The Secret Fiend tbsh-4 Page 10

  “What have I done? I’m not involved in anything!” cries Sherlock. He is almost weeping. “That report in the papers was –”

  “I told you that chaos was good for me. The Greek myths, Christianity, even your Jewish lies, say the world began in utter chaos. That’s our natural state. We should return to it. I admire the chaos theories in mathematics about numbers and equations spinning out of control. If you knew of them, you wouldn’t…. You like order.”

  “I am doing nothing, now! I am refusing people who want me to help. I promise you!”

  “He’s afraid, Master, he’s afraid!” Grimsby is jumping up and down, a vein protruding out on his forehead. Quivering, Holmes sets himself as best he can against the little villain, turning his hips toward him. But as he does, Crew comes up and grabs the boy’s arms, wrenching them behind his back. Sherlock can smell the dye in his hair. He is a powerful boy indeed. Before Holmes can try to bring Crew down with a Bellitsu move, Grimsby has released a punch, aiming for the solar plexus, intending to start proceedings by rendering Sherlock helpless. Holmes has but an instant to tighten his abdomen.

  “My boy!” cried Sigerson Bell just last week. “Should you ever be in the unenviable position of receiving a blow to the midsection, or a punch in the gut, as it were … you are out of luck!” The old man had laughed so hard that tears had come to his eyes. “Just playing the fool, Master Holmes, playing the fool. Now … strike me!”

  And with that, he invited the boy to pound him in the abdomen. Sherlock tapped him lightly and the old man yelled at him to do it harder, whereupon Holmes added a slight bit of power to his blow, whereupon the apothecary cursed the boy with a truly revolting epithet – something to do with his ancestors resembling the refuse of a particularly repulsive beast – thus angering the lad so that he struck his old friend with everything he had … and discovered that he couldn’t harm him. Sigerson Bell’s gut, when engaged, was as hard as the pillars of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

  “Clench the abdominal muscles at precisely the right moment, my child! And actually step into the blow! It is an art in itself!”

  Sherlock attempts to employ it as Grimsby delivers his punch, which arrives in a split second. His stomach muscles are barely locked and hardened, and he has only begun to move toward the flying fist, but it is enough. Holmes doesn’t buckle; he doesn’t lose all the air in his body; he isn’t left lying on the ground. Grimsby is astonished.

  “Stand back!” commands Malefactor. Though the iron bar is heavy, he swings it as though it were a twig. Sherlock doesn’t have time to be amazed at his enemy’s strength. Digging in his heels, he shoves Crew back and is able to move him a few inches. The bar misses and connects with the wall, right in front of his thigh bone, making a dull clanging noise and chipping out a piece of stone.

  Crew, pushed up against the wall by Holmes’ maneuver, shoved so hard that most opponents would have buckled, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t utter a sound. His body feels as hard as the stone wall itself.

  “Things are heating up in this city and that is good for my ventures,” says Malefactor, pulling the bar from the wall. “Were I to allow you to have a healthy body and mind, you would soon not be able to resist being involved in chasing my Spring Heeled Jacks again! We have the Bobbies pre-occupied. But you would change that! After I warned you, you still kept interfering. You have proven to me that I must eliminate you. This is the perfect time to do it. You know too much about me, far too much! You are a thorn in my side, Sherlock Holmes, and if I do not stop you now … you will always be!” He glances at Crew. “Ready him!”

  Crew swings Holmes around, cracking his head against the wall. The blinding pain shivers through his body right down to his toes. Crew swings him back and Malefactor lifts the iron bar to strike, to break his right thigh bone.

  But the blow never comes. Someone clutches the weapon on the back swing.

  The Spring Heeled Jack!

  Its wings are widespread.

  While both Grimsby and Crew gape at it, Malefactor turns and boots it in the midsection, knocking it across the alley and onto the ground.

  “You are a fool!” cries the crime boss and advances toward it. It lies there gasping, one of its arms folded across its chest, as if wrapped in a sling inside its costume.

  “Police!” it shouts. “POLICE!” That freezes the criminals. Malefactor motions and all three run.

  “The next time, you will be dead!” Malefactor shouts at Sherlock.

