Young Sherlock Holmes: Fire Storm

not enough. The only thing that truly helped was morphine.’

Morphine! The word struck Sherlock like an icy dagger through the heart. He’d had his own experiences with morphine. Baron Maupertuis’s men had drugged him with laudanum, which was morphine in alcohol, and the Paradol Chamber had later used a similar drug on Sherlock’s brother, Mycroft. Was the whole family’s history tied up with the horrible stuff?

‘What exactly is morphine?’ Matty asked.

‘It is a substance which can be derived from opium, which is itself the dried sap of the poppy plant. It is an evil chemical, of which I will say no more, except that it did stabilize Siger’s extreme mood swings.’ Sherrinford laughed humourlessly. ‘It is named for the Greek god of dreams – Morpheus.’

Sherlock shook his head. ‘I’m not sure I understand. My father was ill, and this drug made him better. What’s the problem?’

‘The problem,’ Sherrinford answered, ‘is that our society is not tolerant of those who have . . . problems of the mind. With his morphine treatment Siger grew up tall and strong, with nobody outside the family knowing that anything was wrong. He married into a good family, and joined the Army. If it was discovered that he was ill in the head, then he would be cashiered from the Army. His friends and neighbours would withdraw from him. Shame would be brought on the family – not that I care particularly about that, but he and your mother would lose everything. Not only that, but the stigma would attach itself to him, to her, and to you and your brother. You would be labelled as the sons of a madman. People would assume you were likely to go mad yourselves.’

‘How did Mrs Eglantine find out about this?’ Sherlock whispered.

‘She was a maid at the asylum,’ Aunt Anna said quietly. ‘This was when she was young. She must have seen Siger one day, quite by accident, when he was older and wearing his Army uniform. She realized the scandal that would attach itself to the family if it were known that he had spent time in an asylum and was dependent on drugs for his sanity, and she started blackmailing us.’

Sherlock frowned. ‘That’s what I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Why blackmail you? Why not blackmail my father, or my mother, or Mycroft?’

‘Perhaps she was,’ Sherrinford said simply. ‘We never asked.’

A thought occurred to Sherlock. He paused before saying anything, turning the thought over and over in his mind, examining it from all angles just in case he’d missed something. It was a big thought, and he wanted to make sure he’d got it right before he said something embarrassing.

‘From what you’ve told us,’ he said eventually, and carefully, ‘the family secret that you were keeping concerned my father, and my father’s side of the family. It occurs to me that if the secret got out, the family shame wouldn’t reflect on you. It would be us – and in particular him – who would face problems.’

Sherlock’s Aunt Anna smiled at him and reached out across the table to pat his hand. ‘Bless you, Sherlock,’ she said. ‘We couldn’t let that happen to Siger. He’s family. He and Sherrinford grew up together. We couldn’t stand by and let him be shamed in that way. I remember how proud he was when he got into the Army. It would be quite wrong to take that away from him.’

‘But your lives have been affected badly by Mrs Eglantine’s presence in this house.’

‘The Good Lord puts us all through the fire at some time in our lives,’ Sherrinford said. ‘He tests us, and we must not be found wanting.’

‘What else should we have done?’ Aunt Anna asked, more practically. ‘Should we have told that odious Mr Harkness that we were not going to pay, and then watched as our own kin was humiliated in public? That would not have been right.’

Sherlock glanced from his aunt to his uncle. He found himself thinking about them in a different way. They weren’t fusty old relics of a bygone age to him now; they were living people, with feelings and cares and concerns. He tried to visualize Sherrinford and his father playing together as boys. He tried to visualize his aunt as a younger woman, in her finest dress, perhaps attending the wedding of Siger Holmes and Sherlock’s mother. For a moment he found that he could.

‘Thank you,’ he said simply. ‘On behalf of my mother and my father, neither of whom can say this themselves for different reasons, thank you.’

‘It was the least we could do,’ said Sherrinford.

‘It wasn’t,’ Sherlock replied. ‘That’s why it was such a noble and self-sacrificing gesture.’

‘Now,’ Aunt Anna said, ‘I must go and see to hiring another housekeeper. This place won’t run itself, and the maids are so flighty that they need someone looking over their shoulder all the time, otherwise who knows what will happen.’

‘And I have a library to tidy,’ Uncle Sherrinford said. ‘That could take some time.’

They both stood. With a final smile from Sherlock’s aunt, and an absent wave of the hand from his uncle, they left the room.

‘Nice people,’ Matty observed.

‘Nice doesn’t anywhere near cover it,’ Sherlock replied.

‘So, what do you want to do now?’

Sherlock thought for a moment. ‘I was thinking of going over to Amyus Crowe’s cottage. I think he ought to hear what’s happened. We should also probably let him know about those American men who were looking for him in the market earlier. They did mention his name.’

Matty shrugged. ‘He might have some advice on what to do if Josh Harkness decides to hang around and take his lost money out of your hide,’ he said. ‘And I suppose it would be nice to see Virginia again.’

Sherlock stared at him, but Matty just gazed back innocently.

‘You don’t have to come,’ Sherlock said evenly. ‘I thought maybe Albert might need feeding.’

‘He’s a horse,’ Matty said, shrugging. ‘Where I left him, he’s surrounded by food. It’s like leaving me in a pie shop. He’ll eat grass until he’s full, and then he’ll sleep.’

‘Do you think horses get bored?’ Sherlock asked him. ‘I mean, just standing around in fields all the time.’

Matty raised an eyebrow. ‘Never really thought about it. I don’t suppose they mind. P’raps they spend their time thinking deep thoughts about the world and the things in it, or p’raps they can’t think much beyond what’s at the end of their nose.’ He frowned at Sherlock. ‘You think too much. Anybody ever told you that?’

They headed out into the late-afternoon sunshine. Sherlock managed to borrow another horse from the stables, and together they rode across the fields towards where Amyus Crowe and his daughter lived.

As they rode, Sherlock found his thoughts flipping between two extremes – a nervousness at the thought of seeing Virginia again and a confusion over what he felt about his father: a man who had always previously seemed like a force of nature to Sherlock, with his loud laugh and his love of the outdoors, but who he saw now as someone much more complicated.

He couldn’t help but wonder if the folie a double forme that his father suffered from was hereditary, like a birthmark, or just a disease that could be caught, like influenza.

As they rode up to the small cottage, Sherlock noticed that Virginia’s horse wasn’t in its field. ‘Sandia’s missing,’ he pointed out. ‘Virginia’s not here.’

‘You want to go looking for her?’ Matty called.

Sherlock glared at him. ‘Let’s go inside,’ he said darkly. ‘It’s been half an hour since you ate – you’re probably hungry again by now.’

‘I probably am,’ Matty agreed.

They dismounted and tied their horses to the fence outside the cottage. Something was bothering Sherlock as they approached, and it took him a moment to work out what it was. The usual clutter of objects outside the cottage – axes, muddy boots and so on – was gone.

The door, unusually, was closed. Sherlock knocked, feeling an unaccustomed premonition that something was badly wrong. His mind returned to the conversation he’d overheard in the market. He’d assumed the two Americans had wanted Mr Crowe’s help. Had he been wrong?

There was no answer from inside.

He knocked again. Still no answer.

He looked at Matty, who was standing beside him. Matty stared back, a frown on his face.

Sherlock pushed the door open.