Part 7 (1/2)

He thought he could detect a trace of her perfue a he hadn't even known she wore perfuirl ould wear perfuine she was standing just behind hiht a flash of colour from her pillow He turned, and bent towards the bed

There, on the pilloas a single strand of her copper-red hair

Soht at his heart and squeezed it, hard He suddenly felt as if he couldn't breathe

'Anything?' Matty called from downstairs

'Nothing,' Sherlock called back, feeling the grip on his heart relax His voice sounded high-pitched to his own ears 'You?'

'Nothing No food in the kitchen cupboards or the pantry Washi+ng-up's all done That means they took the food wiv 'em In my experience that definitely means they're not co to duck to avoid hitting his head As he re-entered the downstairs rooain on the pinholes in the plaster of the opposite wall He hadn't realized there had been that s pinned to the wall

'Not a trace,' Matty said 'They're gone for good Good riddance to them'

Sherlock shook his head violently 'Aoodbye Even if soht away, he would have left ato finish the sentence He still wasn't sure what feelings Virginia had for his for her 'Well,' he finished la as well We need to keep looking'

Before Sherlock could reatest worry 'Yeah, it must have been those two blokes in the inia Either that or Mr Crowe soinia scarpered But ould soht for athe little snippets that Amyus Crowe had let slip about his past life in A down escaped criminals after the War Between the States 'I think Mr Crowe ht be why he caht up with hi really scary if he ran away rather than face up to it You kno big and how fierce he is I can't iing elephant'

Sherlock gazed across at him 'When have you ever seen an elephant?'

Matty scowled 'I seen pictures, ain't I?'

'No, so' He slarily 'I just need to work out what it is'

'Maybe outside?' Matty suggested

'We could take a look,' Sherlock agreed 'Let's restrict ourselves to the walls of the cottage and a couple of feet out, othere'll end up searching the whole countryside'

They headed out of the door, Sherlock auto left Sherlock scanned the brick walls of the cottage and the straw roof, his gaze tracking up, down and up again as he walked He passed ts and a wisteria vine that was growing out of the ground and up the wall, but he couldn't see anything that looked out of place He wondered if anything had been tucked into the straw of the roof, either from inside or outside, but he rejected the idea If Ae then he would have put it somewhere easier to access, somewhere he knew that Sherlock would look

About halfway around the building he nearly tripped over soht it was a snake, and he stepped back hurriedly, but it wasn't , and it was too dusty and brown to be a snake He bent down to take a look It was a tube,inside to stop it froe wall towards a clurass, and vanished So? It was the only thing he could think of, but it didn't give hione

He and Matty e

'Did you find anything unusual?' he asked

'Nothing' Matty frowned for a moment 'Apart from a dead rabbit Well, '

'Where was it? Just lying on the ground?'

Matty shook his head 'It had been buried under a pile of logs Looked like it was deliberately put there, but I can't iht chase itself around his head for a while 'A dead rabbit without its head?' he said eventually 'I have to confess, if it's a hed 'Coain by the front door'

'But you've already done this next bit,' Matty complained, 'and I've already done the bit you're about to do!'

'Two pairs of eyes are better than one Ithat you'll pick up, and vice versa Come on a it'll only take a few more minutes'

They separated and reco that Matty had missed He stopped and stared at the dead rabbit for a while, as it lay sprawled on the grass by a pile of split logs that Amyus Crowe had probably intended for the stove, but it didn't tell hi, it was just a dead rabbit The countryside was full of the for him when he reached the front door He raised his eyebrow enquiringly Sherlock shook his head Matty shrugged, indicating that he hadn't found anything that Sherlock had ,' he said, 'but that was it'

Disconsolately Sherlock led the way back inside He looked around the bare roo so,' he said in a frustrated tone

'If you're et it,' Matty said

'Don't belittle yourself You've got a good eye for detail,' Sherlock said He stared once again at the ith the pinholes in it, trying not to look at the details a the individual holes a but the entire thing 'Matty, I think there's soe there'

Matty stared at his'

'Yes, I aot a pen?'

'Do I look like the kind of bloke who goes around with a pen in his pocket?'

Sherlock sighed 'A pencil then?'

'The same'

'A knife?'

'That,' Matty said, 'I can help you with' He reached into a pocket and brought out the knife he had used on the tanning vat earlier 'Here Don't break it'

'I won't' Sherlock walked over to the wall He stared at it for a few s that had been pinned there in hismap over here, wasn't there?' He pointed with the blade at part of the wall

'I s'pose'

'All right' Using the blade like a pen, scratching the surface of the plaster, Sherlock joined up four pinholes in a rectangle that was, as far as he could judge, the right size, shape and position 'That's the ht' Quickly gaining confidence, he selected two sets of four pinholes and joined theles on the wall 'I res up here Pictures, I think'

'They were at an angle,' Matty pointed out Sherlock picked out four pinholes that seemed to match his memory, but Matty shook his head ''Bout an inch to the left,' he said 'No, not there a down a bitYeah, that's it'

Progressively, Sherlock connected up the various pinholes until he had a recreation of everything that had been fastened to the wall Some items had been attached to the plaster with just one pin rather than four, and in those cases Sherlock put an X to show that he had taken the whole item into account

He stood back to look at his handiwork The plaster was now covered with a series of overlapping scratches and Xs

'You've missed some,' Matty pointed out