‘So he might still be here, in the city?’
Matty nodded as he opened his bedroom door. ‘Might well be, although it’s more likely that he went back to Ireland.’
The next morning there was still no word from Rufus Stone. Disconsolate, Sherlock and Matty ate a breakfast of oat porridge served by a silent maid. It was so thick that Sherlock could have cut it into slices with a knife, and it looked like pigswill, but it was surprisingly tasty, and filling as well.
‘What’s the plan?’ Matty asked.
‘I’m going to find a bookshop or a library,’ Sherlock replied. ‘I need a map of the city, and I need to find out more about the place. I feel lost here. I can’t find my bearings. Why don’t you go and check the places you used to know, see if there’s anyone who remembers you and can help us. We’re going to need all the help we can get.’ He paused for a second, thinking. ‘That park, up the street from the hotel – let’s meet just inside the front gates at midday.’
‘I ain’t got a watch,’ Matty pointed out.
‘Then ask someone.’
Having finished their porridge, they said their goodbyes and went out into the street.
Sherlock found a library a little way along the main thoroughfare. Inside, the dry smell of the books was comforting. It reminded him of Uncle Sherrinford’s library. He always felt at home with books. Moving to the section devoted to Scotland, he pulled an armful of volumes off the shelf and settled at a nearby table to read.
Within an hour he had a much better idea of the geography and the history of Edinburgh, and its place within the wider history of Scotland. The town was built on seven hills, he discovered, which he supposed would explain the fact that every direction seemed to be either uphill or down.
After a while the close black print started blurring as he tried to read it. He closed the book and shut his eyes for a moment. The problem was, he thought, that the kind of information he wanted wasn’t the kind that went in reference books. Where did people go in Edinburgh when they were on the run? How did they avoid detection when someone was looking for them? Who was in charge of the local criminal fraternity, and were they more likely to help a person on the run or the people chasing them?These were the kind of things that Matty was more likely to find out from his contacts, but unless it was written down and kept up to date then it was the kind of information that would just slip away. Sherlock decided that he needed to write down all the little snippets and facts that he or Matty unearthed along the way. Maybe if he kept them on file cards then he could access them the next time he needed them.
A sudden, disturbing thought struck him, and he shivered. What he was proposing wasn’t that different from what Josh Harkness had done – collect information on dubious and illegal activity and keep it. The only real distinction was that Sherlock wouldn’t be using it for profit.
He checked the watch that usually hung from a chain on his waistcoat. It was half past eleven. Time to start thinking about meeting Matty.
As he returned the books to their shelves he noticed that there were maps of Edinburgh for sale at the front desk for sixpence. He bought one and took it back to the table where he had been reading to open it. His gaze scanned quickly across the details: the shape of the city and in which directions the main roads ran. He located the main railway line coming in from London, and traced the route the cab had taken. It had gone along a road named Princes Street – clearly the main road through the city. That enabled him to work out where their hotel was, and where he was now.
Folding the map up and putting it in his pocket, he set off for the park. He felt more confident that he could navigate his way around now.
The sun was shining through the clouds, casting beams of light diagonally across the mottled blue and grey as if girders of light were holding up the entire sky. Glancing down side roads as he strolled along Princes Street he caught glimpses of the castle. It no longer looked like a solid grey cloud hanging above the city, but there was something about it that defied geometry and perspective. It looked as if it just shouldn’t be possible that the castle was up there while the town was down here.
As he passed one particular alley, something in the shadows made a scuffling noise. He stopped, intrigued, and looked sideways. He made no move to get any closer to the alley – that would have been stupid – but if anyone was following him then he wanted to know who it was.
For a moment he could only see a pool of shadow, like liquid darkness, where the sun could never penetrate, but after a few moments his eyes got used to the contrast and he could make out something that seemed to be floating in mid-air, like a pale balloon. It took a moment of concentration before his brain realized what he was looking at – the face of someone dressed entirely in black who was standing there, in the alley, staring out.
Sherlock took an involuntary step backwards. The face was bone-white, with eyes set so deep that the sockets were just black holes in the face. The cheekbones stuck out sharply, and the lips – if the figure had any lips – were pulled back from teeth that seemed to grin at Sherlock as if the figure was enjoying some private joke. For a long moment Sherlock was convinced that a rotting human body, something close to a skeleton, was standing there, in the alley, looking at him. Had it been ripped from the ground and left there, propped up against a piece of wood, as a warning? And who would do such a macabre thing?
The figure raised a hand to the side of its face and waved, then drew back into the darkness until Sherlock couldn’t see it any more. Only after it had gone, leaving him cold and shaking, did he remember the man in the tavern, the one who had been sitting alone. Had it been him?This figure had looked even more skeletal, even less alive, but that might have been a trick of the poor light.
What was going on? He thought back to what his aunt and uncle had told him. Was he going mad, like his father?
For a few seconds Sherlock wanted to go further into the alley, looking for the figure – looking for the truth about what he’d seen – but he pulled back. Logically, the most likely explanation was that this was a trap, and the figure was bait to lure him in. But was it random, or did someone know that his curiosity often outweighed his good sense? Rattled, Sherlock walked away from the mouth of the alley and he didn’t look back.
The park was only a few minutes further. When he got there, Matty was already waiting.
‘Are you all right?’ his friend asked. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Sherlock replied sharply. ‘There’s no such thing as ghosts.’
‘All right – keep your hair on.’
‘Did you find anything out?’ Sherlock asked.
Matty shook his head. ‘Most of the blokes and kids I knew around here have moved on. That or they’ve died. I did find a couple of people who remembered me, but they don’t know anything about a big American who’s come through this way. What about you?’
‘I could find my way around the city now.’
‘Well, I suppose that’s something,’ Matty said critically. ‘If we was ever planning on moving here.’
‘Don’t underestimate the usefulness of geographical knowledge.’
Matty stared at him. ‘So what’s our next move?’ he asked eventually.
Sherlock pondered for a moment. He’d been debating this question himself. ‘I suppose we could go back and talk to the ticket collectors and the guards at the station here,’ he said slowly, ‘but they must see hundreds of passengers a day, and there’s no guarantee that they would remember Mr Crowe. Besides, if he continued to be as careful as he was back in Farnham, then he would have got off at an earlier station and maybe hired a cart to bring him and Virginia to Edinburgh.’