Vanishing Girl Page 19

  Sherlock looks up at the sky one last time. It is nearly as black as his coat, but filled with glittering stars. They seem to wink at him. Somehow, despite the absence of clouds, it begins to snow. It is like a miracle: a light, gentle fall of flakes that are so sharp against the night that he seems to be able to see the complex design of each and every one.

  He gets up and moves quietly to the entrance to the maze.

  Instantly, there is another roar followed by a cacophony of sounds, more hissing near his feet … and the rustling of something pursuing him! He bends over and runs into the maze: right, then left, then right. The sounds of violins play frantically in his head. In seconds, he is at a dead end. Whatever is after him seems to be gaining! He doesn’t care about the Rathbone case anymore or Paul Dimly or anything other than getting out of here alive. But he can’t find any openings in the hedge. Beastly sounds are all around him: a gorilla’s growl, a lion’s roar, and other shrieks he doesn’t recognize.

  Keep running! Where? Where!

  The creature is almost upon him. He imagines it pouncing, landing on his back, ripping his skin, its sharp teeth sinking into his flesh, blood surfacing in great oozing lines: it seizing his neck, twisting him around, tearing open his throat; a gurgling sound, gasping for breath … dying … eaten.

  He cannot find an opening in the hedge!

  He tears into it, right into it: its hard little branches ripping his coat and cutting him. He stays on a beeline as he slashes through, and then goes through the next one, straight at the manor house, like an animal frantic to live.

  When more openings in the hedge walls appear, he enters them, when they don’t, he goes right through again. Finally, he comes out of the maze and sees the alcove at the house with the iron fence around it. He runs toward it through the long grass, leaps, and catches the fence up high. He pulls himself on top … and feels something tug – fangs – at his boots. But he gets over and when he lands on the other side, looks back. He sees nothing at first, then a pair of glowing eyes, sinister lights, flashing for an instant and vanishing back into the darkness.

  He sits on the cobblestones with his chest heaving, sweating in the cold, steam rising from his clothing.

  Make yourself calm.

  He takes a deep breath before he stands and turns to the arched door in the house. The sound of people talking can be heard inside in the distance. They seem happy.

  It’s two male voices … and a woman’s.

  When he lifts the latch and pushes, the thick door opens. He steps inside and closes it gently. He’s in the vestibule. He knows where to go this time: he must make his way through the grand hall, way down to the end where the smaller room with the bright light is … where those three people are moving back and forth, laughing and conversing. Sherlock must get as close as he can. He needs evidence: real evidence.

  He approaches the armor that stands against the wall, complete with helmet, sword, spiked ball and chain, but this time avoids it, swinging wide, feeling his way in the semi-darkness, making for that lighted room.

  Keeping his back against the wall, moving without a sound, he can soon hear exactly what they are saying.

  “Hurry!” exclaims a male voice.

  “Pack up!” says another.

  “Gone by morning, America for Christmas!” giggles the young woman, rolling her Rs.

  “You will travel lightly, my dear?”

  “Oh, heavens no, sir,” she sighs, “I shall have the Rathbone fortune with me!”

  It’s them. There is no doubt.

  But Sherlock wants to see them clearly. All he can make out from where he stands shaking in the hall are figures moving back and forth, apparently filling suitcases and boxes.

  They are getting ready to leave. Tomorrow morning!

  “The captain will be pleased. Everything is on schedule.”

  Sherlock almost cries out, but puts his hand to his mouth.

  “If we were to cut the hands off of England’s thieves, there would be no thieves in London!” barks one of the two men in a pompous, upper-class voice.

  They all laugh.

  “One must be brutal with brutal people.”

  “Never give them an inch!”

  They give a whoop of delight.

  Amidst the cover of laughter, Sherlock thinks he can step closer. He inches along the wall, getting almost to the doorway … and knocks something over. It’s a vase. It whacks against the floor, a single, loud bang, but it is brass and doesn’t smash or roll.

