The Broken Sun (3 page)

‘I suppose there is a chance—albeit a small one—that Phillip is alive.'

‘May I see the watch, sir?'

Mr Doyle handed it to Jack. It was beautiful, quite old, but in excellent condition.
The inscription on the back was delicately lettered:

To Phillip
Happy Eighteenth Birthday
Father

Jack felt his eyes sting.
Poor Mr Doyle, not knowing that Phillip would be killed
in the war just a few years later.
And this after Mr Doyle had already lost his wife
to cholera. Jack had always thought of the detective as a brilliant and eccentric
man. It was strange to think of him as a family man. His life would have been quite
different if he had not lost his wife and son.

It made Jack realise how things would have been for him too. The great detective
had completely changed
Jack's life since removing him from the orphanage.

Mr Doyle sighed as he took a piece of cheese from his pocket and chewed on it.

‘What are you thinking?' Jack asked.

Mr Doyle swallowed. ‘I was remembering when Phillip was a boy,' he said. ‘There was
a song I used to sing to him. An old Irish song.' He cleared his throat and softly
sang:

The Minstrel Boy will return we pray
When we hear the news we all will cheer it,
The Minstrel Boy will return one day,
Torn perhaps in body, not in spirit.

They soon reached the town. It was late, so Mr Doyle suggested they stay overnight.
They found a small thirteenth-century hotel called The Goose and Duck, a tidy establishment
with low doors and small windows that overlooked the surrounding countryside.

The next morning they rose early, ate a hearty breakfast and readied themselves for
the day ahead.

‘Where to, Mr Doyle?' Scarlet asked.

‘The postmark of the letter is Southwold.'

‘Isn't that on the coast?' Jack asked.

‘It's north of here. We'll take a steamer.'

They travelled by train to the coast and boarded a steamer called the
Darbishire
,
a sardine-shaped vessel covered in bronze plating with two paddle wheels at the back.
It could hold a hundred people, but it was a quiet
day with only a few dozen on board.

Jack and Scarlet left Mr Doyle inside, went out onto the deck and gazed out to sea.
The air was fresh on Jack's face as he leaned against the railing.

‘There's a Brinkie Buckeridge book just like this,' Scarlet said. ‘
The Adventure
of the Missing Ear.
It begins innocently enough when Brinkie loses her best shoes.
It turns out they were stolen by her evil twin sister.'

‘I didn't know she had a sister,' Jack said.

‘Neither did she,' Scarlet said, lowering her voice conspiratorially. ‘It seems Lavinia
Buckeridge was taken away at birth and raised by a Russian spy family in America.
Brinkie is kidnapped and Lavinia takes her place. She is only discovered through
the efforts of Wilbur Dusseldorf, Brinkie's lover
and
nemesis. He realises that Brinkie
and Lavinia are identical in every way, except Lavinia has a freckle on her left
elbow.'

‘Lucky,' Jack sighed.

Scarlet nodded enthusiastically. ‘It is only Lavinia's inherent goodness that makes
her renounce her evil ways. Both she and Wilbur unite to save Brinkie from certain
death.'

‘Hmm,' said Jack.

‘Brinkie also has a brother. He's another story, but he too was taken away at birth.'

‘So Brinkie is one of triplets?'

‘Quadruplets, actually.'

‘Blimey!'

If only mysteries could be solved as easily as they are
in books
, Jack thought. Mr
Doyle was usually upbeat at the start of an investigation, but he had been unusually
quiet this time.
Shouldn't he be excited to learn his son could still be alive?

‘Sometimes not knowing is worse than knowing,' Scarlet mused. ‘You remember when
we first met, my father went missing. Those were some of the most difficult days
of my life. Not knowing if he was alive or dead.'

Scarlet's father, Joseph Bell, was now designing a metrotower in China. Jack thought
about his parents. He tried to imagine what it would feel like if someone told him
they were alive, and he was surprised to find it a disconcerting thought. He pulled
out his compass.

‘You must think about your parents a lot,' Scarlet said.

‘Every day.'

‘My mother died when I was very young, so I never knew her. I often wonder what she
was like.'

