Part 20 (2/2)

Leaving his bag in her care, he went across to the library In his uncle's absence it was the place where he feltvisitors, and the dining roo up to his bedroom

He settled down into his uncle's leather chair, soothed by the smell of the books and the manuscripts that surrounded him On the desk he could see the pile of sermons, letters and suchlike that his uncle had asked hih, before Josh Harkness, Gahan Macfarlane and Bryce Scobell had infiltrated his life It all seeo

The sermon in front of him was one he had already looked at a an attack by a vicar somewhere up in the Midlands on various heresies and schisht on the phrase 'Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' halfway down the page, and it was as if a light had suddenly gone on in his brain

Gold plates Mrs Eglantine had been looking for gold plates, because she had overheard Sherlock's Uncle Sherrinford talking about them She had been obsessed with the idea that soold plates a a treasure of some kind a but she had never found them

There was a treasure, but it wasn't the kind she had been anticipating

Sherlock called to mind what he had read about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a or the Mormons, as they were also knohile he was in his uncle's library The un in America about forty years before, led by a man named Joseph Smith Jr He had claimed that he had in his possession a sacred text called the Book of Mormon, which he told people was a supplement to the Bible When asked where this sacred book had come froel naraved on golden plates by ancient prophets, was buried under a hill near New York The writings told of a tribe of Jeho had been led by God from Jerusalem to America six hundred years before Jesus was born

Golden plates

Sherlock felt a laugh bubbling up in his chest Mrs Eglantineto Aunt Anna about the golden plates of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Had he mentioned the word 'treasure' as well? Had he said to her soives olden plates of the Morlantine overheard the words 'treasure' and 'golden plates' and drawn a co her, Sherlock would never know, and he devoutly hoped that he would never ain, but it seeently searched for was a chiain He would tell his uncle, of course, as soon as he returned, but he didn't think Sherrinford would be too distressed by the news that there was no treasure He wasn't a oods

In thesweet It was a fauely medicinal He knew it from soht that Mrs Mulhill had returned with the tray of biscuits she had promised, but the room was empty apart froan to blur He put a hand on the desk to steady hi on the blotter, but he didn't feel the i apart from a delicious lassitude A warue visions, like a collage of pictures, filled his e Ropes A pad that s placed across his mouth The sky A face, red-bearded and wild-eyed, that he recognized but could not put a na was different

He was buried in the midst of a pile of thick, tarry ropes in a s were , and his sto beneath hiet to his feet that he realized that the problem ith the roo

He pulled the door open and stepped through, still holding the fra out on the deck of a shi+p Beyond the rails was a choppy grey sea flecked hite spuht

A sailor caht of Sherlock He sighed heavily and turned to look behind hiot ourselves a stoay!' Turning back to Sherlock he shook his head 'You chose the wrong shi+p to stoay on, boy

'Why?' Sherlock asked 'Where are we going?'

'This ain't a pleasure cruise to the Mediterranean,' the sailor said He s a handful of tobacco-stained teeth 'This is the Gloria Scott, and we're sailing all the way to China!'

HISTORICAL NOTES

Youa book set on the same land mass as the one where I live would be easier than researching one set in, oh, say, Aht that before I started work The strange thing is that it didn't turn out that way

I first started thinking about setting a book in Edinburgh when I was staying there for a few days I was doing a talk at the Edinburgh Festival, and then visiting a couple of schools and talking to the pupils about Sherlock Holmes, andin a sh a just off Princes Street, in fact a and every day, when I left the hotel, I looked toof Castle Rock, with Edinburgh Castle sitting on top of it like a solid grey cloud hanging above the city It all looked so stunning that I couldn't help but start to picture Sherlock Hol his life to save soinia

What I should have done, of course, was go to the nearest bookshop and buy as h as I could But I had a lot of stuff inthe previous Young Sherlock Holmes mystery, Black Ice, so I didn't have ties and scenes away in a little locked box in my mind for later Much later

Much later comes around faster than you expect By the time I started to write Fire Storh as it's possible to get without falling into the sea Looking around for inspiration, I could only find Michael Fry's Edinburgh a A History of the City (published by Mac Sherlock books a in 2009, which ot the ood sense of how the city had developed and the kinds of people who lived there