  “Listen!” says one of the men.

  Silence.

  Sherlock holds his breath.

  “Must be one of those beasts!” cries the young woman, and they all laugh again.

  Sherlock picks up the vase and gingerly sets it back on its stand. He should tiptoe out of here, try to get off the grounds, and send word to Lestrade in London. But he can’t resist seeing the thieves, confirming who they are: he especially wants to look at the woman. He is right at the door now. Summoning his courage, he peeks his head slightly out to see around the frame, exposing the side of his face.

  It is a sitting room of sorts, though it has no chairs. He sees a man … wrapping a cloth around a painting.

  Young. Perhaps mid twenties. Dark hair and eyes. Slender but muscular. A scar across his left cheek.

  He sees the other man, putting handfuls of silver cutlery into a big black bag.

  About the same age. Red hair, light eyes. Approximately ten stone, slightly under average height, walks with a limp, left leg.

  He can’t see the woman. But then she walks across his sightline, coming directly toward him. Sherlock sees her face. He gasps. Then he turns and creeps away, tight to the wall, back down the hallway toward the vestibule. When he gets halfway, he flattens himself against the paneling, twenty feet from the thieves, trying not to make any noise as his chest heaves as though it will burst.

  It was Victoria Rathbone!

  She has the same strawberry blonde hair kept the identical way, the same pretty face. She looks the right age. She is even wearing the dress she had on yesterday when Sherlock saw her cautiously leaving her father’s Belgravia mansion. There is no doubt: Victoria Rathbone is working with the thieves! She helped them rob her father! She was in on it all along. She allowed herself to be abducted … twice.

  Then another thought comes into his mind and he whispers it out loud.

  “If Victoria is down here … who is in that room two floors up?”

  The light was still on.

  He moves farther along the wall, tight against it, heading for the entrance of the corridor that leads to the staircase. He shouldn’t go up there. Don’t be rash. He has what he needs. Leave this instant. Return to town and send for the police and the Times reporter. Sherlock has the criminals, evidence that Captain Waller is involved, his whereabouts known … he has even found the wayward Victoria. It will be a sensation. He will gain Irene’s admiration, secure his future, and shame that pig, Lestrade, all in one swoop.

  But there is unfinished business. Who is upstairs?

  When he comes to the corridor opening, he stops. He imagines himself turning here, slipping down the passageway, then into the big room with the beautiful carved staircase with the images of Narcissus on the railings, gliding up the steps, reaching the first landing, and ascending to the next floor. He could head through that maze, find the lighted room, enter it, and discover …

  It is so tempting.

  Don’t be greedy. Do this right.

  “It was a stroke of luck, you know, Victoria, our finding you,” he hears one of the men say in the other room.

  “For all of us, it was.”

  “Can you get us that carton in the hall?”

  One of the men advances toward the grand hall. The boy retreats silently and in seconds is in the vestibule and then outside, into the bracing air under the gentle snowfall, looking through the vertical iron spikes of the fence, trying not to rush, remembering how the maze twists and turns
. Even though he went right through the tall hedges on his way in, he feels as though he knows the maze well enough now to move along its pathways. He can get off the grounds in a flash – he just has to think about the puzzle for a moment.

  But something makes him glance back. The big, arched door: he has left it open just a crack. The cold air must be rushing in, air that anyone in the hall would feel – he hears footsteps advancing toward it from the inside. He has no choice – he can’t stand here remembering how to negotiate the maze.

  He scrambles over the fence, lands with a thump on the other side, and races onto the grounds. In a few seconds, he is across the tall grass and into the maze. But the loud smack of his landing must have alerted the animals because almost instantly they are at his heels. He puts his head back and runs. Violins play in his head again. He turns left, right, left, through a hedge, down a passageway, down another, and finally, sees the dim glow of the lights of St. Neots in the sky in the distance above the wall. He makes for it with everything he has, his lungs burning. He executes a leap and reaches for the fence and its spears on top. He misses … and falls to the ground.

