Read Online Rebel Fire by Andrew Lane - Free Book Online Page A

from where he stood halfway up the stairs. Beneath him, in the shadows of the first floor, he saw Matty, his pale face staring up at him, his hand holding one end of a piece of string. Sherlock traced the string up to the banister and across the stairs to where a nail had been roughly pushed into the gap between the skirting board and the wall. The string was tied to the head of the nail.
    â€œYou were lucky the nail didn’t pull out when his weight was pulling on the string,” Sherlock observed calmly, although his heart was beating fast and heavy in his chest.
    â€œNo,” Matty corrected, “ you were lucky it didn’t pull out. It made no difference to me. He didn’t know I was here.”
    Sherlock descended to the first-floor landing and bent to check on Ives. The man was unconscious, with a nasty red mark on his forehead. Sherlock picked up the gun. No point taking any chances.
    Matty joined him. “What is it about you and other people’s houses?” he asked.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI mean I have to keep getting you out of trouble.” He glanced up the stairs. “What’s going on up there? I saw the cove with the burned face pull you into the house, and then I saw two other coves pitch up in a wagon. Next thing I know, there’s three of you out on the roof. I saw guns, so I thought I’d better come in and get you.” He shook his head. “For a kid with a big brain you spend a lot of time a prisoner. Can’t you just talk your way out of trouble?”
    â€œI think,” Sherlock said, “that it’s the talking that gets me into trouble, sometimes.” He paused. “Where did you get the string from?”
    â€œIn me pocket, of course,” Matty replied. “You never know when you might need string.”
    â€œCome on,” Sherlock said. “Let’s get out of here.”
    â€œThere’s another bloke downstairs,” Matty pointed out, “but he’s knocked out. At least, he was when I came up. We’d better be careful in case he’s awake by now.”
    The two of them crept down the stairs to the ground floor and past the reception room where the man whom Sherlock had first seen unconscious and bleeding—Gilfillan, Ives had called him—was now lying on the sofa and snoring. Sneaking by, they headed out of the front door, out of the garden and down the road to where Matty had hitched the horses.
    â€œDid you find out what you needed to know?” Matty asked as they mounted the horses.
    â€œI think so,” Sherlock said. “There’s four men in the house, and they’re all American. At least, three of them are—I never heard the other one speak. One of the men is disturbed in the head, and one of them is a doctor looking after him. The other two I guess are guarding him, making sure he doesn’t escape. They must have left one man in charge when the other two went out—maybe to get food or something—and the disturbed man, whose name is John Wilkes Booth, knocked him out. He assumed I was part of some kind of plot against him, which is why he pulled me into the house.”
    â€œBut what are they doing here in England in the first place?” Matty asked.
    â€œI don’t know, but there’s something going on. This isn’t just a rest home for mad assassins.
    â€œMad assassins ?”
    â€œI’ll tell you all about it when we get to Holmes Manor.”
    The ride back to Farnham took over an hour, and Sherlock’s spirits fell with every mile they travelled. How was he going to explain to Mycroft and to Amyus Crowe that his quiet little investigation had ended with the four men in the house alerted that someone knew they were up to no good? If he’d thought about it properly, he would never have gone near the house.
    Mycroft’s carriage was still outside Holmes Manor when they got there.
    â€œWell,” Matty said after