On the one hand, things went pretty much as he had anticipated, apart from the fall through the skylight. On the other hand, the revelation that the thief was after a particular body this time, and presumably therefore every time, was entirely new. The important thing now, however, was whether Matty could follow him back to his base of operations. A sudden thought made him laugh. What if the police had chosen that very night to mount an observation of their own? What if they had seen him there and decided to arrest him? The thought provoked Sherlock into moving. After all, he couldn’t stay there all night. He headed off towards the hole beneath the tree. Initially Sherlock had intended to go back to Mrs McCrery’s house, but he was worried about Matty, and so he went to the barge instead. Matty wouldn’t risk heading for the boarding house and trying to wake Sherlock up. He would go back to the barge and wait – if he managed to get away from the thief, that was.
