Sherlock saw the man’s eyes flicker with surprise. ‘How did you know?’ he hissed.
‘Ah know you, my friend. Or at least, ah know men like you. A woman with a large wad of cash – of course you followed her. You wanted to find out where she lived, in case you could break in later and steal the rest of the cash she obviously kept on the premises. Men like you are always looking for an openin’, an opportunity. So – where did she go?’
The man shrugged, shifting Crowe’s arms slightly. ‘Didn’t go to no house. She went to a museum in Bow. Called the Passmore Edwards, it is. Used to be a big manor house. I waited for a couple of hours, but she never came out again. I don’t know if she lives there, or if there was a way out at the back, but I never saw her again.’
‘Anything else? Any other facts you want to impart to us?’
‘No – no, I swear!’
Crowe abruptly released the man, who fell to his knees, choking and holding his throat.
‘Ah think we’ve gotten all we can from this fellow,’ Crowe said to Sherlock. ‘If you’re feeling up to it, let’s repair to a coffee house and get some refreshments.’ He cast a critical eye over Sherlock’s mud-stained trousers and boots, and his brick dust-splattered jacket. ‘Maybe we can find a clothes shop first. You’re not going to make a good impression looking like that.’
Before Sherlock could reply, the small man suddenly surged up from the ground, arm swinging round, spiked knuckleduster slicing towards Amyus Crowe’s face. He was snarling; his face contorted in a mask of fury. ‘Try to choke me, would you?’ he shouted.
Crowe leaned back out of the way of the spikes. They slashed across in front of his eyes, just a few inches away. As they passed he stepped forward, twisted his body to the left and kicked out with his right foot. His boot made contact with the man’s knee. Sherlock heard something snap. The man crumpled to the ground, screaming.
‘Let’s go,’ Crowe said, gesturing to Sherlock. Ah feel there’s a pot of coffee and a cream cake somewhere with my name on it, an’ ah intend findin’ it.’
He led the way out, with Sherlock following. They left the small thug curled up on the ground, holding his shattered knee.
‘Shouldn’t we notify the police?’ Sherlock asked. ‘Shouldn’t they arrest him?’
Crowe shrugged. ‘If it makes you feel better ah guess we could, but it’s his word against ours, and the only permanent damage was done by me to him. Any self – respectin’ policeman would prob’ly arrest me instead of him. Or arrest both of us until he sorted out what had actually happened.’
‘But that’s not fair!’ Sherlock protested.
‘Perhaps not, but it’s justice. If you don’t know the difference between the two, you need to learn.’
Crowe led the way back towards the streets and alleys and archways of the area around Waterloo Station.
‘How did you find me?’ Sherlock asked, walking alongside him.
‘Simple answer: ah was followin’ you.’
‘I didn’t see you,’ Sherlock protested.
‘That’s what you can expect when ah follow you. Unlike you, ah can keep myself in the shadows, or in crowds, or around corners.’
‘Why were you following me?’
‘After ah’d checked out that address on the card – which was false, by the by – ah thought ah’d catch up with you. Ah checked the printers in reverse order – startin’ at the last one on the list and workin’ backwards. Ah saw you leavin’ the second printer ah tried – the third one you tried. Ah was tryin’ to catch up, but you were walkin’ fast. An’ then you stopped an’ started watchin’ a tavern. Ah guessed you were on a trail, an’ ah didn’t want to draw attention to you, so ah just hunkered down in a doorway to see what was goin’ on. After a while you started followin’ that bearded guy, so ah just tagged along for the ride. Saw him corner you in the archway, but you ran off before ah could intervene. Ah spent the next hour workin’ my way around the outside, tryin’ to determine where you might emerge.’
‘Oh,’ Sherlock said, mollified. ‘That makes sense.’
They were at the front of the station by now. Crowe spotted a small tailor’s shop located a few doors away from a cobbler’s. Within ten minutes they had a new pair of trousers, new jacket, new shirt and new boots for Sherlock. Crowe paid without any comment. Sherlock assumed that he would sort it out with Mycroft later – if Mycroft ever got released, that was.
Leaving the cobbler’s shop, Crowe led the way to an Aerated Bread Company tearoom nearby. They sat at a table in the window. Sherlock felt oddly disconnected from reality. Less than an hour before he had been running for his life through dark tunnels, and now he was sitting in the sunshine waiting for a cake to arrive. Life could be strange, sometimes. Actually, he reflected, life could be strange a lot of the time.
‘So, what next?’ he asked once the tray of coffee and cakes had arrived.
‘Let’s take stock of what we know’ Crowe took a bite of his sponge cake. ‘There’s at least a double cutout between the person givin’ the orders and the people carryin’ them out.’
Sherlock frowned. ‘What do you mean, a “double cutout”?’
‘Ah mean that the man who killed himself in the Diogenes Club never met the woman in the veil. She hired the man with the beard, an’ he hired the man who was prepared to kill himself so that his family’s financial future could be assured.’
‘Maybe the woman was hired by someone else. Maybe there’s a triple cut-out.’
‘It’s possible,’ Crowe mused. ‘Whoever is organizin’ this is very cautious. They’re makin’ sure that nobody can trace back to them. The only reason we got this far is thanks to two unplanned events – the first bein’ that your printer recognized the man with the beard, an’ the second bein’ that the fellow with the beard was greedy and immoral enough to follow the woman who hired him to this museum he talked about. Never underestimate the value of an unplanned coincidence.’
‘But to what end?’ Sherlock asked. ‘What exactly are they trying to achieve?’
Crowe shrugged. ‘The immediate aim seems to be to discredit your brother, or otherwise get him out of the way. The long-term aim – not sure about that. We need more information.’
Sherlock sighed. He’d thought he was hungry, after all the running around, but the cakes just didn’t appeal to him. ‘What can we do?’ he asked.
‘As ah see it,’ Crowe said, ‘we have three options. First: we could tell the police what we know and return to Farnham, hopin’ that the Diogenes Club solicitor can get Mycroft out of prison and clear his name.’
‘What are the odds on that?’ Sherlock asked.
‘Slim. The police ain’t goin’ to be inclined to investigate a crime where they’ve got clear evidence against a man already in custody, an’ with the best will in the world our story ain’t exactly easy to believe. An’ our evidence has melted away.’
‘But we’ve got the laudanum spray!’
Crowe shrugged. ‘Could be medicine, like your brother said. An’ we can’t just produce it out of nowhere. We might have bought it at a pharmacist down the street.’
‘What’s the second option?’
‘We stay in London an’ talk to your brother’s employers in the Foreign Office – get them to take action an’ get him out.’
Sherlock winced. ‘Even to me, that doesn’t sound likely to succeed.’
‘Indeed. There’s a good chance that the Foreign Office will just leave your brother twistin’ in the wind. Last thing they want is embarrassment an’ publicity.’
‘Then we follow the third option,’ Sherlock said decisively.
Crowe smiled. ‘You don’t even know what it is yet.’
‘I can guess.’ Sherlock’s gaze met Crowe’s deceptively amiable stare. ‘We amass enough evidence by ourselves to clear Mycroft’s name. We go to this museum in Bow and try to find the woman in the veil.’
Crowe nodded. ‘That’s about the size of it. An’ frankly, I don’t hold out much of a hope for our chances. It’s a long shot, it really is.’
‘Why isn’t there someone we can go to?’ Sherlock exploded. ‘Why isn’t there someone who can investigate things that the police won’t or can’t investigate? Some kind of independent, consulting force of detectives who can set things straight, like the Pinkerton Agency in America that you told me about?’