Young Sherlock Holmes_ Red Leech - Andrew Lane [74]
Virginia looked around for the guard. Sherlock’s heart flipped in his chest when he heard a whistle blow outside; a sharp, shrill burst of sound.
The next thing that happened was that the train began to move.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sherlock’s initial instinct was to run back to the door and jump off the train. He grabbed Virginia’s arm and pulled her towards him, but she resisted.
‘We need to get off!’ he hissed. ‘We haven’t got tickets, and we’re leaving your father behind!’
‘We can get tickets from the guard on the train,’ she replied, ‘or tell him that our pa has the tickets and he’s in another compartment. And we can telegraph back to Pa when we stop and tell him where we are. The important thing is that we don’t lose the men who have Matty. If we do, we’ve lost them forever. We need to track them until they settle in another hotel, or a house, or something.’
‘But—’ he started.
‘Trust me! This is my country, I understand how it works. I’ve made train journeys by myself before. We’ll be OK.’
Sherlock subsided. They’d ended up where they were by accident, but they ought to make the best of it, now they were there. Getting off the train and going back to the hotel would waste all the effort they’d gone to in getting to America so far.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We’ll stay’
‘We don’t have a choice, now,’ Virginia pointed out. She indicated the window. Outside, the platform had vanished and the train was speeding up as the line cut across wide dirt streets. He could feel, as well as hear, the clack-clack clack-clack as the wheels of the carriage passed over the joins in the track every hundred yards or so.
Sherlock glanced back down the aisle, towards the men who were holding Matty. ‘They’re all settled down,’ he said. ‘We should find a seat and work out what we do next. Are we just following them, or are we going to try to get Matty away from them?’
‘Depends on what happens,’ Virginia replied. ‘Why do you think they ran for the train so fast?’
‘That’s my fault,’ Sherlock admitted. ‘One of them saw me on the street but I managed to hide so he headed back to their hotel. They must have decided to clear out. That’s when Matty managed to tell me where they said they were taking him.’ He paused, looking around. ‘There’s two spare seats over there. Let’s sit down at least.’
The seats were facing backwards, away from the group of men who were holding Matty captive. As they sat, Sherlock glanced out of the window. The train was heading around a curve up ahead, and he could see the engine that was pulling them. Naively, he’d expected it to look like the ones back in England that ran from Farnham through Guildford to London, but this one was different. The basic cylindrical boiler shape was the same, but the small funnel that British trains had was replaced with a massive thing with sloping sides, sticking up from the front of the boiler. And there was some bizarre object attached to the front of the train; a metal grille with a pointed front that seemed to be designed to sweep things off the tracks.
‘Buffalo,’ Virginia said succinctly, following his gaze.
‘What?’
‘Buffalo. And cows. They wander across the tracks and sometimes just stay there. The train has to slow down and that thing pushes them out of the way’
‘Oh.’ He thought for a moment. ‘What about telling the ticket collector?’
‘Telling him what?’
‘That Matty’s being held hostage.’
‘What’s he going to do?’ Virginia shook her head, copper-coloured hair swirling around her. ‘The ticket collector’s usually some old guy coming up to retirement. He won’t be able to do anything.’
The train pushed on. As Sherlock watched, the buildings and roads outside the window gave way to open ground and patches of trees. The bright sunshine made the green vegetation seem to glow of its own accord.
‘How long does the journey take?’ he asked.
‘To Richmond?’ She thought for a moment. A day, maybe. Depends if we stop anywhere. And we might have to change trains somewhere.’
A day?’ This country was big. ‘What about food?’
‘There might be a restaurant