Stone Cold by Andrew Lane Read Free Book Online

the conversation turned to other, more pleasant matters. When Millard brought out a silver case of small cigars and offered them around, Sherlock decided it was time to leave.
    He slept heavily, with no more dreams of stuffed and varnished dinner companions, and awoke to a bright blue sky.
    The other four had already risen, dressed, eaten breakfast and left by the time he got downstairs. Despite Mrs McCrery’s insistence about breakfast at seven o’clock on the dot, she
managed to rustle up some bacon, sausages and egg for him, along with a pot of tea. He left the boarding house in a good mood, whistling one of the tunes that he had heard Pablo Sarasate play at
the recital.
    Christ Church College was only a short walk away. The entrance was a huge arch that was almost entirely closed off by a wooden gate. A doorway in the gate allowed students and lecturers in and
out.
    As Sherlock made to go through the doorway, a gruff voice from inside said, ‘Can I help you, sir?’
    Off to the left, through the doorway, was a small window in a stone wall. Behind the window a man in a dark uniform was making notes on a piece of paper. He had a flourishing moustache and
luxuriant sideburns. He hadn’t looked up when Sherlock was going through the doorway, and didn’t look up when Sherlock stood in front of the window.
    ‘I have an appointment to see Mr Charles Dodgson,’ Sherlock said.
    ‘At what time, sir?’
    Sherlock frowned. ‘I’m not sure. It was left ambiguous.’
    ‘That doesn’t sound like Mr Dodgson. Very precise, he is. Very particular about times and places and suchlike.’
    He reached out to take a clipboard off a shelf to his left, and Sherlock noticed a tattoo on his forearm as the cuff of his shirtsleeve pulled back. It was a fish, entwined with an anchor, but
the colours were subtle, more like watercolours than the bright tattoos that sailors normally got at ports like London or Southampton, and the lines were so fine and so precise that they could have
been drawn on with a single hair. ‘South China Seas?’ Sherlock ventured.
    The man smiled, making the ends of his moustache curl up. ‘Indeed, sir. Very clever of you to spot that.’
    ‘I would say . . . Shanghai.’
    ‘Correct again, sir.’ He cocked his head to one side, eyes twinkling. ‘Care to narrow it down further, sir?’
    ‘Down on the quayside,’ Sherlock said, suddenly thrust back in his mind to the heat and the smell of the Shanghai docks, and a small shack in which an ancient Chinese man sat making
the most marvellous pictures on the skins of sailors who would never appreciate the artistry. ‘Chen-shu’s shop.’
    ‘Well, bless my soul!’ The man leaned back in his chair, amazed. ‘I never thought I’d meet someone who could tell where in the world a tattoo had been done.’
    ‘Sheer luck,’ Sherlock said. ‘I just happen to know Chen-shu’s shop. I took tea with him, a few times, while I was waiting for my ship to leave.’
    ‘An artist,’ the man said. ‘A true artist.’
    ‘But he made a terrible cup of tea,’ Sherlock remembered.
    The man straightened, brushing down his jacket self-consciously. ‘I spent five years before the mast, all over the Asiatic. Then I came here, because the wife wanted me to settle down. My
name is Mutchinson, that’s
Mr
Mutchinson, and I’m the Porter here at Christ College. It’s my duty and my privilege to check everyone in and out, to lock the gates at ten
o’clock at night and not to open them until six o’clock next morning, and to patrol the walls of the college to spot any young gentleman who comes back late after an evening in the
taverns and tries to climb over.’
    ‘And I’m sure you do a wonderful job of it.’
    ‘Mr Dodgson, you said.’ He consulted the clipboard. ‘Would you, by any chance, be a Mister Sherlock Holmes?’
    ‘I would.’
    ‘Mr Dodgson notified me that you might be visiting. I am to escort you straight up to his rooms when you arrive.’ He