  Sherlock Holmes twists around to face his fate. This thing, this beast – as black as the night it seems, invisible except for its glowing yellow eyes, will maul him and eat him as surely as one of its ancestors consumed that terrible Grimwood lord who murdered his wife.

  But the night is silent and no beast haunts it.

  Sherlock gets up and rushes for the wall, climbs it in an instant, and gets over the fence. When he is safe, he looks back up at the house to see that dim light upstairs. There it is. A shadow moves in the room. He turns and scurries back down the hill toward the town in the darkness, stumbling and falling, his heart pumping, terror and excitement filling his every pore.

  He intends to avoid the town and head for his spot by the riverbanks near the paper mill. He can’t let the locals or authorities see him sneaking around in the night. Sherlock must hide until the sun rises.

  But when he is far out on the marshy fields that separate the town from Grimwood’s hill, he hears voices coming across the open space. He stops and listens for a moment, but can’t make anything out, just people conversing in low tones, moving, it seems, directly toward the mansion. Either they are poor, or are trying to be secretive because they aren’t carrying lanterns.

  Sherlock steps quietly out of their path and lies down on the cold, snowy ground, curling up to be both undetectable and warm. The black sky has grown cloudier and he lies very still. Snowflakes land on his face, tickling his nose.

  “Shall we take paintings or jewelry, boss?”

  Sherlock freezes.

  It’s Grimsby.

  Holmes lifts his head slightly and looks up. He sees three silhouettes: Grimsby’s short figure in the middle between a slightly taller and thicker boy behind and a very tall, thin shadow wearing a top hat in front. Sherlock can see the outline of the tails of his coat hanging from his back. He has a thick walking stick in his hand. Malefactor.

  There is no sign of Irene.

  “What we take is not your concern, Grimsby. I know the value of everything they stole, believe me. We shall have our cut.”

  “Will she follow us?”

  “Shut your gob! You are not fit to speak of her.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  “I hate to admit it, but that Jew-boy will solve this. He came here from Portsmouth far too quickly not to know something. He may have the police here by tomorrow. We must get our goods now. And then make ourselves scarce! Pick up your pace, gentlemen.”

  Sherlock Holmes has always been suspicious that Malefactor’s connections in the London underworld run deep. He came to believe, for example, that the young crime lord had some association with the Brixton gang. But is his power, his influence, even greater than he suspected? Is this brilliant boy one of the larger spiders in the web of villainy that pollutes London? Has he made himself invaluable to growing numbers who do dirty business in its alleys and inside its homes? Is his knowledge of the streets, his command of quick, little fiends who can go anywhere and do anything something that even the most ambitious criminals employ?

  “You knew exactly when Miss Rathbone would be in that carriage in Rotten Row, didn’t you, boss? You knew where they would have to stand to snatch her, didn’t you, boss? You knew how Lord Rathbone would respond. That was brilliant, boss. You knew that they hadn’t seen their daughter for years, didn’t you? You even told that captain that he should get a girl who …”

  “Close your hole, Grimsby. The captain came to me because I can get things done. If you don’t believe in your own brilliance, then it is useless. Pride doesn’t go before a fall; it keeps you from falling. And word will spread if you have confidence. That’s why he was put in touch with me. But it is not for you to dwell on the details of any job. Do what you are told and do it well, and some day you may find yourself in my shoes … when I have moved on.”

  “What if that half-breed gets in our way?”

  “Then I shall deal with him.”

  “Yes, boss,” says Grimsby.

  They move away and their voices begin to fade into the night, going in the direction of the mansion. Sherlock staggers to his feet, his thoughts reeling. There are so many culprits, so many possibilities still attached to this crime.

