Death Cloud

Sherlock leads his pursuers through the streets of Rotherhithe and into the underground tunnels beneath the Thames. He narrowly escapes a tunnel fire and a plague of fleeing rats before finding his way to the surface on the other side of the river. Having shaken his pursuers, Sherlock resolves to go back and find Crowe and Matty. He crosses a bridge and reenters Rotherhithe in time to see a ship being loaded with the beehive crates. He realizes that “he had inadvertently stumbled across Baron Maupertuis’s operation. This was why Denny and his gang had been here!” (239).

Virginia also arrives on the scene at that moment. She is disguised as a boy because she wanted to track her father and friends. The two teens loiter around the dock, and Sherlock learns from the wharf master that the ship is being loaded for a short trip to France. Unfortunately, they have attracted the notice of the ship’s crew, who encircle Sherlock and Virginia and capture them: “A hand holding a cloth clamped itself over his face. The cloth smelt medicinal, bitter and heavy. He nearly choked. And then suddenly he found himself falling into a bottomless pit [...] and dreamed of terrible things” (245).