"Get on," Matty said. "Use the side of the stalls as a step."
The pounding footsteps outside were getting closer. As Matty grabbed the saddle of the smaller horse, placed his foot in a stirrup and hoisted himself up, Sherlock half-climbed up the wooden side of the stalls with his right foot, slipped his left foot into the stirrup and tried to copy Matty"s smooth action on the other horse, a large chestnut mare. He ended up sitting in the saddle more through luck than judgement. The horse looked back at him calmly. It seemed unfazed by having a stranger suddenly jumping on its back.
"Let"s go!" Matty called. He"d taken the reins in one hand and was untying his horse with the other. Sherlock grabbed at his own reins and tried to remember what Virginia had told him about riding horses. Guide with your knees, not the reins. Use the reins for slowing the horse down. Guide with your knees, not the reins. Use the reins for slowing the horse down.
Without glancing backwards, Matty urged his horse out of the barn doors. He seemed to a.s.sume that Sherlock would just follow. Sherlock shook loose the rope that kept his own horse from wandering off. A sudden wave of panic swept over him as he realized that Virginia had told him how to steer and how to stop, but not how to start. Tentatively, he pressed both knees into the horse"s sides. Obediently, the horse began to walk. Sherlock leaned forward in the saddle to compensate for the swaying movement. He pressed harder with his knees and gave the reins an experimental shake. The horse broke into a trot, then a canter. Why did people make out that riding was so hard? It was just a series of signals and actions!
The scene outside burst upon Sherlock in a blaze of colour and action as they left the barn. Matty was racing off, with a group of masked servants chasing him on foot and falling behind. Two masked men were standing in front of Sherlock, trying to block his path. One of them was waving a revolver. He fired in Sherlock"s direction, and Sherlock felt something hot brush past his hair. He urged his horse into a gallop. The horse ploughed straight through the middle of the two men, knocking them to the ground. Using his knees, he pushed his horse into speeding up. It seemed as if they were flying across the ground, catching up with Matty.
Within moments they were approaching the boundary wall of the estate. It must have been ten feet high. The two boys guided their horses into a curve, towards the main gates. The two horses pounded across the ground, the sound of their hoofs changing as they went from soft earth to the stones of the drive. Sherlock"s heart sank as he saw that the main gates of the estate were being pushed closed. Two masked servants with shotguns were standing in front of them, aiming at the horses. At the same moment, Sherlock and Matty hauled back on their reins. With a spray of stones, the horses skidded to a halt.
One of the men fired his shotgun. The blast echoed across the grounds. Sherlock glimpsed the buckshot flying past them in an expanding cloud, like an explosion of midges.
Using his knees to guide the horse, and instinctively tugging on the left side of the reins for emphasis, Sherlock pulled the animal around. Matty did likewise. The boys urged their horses forward into a gallop again. The house loomed before them, dark and forbidding.
Glancing to left and right, Sherlock saw masked men coming round both sides of the house, armed with a collection of revolvers, shotguns, fowling pieces and pitchforks. The only direction was straight on, towards the main doors of the house.
Matty began to slow. He glanced round uncertainly.
Sherlock galloped past his friend, yelling: "Follow me!" Left and right were blocked, as was behind. He could almost hear his brother Mycroft"s voice saying: "When all other options are impossible, Sherlock, embrace the one that"s left, however improbable it might be."
His horse, sensing his intentions, jumped the few steps up to the portico in front of the house and headed unerringly for the wide front doors.
Sherlock ducked as his horse galloped through the open doors and into the entrance hall, feeling the lintel of the doorway brush his hair. The horse"s hoofs skidded and clattered on the tiled flooring, nearly unseating Sherlock before the animal could get its footing again. The darkness of the hall confused him for a moment, but his eyes adjusted within seconds and he urged the horse forward, past the marble stairs and towards the back of the house. Masked servants ran out of doorways and then fell back, terrified by the two horses that almost filled the s.p.a.ce. Rather than head for the servants" areas, Sherlock guided the horse sharply right, pushing open a door into what he suspected based on its placement and comparing it with Holmes Manor was a drawing room. He was right.
