Young Sherlock Holmes: Knife Edge Read Free

the buying and selling of your cargo, there’s the medical knowledge you need to know so you can treat fungal infections, cuts, burns, digestive
problems and scurvy . . .’ He paused, thinking.‘But you’re right – there
are
a lot of knots.’
    ‘Could you climb inside?’ Mycroft asked. ‘I am getting a crick in my neck looking down at you like this.’
    Sherlock walked around the front of the carriage to the other side. Sailors who were still leaving the
Gloria Scott
stared at him with undisguised curiosity, obviously wondering what
made him so important that a carriage was waitingfor him. The horses sniffed at him as he passed. They didn’t seem over-exerted, which meant that they hadn’t come far, pulling the
carriage. Galway was in the West of Ireland, which meant that Mycroft had either sailed all the way around the coast from the other side or, more likely, he had taken a ferry from England to
Dublin, on the east coast of the island, and travelled across via carriage.As the horses were still fresh, he obviously hadn’t just arrived in Ireland. He must have been staying somewhere
local. The entire thought process took less than a second. As he came to his conclusion Sherlock glanced up at the blanket-swaddled driver, but all he could see of the man’s face was a pair
of closed eyes. Reaching the other side, he opened the door and climbed in.
    Once he gotused to the relative darkness of the interior, he glanced critically at his brother. Mycroft’s face was as familiar to Sherlock as his own, but his brother had put on weight.
Quite a lot of weight, from the look of it. His cheeks were almost invisible beneath layers of fat, and he seemed to have developed several more chins, none of which were defined by any underlying
bone. He had a walkingstick of black ebony, topped with silver, upon which he rested his hands. It was thicker than most such sticks Sherlock had seen. He supposed that it would have to be, to
take his brother’s weight without snapping, and that told him more than he wanted to know about the changes in his brother’s health over the past year.
    ‘You’re looking well,’ Sherlock said eventually.
    ‘You are beingtoo kind. Either that or your observational facility has withered in the time you have been away. I am neither looking well nor feeling well. I fear I have the beginnings of
gout in my right foot, and I may need recourse to spectacles in the near future. Or a monocle, perhaps.’ He looked Sherlock up and down. ‘You, however, have developed muscles in places
where I had no idea that muscles coulddevelop. Your eyes are washed out by all the sun that you have experienced, and your hair is unfashionably long. I perceive that you haven’t started
shaving yet, which is a small blessing I suppose, but I cannot believe that it will be long before you will be sporting an unappealing moustache and a small goatee beard.’ He paused,
considering. ‘I see traces on you of various ports of call –Dakar, Borneo, Shanghai, of course, and, if I am not very much mistaken, Mombasa and the Seychelles as well. The rough skin
on your hands indicates that the Captain has allowed you to work your passage on the
Gloria Scott
, which is what Amyus Crowe and I had assumed would happen. Your general muscular
development suggests a great deal of climbing, but the change in your poise, the way youhold yourself, suggests a different form of activity.’ He cocked his head to one side.
‘Gymnastics? No, I think not. More likely to be an Eastern martial art along the lines of karate or judo.’
    ‘
T’ai chi
,’ Sherlock said softly.
    ‘I have heard of it. I see from the calluses on the fingers of your left hand that you are still practising that abominable instrument, the violin, although Iam unsure how, given that you
left it at Holmes Manor.’ He shuddered slightly, the rolls of fat around his neck shivering like a disturbed blancmange. ‘I cannot tell, but I do hope that you