  He finds his spot by the river and tries to sleep, but tosses and turns all night. Snow falls on him in a cold blanket, and he is freezing. He wants to summon the local authorities up to the manor house right now and arrest not only the three thieves, including Lord Rathbone’s daughter, but Malefactor and his henchman, too. What an addition that would be to everything he has already discovered! He could wipe a young criminal mastermind from the face of London’s underworld. It would free Irene from that rat’s clutches, too.

  But he knows that the local authorities wouldn’t listen to a word of his story – they would arrest him as a vagrant on the spot.

  He has to contact the London police and he can’t do that until morning. Even if there was a night train that he could take to the city this instant, Malefactor would have made himself scarce by the time they returned.

  Keep your mind on what is possible. It is enormous. Get word to both Lestrade and Hobbs of The Times the minute the telegram office opens, have all the culprits in the house arrested – Miss Rathbone has to be caught red-handed – the family’s treasures recovered, the captain intercepted. Make sure you are on the scene at Grimwood Hall when it happens. Get the credit you deserve. Secure your future.

  But his mind keeps wandering back to the light in that upstairs room and the shadow moving across it. Is Polly Hunt up there? And if it isn’t her, who in the world are they imprisoning? And what are they doing to her? The thought terrifies him. Is it a kidnapping ring? Or is this person not being held at all: is it a fourth member of their gang? What complex game are these criminals playing? Perhaps they knew he was in the house … and the whole manor will be abandoned when he returns.

  Whatever the answers, they will come in the morning. But his first job, his duty, will be to speak to Penny Hunt. He dreads what he must tell her and how she will respond.

  When the sky becomes lighter, he rises and makes his way into St. Neots. He had watched Penny walk away from the river toward her home several times, so he knows the area where she lives in the north end of town. Cocks crow in the distant fields, his feet crunch on the inch of freshly fallen snow, and he shivers as he walks, his collar up, his shoulders hunched. He enters the town and sees a milkmaid carrying heavy cans on poles over her shoulders, a blacksmith bearing a big sledgehammer opening his shop, and a few other tradesmen moving sullenly along, ready to start their day. He doesn’t look them in the eye and tries to act as if he has somewhere to go. Then he spots what he is looking for: a child. In fact, it is one of the boys he met the first day he came here.

  “Might I have a word?” he asks softly as the boy approaches.

  The lad looks up and gasps.
He starts to back away.

  “It’s you, the London man with the made-up name.”

  “Sherlock Holmes. It’s my real name.”

  “No, it ain’t … but that’s all right, sir … it weren’t me that throwed that apple … if that’s what you’re inquirin’ about … it … it were Jack … that’s right … Jack McMurdo … ‘e lives over at –”

  “Do you know a woman named Penny Hunt who works at the paper mill?”

  “Mrs. Hunt? I do, sir. Lives down that road right there.” He points to a narrow street nearby. “About four homes in, thatched roof with a blue door.”

  “Thank you, my boy. Breathe a word of my presence, and you will have trouble.”

  “Yes sir. Is that all you wants? Can I go? I didn’t throw that apple … I swear it was Jack McMurdo. I can take you right to ‘is door!”

  “Be off with you,” says Sherlock, “and don’t throw anything at anyone anymore.”

  The boy flies away.

  Holmes doesn’t think he should knock on Penny’s door. He doubts he’ll need to, anyway: the town is rousing and he knows she will be, too. He isn’t standing on the road near her home for more than a few minutes before she appears, holding a dusty rug she is about to shake in the cold air. But it barely seems like her: she is whistling a merry tune and smiling. It puzzles Sherlock.

  When she sees him, a look of fear crosses her face for a moment, but then vanishes. She looks up and down the street, back toward the house, and then crosses to him.

  “What do you want, Master Holmes?” she asks quietly, still glancing back toward the house. “You shouldn’t be here. My husband has a temper.”

  “Your husband should be trounced by a good man. I am skilled in the ways of self-defense and can do it for you.”