Eye of the Crow tbsh-1 Page 11

  Sherlock opens the back door, closes it gently, and makes for his dirty dog kennel. He wriggles into it and lies still, pulling his legs up so his boots don’t show.

  No sounds come from the house.

  Sherlock finds it difficult to stay calm. His father has taught him that too much emotion is the enemy of the scientist. “Use cold, hard reason. Let it be your guide, my boy. Move slowly and accurately when you are seeking a solution.” That is fine, he thinks, when you are dissecting a frog or roasting some chemical on a Bunsen lamp, but this is life and death. He has his mother’s passion and can’t help it. He wants to stand up, rip the dog kennel apart, scream at the world that he is no criminal, that Mohammad isn’t guilty that life isn’t fair, that the real villain has to pay. Villains everywhere have to pay.

  He wants to see the murder now!

  He lets himself imagine. Black, oily feathers envelop him in the yellow fog of the wicked London night. He is perched on the edge of a building, but not on one in the alley. He is out on the street just off Whitechapel Road, on Old Yard. Down below, a woman comes hurrying along the street, the heels of her fancy laced boots smacking on the cobblestones as she looks around, desperate to get somewhere. She carries a small lantern that only dimly lights the darkness. She is young and beautiful and her white neck, ear lobes, and perfect soft hands all have diamonds.

  Those crows, he is sure, saw the woman long before she was murdered. To them, she glittered in the night. Why else would they have been drawn to the scene? Because of a scream? That would frighten them.

  She turns down the passage. She stops. Someone meets her, just as planned. Only then do the crows land on the building in the alley, still eyeing the glitter on the pretty anxious woman. Then there are heated words. There is a horrible shriek and shining objects fly through the air….

  Sherlock can’t see who did it … not yet.

  What about the woman? He knows something about her now. She is wearing more than just a little jewelry. That may mean something soon.

  It is time to move forward with their plan: have Irene check the city directories for every glass-eye manufacturer in London; find someone near the crime scene who heard something on that fatal night.

  But his thoughts keep returning to the woman. Who was she? Why did she go there at that hour? Why would someone kill this particular person in cold blood on a dark East End street?

  When Irene brings him food under her shawl at supper-time he asks if she can visit the Guildhall Library; and later, before odorous John Stuart Mill can be deposited next to him again, he slips out the backyard and goes to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He finds Malefactor nearby in a little lane, sitting on a rusted-out, overturned rain barrel against the back of a building, his Irregulars scattered along the wall. His moth-eaten top hat is perched at that jaunty angle on his sweaty hair, his tail-coat folded neatly beside him. In his hand is a notebook, one Sherlock has often seen him scribbling in. The outlaw enjoys inventing numerical problems to see if he can solve them. Sometime in his mysterious past, he had learned this: studied mathematics and been a whiz. “It keeps the mind sharp” he often says. “Prepares one’s brain for the challenges of life.” Though long aware that Sherlock is approaching, he simply glances up when the tall, thin boy nears and then looks down at his numbers again. It was made perfectly clear that he would provide the fugitive with no more help. All he expects tonight is information.

  Sherlock may hang if he doesn’t find the East End fiend, so he summons his courage and asks his question – carefully.

  “I … need to know if anyone heard anything on the night of the murder. Could the Irregulars make enquiries in the East End?”

  The brilliant young criminal gets to his feet and crosses his arms.

  “Where’s the girl?” He doesn’t sound pleased.

  “She couldn’t be with us this evening.”

  The crime boss doesn’t find that funny. He studies Sherlock’s face.

  “You should not be drawing her into this sort of trouble. I wouldn’t.”

  “She wants to be involved.”

  “Why?”

  “She believes in justice.”

  Malefactor laughs. “I doubt she’s a fool.”

  “She’s a caring human being.”

