He wandered along the High Street for a while, past taverns that were already doing a roaring trade, even though it was barely after midday, past baker’s shops with windows piled high with breads twisted into knots and covered with seeds, past shops selling vegetables and fruit, or tools and seeds, or clothing ranging from the rough to the exquisite, pressing through crowds of locals who were buying, or selling, or just standing around idly, gossiping.
‘Sherlock!’ a voice called.
He turned, surprised. For a moment he didn’t recognize the tall, slim man with long black hair who was smiling at him from the other side of the road. Or rather, he knew that he knew him, but he wasn’t sure where from. His gaze scanned the man’s clothes and hands in the way that Amyus Crowe had taught him, looking for signs of his profession, but apart from a worn area on the left shoulder of the man’s patched corduroy jacket and the smattering of orange dust beneath his fingernails, there were no clues.
Except…
‘Mister Stone!’ he shouted, at the same moment that his brain supplied the information that the man was a violinist down on his luck, based on the signs on his clothing.
Rufus Stone’s smile stretched wider, revealing the gold tooth that Sherlock remembered from their voyages out to and back from New York, where the man had been teaching him the violin to help pass the time.
‘I keep telling you,’ Stone shouted as he started to cross the road, dodging the carts that clattered past and avoiding the piles of manure that had been left by the horses that pulled them. ‘Only employers call me “Mister Stone”, and there have been fewer of those over the past months than there are teeth in a chicken’s beak.’
‘What happened to you after we docked in Southampton?’ Sherlock tried to keep a petty tone out of his voice, tried to make it just an ordinary question, but he had thought that the violinist was going to head for Farnham after they docked and set himself up as a tutor.
Stone winced. ‘Ah, there I have a confession to make. I was all ready to move my life down to this area of the world, but I got sidetracked and went to Salisbury for a few weeks instead. Suffice to say there was an actress, and a vacancy in the Salisbury Playhouse pit orchestra, and the chance to gaze up at her beautiful face all evening as I played and she acted her little heart out.’
‘What happened?’ Sherlock asked.
‘She parcelled that same heart up and gave it to the leading man, of course,’ he replied, wincing. ‘As they always do, of course, buoyed up by the admiring glances of their followers in the pit. I later found that we’d all joined because of her, and we were all receiving less than standard rates just for the privilege of being there.’ He sighed theatrically. ‘Ah well. We live and learn. So – do you think that this part of Hampshire is still looking for a good violin tutor?’
‘I think so,’ Sherlock replied. ‘There’re a couple of good schools around, and quite a few big houses in the vicinity.’
‘And what about you?’ Stone asked. ‘Have you been keeping up with your lessons?’
‘I’ve been looking around for a cheap violin,’ Sherlock admitted. ‘Which reminds me – where’s yours?’
‘I have secured lodgings nearby. My possessions – such as they are – and my violin are in my room. Which reminds me – I’m on an errand for my landlady and I need to stay in her good books. If I don’t bring back a chicken within the next hour then I suspect I’ll be out on the street – again. Tell me, where can I find you, so we can continue our lessons?’
‘Holmes Manor,’ Sherlock said. ‘Give me a day or two to broach the subject with my brother and my uncle, but I think they’ll be fine about it.’
Stone smiled, and extended a hand. ‘It’s a pleasure to renew our acquaintance, Mister Holmes,’ he said as Sherlock took it. His hand was warm and dry, and Sherlock noticed that he didn’t press hard when he shook. Perhaps he was worried about damaging his fingers. ‘I will see you soon.’
He turned, and within moments was swallowed up by the crowd.
Absurdly pleased to see Rufus Stone again, Sherlock turned and moved off to get his horse.
The station was on the outskirts of the town. No trains were scheduled for that time in the early afternoon, so the place was deserted as he dismounted and approached the ticket office.
