Young Sherlock Holmes_ Red Leech - Andrew Lane [50]
Sherlock nodded. ‘I learned at school. We had a choir, and we had to sing every morning.’
‘Would you like to learn the violin?’
‘Me? Learn the violin? Are you serious?’
Stone nodded. ‘We’ve got a week before we dock, and that time will pass awfully slowly if we don’t find some way to amuse ourselves. When I get to New York I’m going to be looking for employment as a violin teacher. It would help if I could actually say that I’ve taught somebody to play the violin. At the moment I have some good ideas about how to do it, but I’ve never turned them into practice. So – what do you say? Are you willing to help me out?’
Sherlock thought about it for a moment. He didn’t play whist or bridge, and the only alternative was laboriously translating the copy of Plato’s Republic which Mycroft had given him. This sounded far more interesting. ‘I can’t pay,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got any money’
‘There will be no financial encumbrance on you. You’ll be doing me a favour.’
‘What can you teach me in a week?’
Stone considered for a moment. ‘We can start with posture,’ he said. ‘The way you stand and the way you hold the violin. Once I’m happy you’ve got that right, we can move on to getting the various right-hand techniques correct – détaché, legato, collé, martelé, staccato, spiccato and sautillé. Once I’m happy with that, we can move on to the left-hand techniques – finger dropping and lifting, shifting and vibrato. And then, I’m afraid, it’s practice, practice, practice – scales and arpeggios until the tips of your fingers are sore.’
‘I said I can read music, but I can’t hold a note,’ Sherlock admitted. ‘Our choirmaster said I had a cloth ear.’
‘No such thing,’ Stone said dismissively. ‘You may not be able to sing, but I guarantee I can get a tune out of you by the end of the week that people will throw coins for – even if it is just a German polka. What do you say?’
Sherlock grinned. Suddenly the voyage seemed like it might be a lot more interesting than he’d expected. ‘It sounds good,’ he said. ‘When do we start?’
‘We start now,’ Stone said decisively, ‘and we run on until lunchtime. Now, pick up the violin. Let’s see how good your stance is.’
For the next three hours, running from the end of the breakfast session to halfway through lunch, Sherlock learned how to stand properly, how to hold a violin and how to hold a bow. He even played a few notes, which sounded like a cat being strangled, but Rufus (‘Call me Rufus,’ he had said when Sherlock called him Mr Stone. ‘When you say “Mr Stone” it makes you sound too much like a bank manager for my liking’) told him that it didn’t matter. The purpose of the morning’s session, he pointed out, was not to learn how playing the violin sounded but to learn how it felt. ‘I want you to be relaxed, but ready. I want your arms and fingers and shoulders to know all the shapes that a violin can make against them. I want that violin to feel like an extension of your own body by the time we’ve finished.’
By the end of the time, Sherlock’s body was aching in places he didn’t even think he had muscles, his neck was cramping and the tips of his fingers were tingling from where he’d been pressing the catgut strings down. ‘I’ve just been standing in one spot!’ he protested. ‘How come I feel like I’ve been running a race?’
‘Exercise isn’t necessarily about moving,’ Rufus said. ‘It’s about muscles tensing and relaxing. You don’t often see fat musicians. That’s because although they’re sitting down or standing in one place, their muscles are continually at work.’ He paused, face creasing in thought. ‘Except for percussionists,’ he said eventually. ‘They just get fat.’
‘What next?’
‘Next,’ Rufus said, ‘we have luncheon.’
While Rufus returned his violin case to his cabin, Sherlock went looking for Amyus Crowe. The big American had emerged from wherever it was he had been sequestered, but there was no sign of Virginia. As they all sat at the communal table, Sherlock introduced Crowe to Rufus Stone.
‘Pleased to make your acquaintance,