The room was s.p.a.cious and bright, with large glazed double doors leading out on to a veranda. And, as Sherlock remembered from the escape earlier, the doors were open!
Within seconds, he and the horse were galloping through the drawing room and out on to the veranda. He heard a commotion as Matty"s horse knocked aside furniture in the room behind him, and then the clatter of hoofs on the flagstones of the veranda.
Ahead, across the field of beehives, he caught sight of a smaller back gate, through which provisions and supplies were probably delivered. It looked unguarded. He raced for it, the horse"s mane whipping against his face and the breeze rushing past his ears. The boxy shapes of the beehives formed a geometrical grid through which the horse galloped in a straight line. Clouds of bees took flight behind them, but the horse was too fast for them and they just milled and roiled in confusion.
The back gate was locked, but it only took a moment for Sherlock to dismount and throw the bolt back. He turned and looked across the grounds of the house as Matty cantered up beside him. Masked men, armed, were ma.s.sing on the other side of the field of beehives. They obviously didn"t want to risk entering the area. One or two of them were already batting at the air as the angry bees attacked the first thing that came to hand.
"I thought that went well," said Matty. "Shall we stay and watch?"
"Let"s not," said Sherlock.
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
Amyus Crowe finished cleaning the cuts on Sherlock"s face with a flannel and a liquid that smelt sharp and stung wherever he touched it, then walked across his cottage and sat in a wicker chair. It creaked beneath his weight. He pushed back with his feet, balancing the chair on its two back legs, and rocked it gently. All the time his eyes were fixed on Sherlock.
Beside Sherlock, Matty shifted uncertainly, like an animal that wanted to run but didn"t know which direction was safe.
"Quite a story," Crowe murmured.
a.s.suming that Crowe"s words were just a way of breaking the silence while he was thinking, Sherlock kept quiet. Crowe rocked back and forth, all the while staring at Sherlock. "Yep, quite a story," he said after a while.
Crowe"s level gaze was making Sherlock edgy, so he looked away,letting his eyes drift around the room. Amyus Crowe"s cottage was cluttered, full of books, newspapers and periodicals that had been left wherever he had set them down. A pile of letters was fixed to the wooden mantelpiece with a knife through their centres, next to a clock that indicated that it was coming up to two o"clock. Beside them sat a single slipper, from which a handful of cigars protruded like grasping fingers. It should have looked squalid, but there was no dust, no dirt. The place was clean but untidy. It just seemed as if Crowe had a different way of storing things.
"What do you you make of it all?" Crowe challenged eventually. make of it all?" Crowe challenged eventually.
Sherlock shrugged. He didn"t like being the object of Crowe"s attention. "If I knew that," he countered, "I wouldn"t have had to come to you."
"It would be nice if one person could always make a difference," Crowe replied without a trace of irritation, "but in this complicated world of ours you sometimes need friends, and you sometimes need an organization to back you up."
"You think we should go to the Peelers?" Matty asked, obviously nervous.
"The police?" Crowe shook his head. "I doubt they"d believe you, and even if they did there"s little they could do. Whoever lives in this big house of yours will deny everythin". They"ve got the power and the authority, not you. And you got to admit, it"s a preposterous story on the face of it."
"Do you believe us?" Sherlock challenged.
Crowe"s face creased up in surprise. "Of course I believe you," he said.
"Why? Like you said, it"s a preposterous story."
Crowe smiled. "People do things when they lie," he replied. "Lyin" is stressful, cos you got to keep two different things straight in your head at the same time the truth that you"re tryin" to keep secret and the lie that you"re tryin" to tell. That stress manifests itself in certain ways. People don"t make eye contact properly, they rub their noses, they hesitate and stammer more when they talk. And they go into more detail than is necessary, as if it makes their lie more believable if they can remember what colour the wallpaper was, and whether the people had beards or moustaches or suchlike. You told your story straight, you looked me in the eye and you didn"t add in extraneous details. Far as I can judge, you"re tellin" the truth or at least, what you believe to be the truth."
