‘I thought so.’
‘Wormersley will be inside. With the falcon, if you’re right.’ His gaze switched to the building that was home to the Third Section. ‘We have to go to the front desk – get them to take a warning note up to Count Shuvalov.’
‘No time!’ Sherlock said.
Over at the carriage, the window facing the building had been pulled down to leave a gap.
Something appeared in the dark square that was all Sherlock could see of the carriage’s inside. An arm – an arm with a brown-feathered bird sitting on it. Maybe it was the bird that had attacked him at the museum in London, maybe it was a different one, but it looked just as lethal.
A low whistle cut through the air: three notes; the same kind of whistle Sherlock had heard at the museum.
‘A flat, E, G sharp,’ Stone murmured.
The falcon took off, bounding into the air with a thrust of its legs and then pushing down hard with its wings once, twice, three times, hauling itself into the sky. It coasted for a moment, orienting itself, then flapped its wings again, gaining more and more height. The sun glinted cruelly off two curved metal blades attached to its legs, just above the claws.
The man in the carriage – Wormersley? – whistled again, different notes this time, and the falcon adjusted its course, curving slightly to the left and straightening up. The whistles were guiding it to the correct window! Wormersley had probably trained it on a replica of the building, or something painted to look the same, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He was aiming the bird right where he wanted it to go.
‘We’re too late,’ Stone said.
‘No,’ Sherlock said, and there was such certainty in his voice that he even surprised itself. ‘No!’
He clenched his fist, the one that was holding the dead mouse, and drew it back. Balancing himself with his left arm outstretched in front of him, he threw the mouse the way a fielder would throw a cricket ball.
The tiny corpse arced through the air towards the open window. Sherlock whistled, trying to replicate the sound of Wormersley’s commands. The falcon’s head twisted round to see who else dared signal it. The dead mouse, just beginning its long drop back to the ground, caught its eye. The falcon twisted in mid-air and dived. The mouse was falling under gravity, but the falcon propelled itself forward with two powerful strokes of its wings and then folded them close to its body. It shot through the air, its path converging with that of the mouse.
Its beak opened and then closed, and the mouse was gone, swallowed whole.
More whistles filled the air as Wormersley tried urgently to regain control of the bird, but hunger had won out over training. Falcons had to be kept hungry, Sherlock knew, otherwise they would lose interest in what their handlers wanted them to do. The bird coasted in a broad curve back towards the carriage. Towards the closest thing it had to a nest at the moment: the covered box that Wormersley had been given at the cafe.
In the square of darkness inside the carriage, Sherlock saw Wormersley’s face floating like that of a ghost, a mask of twisted frustration.
Sherlock thought of the signals that he’d heard in the museum: the signals that had instructed the falcon to attack. He forced his brain to remember the notes. He could play the violin – to a degree. He could read music. He could surely identify a musical note if he had to.
He whistled loudly repeating the phrase that he remembered.
Descending towards the carriage, the falcon heard the signal. Instead of readying itself for a landing on its handler’s outstretched arm, it spread its claws into two vicious instruments of destruction.
It plunged through the carriage window and into Wormersley’s face.
A scream burst from the inside of the carriage, and the whole thing rocked on its wheels as Wormersley struggled with the bird inside. Kyte, sitting on top of the carriage, twisted round to see what was happening. Startled, the horse that was attached to the shafts reared up on its hind legs.
‘Come on!’ Sherlock shouted to Stone. ‘You get Kyte – I’ll get Wormersley.’
‘But -’
‘Come on!’
He wasn’t going to let the Paradol Chamber get away, not if he could stop them. They had too many deaths on their hands, too much explaining to do. He was going to pull Wormersley out of that carriage with his bare hands and force him to tell Count Shuvalov exactly what he had planned to do.
Aware that Stone was heading past him, aiming for the preoccupied Kyte, Sherlock hurled himself at the nearest carriage door. As he got to it the door burst open towards him, knocking him backwards, into the street. Wormersley jumped out, pulling the falcon off his head as he did so and throwing it towards Sherlock. His face and shirt were streaked with blood, and there were beak marks in his forehead and slashes across his throat.
In a flurry of wings the falcon took flight. Training only went so far: all it wanted now was its freedom.
Wormersley rubbed his sleeve across his face, smearing the blood into a crimson mask from which his eyes blazed angrily.
‘You meddling, interfering brat!’ he screamed. ‘That plan was years in the making, and you ruined it in moments!’
‘Give up,’ Sherlock said. He was braced in case Wormersley made a move towards him. ‘There’s no way out.’
‘There’s always a way out.’ Wormersley reached behind him and pulled something out of the carriage. It looked like a hoop in his hand, a child’s toy hoop, but then he shook his hand and it uncoiled to the ground.
It was a whip, but not like anything Sherlock had ever seen before. Not like the one Mr Surd, Baron Maupertuis’s manservant, had used against him months ago. No, this one looked like it was made from plaited metal, and attached to its tip was a sharp metal talon.
‘You remember I mentioned the Russian knout?’ Wormersley asked. ‘Well, you’re about to get much better acquainted with it.’
He lashed out suddenly, flicking the whip. The tip whined as it sliced through the air. Sherlock flinched to one side and the hooked metal tip brushed past his ear.
It caught on his jacket as Wormersley pulled it back.
Sherlock’s body jerked forward, pulling him off balance. He went sprawling to his hands and knees on the snow-covered ground.
Wormersley moved behind Sherlock and looped the knout round his throat. He pulled tight, snapping Sherlock’s neck back and cutting off his air supply.
Sherlock’s vision went red. He desperately tried to claw air into his chest, but nothing was getting past the steel links of the knout as they bit into his flesh. He scrabbled with his fingers, attempting to get them beneath the metal, but Wormersley was pulling so tight that there was no gap.
The red mist across his eyes started to turn black. The world receded into a fuzzy blur of light and noise.
Sherlock lashed backwards with his right foot, but Wormersley had moved his legs out of range, leaning forward to strangle Sherlock. His knuckles dug into the back of Sherlock’s neck.
‘Die!’ he hissed, bringing his head close to Sherlock’s left ear. ‘Just die!’
Trying to find some purchase on the ground, some leverage he could use to push himself upright, Sherlock’s hand brushed the outside of his jacket pocket. He felt something hard and curved inside – the spray bottle from the Diogenes Club. The one that had been used to drug Mycroft.
With his vision turning black and his ears filled with the thudding of his pulse, Sherlock used the last of his strength to pull the bottle from his pocket. He fumbled with it, trying to get his thumb on to the spring-loaded button on top. He didn’t even know which direction it was pointing, but he held it above his head and pushed the button frantically.
Behind him, Wormersley gasped. His hands went slack. Sherlock fell forward, pulling great gulps of air into his lungs. He turned over on to his back, raising his hands to ward Wormersley off if the man attacked again, but through the fading red mist Sherlock saw Wormersley standing still, staring into nowhere, with a dazed expression on his face.
Sherlock closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the cobbled road.
Hands grabbed Sherlock and pulled him away. He thought for a moment that it was Mr Kyte, but other hands unwound the metal and leather thong of the knout from his neck. Turning his head, he saw that he was surrounded