‘Probably like you,' Jack said.

‘Witty, beautiful and destined to become Britain's first female prime minister?'

Scarlet was a firm supporter of women's rights. She was convinced that women would
one day share the same rights as men, including the right to vote and even hold political
office.

‘I'm sure,' Jack said. ‘Let's go in. I want to make certain Mr Doyle is all right.'

Inside, they found their mentor sitting next to a window, staring through the glass
with unfocused eyes.

‘Is everything all right?' Jack asked.

Mr Doyle nodded. ‘I'm afraid I'm rather distracted. I keep thinking back to that
day on the battlefield.'

Scarlet gripped his shoulder. ‘You did everything you could.'

Mr Doyle gave them a wan smile. ‘I always wonder if I should have done more. If there
was something I missed,' he said. ‘I do believe we're almost there.'

The steamer was now slowing as it pulled in towards the coast. It docked at a large
port and they disembarked with a small group of other travellers. Scarlet's eyes
narrowed as she examined the village. ‘What an interesting town,' she said. ‘
Very
interesting.'

‘What do you mean?' Jack groaned.

White terrace houses with slate roofs packed the narrow streets, bay windows jutting
onto footpaths. An old brown mare dragged a milk cart past a fisherman on an upturned
bucket, his line trailing in the water. A squat lighthouse nestled among houses a
street back from the sandy beach. Brightly painted bathing boxes faced the water.

‘It just looks like a normal seaside town to me.'

‘Exactly,' Scarlet said. ‘Too normal.'

‘How can something be too normal?'

Scarlet turned to Mr Doyle for support and the detective thought for a moment.

‘Certainly it is common to seek out things that stand out from the ordinary,' he
said. ‘But sometimes things can seem
too
ordinary. I once investigated a string of
robberies committed by a man known as the Shadow. When I plotted the thefts on a
map, I discovered them to be exactly half a mile away from each other.'

Jack couldn't see anything wrong in this. ‘So why was that strange?'

‘Serial criminals always begin by committing crimes in an area close to home. The
Shadow was desperate to hide his point of origin, so desperate in fact that it meant
he lived very close to the first robbery. I checked with the police as to known offenders
in the area and he was arrested the same day.'

Scarlet beamed. ‘Brinkie works the same way,' she said. ‘I will keep an eye out for
extraordinarily normal behaviour.'

‘So will I,' Jack said. ‘Let's arrest anyone who looks too normal and sit on them
until the police arrive.'

‘You're being silly.'

‘No, seriously,' Jack said. ‘You see that old lady?' A frail-looking woman had just
come out her front door. ‘She looks far too much like an innocent old lady. She might
be a werewolf. Or a leprechaun. Maybe even a sea monster. We
are
near the ocean,
after all.'

Scarlet ignored him. ‘I believe I will develop a theory,' she said. ‘I will call
it the
Theory of Normal Strangeness
.'

‘That's got quite a ring to it. Your friend, Mr Beethoven, might be able to turn
it into a song.'

‘Sometimes I want to hit you.'

Mr Doyle intervened before violence could ensue.
‘We should first find accommodation,'
he said, glancing at his watch. ‘It's almost midday. We'll eat and then unravel this
mystery one thread at a time. Werewolves or no werewolves.'

Jack and Scarlet were pleased to see Mr Doyle had recovered some of his good humour.
They booked a room in a hotel called The Belvedere, eating a meal of steak-and-kidney
pies while Mr Doyle engaged the waitress in idle conversation. Around twenty, the
young woman was slim, reminding Jack of a greyhound, and she was more than happy
to respond to queries about the town.

‘A few businesses have closed,' she explained. ‘These seaside places have a boom
and bust economy. It's spring now and we're doing all right, but it's quite slow
in winter.'

‘I am in need of a watchmaker,' Mr Doyle said. ‘Is there one nearby?'

‘There was one, but he closed years ago.'

‘There's no-one who can do repair work?'

She thought for a moment. ‘A group of people have moved into the old Westlake House
on the south road. I think they're some kind of engineers.'

‘Really?'

She leaned close. ‘Lots of equipment gets delivered to the home. A box got broken
at the station and some gear spilled out. One of the men was furious.'