"So what do we do now?" Sherlock asked. "There"s something going on around here. It"s got to do with clothes that are being made for the Army, and bees, and that warehouse in Farnham. And that man in the big house the Baron, I think is behind it all, but I don"t know what he"s doing."
"Then we need to find out." Amyus Crowe let his chair settle back on to its four legs and stood up. "If you haven"t got enough facts to come to a conclusion then you go out and get more facts. Let"s go and ask some questions."
Matty shifted uncomfortably. "I gotta go," he muttered.
"Come with us, kid," Crowe said. "You were part of this adventure, and you deserve to find out what"s goin" on. And besides, young Sherlock here seems to trust you." He paused. "If it helps make your mind up, I"ll get us some food on the way."
"I"m in," Matty said.
Crowe led the way outside. In the meadow beside the cottage, Virginia Crowe was brushing down her horse, Sandia. Beside it was a larger bay mare. Sherlock a.s.sumed it was Crowe"s horse. The two horses that Sherlock and Matty had ridden away from the Baron"s mansion were quietly cropping the gra.s.s off to one side.
Virginia looked up as they approached. Her gaze met Sherlock"s and she glanced away quickly.
"We"re goin" for a ride," Crowe announced. "Virginia, you come along too. The more people askin" questions, the more chance of some half-decent answers."
"I don"t know what questions to ask," Virginia protested.
"You were outside the door, listenin"," Crowe said with a smile. "I heard Sandia whinnying. He only ever does that if you"re within sight but not actually with him. And I could see somethin" movin" about, blockin" the sunlight "neath the door."
Virginia blushed, but kept gazing at her father, half-defiantly. "You always taught me to take advantage of my opportunities," she said.
"Quite right too. The best way of learnin" is to listen."
Crowe pulled himself up on to his horse, and Virginia did the same. She watched, smiling, as Sherlock and Matty mounted their own horses, and nodded to Sherlock with approval. "Not half bad," she said.
Together, the four of them cantered along the road, reversing the route that Sherlock and Matty had taken to get to the cottage. The sun was shining, the smell of woodsmoke hung in the air, and Sherlock had to try hard to convince himself that he had ever been knocked out, taken prisoner, questioned and then casually sentenced to death. Things like that just didn"t happen, did they? Not on a sunny day. Even the cuts on his face had stopped hurting.
Virginia nudged her horse closer to Sherlock"s. "You ride well," she said, "for a beginner."
"I had good advice," he said, glancing at her and then away again.
"That stuff you said, back in the cottage. That was all true?"
"Every word."
"Then maybe this country ain"t as boring as I thought."
The nearer they got to the big house in which Sherlock had been imprisoned, the edgier he got. Eventually Amyus Crowe reined his horse to a halt within sight of the gates to the house. There was n.o.body in sight.
"Is this the place?" Crowe called.
Sherlock nodded.
"There"s rutted tracks leadin" out of the gates and along the road," Crowe continued. "Looks to me like they"ve skedaddled."
Sherlock looked in confusion at Virginia. She smiled. "Left," she explained. "Run away."
"Oh. Right." He filed that one away for the future.
"Let"s head down the road and see what we find," Crowe shouted, and urged his horse on. Virginia was right behind him. Sherlock and Matty exchanged glances and followed.
About five minutes further on, they found a tavern red brickwork, laid in that distinctive herringbone style that Sherlock had noticed before, white plaster and black beams. Trestles and benches had been set out on the gra.s.s outside. Smoke trailed out of the chimney and Sherlock could smell roasting meat. He was instantly hungry.
Crowe stopped and dismounted. "Late lunch," he called. "Matty, Virginia, you stay out here and watch the horses. Sherlock, you come in with me."
Sherlock followed the big American into the tavern. The ceiling was low, almost hidden by a layer of greasy smoke from the lamb that was roasting on a spit in the fireplace. Fresh sawdust covered the floor. Four men sat together at a table, eyeing the newcomers suspiciously. A fifth man sat on a stool at the bar and paid them no attention, being more concerned with gazing into his drink. The landlord, standing behind the bar and polishing a tankard with a cloth, nodded at Amyus Crowe.
