Andrew Lane - Red Leech

“Don’t argue, boy. Just do what your betters tell you.”

Sherlock glanced from his face to the gun and back again. This man wasn’t twitchy, or edgy, or mad. He was perfectly sane, but just as likely to shoot.

Sherlock moved forward and took the madman by his shoulders. The newcomer stepped back to give him space. Sherlock dragged the unconscious body around the corner and along to the open window, aware all the time of the nearness of the edge of the ledge. One misstep and he would fall.

The man’s body was heavy and difficult to manoeuvre, and Sherlock felt sweat springing out across his entire body as he wrestled with it. Eventually he managed to get it half in and half out of the bedroom window. Climbing over it with difficulty, he pulled it in after him.

And all the time, the man with the gun watched.

A pair of arms suddenly appeared over Sherlock’s shoulder and took hold of the unconscious body.

“I’ll take him from here,” said a high-pitched voice.

Sherlock turned his head, surprised. A fourth man was standing close to him. This man was short and portly and bald. He was also missing part of his right ear.

Sherlock stepped back and let the newcomer pull the body along the ground, out into the corridor and along to a different bedroom. This one had a key sticking out of the lock. Inside, while the newcomer was hoisting the unconscious body on to the bed, Sherlock noticed that this room did actually have bars on the windows. This was the madman’s room.

The third man — the burly one with the blond hair — was standing in the doorway. He still had the gun.

“How’s Gilfillan?” he asked.

“Nasty head wound,” the small, bald man replied, still arranging the madman on the bed. “He’ll have one hell of a headache when he wakes up, but I think he’ll be OK.” He sniggered. “He’s got a thick skull. You’d have to hit him a lot harder to cause any significant damage.”

“I might just do that,” the burly man snarled. “Damn fool, letting Booth get the drop on him like that. He could’ve derailed the entire plan. The last thing we need is Booth running wild across the countryside, especially in his current state.”

Booth! Sherlock tried not to react, but inside he felt a warm glow of satisfaction. The man was John Wilkes Booth, not John St Helen.

The burly man was still talking. He gestured at Sherlock with his gun. “And now, because of him, we’re saddled with a witness.”

The bald man stopped what he was doing and looked up at Sherlock for the first time. “What are we going to do with him, Ives?”

The burly man — Ives — shrugged. “I don’t see we’ve got much of a choice,” he said.

The bald man was suddenly nervous. “Look, he’s just a kid. Can’t we just, you know, let him go?” He turned towards Sherlock. “You ain’t seen anything, have you, kid?”

Sherlock tried to look terrified. It wasn’t hard. “Honest, guv,” he said, putting as much sincerity into his voice as he could muster, “I’ll forget all about it. I promise I will.”

Ives ignored him. “What’s the verdict on Booth?”

“The sedative worked a treat. He’ll be out for a few hours.”

Ives nodded. “That gives me enough time, then.”

“Enough time to do what?”

Ives raised the long-barrelled revolver and pointed it directly at Sherlock. “To kill the kid and dump his body. Rule number one, remember — never leave anyone behind who’s seen your face.”

Sherlock felt a shudder run through him. They were going to dispose of him, just throw him away like a sack of potato peelings! He glanced back and forth between the two men, looking for a way to escape, but Ives was standing in the doorway and the small, bald man was between Sherlock and the window. And even if he managed to get out of the window, where would he go? They would just follow him out, corner him and either push him off or shoot him and watch him fall.

“Please, mister, I ain’t seen nothing,” he whined, trying to buy himself some time.

“Don’t come the innocent with me, son,” Ives growled. He moved back into the corridor and gestured to Sherlock to follow him. “This way, and be quick about it.” He glanced over at the short, bald man — who Sherlock assumed had some kind of medical training, as he seemed to be the one Ives deferred to when it came to injuries and insanity. “Berle, you secure Booth good and proper, and then you look to getting Gilfillan up and moving. I want to clear out of this place. There’s too many people already who’ve spotted something odd. I guarantee our friend here didn’t sneak around because he was looking for some lost ball, but because of some kind of dare, or because he wanted to see what we were doing.”

Sherlock moved out into the hall. He glanced back at Berle, who wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Please, mister, don’t let him hurt me,” Sherlock whined, but Berle turned away, back to the unconscious John Wilkes Booth. “Sorry, kid,” he murmured, “but there’s too much at stake here. If Ives says you got to die, then you got to die. I ain’t going to get involved.”

Berle hesitated for a moment, looking at something on the dresser.

“What about this thing?” he asked Ives.

“What thing?”

Berle reached out and picked up a jar. It was made of glass, and the top was covered with a piece of muslin cloth held on with string. From where he stood Sherlock could see that tiny holes had been pricked into the muslin with a sharp knife. It was the kind of thing a kid would do if they were keeping a caterpillar or beetle alive — cover the top of the jar so that the creature couldn’t escape but punch some air holes in the top so that it could still breathe — but he couldn’t see any insects or other creatures inside. The only thing in the jar was a mass of glistening red stuff, like a piece of liver, or a massive clot of blood.

Ives glanced at it dismissively “We take it with us,” he said. “The boss wants it. He wants it almost as bad as he wants Booth, here.”

Berle shook the jar dubiously. “You sure it’s still alive?”

“It had better be. The boss ain’t a man known for his patience when it comes to being let down, an’ this thing’s come all the way from Borneo.” His face fell into concerned lines. “I once heard that a servant of his dropped a pitcher of iced mint julep on the veranda one time. Duke just looked at him, not sayin’ anythin’. The servant started to shake, an’ he backed away down the garden to where it ended in a riverbank, shakin’ all the time and cryin’, an’ he walked backwards into the river an’ just disappeared, out of sight. Like he was hypnotized. Never seen again. Duke once said there are alligators in that river, but I don’t know if he’s tellin’ the truth.”

Berle looked dubious. “I would’ve thought Duke would use one of those two things he has on leashes. Ain’t they supposed to be his killers?”

“Maybe he just wanted to make a point. Maybe those things weren’t hungry’ Ives shook his head. “It don’t matter. That thing’s comin’ with us, all the way home.”

He pushed Sherlock down the corridor towards the stairs with the barrel of the gun.

“What are you going to do to me?” Sherlock asked.

“Can’t shoot you,” Ives mused. “Not unless you give me no choice. If a kid’s body is found with a ball in it then there’ll be some kind of investigation, and the house with four foreigners in it is going to be the first place the police look. Could inject you with an overdose of one of Berle’s drugs, I suppose, but that’s a waste. We might need those drugs, the rate Booth’s getting through them. No, I think I’ll just suffocate you with a rag in your mouth. That way there’s no obvious signs of violence. There’s a quarry a few miles away. I’ll put you in the cart, cover you up with some sacking and drive you out there. There’s plenty of holes in the ground I can throw you into. If you’re ever found, the authorities’ll assume you just fell in and hit your head.”