‘Look after my brother,’ Mycroft replied. He stared at Matty, and raised an eyebrow. ‘If it isn’t too much trouble, look after this one too. I find him curiously entertaining, and my brother obviously likes him.’
‘You’re a funny geezer,’ Matty said chirpily, ‘but thanks for the lift.’
Mycroft switched his glance back to Sherlock and stuck out a hand. ‘Send me a telegram whenever convenient,’ he said. ‘You can reach me care of the Diogenes Club. Let me know how your search is going. And take care. Take great care. I have a bad feeling in my bones, and I do not think it is the gout from which I worry that I am beginning to suffer.’
The three of them – Sherlock, Matty and Rufus Stone – climbed out of the carriage. The driver shut the door and climbed nimbly back to his seat. Sherlock heard the rap of Mycroft’s cane hitting the roof, and his muffled voice calling, ‘Admiralty Arch, my good man!’ And then the carriage was pulling away from the station.
‘We’re on our own,’ Matty said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
King’s Cross Station was just like Waterloo – a large space filled with people waiting on the concourse and pigeons roosting in the cast-iron girders that held up the glass roof – except that it was smaller. Smoke drifted through the air, and the sulphurous smell of burning coal hung over everything. The walls and girders were coated with a thin film of black dust.
Sherlock looked around, wondering if it was worth asking someone if they had seen a big man in a white suit and hat with a younger girl in tow at some stage in the past day or two. Asking the people who were catching trains wouldn’t do any good – the chance that they might have also been there at the same time as Amyus and Virginia Crowe was slim – but it might be worth talking to the ticket-office clerks or the station guards. Or, he thought, as his gaze scanned the walls of the arrivals and departures hall, he could talk to the beggars and pickpockets who moved like ghosts through the crowd, invisible and unnoticed apart from the occasional cries of ‘I told you – I haven’t got sixpence, and even if I did I wouldn’t give it to you!’ and ‘My wallet! Where’s my wallet?’ that marked their progress. The beggars and pickpockets would always be there, he suspected – day and night. This was their place of work and their home as well.
He stopped himself before he could walk across to the nearest beggar and offer him sixpence for some information. Amyus Crowe had tried to explain to him a while back about the problem of trying to confirm something you already knew. Sherlock was as certain as he could be that Crowe and Virginia were making for Edinburgh and had gone through King’s Cross on the way. Having a beggar tell him that yes, a big man in a white suit and hat had been there, with a girl, wouldn’t change his certainty – it would just be extra information. On the other hand, having a beggar say that no, he hadn’t seen a man or a girl fitting that description wouldn’t mean that they hadn’t been there. The beggar couldn’t be expected to remember every single person who had been through the station concourse. ‘The sensible man,’ Crowe had said, ‘don’t look to confirm what he already knows – he looks to deny it. Finding evidence that backs up your theories ain’t useful, but finding evidence that your theories are wrong is priceless. Never try to prove yourself right – always try to prove yourself wrong instead.’
The trouble was, in this case, if Sherlock’s theory was that Amyus Crowe and Virginia had travelled through King’s Cross, the only way to prove that theory wrong was to discover that they had travelled from a different London terminus – and that would mean a day wasted while they checked Paddington, Euston, Liverpool Street and the other major stations. They didn’t have time to do that.
‘You look pensive,’ Rufus Stone said, clapping him on the shoulder.
‘Just thinking through a problem,’ Sherlock replied. ‘I was wondering whether it was worth asking after Mr Crowe, but I think it would just be confusing.’
Stone nodded in agreement. ‘Even if he bought a ticket here, it wouldn’t have been for Edinburgh. He would have disguised his trail the same way he would have done leaving Farnham.’ He looked around. ‘We’ve got a while before the train, and my stomach is thinking my throat has been cut while it wasn’t looking. Let’s grab some food before we board the train – my treat.’
Stone was as good as his word. He found a chestnut seller on the fringes of the waiting crowd and bought three bags of hot nuts. He and Sherlock had to blow on them before they were cool enough to eat, but Matty seemed to have a throat lined with brick. He just swallowed them straight down, one after the other, smiling all the time.
After they had eaten their fill, Stone led Sherlock and Matty across the concourse towards the platforms. He showed their tickets to the guard, and they boarded the train. It was, in all respects that Sherlock could see, identical to the one that had taken them from Farnham to Waterloo.
‘It’s going to be a long journey,’ Stone said, settling down in a small compartment. ‘Make yourselves comfortable. Get some sleep, if you can. There’s two things a man should grab whenever he can – sleep and food. You never know when your next chance will come along.’ He glanced at Sherlock. ‘If I’d have thought, I’d have brought along a violin. We could have continued our lessons.’
‘In that case,’ Matty muttered, just loud enough to hear, ‘I would have taken a different train.’
Rufus glared at him. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘your musical tastes run just as far as a tin whistle and a rattle, and no further.’
‘Don’t knock tin whistles.’ Matty shook his head. ‘There’s plenty of good tunes come out of a tin whistle. That and a rattle is enough to dance to, and dancing’s what music’s all about.’ He glanced truculently at Stone. ‘Ain’t it?’
Stone just shook his head in mock sadness and kept quiet.
‘Actually,’ Sherlock said, ‘I wanted to talk a bit more about the theatre – about make-up and disguises, and things like that.’
Stone nodded. ‘I can happily do that. I love reminiscing about the times I’ve trodden the boards myself, carrying a spear in the back of someone else’s big scene, or played in the orchestra pit while the actors were on stage showing their craft.’ He raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘You seem to have a strong liking for the art and craft of acting. What’s brought this on, may I ask?’
Sherlock shrugged, uneasy at talking about his own hopes and likings. ‘I suppose I just find it interesting,’ he said. Stone kept looking at him expectantly, and to break the silence Sherlock added testily, ‘If you really have to know, it goes back to Moscow, and that cafe we were in. I was sitting there with seven or eight people with whom I’d spent the past three days, and I didn’t recognize them. Not one of them.’ He felt his cheeks burning with a sudden rush of emotion that seemed to be a curdled mixture of embarrassment and anger. He hadn’t realized until he’d said the words how much that incident had bothered him. ‘I’m meant to be a good observer,’ he continued. ‘Amyus Crowe always says that I’ve got a talent for picking up on small details, and yet they fooled me. They fooled me!’
‘They were better than you,’ Stone said calmly. ‘There’s no shame in that. I’m not the best violinist in the world. I never will be the best violinist in the world. But I’m good, and I’m getting better.’
‘I want to be the best,’ Sherlock said quietly. ‘I want to be the best violinist, and the best animal tracker, and the best at disguising myself. If I can’t be the best, then what’s the point of even trying?’