Somewhere beyond the trains, the tracks would lead out into the open air. A breeze was blowing in, scouring away the smell of the catacombs through which Sherlock had been chased and in which he had so nearly lost his life. He trudged wearily towards the weak sunlight. Somewhere out there, back in the real world, Mycroft was still facing a murder charge, and Sherlock had to help clear his name. He was exhausted and in pain, but that didn’t matter. Mycroft needed his help.
He was so tied up with his own thoughts that it took him a few seconds to register the fact that the man with the stringy hair had just stepped out from behind the engine of one of the trains.
‘No escape for you, sonny,’ he said. He raised his hands. The meagre light glinted off the metal spikes on his knuckledusters. ‘And it looks like I saved myself a half-crown into the bargain.’
CHAPTER SIX
Sherlock felt his heart sink. All that effort, all that running, all that scraping of his skin against brick, and he still couldn’t get clear. He was too tired to do anything more. He had run out of energy.
‘How did you find me?’ he wheezed.
‘I couldn’t get through those gaps, could I?’ the man replied. ‘But I knew most of them came out here in the bone yards, so I made my way around the outside and waited. I was about to give up when I heard you scraping through.’ He paused. ‘I still need you to tell me why you were following me,’ he said darkly. ‘And then you die.’
A bulky shape moved smoothly out from the space between engine and tender, behind the man with the beard and the knuckledusters. It was wearing a hat.
Sherlock recognized Amyus Crowe just as Crowe slipped his left arm round the thug’s neck, grabbing the wrist with his right hand. The man’s neck was caught in the crook of Crowe’s elbow. Sherlock saw the fabric of Crowe’s sleeve tighten as he tensed his muscles.
The man’s eyes bulged. He brought his hands up to grab at Crowe’s arm, but he couldn’t budge it no matter how much he pulled. His face turned purple as Sherlock watched, too tired to be amazed. Crowe must have been exerting enough force to stop the man from breathing.
The man desperately kicked back with his booted right foot, but Crowe had braced his legs to either side and his captive couldn’t reach. Next he took his hands away from Crowe’s arm and punched backwards, behind his head, hoping to catch Crowe with the spikes of his knuckledusters, but Crowe just moved his head out of the way and increased the pressure on the man’s throat.
‘Ah’m disappointed that you were careless enough to let this man see you following him,’ he said mildly, looking at Sherlock over the man’s shoulder.
Sherlock ran a grimy hand through his hair. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d kept myself well out of sight.’
‘Learn a lesson,’ Crowe said amiably. ‘Traps can be reversed. That’s the difference between animals and humans – rabbits don’t suddenly turn around and hunt foxes, but men can switch roles. Prey can become predator. Look out for the signs. If your prey is leadin’ you somewhere isolated then just maybe they’ve spotted you and want to get you alone.’
‘Don’t you ever stop teaching?’ Sherlock asked wearily, remembering the lesson on the lake while they were fishing.
‘Life teaches us all the time, if we’re alert enough to understand.’ Crowe’s gaze flickered sideways, to where the man’s face was becoming increasingly congested and his eyes were bulging. ‘Now,’ he said conversationally, ‘let’s you and me have a little talk. Why are you threatening my friend and protege here with violence? That ain’t particularly civilized, friend.’
‘He was following me,’ the man wheezed.
Crowe looked over at Sherlock and raised his eyebrow. ‘Ah presume you had a reason,’ he said. ‘You weren’t just practisin’ your trackin’ skills – although they obviously do need the practice.’
‘I found the printer who made the visiting card,’ Sherlock said. ‘He said that this man was waiting out in the street for the man who had the visiting card printed. They went off together.’
Crowe nodded. ‘I assumed it was something like that.’ He turned his attention back to his captive. ‘So, that leads us to the question of why? Why did you pay for a poor, sick man to have a single visiting card printed up, and why did you then send him in to visit Mister Mycroft Holmes in his club?’
The man tugged at Crowe’s arm. ‘You’re choking me!’ he protested.
‘Neatly spotted. I am choking you.’
‘You’re breaking my neck!’
‘Not yet. Another few ounces of pressure and your neck will snap like a rotten twig, yes, but not just yet. You’ll suffocate first.’
‘You’re killing me!’
‘Yes,’ Crowe confirmed. ‘Ah believe ah am. Talk fast.’
‘I was paid!’
‘Of course you were. Ah didn’t think you were doin’ this out of love of Queen and country. The question is: who was payin’ you?’
‘I don’t know their name!’ The man pounded on Crowe’s rigid left arm. ‘Just let me breathe! Please!’
Crowe released his grip by a fraction, and the man drew in a shuddering breath. His lank hair was plastered across his face. His face lost some of its beetroot colour.
‘I was approached in the Shaftesbury Tavern one night,’ he gasped. ‘People know I’m a fixer. I can make deals, and find the right people for a blagging, or anything you want. I was told to find a man who was close to meeting his Maker and needed money for his family. I was told to persuade him to do one last thing, and if he did it properly he would secure his family’s future comfort.’
‘And you knew a man like that?’
‘I knew hundreds of men like that! They’re ten a penny around here. Consumption, alcoholism, gut-rot – there’re many ways to die in London.’
‘And what was this last task he had to complete?’
The man was silent.
Crowe tightened his grip. ‘Just one more ounce of pressure,’ he murmured, ‘and the last sound you will hear is your neck breaking. Ah’ve done it to cougars, ah’ve done it to alligators, and ah’ve even done it to a bull in my time. You will not present much of a challenge, believe me.’
‘He had to go to this club in Whitehall,’ the man said hurriedly, ‘and ask to see a man in private. Alone, like. A man named Mycroft Holmes. And then hand over a card which we had to have printed up. Just the one card. And when he was alone with this cove, he had to spray some stuff in the cove’s face – stuff from this thing like a perfume bottle. The cove would look like he had fallen asleep on his feet. Then he had to put a real knife in the cove’s hand and stab himself in the heart with another knife made of ice. Like a pantomime it was.’
‘Where did the knives come from?’
‘I was told that a boy would run up to us as we got to the club. He’d give us a case with the knives in it. We had to do it that way otherwise the ice knife might melt, even though it was in the case.’
Crowe smiled. ‘Didn’t this all strike you as a bit strange?’
‘I’ve done stranger,’ the man admitted, ‘and I was being well paid.’
‘This man who hired you – did you know his name? Can you describe him?’
‘I didn’t say it was a bloke, did I?’
Crowe’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. ‘Indeed you did not. My mistake. So – you were hired by a woman?’
He nodded, as much as he was able with Crowe’s arms around his neck. A woman, yes.’
‘Describe her.’
‘Youngish. Slim. Well-dressed.’
Crowe snorted. ‘The face, man – describe the face.’
‘Couldn’t see it. She was wearing a big hat and a veil.’
‘Colour of hair?’
‘Couldn’t see under the hat.’
‘But you followed her, didn’t you? After she hired you?’