Vanishing Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

the far end. He has no ticket, no plan to get through without one, and he’s desperately late! His future may depend on making this train. Racing through the crowd, darting in and around ladies and gentlemen and children dressed like little adults, he finally sees the number 8 archway, a single cut in the wall, narrower than all the others. Through it, he spots the mighty black steam locomotiveon the track, hissing away, belching filthy smoke out its stack, making deafening noises … about to pull out. There may not be another train until tomorrow. In two days Victoria Rathbone will be murdered. He
must
make it.
    He sprints toward the ticket inspector at the gate, who is dressed in a navy-blue uniform, pillbox cap tipped lazily back on his head. That’s whom the boy
has
to get past. He eyes his surroundings as he runs: passengers are swirling around him, rushing in different directions toward their trains, fares evident in a few hands.
Can he knock into them like a cricket ball into a wicket, like one of Malefactor’s ruffians, and snatch a ticket in the confusion? Can he show it to the inspector with his fingers obscuring its surface? How closely do they check? What –
    The inspector raises the palm of his hand toward Sherlock.
    “This gate is closed, lad. The 4:10 is on ‘er run.”
    The locomotive’s shrill whistle makes the boy jump.
    “But …”
    “Best be on your way.”
    Sherlock looks past him and sees that the train is beginning to move.
    Shove the inspector, leap over the gate, and make a run for it
.
    “I asked you to move, lad. What are you lookin’ at?”
    The man’s eyes are following Sherlock’s.
    “Not a thing, sir.”
    As the boy walks away, the official’s gaze follows him with interest. Holmes slips into the crowd.
    He has missed the train
.
    “Hurry, Constance!” an old, rail-thin gentleman in a chimney-pot hat exclaims beside him in the din. He’s begging his poor wife to get moving. “The train departs in a quarter hour.” She is as plump and prickly as a porcupine, and almost as smelly. She natters at him, huffing and puffing as she waddles forth in layers of heavy clothing, sweating profusely in the cool station.
    “Might I be of assistance?” says a porter in an impeccable uniform, who has spotted them from a distance. He is pushing a wooden wheelchair.
    “Ah! Yes, my good man. We are bound to Peterborough, on the 4:25, Platform 1. The slow train it is, but our pace of life. These steam horses are fast enough at any speed!”
    “Well, just sets yourself down ‘ere in this wheeled chair, madam, and we shall fly to the gate on time.”
    The old lady drops with a sigh into the wheelchair. It shudders, and instantly they are off.
    Peterborough
.
    It is
directly
north of St. Neots. And the 4:25 is the slow train: that means it stops at nearly
every
village. Sherlock is desperate to be on it. Platform I is all the way back down the hall near where he entered. He follows the porter pushing the fat old lady and the skeletal husband who is hustling to keep up. Having to return the entire distance across the station is a good thing for Sherlock – he needs time to figure out how to get past Platform 1‘s inspector.
    The boy arrives with ten minutes to spare. Observing from fifty feet away, he concocts a plan. The inspector isturned sideways, examining tickets, a brick wall facing him, an iron gate stretched across most of the gap behind him, leaving just a narrow passageway for travelers to squeeze through to the platforms. There is nothing for it. Sherlock will have to rush past in a crowd. He has something to work with already: the two men with the lady in the wheelchair will be a perfect diversion.
    He surveys the crowd and looks for more. He spots a family approaching the gate.
They will do
. They are a good twenty feet in front of the wheelchair group. There are six of them.
Time to move
. Sherlock darts toward them and cuts in front of the father. Then he stops without warning,