The Three Locks by Bonnie MacBird (books for 8th graders .TXT) 📗

my son,’ he moaned. ‘Dear boy. My God, what has happened here?’

‘Stand back, Father,’ I said. ‘He came near to drowning.’

Silence, then a wheeze followed by another sudden cough, and water poured from Buttons’ lips. He choked and began to breathe. Father Lamb stepped forward and kneeled next to the boy, tears streaming down his face.

The young man at last began to breathe on his own, great rasping breaths.

‘Thank the Lord,’ said Lamb, cradling Peregrine Buttons as though he were his dearest child.

I wondered if forgiveness was in the priest’s heart, for learning of the violence that had transpired in the young man’s room would surely burn all the love away.

CHAPTER 39

Gaol

This tender moment was interrupted by Inspector Hadley. He appeared on the scene, apparently straight from his bed, his hair awry, coat buttoned wrongly and his normally calm visage creased with anger and concern. He approached me.

‘The deacon! Dr Watson, will this man survive?’

‘Probably,’ I said.

‘Can you confirm a suicide attempt, Doctor?’

‘Yes, I witnessed it.’

‘What were you and Holmes doing here?’

‘Investigating Deacon Buttons. Mr Holmes has discovered a great deal in his room at the rectory. Miss Dillie Wyndham was abducted from there, and he has much to tell you.’ I looked up to see Holmes now standing some ten feet away with the same two constables who had helped him rescue Buttons. Now each gripped one of his arms. The three of them – soaked and with the morning rain further splattering upon them – were a sorry sight.

Hadley approached the group. ‘Mr Holmes, you are under arrest for your previous escape. Disregard for the law will not be tolerated. Palmer and Wright, convey Mr Holmes and Deacon Buttons to the station – Buttons on the charges of suspected murder and attempted suicide. Then dry yourselves off.’

‘Inspector Hadley,’ I cried, ‘Mr Holmes just rescued a man!’

‘True enough, sir,’ said the young constable on Holmes’s right, with blond, brush-cut hair. ‘We helped, but this gentleman saved the fellow, sir.’

Holmes turned to the young man. ‘Thank you, Constable—?’

‘Palmer,’ said the fellow.

‘Thank you, Palmer,’ said Holmes. ‘Now, Mr Hadley. Dr Watson and I have been at the rectory, and—’

‘Dr Watson has told me. We will follow up, but you’re going to the gaol now,’ said Hadley. ‘Is that boy safe for transport?’ he asked me, nodding towards Buttons.

‘He needs care. Shock can follow near drowning,’ I said.

‘We’ll take that risk. Ride with me, Doctor Watson.’

And so it happened that Buttons, weak and shivering, and Holmes, frustrated and angry, were both handcuffed and bundled, soaking wet, into the single Black Maria owned by the Cambridge police.

In Hadley’s private carriage, I attempted to reason with the man. ‘Mr Hadley! I do not exaggerate the dangers of shock. Deacon Buttons came close to death back there. Please let me examine him when we arrive.’

‘The question is, did he confess to killing Odelia Wyndham before jumping?’ Hadley smoothed his rumpled hair self-consciously. I wondered how often the inspector was pulled from his bed in this sleepy town.

‘Not exactly,’ said I. ‘But Deacon Buttons expressed some kind of guilt. I am sure Mr Holmes has more to tell you.’

‘I will hear it at the station,’ said Hadley, brusquely.

Once there, Holmes and Buttons were placed in separate cells, and I was not allowed to see either, at least not right away. The early morning temperature had dropped from the night storm, and in spite of the humidity, a fire had been lit in the reception area. I shivered in front of it. It was nearly six a.m. and I had not eaten in over twenty-four hours. Seeing my distress, the second young officer from the rescue team, a dark-haired, handsome man with a luxurious moustache, brought me a coffee and a sandwich, and attempted to make me comfortable.

‘I’m Wright,’ he said by way of introduction. ‘Close call out there.’

‘Is someone seeing to Mr Holmes?’ I asked him, thinking that if anyone needed to eat, it was my friend.

Wright leaned in close as he placed my food on a nearby table. ‘He is fine, sir. More angry than distressed.’

‘He needs food. Coffee. Brandy perhaps.’

‘I will get something to him.’

I waited, growing more impatient by the minute. I felt strongly the need to check on Holmes, and also Buttons. Yet still I waited. The clock above the police intake desk struck seven. At last I was ushered into Hadley’s office, annoyed to see the older man must have returned home to shave and freshen himself, despite the urgency and gravity of the case. In contrast to my own muddy disarray, his well-dressed hair gleamed and his shoes were shined to match.

At his questions, I related succinctly what Holmes had discovered at Piotr Flan’s pawnshop, and what he had revealed to me about Buttons’ room at the rectory. To his credit, Hadley listened carefully, and then called in young Wright, directing him to see to Holmes and get his notes, and then follow up with his own investigation.

After a few more minutes in which I repeated the story of what Holmes and I had done the night before, I was made to wait, and then finally released to see my friend. I was hot, exhausted, sticky, damp and irritable beyond reckoning. Sherlock Holmes must only have felt worse.

The station had long ago been converted from a warehouse with offices, and the prisoners’ cells were in random locations throughout the facility. Holmes’s current cell was off a main hall and through an anteroom. I entered to discover Holmes seated in a metal chair in the centre of this isolated cell. To my surprise, he was strangely encumbered in a straitjacket with a few chains round it, and his ankles were handcuffed to the legs of the chair. It brought to mind the provocative posters I had seen for the escapist thrills of the Great Borelli. In my exhaustion and surprise, a thoroughly inappropriate laugh escaped my lips.

Holmes looked up. He was white with fury, his jaws clenched, and