  The boy in the tall hat appears ready to deliver a punch. He stops himself by an obvious effort of will. He demands his report. Sherlock tells him what he’s learned, picking and choosing details to reveal, hoping it is enough to please. When he is done, Malefactor regards him like a king deciding if his life should be spared, if any of this information is worthwhile putting into the Irregulars’ vast mental log of underworld activities. Inquiries in the East End? It is highly irregular. But then the young crime lord thinks of the remarkable Irene Doyle and her plea for this wretched lad. If he turns down Holmes, she will know and think less of him. There is also an outside possibility that Holmes, if he doesn’t get himself killed, can actually tell him something more about this murder – it’s never a bad thing to be informed about such incidents. He looks away.

  “I’ll do this one thing … for the girl.”

  Sherlock stays out all night. He keeps pondering the murder victim. He has to know who she is and he has to know now. He needs to read his kind of papers.

  He’s been thinking about how many days have passed and by his calculations this is a Sunday morning. That gives him an idea. Before the sun rises he carefully makes his way toward the vendors he knows near Trafalgar Square.

  Most of the newsboys, whether young or ancient, consider him a nuisance. In the past, he’s attempted to steal papers when he couldn’t find what he wanted in a bin. They’d spot him trying and pretend to call the police. One, who owned a bull terrier with a dark circle around its eye, once set that vicious brute upon him.

  But there is one seller who is different, a poor legless chap with a misshapen face named Dupin, who sits on a low stool behind a rough, homemade wooden kiosk to hawk his papers, pitifully trying to look as respectable as he can. His deeply-lined face has been twisted from birth, his mouth constantly shows its yellow teeth – it is often hard to tell if he is happy or sad. Sherlock has seen him many times going home after work, transporting himself on a dirty little wooden platform with small iron wheels, his torso and the tools of his trade strapped to the surface. Dupin propels himself with hands protected by filthy, fingerless gloves, appearing like half a man – a ragged suit, a tie, a face, and a crushed bowler hat. He and the boy have spoken many times.

  “Master Sherlock ’olmes?” he says in surprise in his raspy way, somehow knowing to keep his voice down as he notices the boy coming out of the shadows and drawing near. The cripple focuses to make sure he isn’t being deceived. He is struggling to erect his big, torn umbrella over his crude little table and can’t quite make it bloom. “You looks like a ’ellhound is after you, you do.”

  “That’s about right,” says Sherlock.

  The tall, thin boy grips the umbrella by the stem and shoves it open.

  “’eard you was in jail.”

  “You heard correctly.” Sherlock is glancing around, keeping his head down.

  The cripple looks up at the gangly lad. As usual, there is sympathy in his eyes. Sherlock marvels at this man: how he can care about others despite his lot in life.

  “I’m wagerin’ this ain’t no social visit.”

  “I need a favor.”

  “For a million crowns, you’ve got it, guvna.”

  Dupin has a peculiar hobby. Most newsboys can’t wait to dump their extra papers the minute their day is over, but he keeps a copy of every issue he’s ever sold of both the glorious Daily Telegraph and his Sunday paper, the sensation-filled News of the World. In fact, he often keeps a few of each. He can recite from memory nearly every word in every paper going back several weeks at a time. Disraeli’s speech on India? Tuesday, page 7, columns one through five, running over three columns onto 8. He is a veritable living index. Rumor has it he keeps a book t
hat contains a brief biography of every person he’s ever read about in the news.

  A month’s collection of papers is always near his side at his barrow and when he isn’t shouting “The Day-leeeeeeee! Tel-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-graph!!” at passersby he rereads the recent news, committing it to memory.

  Sherlock speaks quickly.

  “I need what you have about the Whitechapel murder.”

  “Need it?” The cripple’s expression narrows. “You mixed up in that someways?”

  The boy shakes his head. “No. Others have mixed me into it.”

  “That will be a million crowns,” says the little man quietly and moves to a stack of papers behind his cart: The News of the World. He runs his hand down their edges like a clerk consulting a file, expertly plucks out the perfect choice, last Sunday’s thick paper, and hands it over as secretly as a dormouse.

  “Thank –”

  “Be off with you, Master ’olmes.”

