s a waste of mental energy to speculate on a question when the answer’s goin’ to be presented to you on a plate momentarily.’
They reached the step leading up to the front door. Sherlock ran up to the door, which was half open, while Crowe followed on sedately behind.
The hall was dark, with buttresses of dusty light crossing it from the sun shining through the high windows. The oil paintings lining the walls were nearly invisible in the gloom. The summer heat was an almost physical presence.
‘I’ll tell someone you’re here,’ Sherlock said to Crowe.
‘No need,’ Crowe murmured. ‘Someone already knows.’ He nodded his head towards the shadows under the stairs.
A figure stepped out of the shadows; black dress and black hair offset only by the whiteness of the skin.
‘Mr Crowe,’ said the housekeeper. ‘I do not believe we were expecting you.’
‘People speak far and wide of the hospitality of the Holmes household,’ he said grandly, ‘and of the victuals it provides to passing travellers. And besides, how could I forgo the opportunity to see you again, Mrs Eglantine?’
She sniffed; thin lips twitching under her sharp, thin nose. ‘I am sure that many women succumb to your colonial charms, Mr Crowe,’ she said. ‘I am not one of those women.’
‘Mr Crowe will be staying for lunch,’ Sherlock said firmly, but feeling a tremor in his heart as Mrs Eglantine’s needle-like gaze moved to him.
‘That is up to your aunt and uncle,’ she said, ‘not to you.’
‘Then I will tell them,’ he said, ‘not you’ He turned back to Crowe.