Young Sherlock Holmes_ Red Leech - Andrew Lane [88]
There was something in his tone of voice that reminded Sherlock of John Wilkes Booth when he talked about smelling smoke – sleepy, not quite focusing on reality. Could the leech be secreting something else into his bloodstream apart from the anticoagulant, some kind of narcotic that stopped its victims from caring that there was a parasite attached to them and filled them with pleasant, hallucinatory thoughts? He filed the thought away for later – if there was a later. He still had no idea how the three of them were going to get away.
Sherlock’s attention was drawn by a movement down by Balthassar’s feet. The cougars were edging away from him. Their attention was fixed on the giant red leech, and they didn’t like it. They seemed afraid of it.
‘Sherman, Grant,’ Balthassar hissed, then he said something Sherlock couldn’t understand. The big cats stopped moving away, but their muscles were still tense.
The red leech appeared to be pulsing as Sherlock watched. Pulsing with Balthassar’s blood, intercepted from a vein behind his ear.
‘You are wasting time,’ Balthassar said. ‘Do you have any more questions?’
Sherlock tried to pull his attention away from the leech. ‘You said that “the Government in Exile of the Confederacy still seeks to establish freedom from the oppressive regime of the Union for those states who wish it”,’ he quoted.
‘Indeed.’
‘But how?’ Sherlock asked.
‘Try to work it out. I will tell you if you are right.’ As Sherlock opened his mouth to protest, Balthassar added: ‘Look on it as a way for me to get more information. If you can work it out, given that you know about Mr Booth, then the authorities can undoubtedly work it out as well. I promise, if you can’t work it out then I will give you the answer.’
Sherlock thought for a moment. The longer he could keep Balthassar talking, the more he could put off the moment of their deaths. Maybe he could think of some way to escape in the meantime. Maybe Amyus Crowe would find them.
‘So,’ he said. ‘John Wilkes Booths mind has gone. He’s alternately hallucinatory and violent, and he needs to be drugged most of the time just so you can move him around. He’s obviously no use as an assassin, or as anything else apart from just a figurehead. So you need him as a rallying point, someone you can wheel out on stage to inspire the troops.’
Balthassar nodded, but the word ‘troops’ had sparked an idea in Sherlock’s brain, despite the fact that he’d only chosen it as a metaphor.
‘You are rallying troops,’ he said. ‘I can’t see you overturning the current Government or even seceding by political means. You’ve tried and failed. You’re raising an army, aren’t you? That’s why you need Booth – to motivate your army. To show them that there’s a direct connection between the War Between the States and what you’re doing now!’
Again, Balthassar nodded. ‘Go on.’
‘But I can’t see you raising an army large enough to take on the Union’s Army. Not again. Not since you lost last time. So you need an army to do something else.’ His mind was racing. ‘But what? If the Army isn’t going to fight on American soil then it must be aimed at invading somewhere else.’ He tried to think back to the maps he’d looked at on the SS Scotia. ‘Mexico?’ he asked.
Balthassar shook his head. ‘A good guess, but wrong. It was tried, a few years back, but the plan fell apart due to lack of support. And besides, Mexico is hot and arid, and has a standing army of its own which would resist us.’
‘What then?’ Sherlock asked, but even as he did so the answer sprang into his head. ‘If you have an army then you need a land border for them to cross,’ he said. ‘The United