Free Young Sherlock Holmes: Knife Edge by Andrew Lane Page A

strained voice.
    There was silence for a few moments, during which Sherlock waited for some kind of response – a voice perhaps, or some movement of the wooden plaque towards the edge of the table, but the
eventual form of the reply took Sherlock by surprise. Albano brought his hands out from below the table, still holding the slate, but it wasn’t blank any more. There was amessage scrawled on
it in chalk.
    Albano held the slate up and turned it around so that everyone else could see it. ‘Please,’ he said in a strained voice, ‘someone, read the message out.’
    ‘
My name is Invictus
,’ Herr Holtzbrinck quoted. ‘
I have been selected to be your guide for this night
.’
    ‘Amazing!’ von Webenau murmured.
    Sherlock glanced at Mycroft, whose gaze shifted from Sherlockto the table and back. Intuiting his intent, Sherlock ducked his head beneath the level of the tabletop, looking for some evidence
that he had missed. Maybe Ambrose had a piece of chalk under there, held between his knees, or some chalk had been attached to the underneath of the table so that Albano could have written the
message himself? But there was nothing. Albano’s trousers were black,and there would have been some evidence of chalk dust. Sherlock straightened up and shook his head briefly. Mycroft
nodded, a scowl on his face. It was obvious to Sherlock that he didn’t know how the trick had been accomplished either. If it was a trick.
    ‘Are you willing to act as our guide, seeking out those spirits of the dead who have messages for friends or relatives who are still living?’Albano called. Eyes tightly shut, he
moved his head around as if looking for something. His hands, Sherlock noticed, were in his lap again, still holding the slate.
    The silence in the room was heavy with expectation. After a moment or two Albano’s head twitched. He brought the slate out again and held it up. It was covered with scrawled chalk marks,
but they were different from last time.

    ‘
I stand ready to assist
,’ Herr Holtzbrinck read out, ‘
but the others do not have the power to write, as I do. They will use the plaque
.’ The final
words were written in smaller letters, and squeezed together, as if the spirit named Invictus had suddenly realized that it was running out of space. Somehow Sherlock found the idea of a spirit
making a misjudgement like that rather comical.

    Albano held the slate up in his right hand. Silman moved forward to take it from him. He reached out to place his fingertips on the wooden plaque which had been sitting on the table all that
time. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘all of you, place your fingertips alongside mine.’
    The six others around the table all leaned forward and did as Albano had asked. It felt to Sherlock as if the plaque weretrembling slightly. He looked around to see if anyone’s hand was
obviously shaking, but he couldn’t see any unusual movements.
    ‘Is there anybody there?’ Albano asked.
    Nothing happened for a long moment, long enough that Sherlock thought that nothing
was
going to happen, and then the plaque suddenly shot across the table towards the word
‘Yes’, dragging their hands with it. Count Shuvalovsucked his breath in, while von Webenau’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
    ‘Do you have a message for someone here?’
    The plaque slowly drifted back to the centre of the table, and then jerked back towards the ‘Yes’.
    ‘Who is the message for?’
    Again, the plaque drifted back towards the centre of the table, and then jerked back towards the rim again, but this time, instead of heading forthe ‘Yes’, it went off at an angle,
towards the alphabet of letters that ran around the edge of the table. Laboriously, the plaque pointed to the ‘H’, the ‘E’, the ‘R’ . . .
    ‘Herr Holtzbrinck,’ Sherlock murmured, but if the spirit heard, then it ignored him, and kept on spelling out the name until it got to the final ‘K’.
    Holtzbrinck glanced around the table. ‘My