Andrew Lane - Black Ice

‘There’s been a murder,’ he said. ‘The body is over by the table, as is the knife that was probably used in the execution of the crime.’

‘And who are you?’ the lead constable asked.

‘My name is Amyus Crowe. Who are you?’

‘A foreign gentleman,’ the policeman remarked, looking pointedly at his companions. ‘Were you here when the crime was committed?’

‘Ah asked you for your name,’ Crowe said, voice civil but with an edge of iron.

‘I am Sergeant Coleman,’ the policeman said, drawing himself up. ‘Now perhaps you could answer my question.’ He paused. ‘Sir.’

‘Ah was outside the door,’ Crowe said, ‘with the young man there. The footman can bear that out.’

‘And what is the young man’s name?’

‘Sherlock Holmes,’ Sherlock replied.

‘Then who was in the room?’ the sergeant pressed.

Crowe hesitated, wincing slightly. Ah believe this gentleman was in the room.’ He indicated Mycroft with a nod of his head.

The sergeant stepped forward. ‘Is this true, sir?’ he asked Mycroft.

Mycroft nodded. ‘I was in the room,’ he said clearly.

‘What is your name?’

‘Mycroft Siger Holmes.’

‘And did you kill this man, sir?’

‘I did not kill this man.’

Sherlock noticed Crowe’s lips twitch slightly at the firmness in Mycroft’s voice. The sergeant looked taken aback.

‘I’m afraid, sir, that I must place you under arrest. You will be taken to Scotland Yard, where you will be questioned under oath.’ He glanced over at the corpse, then towards one of the constables. ‘Send someone for the pathologist. Old Murdoch is on duty today. Get him to come and fetch the body. And bring that knife. We’ll be showing it to the judge, all right.’

The words were like the tolling of some huge, discordant bell to Sherlock’s ears. He watched in horror as Mycroft was taken by the shoulder and manoeuvred out of the Strangers Room, through the club room and into the hall. One of the constables took the knife gingerly by the handle and carried it away.

‘Mister Crowe…’ Sherlock started.

‘No time,’ Crowe snapped. Ah understand you’re emotional. That’s to be expected. Trouble is, if we’re to clear your brother’s name and save him from jail then we need to move fast, and we need to move with complete precision and accuracy. Emotion, right now, will slow us down an’ cloud our judgement. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘Yes,’ Sherlock breathed.

‘Suppress whatever grief and shock you’re feelin’. Imagine that you’re wrappin’ it up in a blanket, tyin’ it tight and stowin’ it in the back of your mind. Ah ain’t askin’ you to forget about it forever, just for now. You can retrieve those emotions later, when it’s safe, an’ wrap yourself in them for as long as you want. Just not now.’

‘Yes. All right.’ Sherlock closed his eyes and tried to do what Crowe was suggesting. He tried picturing his roiling mixture of emotions as a fiery ball hanging inside his mind, and then he tried to imagine a fireproof cloth as black as night wrapping itself round that fiery ball. Ropes and chains emerged from the darkness and looped around the cloth, drawing tight until the ball was completely swaddled. And then he imagined it sinking down through the shadows until it sat on the floor, in a dusty cupboard, at the back of his mind. And then he closed the door.

He opened his eyes and took a breath. He felt better. Less panicky. He knew the feelings were there, in the cupboard, but he didn’t feel them. He could get them out whenever he wanted to, but right now he wasn’t sure if he would ever want to.

‘You all right?’

‘I’m fine. What do we need to do?’

‘We need to search the body, and we need to search the room. All do the first thing, you do the second.’

‘All right.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Why did the police leave us alone in here with the… the body?’

Crowe glowered. ‘Trouble with the crime-fightin’ profession is that they like nice simple answers. They got two people in a locked room, one of them dead an’ the other one not. To them, the answer is simple, an’ ah must admit if I didn’t know your brother like I do then it would look just as simple to me. So as far as they’re concerned, they’ve got their man. The knife is more like a trophy to them – they can wave it around at the trial an’ scare the jury. The corpse – well, he’s dead, an’ he ain’t goin’ nowhere until the pathologist arrives to cart him away. An’ that should give us enough time to see what they might have picked up, if they’d bothered lookin’. Now, enough talkin’. Get to work!’

While Crowe busied himself at the table, Sherlock started in one corner of the room and methodically examined every inch. He didn’t know what he was looking for, so he looked for anything out of the ordinary. He checked the panelled walls and the pictures hanging from them, and he even pulled one of the chairs away from the table and moved it over to the wall so that he could climb on it and inspect the picture rails that ran along the top just underneath the ceiling. Then he threw himself to the ground and checked the carpet for things that might have dropped from someone’s hand or pocket and got caught between the fibres.

‘Anythin’?’ Crowe called after a while.

‘Not so far,’ he said dejectedly.

He kept moving around the room, letting his eyes rove everywhere. As he got to the corner of the table he noticed something on the floor beneath it: a small leather case, left in the shadow of the table leg as if someone wanted to put it quickly out of the way.

‘I’ve got something,’ he announced, pulling the case out and putting it on the table.

Crowe crossed from the body to see what had been found. He examined it critically.

‘Basic wooden construction, leather facing, brass hinges, brass lock and brass feet,’ he murmured. ‘Nothin’ special or out of the ordinary. No scuff marks on the feet an’ no wear on the handle, indicatin’ that it’s new. Ah, look at the handle there – can you see that thread tied around it? Probably where the price label was attached. This man, or someone else, pulled the price off but forgot about the thread. That was a mistake.’ He reached for the case and clicked the locks. ‘Unlocked, which is good for us.’ He opened it so that he and Sherlock could see inside.

The case was lined with a red material, probably silk or satin. The material was heavily padded so that anything in the case would have been pressed between the two sides when the case was closed.

‘Two depressions in the padding, see?’ Crowe pointed to two areas where the padding was pressed in, suggesting that the case had contained two objects, but Sherlock had already noticed them. ‘Too diffuse to tell us what the shapes were, although they appear to be different.’

‘The padding around one of the depressions is a different colour,’ Sherlock pointed out. ‘It’s slightly darker.’

‘Could just be wear,’ Crowe muttered.

‘But the case is new – just bought.’

‘Good point.’ Crowe reached out to touch the surface of the material. ‘It’s slightly damp. That’s odd. Something wet was in here – maybe a bottle containing a liquid that partially leaked out.’

Sherlock looked around the room. ‘A bottle of what?’

‘Not sure yet. Let’s just file the information away for later.’ He closed the lid of the case and looked around the room. ‘What about those panels on the wall – any hidden doors? Any sign that there might be a window under there? Someone had to get in and out of this room without being seen.’

‘I thought of that, but there’s no sign of hinges or seams. I knocked on the walls, but none of them sound hollow.’