He left by the front door and headed for the stables, where his horse was kept. He thought of it as his horse, although he’d effectively stolen it from the evil Baron Maupertuis, back when he’d first arrived at Holmes Manor. Fortunately the Baron hadn’t appeared to ask for it back, and the horse seemed perfectly happy to stay with someone who looked after it and rode it regularly. He’d named it Philadelphia, as a kind of joke. The horse didn’t seem to mind.
Saddling Philadelphia up the way he’d been taught by the groom who worked for the Holmes family, he cantered out of the grounds and along the road that led to Farnham. He’d got pretty good at riding over the past few months, ever since getting back from the eventful trip that he and his brother had made to Russia.
That trip, he reminded himself as the horse calmly trotted along past the tall trees of Alice Holt Forest, had involved the mysterious Paradol Chamber – the international gang of criminals who had also been involved with the colossal schemes of Baron Maupertuis. Nothing had been heard of them since their plan to discredit Sherlock’s brother Mycroft and assassinate the head of the Russian Secret Service had fallen apart, but Sherlock knew that they were still out there, somewhere. He occasionally asked Mycroft about them, but Mycroft professed himself to be as mystified as Sherlock as to what they were up to. The only certainty was that somewhere in the world they were up to something.
The outskirts of Farnham crept up on Sherlock before he knew it: solid red brick buildings with tiled roofs replacing the thatched cottages that had been scattered along the road from Holmes Manor. Rather than ride into the town centre, and risk having Mrs Eglantine see him, he left the horse tied up at a stables he’d used before on the outskirts of town, tipping the ostler a few pence to feed and water it. He walked the rest of the way.
If Mrs Eglantine was telling the truth about vegetables, then she would be at the market. Sherlock headed over towards where it was held, in the shadow of a two-storey building with colonnades all the way around. The marketplace was filled to capacity with stalls selling all manner of foodstuffs, from fruit to fresh beans, from smoked meat to shellfish.
He couldn’t see Mrs Eglantine anywhere, but he did see Matty standing by a vegetable stall. He looked as if he was waiting for something to roll off in his direction.
Matty caught sight of Sherlock and waved. Sherlock saw his friend’s gaze flicker back to the stall, and a look of momentary indecision cross his face before he walked over.
‘Waiting for lunch?’ Sherlock asked.
‘I don’t really separate stuff out into “meals” as such,’ Matty admitted. ‘I just eat whenever I can.’
‘Very wise. Have you seen Mrs Eglantine around?’
‘That housekeeper?’ Matty shuddered. ‘I try to stay away from her. She’s bad news.’
‘Yes, but have you seen her?’
Matty nodded over towards a stall selling fresh trout laid on grass. ‘She was over there a few minutes ago. Said the fish was too small.’
‘Did you see which direction she went?’
He shrugged. ‘Long as she was heading away from me, I didn’t really care. Why? What’s up?’
Sherlock debated whether to tell Matty about the confrontation between Mrs Eglantine and his uncle, but he decided to keep quiet. That was a private family matter – at least for the moment. ‘I just need to know where she is,’ he said. ‘I think she’s up to something.’
‘Shouldn’t be too hard to find her,’ Matty said. ‘She dresses like every day is a Sunday, an’ someone’s died to boot . . .’
As the two boys moved across the marketplace, pushing past the various vendors, customers and browsers who filled the place, Sherlock caught fragments of conversation from all directions.
‘. . . an’ I told ’im, if ’e comes back without it I’m leavin’ . . .’
‘. . . you gave me your word that the deal was already made, Bill . . .’
‘. . . if I see you with that lad again, girl, I’ll wallop you so hard your head will be spinning for a week . . .’
One voice in particular snagged his attention. It was accented, American. He recognized the accent from talking to Amyus Crowe, and from his time in New York. He turned his head, thinking that maybe it was Crowe who was speaking, but the face that he found himself looking at was younger: all sharp planes and hard edges. The man’s hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and beneath the hair it looked to Sherlock as if his right ear was missing. All he could see there was a mass of dark scar tissue. His clothes were dusty and well-travelled, and he was speaking to a companion who had short blond hair and a face covered in circular scars, the kind you got from a bad case of smallpox.
‘. . . will flay us alive and turn our skins into hats,’ the man with the missing ear was saying.
‘We need to find Crowe and his daughter. They’re our only chance!’
‘Well, we know what’ll happen to us if we don’t find them. Remember Abner?’
‘Yeah.’ The dark-haired man’s face twisted with an unpleasant memory. ‘Don’t do nothing but stare at the wall now, after what the boss did to him. It’s like there’s nothing left inside his head, apart from what he needs to breathe and to eat . . .’
They were walking in one direction and Sherlock and Matty were walking in another, and that was all Sherlock heard before the two men were out of earshot. It sounded serious though. Sherlock decided to go and see Mr Crowe as soon as he could. Crowe needed to know that someone was looking for him.
By the time he had formulated the thought, he and Matty were across the other side of the marketplace.
‘Wait here for a minute,’ Matty said. He dashed away, towards the two-storey colonnaded building on the edge of the marketplace. Sherlock lost him as he vanished into the shadows. He was about to turn away and scan the crowd for signs of a black-clad woman when Matty’s head appeared above the parapet, running along the roof of the building. He waved at Sherlock. Sherlock waved back, amazed at how quickly Matty had got through the building. The scruffy barge boy scanned the crowd with his keen gaze. Within moments he was pointing at something.
Mrs Eglantine? Sherlock mouthed, trusting to Matty’s skill at lip-reading to pick up the words.
Pork pie! Matty replied. Sherlock couldn’t tell if he was actually making any sound or not, but the movement of his mouth was clear enough. Matty grinned. Only kidding! he mouthed. She’s over there!
Sherlock gave him a thumbs-up, and Matty’s head disappeared from the parapet.
Sherlock plunged into the crowd of shoppers and market traders, heading in the direction that Matty had indicated. He scanned the heads of the people in front of him, looking out for Mrs Eglantine’s distinctive scraped-back hairstyle. Within the space of a few moments he had seen virtually every variation of hair and headwear possible: black, red, blond, grey, white and bald; straight, curly, pig-tailed and close-shaven; bare-headed, bonneted, scarved, flat-capped, bowler-hatted . . . everything apart from a woman with black hair pulled back so that it looked like it was painted on her scalp. Finally he spotted her. She was standing right on the edge of the marketplace with her back to him. She was talking to a short man with hair that was long, oiled and brushed back to either side of his head, leaving a parting dead centre. His skin was blotchy, and his jacket was shiny with old dirt and grease at the shoulders, elbows and cuffs. He wasn’t the kind of man with whom Sherlock would have thought Mrs Eglantine would associate.