"Afternoon, gents. Will it be drink or will it be food or will it be both?"
"Four plates of bread and meat," Crowe said, and Sherlock was amazed to hear him speaking without his normal American accent. His voice, as near as Sherlock could tell, was pitched as if he was a farmer or labourer from somewhere in the Home Counties. "And four tankards of ale."
The landlord pulled four tankards of beer and set them on a pewter tray. Crowe picked one up for himself and nodded to Sherlock. "Take "em outside, lad," he said in his gruff "English" voice. Sherlock picked the tray up and cautiously carried it to the door. Crowe, he noticed, was settling himself on a stool by the bar.
Outside, Sherlock saw that Matty had found a table and benches near the tavern. Virginia was still standing with her horse. He joined Matty, and sat where he could see through one of the windows. Matty took one of the tankards and started drinking thirstily, holding it in both hands.
Sherlock sipped at the dark brown liquid. It was bitter and flat, and left an unpleasant aftertaste in his mouth.
"Hops aren"t edible, are they?" he said to Matty.
The boy shrugged. "You can eat them, I s"pose, but n.o.body does. They don"t taste too good."
"So why on earth does anyone think you can make a drink out of them then?"
"Dunno."
Looking through the window into the tavern, Sherlock could see Amyus Crowe chatting with the landlord. From the tilt of his head Crowe appeared to be asking questions and the landlord was answering them, still polishing tankards with his increasingly dirty cloth.
A girl in a pinafore emerged from the tavern carrying a tray with four plates of steaming meat. She walked across, put the plates and cutlery down on the table without a word, and left.
Virginia wandered across to join them, and Sherlock edged up to make room for her. She picked at the hot slices of lamb with a fork. She paused for a moment, fork held near her lips. "You know I didn"t write that note, don"t you?"
"I know that now." Sherlock looked away, across the countryside, unable to meet her direct gaze. "I thought it was you at the time, but I suppose that"s because I wanted it to be you. If I"d thought about it, I should have known it wasn"t."
"How so?"
He shrugged. "The paper was delicate and feminine, and the writing was very precise. It was as if someone was trying to pretend to be a girl." He caught himself. "I mean a woman. A young woman. I mean-"
"I know what you mean." She smiled slightly. "So what makes you think I don"t normally use feminine writing paper and neat handwriting?"
This time he could meet her eyes, and the contact held for a long moment. "You"re not like any girls I"ve met in England," he said. "You"re unique. I"m still trying to work you out, but I think if you wanted me to go somewhere, like a fair, you"d just come and ask me." He stopped for a moment and considered. "Or, more likely, just tell me," he added.
This time it was her turn to blush. "You think I"m too bossy?"
"Not too bossy. Just bossy enough." Matty"s gaze was flicking between them. "What are you two talking about?"
"Nothing," Sherlock and Virginia chorused.
Looking through the window again, Sherlock noticed that Crowe had joined the four men who were sitting together. They all appeared to be getting along well. Crowe gestured to the landlord, who began pouring more tankards of beer from a pewter jug on the counter.
"Your father"s an interesting man," Sherlock said, turning to Virginia.
"He has his moments."
"What did he do, back in America?"
She kept her gaze fixed on her plate. "You really want to know?"
"Yes."
"He was a tracker."
"You mean he hunted animals?"
She shook her head. "He hunted men. He tracked killers who had escaped justice, and he tracked Indians who had attacked isolated settlements. He"d follow them for days through the wilderness until he got close enough to take them by surprise."
Sherlock couldn"t quite believe what he was hearing. "And what he bought them back to face justice?"
"No," she said quietly. Abruptly she stood upright and walked away, back towards the horses.
Sherlock and Matty sat in silence for a while, each occupied with his own thoughts.
Eventually Amyus Crowe left the tavern and joined them, squeezing his bulky form between the bench and the table. "Interestin"," he said, back in his "American" persona again.
"What"s happened?" Sherlock asked. "What do they know about the house?"