  Sherlock walks quickly back to Montague Street, thinking about time and how little he has left. In less than two weeks Mohammad will be condemned. This paper has to tell him something.

  John Stuart Mill’s bulging carcass is stretched across the back of the dog kennel when the boy sneaks into it again. The snores are almost deafening. This is going to be a challenge thinks Sherlock, as he rolls the dog over several times like a baker worrying his dough. He gets him out of the way and nearer the door. The canine doesn’t so much as stir. The boy props himself on the dog’s round belly positioning his newspaper in just the right way at the entrance to gain enough sunlight to read and still keep his head from view. Anyone peering down from the Doyles’ windows will think they are simply seeing J.S. Mill in glorious repose.

  The Illustrated Police News hadn’t mentioned the victim’s name for the first three days: something about her identity being unconfirmed and authorities trying to locate and notify possible next of kin. But now Sherlock is looking at the first News of the World that appeared directly following the murder, on the next Sunday, six days after it happened, sold on the streets when Sherlock was in jail. And it is a goldmine! The paper has leapt at the story. He runs his eyes hungrily down the first column until he finds something about the victim.

  “Rumors circulated, during days immediately following the crime, that she was an actress …”

  That’s strange, he thinks. He pauses to consider it. Why wouldn’t an actress be quickly identified, especially one who, if Sherlock’s theory is right, had the sort of income that allowed her to wear expensive jewels?

  There is only one answer. This wasn’t a rising star, no Ellen Terry or Nelly Farren. She had to be a bit player, someone nobody recognized at first glance, or about whom the general public doesn’t particularly care. But that is only a partial answer. How could she have money? And who was she? He reads on.

  “Auburn hair … medium height … age twenty-two.”

  He wants more than that and turns the page, ignoring the gurgling sound from J.S. Mill’s gut. There in front of him is a large woodcut drawing of … Lillie Irving.

  “Lillie,” he says out loud. At last. She is beautiful indeed. And almost the spitting image of his mother in her younger years. The boy swallows and keeps reading.

  “Miss Irving had appeared in numerous plays and pantomimes over the four or five years since she first entered the profession. Though a young woman of remarkable physical charms, she never ascended to any significant roles. She is dearly missed by fellow thespians, who say she came from humble parentage, that she lived alone in London, had no siblings, that her mother and father were recently deceased.”

  Sherlock has never heard of her. Whatever is on at The Lyceum, The Theatre Royal Drury Lane, anywhere in the West End or elsewhere, he likes to take note. That whole world of wonder fascinates him. But Lillie Irving? She doesn’t even ring a distant bell.

  How could an unknown like this, playing small roles given to her solely for her beauty, have been decked out in jewels that night, or on any night? She came from “humble parentage.” Something doesn’t make sense.

  He reads farther down in the article.

  “She was playing in The Belle’s Stratagem, at the Theatre Royal Haymarket when she met her untimely death.”

  The Haymarket. He knows exactly where it is: not more than a costermonger’s shout from Trafalgar; an area frequented by pleasure seekers of a questionable sort. Plays begin at 8:00 in London and finish past 10:00. He needs to know more about Lillie Irving.

  He’ll spend the rest of the day writing a script in his head – what he needs to do and say at the Haymarket. Then it will be time for a night at the theater.

  He won’t take Irene. He doesn’t want her near a place where suspicions might touch her and directly involve her in this dangerous game.

  He’ll go alone.

  LILLIE AND MR. LEAR

  He doesn’t need to change his disguise. The filthy clothes he has on will work perfectly. Crossing busy Leicester Square, he goes over his lines. He mumbles them aloud, less afraid of detection here, as he moves through the big crowd. This is one of the rowdiest spots in London. You can hide an elephant here. All around him are dandies and ladies, beggars and blokes, gypsies dancing, sounds coming out of the open doors of music halls, a steady buzz of talk in the air, drowning out the hiss of the gas lamps that dimly light the colorful scene.

  After he turns down narrow Whitcomb Street he has to be more careful. The crowds thin. The theater is still in session. He tucks his head down and watches for anyone surveying pedestrians. He’ll approach the building from the rear. He knows a spot.

