Young Sherlock Holmes_ Red Leech - Andrew Lane [58]
The walkway ran parallel to the main axle that crossed the room, exiting through a gap in the engine-room wall and driving one of the paddle wheels. Sherlock had lost track of which way was forward and which was back. He wasn’t sure which paddle wheel the axle was turning. Maybe both of them. Not that it really mattered. The axle turned slowly alongside him, as thick as his body, glistening with grease. Further back towards the centre of the engine room was the complicated arrangement of toothed gear wheels, pistons and offset cams that drove it.
Leaning over the barrier that ran alongside the walkway, he tried to see where Grivens was. No luck. The steward had vanished.
The fight seemed to have attracted no attention. Was the engine room always this deserted, or had Grivens bribed the crew to stay out while he dealt with Sherlock?
Something grabbed at his ankle and pulled. Sherlock fell to the walkway, feeling his leg being tugged over the edge. He grabbed hold of the barrier to stop himself being pulled over. Grivens’s face was pressed up against the metal grille of the walkway. It was his hand that had grabbed Sherlock’s ankle.
‘You’re really going to make me earn this money, aren’t you?’ he hissed. ‘Just for that, I’m going to make the Yank and his daughter suffer. Just think about that as you’re bleeding to death here.’
Sherlock’s only response was to kick out with his other foot, scraping the sole of his boot down his leg until it hit Grivens’s fingers. Grivens grunted in pain, and released his grip. Sherlock rolled away and pulled himself to his feet.
Grivens’s face appeared at the top of the ladder, followed by the rest of him. His teeth were exposed by the grimace of hatred on his face.
‘This isn’t about money any more,’ he hissed. ‘This is personal.’
Sherlock backed away slowly. The steward reached the top of the ladder and moved on to the walkway. His shoulders were hunched, his fingers curled into claws. His previously immaculate white uniform was now grey and streaked.
Sherlock felt something hard pressing into the small of his back. He glanced down quickly. He’d reached the end of the walkway. He was pressed into one of the wheels that controlled the flow of steam through the pipes. Alongside him, the massive cylindrical axle rotated endlessly around on its bearings. He’d reached the area where the offset cams transferred the linear motion of the pistons into rotary motion, driving the axle. There were several of them, and they looked like grease-smeared metal horses’ heads bobbing up and down in a complicated rhythm. For a second Sherlock found himself appreciating the sheer brilliance of the engineering at work in the ship. How could people just assume these things worked without wanting to know how?
Not that he would be getting the chance to ever learn anything again. Grivens was still stalking towards him, closing the gap. He reached out for Sherlock’s throat with both hands.
‘I should get a bonus for this,’ the steward whispered. His fingers closed around Sherlock’s throat and he squeezed tight. Sherlock felt his eyes bulge with the pressure. His chest wanted to suck air into it, but no air was getting through. Frantically he clutched at Grivens’s wrists, trying to pull them away, but the steward’s muscles were locked tight, hard as iron. Sherlock shifted his grip to the man’s fingers. Maybe he could pry them away from his throat. His vision had turned red and blurred, and black dots were beginning to swim around in front of him, obscuring Grivens’s face. His chest burned in agony.
Desperately he twisted his body with his last ounce of strength. Caught off-balance, Grivens half fell on to the barrier running along the side of the walkway, but his grip on Sherlock’s throat did not slacken. The cams were pumping up and down beside them now: chunks of metal pounding the air just inches from their faces. Grivens