Young Sherlock Holmes: Fire Storm

The room inside was empty of any personal possessions. Not only were Amyus and Virginia Crowe not there, but there was no sign that they ever had been.

CHAPTER SIX

Shocked, Sherlock pushed the door fully open and entered the room. The size, the layout, the furniture – everything was familiar to him, but at the same time everything was different. The absence of the usual clutter made the room look much larger than he remembered.

The amount of bare wall disturbed him – he was used to seeing it covered with sketches and maps. The plaster was marked with pinholes where things had been fastened, which was reassuring because it meant that he was actually in the right cottage, not one the same size and shape just down the road that he had mistaken for Amyus Crowe’s residence.

‘They must’ve upped and left in a hurry,’ Matty said, following Sherlock inside.

‘Perhaps they left a note.’ Sherlock indicated the downstairs area. ‘You look down here – I’ll check upstairs.’

‘There’s nothing obvious here,’ Matty said. ‘If they’d left a note, they would have left it in plain sight.’

‘They might not have wanted it to be found by anyone who wandered in. Maybe they’ve hidden it.’

Matty looked at him critically. ‘You’re clutching at straws,’ he said. ‘Face it – they’ve just upped and left. Done it myself too many times to count. Someone’s after you for the rent so you do a midnight flit. Pull up roots and plant yourself somewhere new where nobody knows you from Adam.’ He frowned. ‘Wouldn’t ’ave figured Mr Crowe for a runner though. Whoever’s after ’im must be pretty fearsome for ’im to up sticks just like that.’

‘You’re forgetting those two Americans in the market,’ Sherlock pointed out. ‘They said they wanted to warn Mr Crowe about something.’

‘Maybe they was the ones he was runnin’ away from.’

‘But he wouldn’t have done that,’ Sherlock protested. ‘Not without telling us.’

Matty shrugged. ‘Maybe you thought they were better friends than they actually were,’ he said callously. ‘In my experience, stuff like friendship gets thrown away when times are tight and money is scarce.’

Sherlock just stared at him. ‘Do you really mean that?’

Matty wouldn’t meet his gaze. ‘It’s a hard world, Sherlock. You’ve always had it easy. Wait until you’re cold and hungry and poor – see how much friendship is worth then.’

‘You’re my friend.’ Sherlock felt as if the world he depended on was suddenly slipping away from him. ‘I’ll never forget that. I mean it – I’m not lying!’

‘I know you mean it, but your stomach is full and you’ve got money in your pocket. Tell me that again when you’ve lost it all.’ He shook his head. ‘Look, I’ll check for a note. Nobody will be happier than me if I find one.’

As Matty began to check in drawers and behind cushions Sherlock headed up the narrow wooden stairs, nearly bumping his head on the low ceiling. He felt sick, partly because of the disappearance of his friends but partly at Matty’s words. Was friendship really that disposable? Did Matty think Sherlock would just drop him if things got tough?

Would he?

He felt a shiver run through him, and he pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind. He had more important things to worry about right at the moment.

Upstairs was as unoccupied as downstairs. Amyus Crowe’s bed was neatly made, and his wardrobe was empty of clothes. The bathroom didn’t contain so much as a toothbrush or a hairbrush.

Sherlock stood in the doorway of Virginia’s room, shifting nervously from foot to foot. He’d never seen her bedroom before, and even though she was obviously not there, he felt as if he shouldn’t go in. As if it was somehow forbidden territory.

No, this was stupid, he told himself. It was just a room.

He went in. Like her father’s room, the bed was neatly made and the wardrobe was empty. No personal possessions sat on the dresser or the windowsill.

He thought he could detect a trace of her perfume in the air. Strange – he hadn’t even known she wore perfume, didn’t think she was the kind of girl who would wear perfume, but if he closed his eyes he could imagine she was standing just behind him.

Just as he was about to leave, he caught a flash of colour from her pillow. He turned, and bent towards the bed.

There, on the pillow, was a single strand of her copper-red hair.

Something caught at his heart and squeezed it, hard. He suddenly felt as if he couldn’t breathe.

‘Anything?’ Matty called from downstairs.

‘Nothing,’ Sherlock called back, feeling the grip on his heart relax. His voice sounded high-pitched to his own ears. ‘You?’

‘Nothing. No food in the kitchen cupboards or the pantry. Washing-up’s all done. That means they took the food wiv ’em. In my experience that definitely means they’re not comin’ back.’

Sherlock descended the staircase, having to duck to avoid hitting his head. As he re-entered the downstairs room his gaze focused again on the pinholes in the plaster of the opposite wall. He hadn’t realized there had been that many things pinned to the wall.

‘Not a trace,’ Matty said. ‘They’re gone for good. Good riddance to them.’

Sherlock shook his head violently. ‘Amyus Crowe wouldn’t just up and leave without saying goodbye. Even if something urgent happened and he had to go straight away, he would have left a message. And Virginia . . .’ He stopped, not wanting to finish the sentence. He still wasn’t sure what feelings Virginia had for him, although he was becoming increasingly aware of his feelings for her. ‘Well,’ he finished lamely, ‘she would have said something as well. We need to keep looking.’

Before Sherlock could move, Matty articulated Sherlock’s greatest worry. ‘Yeah, it must have been those two blokes in the market. They must have come here and taken Mr Crowe and Virginia. Either that or Mr Crowe somehow got wind that they were on their way, and he and Virginia scarpered. But why would someone be after Mr Crowe?’

Sherlock thought for a moment, remembering the little snippets that Amyus Crowe had let slip about his past life in America – hunting down escaped criminals after the War Between the States. ‘I think Mr Crowe made a lot of enemies in America. That might be why he came here with Virginia. Maybe something in his past has caught up with him.’

‘Must be something really scary if he ran away rather than face up to it. You know how big and how fierce he is. I can’t imagine Mr Crowe taking fright at anything less than a rampaging elephant.’

Sherlock gazed across at him. ‘When have you ever seen an elephant?’

Matty scowled. ‘I seen pictures, ain’t I?’

‘No, something is definitely wrong.’ He slammed his balled fist into his thigh angrily. ‘I just need to work out what it is.’

‘Maybe outside?’ Matty suggested.

‘We could take a look,’ Sherlock agreed. ‘Let’s restrict ourselves to the walls of the cottage and a couple of feet out, otherwise we’ll end up searching the whole countryside.’

They headed out of the door, Sherlock automatically turning right and Matty turning left. Sherlock scanned the brick walls of the cottage and the straw roof, his gaze tracking up, down and up again as he walked. He passed two windows and a wisteria vine that was growing out of the ground and up the wall, but he couldn’t see anything that looked out of place. He wondered if anything had been tucked into the straw of the roof, either from inside or outside, but he rejected the idea. If Amyus Crowe had left a message then he would have put it somewhere easier to access, somewhere he knew that Sherlock would look.

About halfway around the building he nearly tripped over something lying on the ground. For a moment he thought it was a snake, and he stepped back hurriedly, but it wasn’t moving, and it was too dusty and brown to be a snake. He bent down to take a look. It was a tube, made of canvas but strengthened with hoops of something inside to stop it from collapsing. It ran from a hole in the cottage wall towards a clump of grass, and vanished.