  The alley grows quiet. Only the sounds in the streets outside are heard, the distant buzz of Southwark.

  “You ’ave a goose egg, you ’ave.”

  John Silver is sitting on the ground, half-dressed in his silly Spring Heeled Jack uniform, smiling up at Holmes. He is rubbing the arm that Sherlock broke, which is indeed wrapped in a sling under his crude costume.

  “Thank you, Master Silver.”

  “Not at all. I is glad to be of service. I ’ave been thinking about a great many things lately, overhauling ’em, I ’ave, Master ’olmes, and I want to change the way I does things … just like you said. So I thought I’d start this afternoon. I lives east of ’ere in Rotherhithe. So I was a coming this way to start events off, to find Miss Beatrice coming home to the hatter’s shop, to apologize to ’er. I was going to show ’er the costume to let ’er know ’ow ridiculous it was … and I am. Then I was going to throw it in a dustbin as she watched. The police didn’t take it from me, you know, didn’t bother. That Lestrade chap, ’e just smiled when Miss Beatrice and I told ’im about you and ’ow you ’elped ’er. I thought that peculiar. I ’ad told ’im what I did in order to raise you up a bit, because I felt wery guilty about things all of a sudden. You had been so brave and I such a fool, really. I ’ad got to thinking, straight off, when we was waitin’ for the Peelers to come that night, ’ow awful I’d been to you over the years. I felt ashamed of everything, so I wanted to do something nice for you. I don’t care if you is a Jew, Sherlock. Mr. Disraeli, ’e is one too. ’e is ’elping folks like me, I figure. ’e got the vote for me family. ’e is showing us all, ’e is. I don’t imagine any of us is so different inside.”

  “No, I don’t imagine we are.”

  “Well, I ’eard a commotion in ’ere, saw the two ragged boys at the entrance, ’eard that tall one with the tail coat and the top ’at shoutin’ nasty things at you. So I slipped on me costume and came at them two little guards all of a sudden-like and they runs! Then I comes in ’ere. That tall one sure kicked me good. I ’ad it in mind to fight them. But I thought better of it when I felt ’is blow. And when I saw the looks of them two with ’im.”

  Silver rubs his stomach.

  Moments later, as they leave the alley and head toward Borough High Street, big John grabs Sherlock by the arm. He is looking back in the direction of Snowfields School.

  “That’s Beatrice, ain’t it?”

  Down Snowfields Road, way down near the school, Beatrice Leckie and her friend Louise are talking to the headmaster as he locks the door. The headmaster points toward Sherlock and Silver, or at least in their direction. They are so far away that the girls don’t see them, but they begin to approach, eyes downcast, talking earnestly.

  “She is a wery loverly one, she is,” says Silver.

  “Yes … she is.”

  “’ave you ever really conversed with her? I means, really sat down and ’ad a gab?”

  “Well, we’ve chatted a little about –”

  “You should. I did once, just once. It was when me guvna broke ’is back in an accident, building the new tracks out of London Bridge Station a few years past. Some rails fell off a wagon and landed on ’im.”

  “I didn’t know that. I am sorry.”

  “Well, she ’eard, and she spoke to me. Sat right down and gabbed for the longest time. It was wonderful, it was.”

  Sherlock looks down the street at Beatrice. She still doesn’t see them. She has pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and is talking to Louise, waving
it around as if frustrated about something.

  “She gave me some money, she did.”

  “What? Her family can’t spare any money.”

  “I knows. But she wouldn’t ’ear of me family not ’avin it.”

  Beatrice looks up and spots Sherlock. Those black eyes glow.

  “She is a political sort, you know.”

  “Nonsense. She doesn’t know a thing about it. She is an old-fashioned girl.”

  “No, sir, she does. She says to me that day, she says that there should be money from the government for navies, workin’ men like my papa who gets injuries, that no man in England should go without money if he is ’urt, none should starve either, even if they don’t ’ave work. She says to me that things need to change in this country, and that the rich need to pay some of what they ’ave to ’elp the rest.”

  Beatrice waves.

  “Did you know that ’er father is ill, that that’s why she is working as a servant?”

