‘I don’t know anything,’ Sherlock said, trying to inject as much conviction into his voice as he could. He squinted, trying to make out some features on the man’s face or his clothes against the bright light behind him. All he could tell was that the cane the man was resting his hands on had a strangely large head on it.
‘Then you will die in agony. It is that simple. You are about to experience a great deal of pain, but the more true answers you give me, the longer you will live and the less pain you will be in. Now, I have a series of questions to ask you. They are very simple questions. You will answer them just as simply, with no attempt at lying or obscuring the truth.’
Sherlock’s gaze fell on the newspaper. He had to stop the man seeing it. ‘What happens if I don’t know the answers?’ he asked, brain racing as he tried to work out what to do. He jerked his eyes away from it. Just looking down might draw attention to it.
‘A good question,’ the man conceded, ‘and one that has exercised my mind on many occasions in the past. I have, as you can probably guess, conducted many, many interrogations like this. Fortunately I have a solution. You see, we have been watching you for some time. Several of the questions I am going to ask you, I know that you know the answers to. Several of the questions I am going to ask you, I already know the answers to. You, however, don’t know what I know. You can’t risk lying – that is, unless you enjoy pain. Your best option is to tell me the absolute truth. The chances of your fooling me are slight, because on some of the questions I will know, for absolute certain, if you are lying to me – even if you say, “I don’t know.” Now, are we clear about the rules?’
Sherlock thought for a moment. The way the quiet man had laid out the problem was elegant and simple. If Sherlock decided to lie, or to claim ignorance, then there was a statistical chance that he might be caught out. The things Sherlock didn’t know were how many questions the man was going to ask, and how many of those he already knew the answer to. If the answers were ten and one then Sherlock might still have a chance to keep Amyus Crowe’s hideaway secret. If the answers were ten and five, then his chances were much slimmer.
His logical mind clambered all around the problem, trying to find a way through it, but it was seamless. The man asking the questions had the upper hand. He’d thought it all through.
‘Do you understand the rules?’ the man said. His voice was just as gentle as before. ‘I will not ask again.’
‘Yes, I do,’ Sherlock said, edging his foot to one side as if shifting position to make himself more comfortable. He nudged the newspaper into one of the puddles of rainwater that had come through the holes in the ceiling.
The man turned his head slightly, so that he was looking at Rufus Stone, and something about the way the light illuminated his face puzzled Sherlock. ‘It goes without saying,’ he added, ‘that I will tolerate no interruptions from the sidelines. Are we clear?’
Stone nodded his bruised and bloody head, but Sherlock was too concerned with what was happening with the newspaper to pay attention to his friend. The water was beginning to soak into the pages, but a quick hand could pull it out of the puddle.
He risked a glance down. The ink had began to run, erasing the letters that he’d written in the margins of the page. Within a few minutes even the printed text would be indecipherable. He breathed a sigh of relief and turned his attention back to the quiet man’s face, trying to gauge whether the man had seen anything. Sherlock was suddenly struck by the fact that there was something wrong with his skin. There seemed to be marks on it, but he couldn’t see what they were.
‘Then let us begin.’
The man raised a hand from his walking stick. Sherlock saw with shock that the head of the cane was a golden skull, gleaming in the light from the window, but he only glimpsed it for a second before the men on either side moved forward. Stepping over Matty’s inert form they grabbed Sherlock by his arms and hauled him to his feet. The floorboards creaked and bent with the strain.
The men were both holding ropes with loops at the end, made with slip knots. One of the men – the earless one with the ponytail – threw his loop over Sherlock’s head and pulled it tight around his neck. He threw the other end of the rope over one of the bare rafters and pulled it tight. Rufus struggled against his bonds in protest, but the man nearest him casually cuffed him with the back of his hand. Rufus fell back, groaning.
Sherlock felt the rope tighten beneath his chin, choking him. Instinctively he rose up on tiptoe to try to lessen the strain, but the other man – the one with the smallpox scars – was slipping the loop on his own rope beneath Sherlock’s feet and tightening it around his ankles.
‘I suggest,’ the quiet man said in a calm, reasonable voice – the kind of voice that a vicar might use when asking for a cup of tea – ‘that you take a tight hold on the rope that is above your head. In a few seconds your life will depend on how tight a grip you can keep. Plus, of course, on how truthfully you answer my questions.’
Abruptly the man holding the rope that was around Sherlock’s neck pulled on it. The noose tightened, yanking Sherlock off his feet. He grabbed for the rope above his head and hung on for dear life. The strands were rough beneath his fingers, but he could feel his palms becoming sweaty, and he knew that if his hands slipped then he would be left dangling by his neck, and he would suffocate.
His toes dangled in the air inches from the floorboards. The man pulled harder, and Sherlock rose into the air, still hanging on to the rope above his head with both hands. His vision was turning red, but he could just about make out the shape of the man who was holding the rope crossing the room and tying it to an exposed lathe.
‘Now,’ the quiet man said, ‘let us begin.’ He cleared his throat. ‘What is the nature of the relationship between you and Amyus Crowe?’
‘I . . . don’t . . . know . . . anyone . . . with . . . that . . . name . . . !’ Sherlock gasped between precious breaths of air.
‘Now I know that to be a patent falsehood,’ the quiet man said. He raised his hand an inch above his walking stick. As Sherlock looked down he could see the man who had slipped the rope around his feet crouch down, reach into the shadows behind him and pull out a stone the size of Sherlock’s head. String had been tied and knotted around the stone, and one end of the string was attached to a fishing hook. The man hoisted the stone in one hand and stuck the fishing hook in the rope that hung loose from Sherlock’s ankles. Then he let go of the stone.
The weight of the stone suddenly transferred itself to the rope and thus to Sherlock’s feet, dragging him down, stretching his muscles and tendons and pulling the noose tighter around his neck. He clamped his hands even more tightly around the rope, trying desperately to keep himself from choking.
‘On the assumption that you may be congenitally stupid and you may not have understood the rules,’ the quiet man said, ‘I will repeat the question. The penalty for lying should be obvious by now. As you will already have worked out, I do know the answer to this question: what is the nature of the relationship between you and Amyus Crowe?’
‘Teacher!’ Sherlock gasped.
‘Good. Thank you.’ A pause. ‘Now, the second question – where is Amyus Crowe now?’
Sherlock’s vision was narrowing down into a fuzzy tunnel. His blood was thundering in his ears, but the question still reverberated around his mind. He couldn’t answer it – surely he couldn’t answer it! But if he didn’t . . .