Cautiously, he raised his head and looked up.
There was no sign of the falcon.
Sherlock stood and glanced around, eyes scanning every shadowed corner, every darkened recess. Nothing. The falcon had gone.
Somewhere in the distance he heard a flapping of wings, but the sound echoed from the bare walls of the room and he couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
Sherlock pressed his back against the glass of the cabinet. He could feel its coolness through his jacket and shirt.
What was his best course of action? He could go forward, but he would be heading into unfamiliar territory. Perhaps he should retreat, back to the entrance hall. He could wait there for Amyus Crowe, or follow him into the section for amphibians and reptiles.
That thought led to another one: Amyus Crowe fighting for his life with a crocodile, or some kind of large lizard like the ones that he, Matty and Virginia had encountered in America, just as Sherlock was fighting with a bird in the stuffed birds section. The thought was patently stupid – there was no reason to think that the stuffed animals were coming to life and leaving their cases – but that started his mind racing. What was a live falcon doing in a museum? What was a falcon even doing in London? And why were its claws covered with razor-sharp metal sheathes?
All the questions had the same answer – the bird obviously belonged to someone, the person with the whistle, and that person was using it to injure or kill Sherlock. Maybe they had followed him and Amyus Crowe to the museum or, more likely, they were using the museum as a base of operations and had spotted the two of them entering.
As if in confirmation of his hypothesis, a short whistle cut through the heavy silence again – three blasts, a signal to the falcon. Immediately Sherlock heard wings flapping. A shadow flickered against the ceiling, cast by the sun shining through a skylight and reflecting off the glass of a display case, and interrupted by the bird flying past.
And then silence again.
Sherlock moved as quietly as he could towards the door he had entered through. His gaze flickered in all directions, trying to work out which one an attack was going to come from.
Dust tickled his nostrils. He felt a sneeze coming on. He pinched the top of his nose hard, squeezing until the urge subsided. The last thing he wanted to do was attract the falcon’s attention.
Glancing around, he realized that he wasn’t sure where he was. He didn’t recognize the birds in the cases. He thought they were eagles, but their feathers were mainly white and they had ruffs round their necks.
Sherlock hadn’t come past these exhibits on his way in. There must have been another path that he had missed.
Go on or go back?
He decided to go on. If he was lucky then he would find another exit.
If he was unlucky, the falcon would find him. Or its owner would.
He scanned the cases around him as he moved. The one immediately to his left contained a brown bird of prey with a sharp beak. He passed by, gaze moving on, but something in the back of his mind was trying to raise a warning flag. He thought it was just the similarity between the bird in the case and the falcon that had almost clawed his eyes out, but then the bird in the case turned its head to look at him, and he realized that it wasn’t in the case at all, that the case was empty – he was looking through the case and the bird was perched on a ledge behind it.
The falcon sprang up, propelling itself with mighty sweeps of its wings. For a moment it hung in the air, poised above the empty case, and then it plunged towards Sherlock.
He raised his arms defensively, forearms crossed in front of his face. The bird hit him in a flurry of claws and wings. Its metal-shod claws scrabbled for a grip on his arms, but only succeeded in ripping the sleeves of his jacket. Its wings battered him around his ears: strong blows, like those of a boxer. One of the claws succeeded in cutting through the cloth of his jacket and shirt: he felt a red-hot line being drawn along the flesh of his left arm, and a flood of wetness after it, soaking into the material. He had automatically closed his eyes when the bird struck, but now, opening them, he found that its head was only inches away from his own. The falcon was drawing back, stabilising itself with its claws, preparing to strike with its sharp-edged beak at Sherlock’s right eye. Enraged and panicked at the same time, he lashed out with his right hand. His knuckles connected with the bird’s chest, knocking it away. It flapped its wings and took off, but instead of retreating it headed straight back at Sherlock.
Shielding his face with one arm, he struck out with the other. If he had hit it he would probably have broken the bird’s wing, but it was too fast for him. The falcon swerved in mid-air, avoiding his clenched fist. He watched as it flew away, down an aisle between display cases, dipping towards the floor as it glided on outstretched wings and then rising in a rapid arc as it flapped them to clear a case ahead of it.
Sherlock bent over for a few seconds, hands on knees and breath rasping in his throat. He could feel the blood pulsing through the arteries of his neck and thudding in his temples.
Still bent over, he felt a prickling sensation on the back of his neck. He straightened up abruptly and stared around. He could see many eyes watching him, but they were all glass. He probed the shadowy spaces around the high ceiling for some sign of the bird. He couldn’t see it anywhere. But it could see him. He sensed it.
Whoever owned the bird would probably expect Sherlock to retreat again, towards the exit he had been heading for before. So he moved forward, in the direction the falcon had gone. That, at least, had the benefit of being unexpected.
He got to the large display case behind which the bird had disappeared. It contained a flock of smaller birds, posed on wires with wings outstretched, as if in flight. The aisle split at that point, going left and right. He chose right at random, and headed past a section of seagulls. At the far end the aisle turned right. He stopped there, and peered around the corner.
Ahead was an open area which terminated in a large wooden door, which presumably led to the next room. Floor-to-ceiling windows to either side let bright sunlight spill in. Standing in the centre of the room, silhouetted by the light from the far window, was a man. He was facing away from the door. Sherlock couldn’t make out any features, just a general impression of a massive figure with wide shoulders. He was holding a walking stick in one hand, supporting his weight, while the other arm was stretched out straight to support the weight of the falcon. It was obviously disturbed: its head was jerking from side to side and it seemed to be moving its weight from foot to foot. The man was talking to it in a calm voice, and gradually the bird relaxed until it was standing motionless and alert.
The man’s head turned, looking left and right. The bird copied him. Sherlock pulled his own head back so that he couldn’t be seen.
What to do?
He couldn’t get to the door ahead of him. The man was in the way. He had to go back, to the door he’d come through.
A thought struck him. He slipped his shoes off and stuck them in his pockets. In his socks he would make less noise on the hard wooden floor. He moved backwards, then turned and ran off down the aisle. He’d lost track of the exact route, but this was a museum, not a maze. As long as he headed in the proper direction, he should be all right.
He turned left, then right. Birds everywhere, staring at him with cold eyes. Maybe he’d seen them before, maybe he hadn’t. They were all blurring together.
An empty glass case! This was where he had seen the falcon before, through the glass, as it had perched on a ledge on the wall. He thought he knew the way from here. Just two more turns…
Something struck him between his shoulder blades, knocking him over. Claws bit into the muscles of his back, tearing through the cloth of his jacket and shirt as if they were tissue paper. At any second he expected to feel the falcon’s beak strike at the nape of his neck, and his skin crawled at the thought. He rolled over, trying to trap the bird beneath him, but it was too quick for him. Releasing its grip it hopped a few feet down the corridor and then took off. The harsh beat of its wings left a couple of feathers floating in the air.
Sherlock climbed shakily to his feet. He couldn’t take much more of this.
He heard the big man, the bird’s owner, whistle again.
At the far end of the aisle the falcon suddenly headed straight up, then paused and seemed to turn over in
