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Potters Bar. That’s why they are slowing. It is still countryside out there. As Holmes hesitates, the guard takes a step toward him. The boy looks out again. He
can’t
be caught.
    He puts his hand through the open window, draws the bolt on the outside, and snaps the door open. Now the freezing air hits him like a gale.
    The guard lunges.
    Sherlock jumps.

    Ten minutes later he is still lying where he landed, but alive. He wouldn’t be, if the train had not slowed before he leapt. Still, he’s feeling sore all over as he lies in the tall grass, reluctant to move in case someone spots him. But he
must
get up. He rises and staggers about for a moment and then gets control of his legs. He knocks the dirt off his frock coat and carefully fixes his hair. There don’t appear to be any broken bones. He can see Potters Bar just up ahead. No one is approaching. When he thinks of it, he figures that such a passenger as he isn’t worth an investigation. The train will just move on from the village. He will simply be in the guard’s report. He starts to walk. It is still many, many miles to St. Neots.
    Sherlock avoids Potters Bar, makes a wide detour through a field, and then returns to the rail line on the village’s north side.
Stick to the tracks
, he tells himself,
that’s how to find your way
. He wonders if there is any chance there’s another train on the Great Northern line this evening. Not likely. He shivers and wraps his coat tighter. He can see his breath in the dimming light.
    He passes many farms and a village but it takes about an hour before he sees the lights of a substantial place in the oncoming dusk.
    “Finally,” he sighs as he slows his pace and steps uponto the slippery black tracks. He holds his arms out from his sides to walk the rails like Blondin balances high above the crowds. But then he hears something in the distance behind him, growing louder. It is blowing and puffing, sounding its horn.
    Another train
. And it’s coming right at him.
    He jumps off the rails and starts to run.
This has to be the last locomotive going north tonight
. In seconds it is upon him, then flying past just yards away, screaming, fouling the air, the wind of its wake almost knocking him down.
    He is pumping his arms now, running with everything he has. He
must
make it to the town before the train leaves – he cannot waste more precious time – the last carriage grows smaller out in front of him, and for an instant he feels like stopping.
    Then the train begins slowing to enter the station.
    Sherlock picks up his pace again, his long legs advancing as fast as he can make them go. He runs past the rear of the first buildings – a green grocer shop, a tobacconist’s – his eyes never leaving the train coming to a halt in the station up ahead. He can see a few passengers disembarking, others heading for their carriages, a porter hastily pushing a barrow heaped with luggage. On he goes, his breathing growing heavier. The porter deposits his load; the passengers sit; two guards close the doors. The train will pull out immediately. He notices the guards signaling the conductor, turning their backs, returning to the stationmaster’s office. Sherlock is straining with all he has, his arms whipping the crisp, coal-contaminated air.
    He draws within one hundred yards … fifty. Iron fences line both sides of the tracks and the rails descend below the platforms. As he enters the station, the platforms are above his head. No one will look for someone running up the tracks to illegally board the train. Not at this last moment.
    One of the guards turns to take a final look at the engine. A fireman is stoking it with coal. Smoke puffs out in rancid clouds and the locomotive begins to move, easing out of the station.
    Sherlock sprints … and leaps up onto the platform in a single bound. He races past the rumbling luggage carriages and seizes a door in third class. The train jerks and speeds up. He hangs on, fumbles for the latch,