Young Sherlock Holmes_ Red Leech - Andrew Lane [45]
And Matty. What about Matty? Sherlock doubted that he was as comfortable as the three of them looked likely to be, here on the SS Scotia. Matty was probably tied up, or at least confined to a cabin somewhere. Maybe his captors had come to a deal with him – since they were all aboard a ship and he couldn’t escape, if he promised not to cause trouble they would let him roam free – but Matty could be stubborn, and he might have refused.
That was assuming he was still alive. Amyus Crowe and Mycroft had both deduced that he was, but Sherlock was acutely aware that deductions were just projections into a sea of fantasy based on a few known facts. If the facts were wrong, or if the projection wasn’t done in the right direction, then the final destination would be wildly inaccurate. And Matty might be dead. The Americans might have decided not to have the burden of a live captive throughout the journey, and just slit Matty’s throat and dumped him by the side of the road back in England. The message might just have been a hoax, a wild attempt to stop Amyus Crowe from interfering, but with nothing to back it up.
Morosely Sherlock wandered back along the rails that lined the deck. He had to ask directions of a steward at one point: a thin man with an immaculate uniform and a blond crew cut beneath his cap. Having found out where he was going, he walked past groups of excited travellers, past the two funnels and the two huge, trunk-like masts, past the long, low shape of the communal First Class saloon, with its windows looking out on to the deck, and back to the bows of the boat. The white wake of their passage trailed behind them like the tail of a comet. Sea birds followed them, diving into the wake for disturbed and disoriented fish.
At the back of the boat, a narrow stairway led down into the depths of the ship. Roughly dressed men hung around the top of the stairs smoking and casting glances forward at the better dressed passengers. Sherlock guessed these were the steerage passengers, crammed into unsanitary and cramped conditions below decks, sleeping in rough hammocks or on benches, but paying much less for their tickets. People looking to start a new life in America, rather than travellers on business or pleasure as the First and Second Class passengers mainly appeared to be.
He sensed a presence beside him. Before he turned, he knew that it was Virginia.
‘How’s your cabin?’ he asked.
‘Better than I had on the way to England,’ she replied. ‘Father will tell you that the food and the accommodation were better, but don’t let him fool you. We weren’t travelling steerage, but we weren’t First Class either, and just because it was an American ship instead of a British ship don’t automatically make it better.’
‘What about your companion?’
‘She’s an elderly widow heading out to join her son, who moved to New York five years ago. She’s got a maid in the servants’ area, an’ she’s planning to start readin’ the Bible now an’ finishin’ when we get to New York. Good luck to her, I say’
‘Do you want to take a walk around the deck?’ he asked nervously.
‘Why not? Might as well make ourselves acquainted with the place. After all, we’re goin’ to be spending the next eight days here.’
They wandered forward along the other side of the ship to the one Sherlock had wandered back along. When they got to the First Class saloon, Sherlock gestured to Virginia to stop.
‘I just want to take a look inside,’ he said.
The door opened outward and was on a stiff spring, presumably to stop it being pulled open by the wind on a regular basis. Sherlock tugged it open and glanced inside. The room was empty apart from two white-clad stewards laying silver cutlery on the single long table which dominated the room. Fifty or so chairs were set around the table – matching, presumably, the number of First Class passengers. The stewards glanced up at him, nodded, and continued with their work.
The saloon was