Death Cloud

Elsewhere, 14-year-old Sherlock Holmes is called into the headmaster’s office at his boarding school. He attends Deepdene School for Boys and looks forward to returning home for the summer holidays. In the headmaster’s office, he finds his elder brother, Mycroft, waiting for him. Mycroft says Sherlock will have to spend the summer with an aunt and uncle he has never met. His father’s regiment has been sent to India, and his mother and sister are both ill. Mycroft will be working for the Foreign Office in London and can’t look after his sibling.

Uncle Sherrinford Holmes and Aunt Anna live in the nearby town of Farnham and have agreed to house young Sherlock until school resumes. The boy is devastated by the news and only grudgingly agrees to cooperate. After a journey by coach that takes several hours, Sherlock and Mycroft arrive at their destination. They are greeted by a sour-looking housekeeper named Mrs. Eglantine. As Sherlock enters the house alone, Mrs. Eglantine warns, “‘Child, be aware that you are not welcome here,’ she hissed as he passed” (20).

For the next three days, Sherlock is left to his own devices. He wanders the woods surrounding the Holmes Manor and is only expected to return to the house for his meals. His uncle is a pious scholar who writes religious pamphlets and spends all his time in the library, while Aunt Anna seems distracted and constantly talks to herself. Mrs. Eglantine watches Sherlock with obvious dislike.

One day, while sitting still and observing nature, Sherlock is approached by an orphan named Matty Arnatt. The latter strikes up a conversation, stating that his parents are dead and he lives by his wits. He has a horse named Albert and a narrowboat that Albert pulls for him from the riverbanks. He’s been observing Sherlock and thinks the boy can help him with a problem, saying, “‘I seen something in town, and I can’t explain it.’ He blushed slightly and looked away. ‘I was hoping you could help’” (29).

Sherlock agrees to try, and Matty leads him into the back street in town where the smoke emerged, and he heard the scream. Matty says he returned later and saw a body being loaded into a cart. The face and arms were covered in red boils. Sherlock speculates that it might be an outbreak of plague. He dismisses Matty’s description of the smoke as a trick of light.

Walking back through town, the boys pass wooden gates set into a stone wall. Matty warns Sherlock that some rough-looking men are guarding the place. Just then, the gates open, and two guards dressed in black velvet livery emerge to escort a black carriage driven by a large, scarred man. The man is unusual: “Through the carriage window, Sherlock was momentarily shocked to see a pale, almost skeletal face framed with wispy white hair staring at him with unblinking eyes that were small and pink, like the eyes of a white rat” (35).

The following day, the boys spend their time exploring more of Farnham. Sherlock suggests that they should try to get some bicycles to cover more ground. As they walk, they notice some shady-looking men loading a wagon packed with ice near the train station. Mrs. Eglantine is standing nearby. She tells Sherlock that he has been summoned to see his uncle.

Back at the manor, Sherlock learns that Uncle Sherrinford has arranged for him to have an American tutor named Amyus Crowe. Sherlock resents the idea that he must study during his summer break but doesn’t object. Later, the boy receives a letter from Mycroft, who explains that he suggested Amyus Crowe. Sherlock trusts his brother’s judgment and is now less apprehensive about Crowe. Mycroft ends by warning his brother about Mrs. Eglantine, noting, “Despite her position of trust, she is no friend to the Holmes family” (47). He also hints that Sherlock should destroy his letter after reading it.

A little while later, Sherlock bumps into his new tutor as Crowe enters the manor: “The man standing just outside the open front door was tall and wide-chested. His unruly shock of hair was pure white, and the skin of his neck sagged, but the way he held his body belied his obvious age” (48).

Sherlock learns that Crowe comes from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Despite his folksy manner, Crowe has a sharp mind. He tells Sherlock, “Information is the foundation of all rational thought. Seek it out. Collect it assiduously. Stock the lumber room of your mind with as many facts as you can fit in there” (53). Tutor and pupil wander outdoors into the woods bordering the estate. While on a mushroom hunt, Sherlock stumbles across a dead body. From a distance, he sees a cloud of black smoke rising above the corpse. Its face is covered in red boils.

When Sherlock summons Crowe to examine the body, the tutor soaks two handkerchiefs in brandy from a flask he carries. He says they must both breathe through the antiseptic mask formed by the alcohol in case the corpse is contaminated with germs. Sherlock recognizes the man as one of the workers from the Holmes Manor. He tells his tutor about the other body that Matty described with similar symptoms. Crowe and Sherlock fetch a wheelbarrow and roll the body back to the estate, where it is placed in a garden shed. When a doctor arrives to examine the corpse, he suspects a bubonic plague outbreak. He decides to alert the town authorities while Crowe suggests contacting a Professor Winchcombe in Guildford, who is an expert on tropical diseases.

Sherlock is sent away while the tutor and doctor confer, and he goes back to the woods to investigate the death scene. He notes that the victim walked normally until something suddenly made him stagger. Nearby, the boy finds some yellow powder coating the grass and collects a sample in an empty envelope. Afterward, he heads back into town to investigate the house where the first body was found. He sees a man emerging from the victim’s property. He is carrying a sack coated in yellow powder. Sherlock recognizes him as one of the men loading the cart near the train station. The man locks the door and leaves with Sherlock following. They end up in front of the wooden gates from which the black carriage had emerged that morning. The man is admitted, but Sherlock must find another way in. He climbs a back wall and surveys the back of the property.