  “Sherlock?” cries Beatrice.

  “Oh, my! I must go, Master ’olmes, I can’t face ’er! She is just too loverly. I suppose that’s why I wanted to scare ’er. I can’t never face ’er without getting all me nerves up and shaking like a leaf, like I might just puke up me guts right there on ’er dress or something or –”

  Silver runs. His long legs take him up the road and then into the crowd on Borough High Street. A short while later, Beatrice rushes up.

  “Sherlock ’olmes, you are just the man I was searching for.”

  “Well, I am afraid you must make it brief, Miss Leckie. None of this Spring Heeled Jack stuff, I hope.”

  “You look disheveled, Sherlock. Your ’air is out of place.” She smiles. “Not like you.”

  In all the excitement Holmes has done little about his clothes or his hair. That is indeed not like him. He straightens his old clothes, knocks off the dirt, and is about to fix his hair when he realizes that it is likely hanging down over the growing goose egg on his forehead. He doesn’t want Beatrice to see it, so he resists perfecting his hair. It takes some doing.

  “I suppose I was rushing home. Perhaps someone jostled me. Mr. Bell expects me not to dally after school, you know. I was then delayed by having the good fortune of meeting John Silver. He is really not such a –”

  “Was that who that was?”

  “Good fortune?” says Louise, curtsying to Sherlock as she begins. “’e was scaring us, ’e was, and an imposter to boot.”

  “You know, I have never had the pleasure of being acquainted with your surname, Miss Louise.”

  “It’s Stevenson.”

  “Well, Miss Stevenson, I am well aware of what he was doing, but he is an earnest lad. Meant no harm, I’m sure. This silly Spring Heeled Jack scare has many folks acting strange.”

  “It ain’t silly.”

  “I beg to disagree.”

  “It isn’t silly, Sherlock,” repeats Beatrice, dead serious. “I ’ave proof.” She reaches into her dress and pulls out the piece of paper he had noticed in her hand minutes earlier. “The Spring ’eeled Jack was seen in three locations last night. The papers all ’ave it. And ’e fastened this … to our shop door.”

  She hands the note to Sherlock, but holds onto it as he reads. He notices that her hand is shaking. The note is written on the same paper that was left on Louise at Westminster Bridge.

  I WILL KILL THE POOR, THE HELPLESS, THE FEMALES. JUST LIKE OUR GOVERNMENT. I’LL START WITH YOU! CHAOS!

  The handwriting is similar to what was on the Westminster note too, and in the same blood-red color. Sherlock feels his heartbeat increase. Beatrice’s hand is trembling so much that she lets go of the note.

  “I took it from the door before father saw it, thank God. I ’aven’t told the police … not yet. I thought I’d show it to you, that’s ’ow much I trust you. Inspector Lestrade only ’as that one constable patrolling near us … and ’e’s way out on Borough High Street.”

  Sherlock can see that she is trying hard to keep her composure and his heart goes out to her. She is being very brave.

  “It isn’t silly, Sherlock, it really isn’t.”

  Holmes thinks for a moment. He returns the piece of paper.

  “Don’t … don’t give this note to the police. It will only make things worse for you. Stay indoors tonight, with your entrance locked. I will see you tomorrow, bearing the means to protect you.”

  The boy considers how the Spring Heeled Jack struck in Knightsbridge at precisely the time he was pummeling John Silver in Southwark. That fiend could not have been my old schoolmate. He thinks of the reports of it appearing since then. He thinks of this note, written in the same hand as the first one, now threatening murder. He thinks of Malefactor, wanting him out of the way, right after the report appeared in The Times attaching his name to these sensations. He thinks of his enemy’s use of the word chaos; he thinks of the fact that the Jack is threatening his close friend; he thinks of that friend, Beatrice, whom he has known since he was a child, since the days when their mothers were alive and well; Beatrice, so sweet and wonderful, threatened with murder, her soft, white hand shaking with fear; and finally he thinks of something Malefactor said, something the boy’s fear had initially caused him to disregard. “… my Spring Heeled Jacks!” That’s what Malefactor had said … “my Spring Heeled Jacks!”