‘Two tickets to London,’ he said to the elderly man behind the counter. ‘Leaving on the train at nine thirty tomorrow morning. One adult and one child, second class.’
The ticket seller raised an eyebrow. ‘Afford two second-class tickets, can you?’ he grunted. ‘Or are you going to tell me you’ll pay me tomorrow, after your pocket money comes in?’
Sherlock slid a handful of coins across the counter. Mycroft had been keeping him supplied with postal orders and, as he didn’t spend very much, he’d built up quite a large balance. His brother hadn’t indicated how he should pay for the tickets, or included any additional money in his letter, so Sherlock presumed that Mycroft wanted him to pay out of his own money. Another small step towards adult responsibilities.
‘Two tickets,’ the ticket seller grunted. ‘One adult and one child. Second class.’ He passed two small slips of cardboard across the counter, along with a smaller pile of coins. ‘And change.’
‘Thank you.’ Sherlock dropped the tickets into one pocket and the coins into another, and turned round. He was just in time to see a figure in dark clothes step into an alley that ran alongside the station. He thought it was a woman.
A chill ran down his back. Was Mrs Eglantine following him, checking up on him? Had he humiliated her so much that she was looking to take some kind of revenge? He moved quickly down the slope to the hotel, stepping out into the road before he got to the alley, just in case whoever it was was waiting there for him, but when he got past the corner of the building the alley was empty. He checked the walls, but there were no doors the figure could have gone through. It had apparently vanished.
Had he imagined it? Had his brain conjured up a figure out of thin air? Or was there a simpler explanation – a local woman who had decided to take a short cut around the hotel to wherever she was going?
Sherlock moved into the alley, and bent down to check the ground. There were footprints, leading away. The toes were pointed and the heels small, judging by the impressions left in the mud. And there were no traces of patches or holes in the soles, indicating that they were either new or well cared for, or both.
He checked over the ground again, and walked a few yards further down the alley, but there was nothing else to see.
Thoughtfully, he mounted Philadelphia and set off for Amyus Crowe’s cottage to give him his ticket.
There was activity inside the cottage when he arrived, and Virginia’s horse was in the paddock, cropping the grass. He felt his mood lighten as he dismounted and approached the open door.
Virginia wasn’t in the main room, but Amyus Crowe was sitting in an armchair, looking through a book. He glanced up as Sherlock came in, gazing at the boy over the top of his half-glasses. ‘Did you get the tickets?’
‘I did.’ Sherlock paused. ‘I met Rufus Stone,’ he added. ‘He was in Farnham.’
‘Obviously.’ Crowe pursed his lips. ‘Strange that he should turn up here, just where you happen to be living.’
‘I’d told him where I live. I’d said he might want to come to Farnham to teach the violin.’
‘Very charitable of you,’ Crowe conceded, his faded blue eyes studying Sherlock. ‘Ah can see what you get out of that, but ah fail to see the advantage to Mister Stone.’
‘He has to live somewhere,’ Sherlock pointed out, uneasy at Crowe’s obvious lack of pleasure at the news that Rufus Stone was in the area. ‘And he’s better off living where there are people who want to play the violin.’
‘As you do.’
‘As I do.’
Crowe put his book on his lap and removed his spectacles. ‘Music is a distraction, Sherlock,’ he said, not unkindly. ‘It ain’t a fit pastime for a man who is tryin’ to fill his brain with things of use. Just think how much space in your brain would be taken up by learnin’ all the notes for some fancy piece of music. That space could better be used for memorizin’ the marks left by animals, or the shapes of people’s ears, or the traces left on their hands and their clothes by whatever it is that they do to get through the day. Not music, son. Music ain’t no use to anyone.’
‘I don’t agree,’ Sherlock said, feeling strangely disappointed by Amyus Crowe’s dismissal of something he was finding himself more and more interested in. He remembered his thoughts while riding into town, about the difference between animals and humans – or the lack of difference. ‘Yes, I could memorize all those things – I could