The story of the bodysnatchers Burke and Hare, which Matty tells Sherlock when they are in the tavern off Princes Street, is entirely true Edinburgh was fae of bodies Burke and Hare found the perfect solution to the proble people Burke was indeed hanged, and then dissected in the very place where so many of his victiain

The other story that Matty tells Sherlock a later, when they are co out of the tenements where they have been questioned by Bryce Scobell a is not true, although it is widely believed

I 'eard a rumour, last time I was 'ere, that the local authorities was tryin' to move people out of the tenements 'Parently they wanted to sell the land off to build factories on, or posh mansions, or somethin' People I talked to told me that the authorities would start a ruue, had broken out in a tenement They'd move everybody out to the workhouse, then they'd knock the tenement down an' build on the land Make a lot of money that way, they could I 'eard that sometimes, if there weren't any places left in the workhouse, they'd brick up the alleyways in an' out of the tenements an' leave the people inside to starve, but I don't believe that'

The tene the local name for the alleyway between two tenement blocks) It's been built on, over the years, to the point where ere alleys are now underground tunnels You can visit the place today, and hear the stories about the people alled up there to starve, and about the ghosts that still appear in the rooht, but the truth is rather ue often voluntarily quarantined the the disease on, indicating their status by placing white flags in the s Friends and neighbours passed food and supplies to theot better (unlikely) or died (much more likely) There were even special places set up outside the city where plague victiated froly (or perhaps not) Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859 and studied medicine there from 1876 to 1881 One of his teachers was a man named Joseph Bell, and it is widely accepted that Doyle based the character of Sherlock Holnose not only a patient's illness but also their occupationan appearance by Joseph Bell in this book, but I quickly decided not to It would have been too much like an in-joke, and there was no real reason for hi of me not to mention, by the way, the Sherlock Holmes novel written by American author Caleb Carr entitled The Italian Secretary: A Further Adventure of Sherlock Holely around Edinburgh Carr is an excellent writer, and his version of Sherlock Holmes is perhaps as close to Arthur Conan Doyle's as anyone has ed since Doyle's death in 1931

The story that Aton and the appalling attack he mounted on the Native Aically, true I greatching Western movies in which the Native Americans (or Red Indians as they were known then) were the bad guys and the noble white soldiers were the good guys Those movies were lies, and I still feel a sense of betrayal that Hollywood convinced so many people otherwise There is, of course, no record of Chivington having a second in command named Bryce Scobell, but there is no record that he didn't either

The bizarre fact that rabbits are immune to the poisons contained in the stalk and leaves of the foxglove is so I first discovered in The Wordsworth Guide to Poisons and Antidotes by Carol Turkington (Wordsworth Editions, 1997) Having done so around I have since found that opinion is divided on the subject Maybe they are; maybe they aren't At any rate, Sherlock Hol was a well-known 'sport' in England for hundreds of years, until it wastied to a stake and dogs set on it Either the bear would kill the dogs or the dogs would kill the bear It was rare that a bear and a h not unknown For some reason (possibly a surplus of bears) Russia was better known for its bear-versus-inally intended to have Aainst a bear in Black Ice, but I couldn't find a place where it made sense to slot that scene in For some reason it made more sense in this one a probably because Crowe didn't have a lot to do in Black Ice, but in Fire Storm he pretty much finds hi the Mormon Church's belief that the word of God was handed down to their prophet Joseph Solden plates is also true (by which I mean that the story as I describe it is more or less what the Mormon Church claim a not that the story is actually true That's not for me to say)

So, Sherlock has finally confronted the evil Mrs Eglantine and had her banished frorown up now to the point where he can stand on his oo feet and rescue his brother and his surrogate fathers (Amyus Crowe and Rufus Stone) from trouble, rather than rely on the to Arthur Conan Doyle, rote the original fifty-six short stories and four novels about a grown-up Sherlock Holmes, his character was an expert at martial arts Where, I wondered, would he learn those martial arts? China perhaps, or japan Ti winds and currents, will tell

Also by Andrew Lane

Young Sherlock Hol Sherlock Hol Sherlock Holmes: Black Ice

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