  Perhaps, thinks Sherlock Holmes, a case has chosen me.

  WHO IS MALEFACTOR?

  The boy almost runs back to the shop. He doesn’t even realize it. His mind is churning. Saturday and Sunday are before him, two days without school, two days to save Beatrice … and himself. He almost wonders if he should have taken her with him, installed her in the shop somewhere, safe with Sigerson Bell. But that would not only involve informing her father and terrifying him further – he must have been horrified that she was involved in the first attack – but would also make Beatrice less tantalizing bait. He hates to admit it, but he needs her to look like an easy victim, alone or with Louise, walking the streets in Southwark. He had been so careful to keep Irene out of danger, but now he is using Beatrice. He tries not to think of it.

  He has three tasks before him. First, he must protect her. Then he must learn more about who Malefactor really is; where, other than roaming the streets, he might be found – best to know where your pursuer is at all times. And last, he must catch Malefactor or one of his gang in the act, hopefully about to commit murder, so that he is sent to prison for a long, long time. But where can one find intimate facts about that secretive boy?

  “A pistol, my boy?” asks Sigerson Bell about an hour later.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I have one here, but I do not carry it. I consider it beneath my dignity to resort to such mechanical means of protection. And though I could procure another for you in an instant, I forbid you to carry one as well. You cannot have it.”

  “It is not for me.”

  “Not for you? And whom are you arming, sir?”

  “Miss Beatrice Leckie.”

  Sherlock had wanted to keep the events of the day a secret, but he knows he can’t, so he explains. First, he lifts his hair and displays his goose egg, now turning orange and purple. The apothecary lets out a cry and springs to his feet, rushing to his cabinet to retrieve a jar of frog eggs and another of lama milk, which he whips together with a mortar and pestle as Sherlock speaks, and applies to the boy’s injury. But as Holmes gets to the part in his story where he receives this blow and explains what his enemy intends to do to him, the old man emits a shriek, his face turns an alarming shade of red, and he rushes up the spiral staircase.

  “Sir?”

  There is all sorts of noise coming from the floor above, pots and pans flying about, and a good deal of grunting and cursing from the old man. “Dog poop!” he exclaims. But then he is coming down the stairs, taking four at a time. He doesn’t even look at Sherlock as he flies past. He has his own horsewhip in hand, is dressed in his bizarre fighting outfit, complete with obscene
, tight leggings, a bandana tied around his head in combat mode, and his pistol tucked into his pants, right in the crotch.

  Sherlock rushes after him.

  “Sir? Sir, where are you going?”

  They reach the front door.

  “To eliminate a certain villain and his two lieutenants! This shan’t take long! They shall not know what hit them!” He pulls the door open.

  Sherlock slams it shut.

  “Sir, you cannot do that. That would be murder!”

  “And?”

  “I don’t think you would allow me to do such a thing.”

  “But … but … but they want to kill you, my boy. My own boy! I will stalk them until I find the three of them together. Then I will sneak up behind them, silent as a ghost! Then, I will employ the Bellitsu moves explicitly set out when one is confronted by three. I shall cartwheel and catch each, one after the other, with an upside-down kick to the jaw, rendering them all unconscious. Then, I will tie them up with my whip, explain to them, very calmly, what their crime is and how their lives must be terminated for the good of all … and then I’ll shoot them!”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “I won’t?”

  “No, sir.”

  The old man’s shoulders slouch. “No. No, I won’t. It wouldn’t be right, you are correct.”

  “You would be the villain and they the innocent victims.”

  “Hardly innocent.”

  “But before the law …”

  “Yes, quite. We must catch them in the act!”

  “We?”

  “Well … you, Master Holmes, you … I suppose. And we must, indeed, arm Miss Beatrice!”

  Bell is gone and back with a new pistol within the hour. It is an American model, a Smith&Wesson. “I know a cowboy,” explains the apothecary, “helped him with his back … too much horse bucking, or whatever those people call it.” He takes a few bullets out of his pocket, spins the chamber, loads the gun, and then fires a bull’s-eye into the skull of one of his skeletons. Sherlock instinctively ducks.