Young Sherlock Holmes: Fire Storm

Sherlock indicated a root-edged hole that led away at an angle into the earth. ‘I think it’s a rabbit hole.’

‘Congratulations. I’ve already found five of them.’

‘But this one has something in it.’ Sherlock reached into the hole, to the object he’d caught sight of in the shadows. His fingers encountered something that was simultaneously furry and sticky. Taking a grip, he pulled it out.

It was a rabbit’s head, the severed neck covered in blood.

‘A rabbit’s head in a rabbit hole,’ Matty commented drily. ‘Ain’t that an unexpected turn of events? Are you trying to tell me that a fox took Mr Crowe and Virginia away?’

‘You see,’ Sherlock replied, ‘but you do not understand. Look at the neck.’

Matty considered it, then nodded in understanding. ‘It’s been sliced off with a sharp blade, not bitten through or ripped off.’ He thought for a moment. ‘This must be the head that goes with the body we found back at the cottage. Even so – it could have been taken off a kitchen table by a fox or a stoat and just . . . left here.’

‘I don’t think so. An animal, if it had stolen this thing, would have eaten some of it. There would be teeth marks. As it is, it looks like someone has just cut it off and put it straight in this hole.’

Matty turned his attention from Sherlock back to the rabbit’s head. ‘Pretty fresh,’ he admitted. ‘Probably less than a day old.’

‘It’s a message,’ Sherlock said thoughtfully, ‘but the question is, what kind of message is it?’ He paused for a moment. ‘No,’ he went on, ‘the real question is, are there any more messages apart from this one?’

Matty looked around and sighed. ‘You mean we have to finish searching the field?’

‘We do. Just because we find one thing, it doesn’t mean there aren’t other things to find.’

‘I was afraid you might say that.’

Leaving the bloodied head where it was, Sherlock and Matty continued their search, combing through the grass for anything that might have been left or dropped. It was another three-quarters of an hour before they found themselves searching along the far fence.

‘Nothing?’ Matty asked as they walked back to the cottage.

‘Nothing,’ Sherlock agreed. ‘Either it’s the rabbit head, or there’s nothing here.’

Matty looked over to where they’d left the head. ‘I can’t see how there can be a message there, unless Mr Crowe’s written it on a small piece of paper and shoved it in the thing’s mouth. That would just be sick.’

‘It’s not the head itself,’ Sherlock replied, ‘or, at least, I don’t think it is. It’s more likely to be something to do with its placement, or just its existence. I don’t think Mr Crowe had time to do anything complicated, like write a note. He just had time to make some pinholes in the wall pointing out here, and then throw the head into a hole.’

‘He had time to catch and kill a rabbit,’ Matty pointed out.

‘I think it was already there. I think he probably caught it earlier and was preparing it for a meal – taking the head off, gutting it and skinning it. I think that something happened to make him want to leave, and after clearing out the cottage of everything he and Virginia owned he only had a few moments to come up with a message.’

Matty sighed in frustration. ‘Yeah, but what is it? I think he had more faith in us than was warranted.’

‘A rabbit’s head in a hole,’ Sherlock mused, trying to provoke some movement in his head, some sudden revelation that might only occur if he kept on repeating the obvious.

‘Burrow,’ Matty murmured as they entered the cottage.

‘Sorry?’

‘It’s a burrow, not a hole. Rabbits have burrows, foxes have dens and badgers have setts. You’re normally the one who likes to get words right – you need to learn these things.’

‘A rabbit’s head in a burrow,’ Sherlock corrected. That elusive thought in his head finally started running. ‘A head in a burrow. Matty, you’re a genius!’

‘I am?’ the boy said, surprised.

‘Well, technically you’re not a genius, but you have an amazing ability to bring out the genius in others. It’s so obvious!’

‘It is?’

‘Remember when you’d been kidnapped by Duke Balthassar’s men and taken to New York, and we tracked you down?’

Matty nodded, mystified.

‘Do you remember when I found you in that building? You tried to get me to understand that they were taking you on the train line to Pennsylvania?’

Matty smiled. ‘Yeah, that was clever, wasn’t it?’

‘You mimed using a pen, then touched the windowsill, then pointed to a weather vane on a nearby building. It took me a while to put it together, but I did.’

‘Yeah, I remember, but so what?’

Sherlock sighed in exasperation. ‘Don’t you see? That’s what Amyus Crowe is doing here. A head in a burrow. He and Virginia are going to Edinburgh!’

Matty frowned. ‘That’s a bit of a coincidence,’ he said dubiously. ‘Him having a rabbit’s head and a nearby burrow to put it in, and knowing he was going to Edinburgh.’

‘I think it happened the other way around,’ Sherlock said. He could feel the pure, cold flame of triumph flashing through his body, burning away the tiredness and the aching muscles. He’d done it! He’d cracked the code! He knew he was right! ‘I’m not saying it’s the best clue in the world, but Mr Crowe had to work with whatever he had to hand. He could use the pinholes in the wall to point us out here, he had the rabbit’s body lying around and he knew there were burrows out here in the paddock. He used the ingredients to hand to make a clue, and then he took Virginia to Edinburgh because that was the only destination he could build a clue for!’

‘But why has he let us know that he’s going to Edinburgh?’ Matty asked.

‘He must want us to go after him. There’s no other reason. If he didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye, he could have left a note saying just that: “Goodbye”. It wouldn’t matter who found that. But it clearly does matter that nobody knows he has gone to Edinburgh. I think he’s in danger. I think he wants our help.’

‘We’re goin’ to follow him, aren’t we?’ Matty said gleefully.

‘Well,’ Sherlock answered cautiously, ‘there are other options. Perhaps we should tell my brother.’

‘How long will that take? And what’s he going to do? Knowing your brother, I doubt he’ll be getting the next train to Scotland. He’ll just send lots of telegrams out, getting people to search for Mr Crowe, but they won’t know what he or Virginia look like.’

Sherlock shook his head. ‘We’ve never been to Edinburgh,’ he said. ‘We won’t know anything about the place. How can we help them if we’ll be practically lost there ourselves?’

‘I’ve been there,’ Matty said cheerfully. ‘My dad took me and me mum there on the barge. Took weeks, it did. We stayed there for a month or more while he looked for work.’

‘Even so – the two of us, just kids, alone in Scotland?’

‘You went to America. And Russia.’

‘I had Mr Crowe with me in America.’

‘Until you ran off with Virginia.’

‘That was an accident,’ Sherlock protested. ‘The train left the station before we could get off. I also had Mycroft with me in Russia.’

‘Before he was arrested.’

‘But that wasn’t part of our plan. Anyway, Rufus Stone was with us. He helped.’ A bright light seemed to go on in his head. ‘What if we asked Rufus Stone to come with us?’

‘Would he?’ Matty asked dubiously. ‘I didn’t think he and Mr Crowe got on.’

‘They don’t,’ Sherlock admitted. ‘They’re like a cat and a dog locked in the same room, but . . .’ He thought for a minute. ‘But I’m pretty sure that my brother is paying Rufus Stone to hang around Farnham and make sure I don’t get into trouble. Mycroft still thinks that the Paradol Chamber are going to take some kind of action against me. If I tell Rufus that you and I are going to Edinburgh, then he’ll have to come with us, won’t he? If he’s supposed to stop me getting into trouble, then he won’t have any choice.’