Mr Doyle rubbed his chin, looking thoughtful. He confirmed the address and thanked
the waitress. She left
them to finish their meal.

‘Did you see that?' Jack asked Scarlet. ‘That girl was so much like a waitress that
she was
too
much like a waitress. What do you think, Mr Doyle?'

The detective produced a lump of cheese from his pocket. He had the strangest eating
habits of anyone Jack knew.

‘She is behaving very much like a waitress,' he said, ‘because she
is
a waitress.
Her parents own the establishment and she is getting married next year. Which will
be nice because the cat she owned for seven years recently died.'

Jack and Scarlet looked at each other and laughed.

After leaving the pub, Mr Doyle hailed a steamcab, directing the driver to a large
property surrounded by a high stone wall and overhanging trees. Foliage hid the house
beyond. When Mr Doyle paid the driver they all climbed out of the cab.

‘There has been some movement here, but not in the last week.' Mr Doyle pointed at
the driveway. ‘Recent tyre tracks.'

He went to climb over the gate when Scarlet asked, ‘Isn't that trespassing?'

‘Not at all. We've simply lost our way.'

The metal gate had spikes running across the top. Jack and Mr Doyle navigated them
without difficulty, but Scarlet was momentarily ensnared by her dress. At the end
of the driveway was a two-storey Georgian home with a well-maintained garden. Mr
Doyle knocked at
the front door. No-one answered.

‘Should we break in?' Jack asked.

Mr Doyle gave a gentle laugh. ‘Breaking and entering is a crime,' he reminded his
young assistant. ‘And we never break in.'

‘Sorry?'

‘But we do occasionally enable an entry point. Let's look around.'

They found an empty sunroom at the back. The windows were dusty and locked. Mr Doyle
knocked again, but there was still no answer. Scarlet glanced through another window.

‘That's the kitchen,' she said. ‘There are tables and chairs, but no pots or pans.'

‘Really?' Mr Doyle said. ‘That's odd.' He peered in. ‘Hmm. No plates. No dishes.
No sign of habitation. You know what that means?'

‘What?'

‘That the time has come to enable an entry point.' He raised his elbow and knocked
it against the glass, smashing it out of the pane. Reaching inside, he undid the
latch.

‘What will we say if someone
is
inside?' Scarlet asked.

‘We'll tell them we're lost,' Mr Doyle said, ‘and seeking the road to Edinburgh.'

‘I'll go,' Jack offered, starting to push the window open. But Mr Doyle suddenly
threw himself at him.

‘Watch out!'

CHAPTER THREE

They hit the ground and rolled as the window shattered, spraying glass and timber
everywhere.

After a long moment of stunned silence, Mr Doyle calmly rose to his feet and inspected
the opening. ‘A rifle has been set as a booby trap. I saw it at the last moment.'

Jack stood, his legs shaking. He tried to speak, but his throat was still blocked
with fear. He would have been killed if Mr Doyle hadn't pushed him out of the way.

‘Are you all right, my boy?' Mr Doyle asked, gripping his shoulder.

‘Fine,' Jack said, his voice an octave higher.

‘At least we have an answer to one question: no-one else is here. They would have
come running by now.'

Scarlet nodded. ‘I should have realised that window was too normal.'

Jack wondered if there could really be something to her
Normal Strangeness
theory.
‘Shame the house wasn't gloomy and mysterious,' he said. ‘It might have been safer.'

Mr Doyle eased open the shattered window. Jack peered inside and saw that a rifle
had been harnessed to a series of pulleys and levers, ready to fire when the window
was opened.

Jack shuddered. ‘Thank you, sir,' he said. ‘You saved my life.'

‘My pleasure.'

They searched the house. Grey curtains with a peacock design hung in each room, swathing
them in dull light. The carpets were threadbare. Bald patches discoloured the walls
where paintings had once been displayed. A nursery, brightly clad in royal blue wallpaper,
was empty except for a solitary child's alphabet block in a corner. The house contained
nothing of a personal nature. No pictures of family members. No crockery or cutlery.
No papers or clothing.