Andrew Lane - Red Leech

The track clattered beneath the train’s wheels as it reached the other side of the ravine. The whistle sounded again. Sherlock glanced forward, towards the engine, and saw that the line ahead split into two. One led onward, straight, while the other curved away, along the edge of the ravine.

And the train was taking the curving branch, slowing down as it passed through a gap in a fence and headed towards a station that Sherlock could see up ahead.

Not a station, he realized.

A house. A large, white house. And beyond it, what looked like a series of fenced enclosures, walled areas and cages, like a private zoological exhibition.

He scrambled down the ladder as fast as he could and swung himself back into the carriage. The guard was moving down the central aisle, pushing past the uneasy passengers, calling, “Unscheduled stop. Please do not alight. This is an unscheduled stop.”

The train drew to a halt in a long chuff of escaping steam. It stopped alongside a long veranda that was attached to the back of the house.

A group of eight or nine men were standing on the veranda.

Any hope in Sherlock’s mind that they were police, or army, vanished when Berle and the other man stepped off the train, holding Virginia and Matty firmly by the arm, and joined them.

The train was in chaos. Every single passenger appeared to be shouting at the guard, trying to find out why they had changed train lines, why they had stopped and where they were. The guard didn’t seem to be sure — he was reassuring people, but there was an expression on his face suggesting that he was out of his depth.

“Unscheduled stop!" he kept shouting. “Please do not disembark here.”

On the platform, the two men were still standing with Virginia and Matty. They were waiting for something. Waiting for him, he suspected. Off to one side he could see John Wilkes Booth. He was standing upright, but he was slowly rocking from side to side and his eyes weren’t tracking anything in particular. Probably drugged to keep him quiet.

One of the men — one he’d never seen before — moved his right hand out from behind his back momentarily. He was holding a gun.

Sherlock didn’t see that he had much choice, so he stepped from the train, down the short stairway to the veranda of the house.

Towards the back of the train he saw that the men who had been waiting on the platform were hauling boxes out of the last carriage. They looked like the boxes he’d seen in the garden of the house at Godalming — the ones where he thought he’d seen something moving inside. As the boxes were removed the men carried them away to a waiting cart. They seemed to be cautious about getting their fingers too close to the gaps between the slats. Two of them cursed as their box suddenly lurched and nearly fell to the ground, although Sherlock couldn’t see what had made its weight shift. Maybe something inside had moved.

Although he didn’t see any signal being given, the train began to heave itself away from the house with a deafening clanking as the metal connections between the carriages were pulled tight. It moved slowly at first, but increased in speed as it got further away.

“Where’s Ives?” Berle asked Sherlock, raising his voice above the noise of the train. Berle was holding Virginia’s arm with his right hand. With his left he was holding a carrying handle attached to a box about the size of a football.

“He dropped off,” Sherlock replied. He could feel his heart thudding within his chest but he tried to keep calm and project an appearance of control.

Virginia and Matty were both staring at him in concern. He looked at each of them in turn, seeking to reassure them that everything was going to be all right, but he didn’t believe that and he was sure they didn’t either.

“You mean he fell off,” Berle said. “You killed him!"

“Ah can smell smoke,” Booth said from behind them, with his eyes still closed. His voice was distant, dreamy.

“Quiet!" growled the third man, the one holding Matty, “or I’ll take a brandin’ iron to the other side of your face!" He’d probably been subjected to Booth’s mania all the way from New York — perhaps all the way from Southampton — and was obviously getting towards his breaking point. Sherlock studied him for a moment. He’d not had a chance to see this man on the train. He was built like a boxer, and wore trousers of denim, and a denim waistcoat over a collarless shirt. He had a bright red bandanna knotted round his neck.

“Don’t bait him, Rubinek,” Berle cautioned. “Duke still needs him.”

The man named Rubinek switched his glare to Sherlock. “What about him ?” he growled. “Duke don’t need him for nothin’, an’ he admitted he killed Ives.” He bought his right hand from behind his back, the hand that wasn’t holding Matty, and let the revolver he was holding point towards Sherlock.

“And what about Gilfillan?” Berle asked. “Is he dead too? He sent us a telegram.”

“He’s in police custody,” Sherlock answered. He wasn’t sure if that was strictly true or not, but it should be, by now.

Berle closed his eyes for a moment. “This is going from bad to worse,” he said quietly. “Duke isn’t going to be pleased, and I’ve heard about what happens when Duke isn’t pleased.”

“We ain’t got much choice,” Rubinek said practically. “The train’s gone, an’ we’re here. So let’s get rid of the kids an’ go see Duke.”

“We’re not getting rid of the kids,” Berle replied quietly, but with authority. With Ives gone he was obviously in charge. “Duke’ll want to question them — see how much they know. Then he’ll probably give them to his pets.”

“I still want to kill them myself,” Rubinek muttered, like a spoilt kid who had been denied a biscuit.

“At least we’ve got Booth and this thing,” Berle said, raising the box he held to eye level and staring at it bale-fully “Let’s hope that’s enough.” He sighed. “OK, let’s get this over with.”

Berle led the way down the veranda to where Sherlock noticed a round table had been set up in front of a pair of French windows. A white tablecloth had been placed over it, and there was a decanter of what looked like orange juice, a plate of bread rolls and seven glasses sitting in the centre. Seven wrought-iron chairs, painted white, were arranged around the table. A white parasol had been stuck through a hole in its centre, providing shade from the burning sun.

“Parasol”. The word stuck in Sherlock’s mind as they walked down the veranda towards the table. It reminded him of something, but he couldn’t remember what. That was the trouble with memory, he thought — it could only hold so much information. If only there was some way of deleting all the memories a person didn’t need and replacing them with the important ones. Perhaps he ought to just write down everything that might be important to him in a notebook, or a set of notebooks, listed alphabetically so he could find things quickly when he needed to.

He was just trying to distance himself from what was going on by thinking about something else, but his attempt was broken when Rubinek pushed him towards one of the chairs with the barrel of his revolver. “Sit,” the man growled. Sherlock obeyed. Matty and Virginia were placed on either side of him, then Berle and John Wilkes Booth sat to Virginia’s left and Rubinek sat to Matty’s right.

That left one chair, Sherlock noticed. Presumably that was reserved for the mysterious Duke.

“My father will track us down, if you don’t release us,” Virginia said.

“Your father’s the big guy in the white suit?” Berle looked from Virginia to Matty and then to Sherlock. “He’s not father to all of you, is he? I’d not seen you all together before.” He looked more closely at Matty. “We took you because we thought it would stop him from coming after us. Shows how much we knew. We should have taken the girl.”