Snake Bite by Andrew Lane Read Free Book Online

– after all, the man was a paying passenger.
    Three days after leaving Sumatra, Wu Chung asked Sherlock to take some food to Mr Arrhenius’s cabin. The tray had two plates on it, one of chicken stew and one of raw fish. Puzzled,
Sherlock manoeuvred his way along the ship’s corridors until he reached the cabin near the front where Arrhenius spent his time. He knocked with one hand, balancing the tray with the other,
and waited until Arrhenius opened the door.
    Sherlock’s arrival appeared to have taken Arrhenius by surprise. He wasn’t wearing his hat, or his veil. Sherlock saw that his face and scalp were hairless, but that wasn’t the
most disconcerting thing about him. No, the most disconcerting thing about him was the colour of his skin. It was a silvery-blue, and as the light from the oil lamps in the corridor shone on the
man Sherlock saw that the whites of his eyes were also the same colour. It was as if he was a metal statue come to life, and Sherlock found himself taking an inadvertent step backwards.
    ‘Yes?’ His voice was as high and as piping as Sherlock remembered.
    ‘I have some food for you, sir.’
    Arrhenius just stared at him. ‘You are the boy from the docks, yes?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘The cook, the Chinaman, usually brings my food.’
    ‘He’s busy, sir. He asked me to bring it.’
    ‘Very well.’ Arrhenius seemed annoyed, although Sherlock couldn’t work out why. The Dutchman reached for the tray.
    ‘Would you like me to put it on a table for you?’ Sherlock asked.
    ‘No – just give it to me.’
    Sherlock handed the tray through the doorway. He turned to leave, but as he did so he saw something moving out of the corner of my eye – a shape, about the size of a dog, rapidly slipping
out of sight in the shadows behind Arrhenius’s back. As the thing moved Sherlock could hear a clicking noise. He glanced at Arrhenius to ask him what it was, but the Dutchman was staring at
him with an expression that clearly indicated that he wanted Sherlock to leave. Confused, Sherlock backed away. The door closed in his face.
    Fiddler was walking past as Sherlock stood there, thinking. Sherlock caught him by the sleeve. ‘Does our passenger have a pet of any kind?’ he asked.
    Fiddler scowled. ‘What, that devil-creature?’ He shook his head. ‘Not to my knowledge,’ he said. ‘But if he does then it’ll be some kind of familiar from the
depths of hell!’
    ‘Thanks,’ Sherlock said. ‘Very helpful.’
    As he moved away his foot caught something and he accidentally kicked it towards the bulkhead. It made a rattling noise. Curious, Sherlock bent down to see what it was. For a moment he thought
it was a tooth, fallen out of someone’s mouth – a common thing with sailors, he had found – but it glinted silver, like Mr Arrhenius’s skin. He picked it up. It was a
pointed cone, slightly curved, and it appeared to have a hole running through it. He didn’t have a clue what it might be, so he slipped it into his pocket in order to examine it later. If
someone had lost it, maybe he could give it back to them – and find out what it was into the bargain.
    It was later that day when one of the crew spotted something on the horizon, and called an urgent warning out to Mr Larchmont.
    ‘Sails!’ he yelled from his position in the rigging. ‘Sails on the horizon!’
    Sherlock was working alongside Gittens at the time, pulling frayed ropes apart into fragments that they would then plug between the planks of the ship to help keep them watertight. He glanced
over at the dark-faced lad. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked. ‘There’re all kinds of ships sailing across the ocean. We’ve never had a warning before.’
    ‘We’re in the South China Seas,’ Gittens said grimly. ‘There’re Chinese pirates all across these waters. They plunder any ship they find, and they ransom the
passengers if they look important.’
    ‘What if they don’t look important?’
    ‘I heard a