‘But Mycroft won’t have a knife,’ Stone pointed out.
‘It doesn’t matter. All the evidence is against him. They’ll assume he just threw the knife, or the razor blade, or whatever, out of the window!’
‘I’m not sure… What if the window was closed?’
‘Then they would probably use a slingshot and stone to smash it so that the falcon would fly inside. In the confusion afterwards they would assume that Mycroft had smashed it trying to escape. This is the Paradol Chamber. They think of everything! It makes sense! I never understood why I was attacked with a falcon of all things. Who takes a live falcon to a museum of stuffed birds? They must have been training it there, using the museum as a base of operations.’
A memory flashed up in his mind, and he plunged his hand into his jacket pocket. There, nestling next to the glass bottle from the Diogenes Club, the one from the dead man’s jacket, was the small shape of the dead mouse he’d found in the train on the way from Dunkerque to Moscow and forgotten about. It fitted perfectly into his palm. ‘And this must have come from its food supply,’ he said urgently. ‘I found it on the train. Mr Kyte must have been looking after the bird – that’s why he spent so much time in his compartment during the journey. He was keeping it calm and fed, making sure it didn’t escape.’
‘Let’s assume you’re right.’ Stone glanced around. ‘Where will they be flying it from?’
‘Somewhere close at hand. Possibly a building – if they could get access to the roof or an empty room.’ Sherlock looked around urgently. ‘Or somewhere on the street, maybe.’
His gazed snagged on a black carriage that was stationary on the other side of the street. It was just like the other carriages that rattled past, but something about it drew Sherlock’s attention. Perhaps it was the bulk of the driver, or the unsuccessful way he was trying to hide his bushy red beard beneath a scarf.
‘Over there,’ he said urgently. ‘That carriage.’
Stone followed his gaze. ‘That’s Mr Kyte.’
‘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.