  He cuts through an opening between shops and in seconds sees the tall white back of the Theatre Royal Haymarket against the dark sky. Clouds are gathering in the night’s ceiling, threatening rain again. He checks the fading moon – it must be nearing 10:00. The stage door is straight ahead. The shadows here will give him protection. He drops down between two dustbins. A big rat scurries away.

  Laughter, then silence, then faint declamations of actors come through the stone walls. The reactions of the crowd make him smile. Sleep begins to descend on him. Applause. Sleep.

  Suddenly the door opens. Feet are moving quickly.

  Sherlock leaps up. His cap falls from his head and he nearly knocks over the bins. Straightening them, he tries to remember his lines. His mouth feels dry.

  Luckily, the first person out the door isn’t the sort he is seeking. It is a man. Sherlock recognizes his face. Not a big star – the famous ones leave through the front door in hansom cabs. Shrinking back, he lets the actor pass. Silence. The door opens again. Another man appears with a woman on his arm. They are wrapped up together, her lips are painted scarlet red, the top of her dress reveals part of her bare chest, his hand slides down her back and pinches her somewhere lower. She giggles. The door slams. There is silence for seconds. Then a woman appears alone. He’s seen this lady’s picture in the theater reviews – she wouldn’t have associated with Miss Irving.

  The door opens again. Out comes a beautiful young woman, nearly as pretty as Lillie, certainly as young. Sherlock has never seen her face before. He steps in front of her.

  It is nearly a fatal mistake and he is only saved by the woman’s pluck. She gasps, but doesn’t scream. She pulls back her purse like a cricket bowler ready to fire, her target the boy’s face.

  “No,” he protests, trying not to raise his voice. “I’m not a thief!”

  “Then stand aside,” she commands. She isn’t delicate when frightened. Her face has colored.

  Sherlock has stage fright. What is his first line?

  “I … I am an acquaintance of Lillie Irving.”

  “You?” she lowers her purse.

  That will do for an answer. She is on script.

  “Miss Irving was a wonderful lady,” Sherlock begins.

  “She was,” says the actress, her voice softening.

  “I used to beg from her.”

  “I’ve never seen you
before.”

  That is off script and she seems suspicious.

  “Uh … not here … in Leicester Square…. She always gave me something.”

  “Well, she had extra, she did.”

  Sherlock doesn’t speak. Best to see if the woman will say more.

  “Her fancy man,” she explains.

  The boy remains mute.

  “A mystery, he was.” The woman seems to want to talk. “I was her best friend and knew naught. Usually we gossiped about our beaus. But that was how they wanted it, she and him. That’s what she said, anyway. His footman sent his card up to her room in Aldgate one evening when I was there. Asked to be on my way, I was…. She was raised just east of there, poor thing.” The woman smiles, “Yes, her very fancy man…. That’s how she got them diam –”

  The door opens again. An older actress enters the night, big and fat, makeup heavy on her face, her bosom nearly spilling out of her dress. She eyes the street urchin confronting her young friend.

  “What’s this?” she inquires loudly. “What’s he want?”

  “Just asking after Lillie, Maude. It seems he used to –”

  “Lillie!” The big woman advances toward the boy, glaring at him. “Why would you be asking …”

  Sherlock doesn’t wait for more. He darts away, back down the opening between the buildings toward the streets. Behind him, he hears the fat woman chiding the younger one, telling her she is a “yapper … a young lamb with a big mouth.” He sprints away like a derby horse, until he plunges into the crowds of Leicester Square.

  Lillie had a fancy man! He gave her diamonds. What did Malefactor say when all of this began? What did he let slip about the murderer? “He isn’t on the loose.” That’s what he said. The word on the streets, the kind of information that Malefactor never shares with Sherlock, spoke of the sort who had committed this crime – it didn’t bear the trademark of a professional killing, the villain wasn’t of their ilk. This murderer is safe somewhere and has resumed a normal life. This person is wealthy!