Becoming Holmes Read online

  In his reverie, he actually begins to walk past the chemical laboratory door that bears Craft’s name. But someone comes out of the entrance and walks right into him.

  “Oh, I beg your pardon,” says the man.

  Sherlock looks at him. Age seventeen or eighteen, a student, not ambitious, wants to be an assistant of some sort here, perhaps a dresser. Holmes observes everything in a flash: the student’s blonde hair, his spectacles, and the dirty white lab coat that barely fits him. Though they say a great deal about him, nothing speaks louder than his attitude and his words.

  “I am frightfully sorry,” sputters the young man. “Can I help you?”

  Talkative, accommodating, and apologetic. Perfect.

  “I am looking for Dr. Craft.”

  “Well, you have come to the right place.” He glances up at the name over the door. Sherlock blushes. The obvious is not always his forte. “I work for him,” continues the young man, “or, that is, I have volunteered to help him in my spare time away from studies. A friend and I assist him, actually. The doctor’s experiments are most intriguing. My friend is a much better medical sort than me, I am afraid. Is Craft waiting for you? Do you have a card?”

  “Uh …” says Holmes, “my name is Sherrinford. No, I do not have an appointment.”

  “I see. Well, I can’t leave a chap standing in the hall. I like to find the best in others, so I shall assume you have something of importance to convey to the great doctor.”

  “Yes, I do. Thank you.”

  “My name is Stamford, and my friend is named John. You shall view him in a moment, though you may not see him face on, since he is a most assiduous and dedicated chap, much more so than me, and is always bending over his studies and taking notes for Dr. Craft. ‘Notes’ is not the correct word. He writes veritable stories about our experiments, makes them so interesting. Craft just adores him and loves to read his reports.”

  Stamford opens the big doors. Sherlock is instantly transported into heaven. It is a big room, with white walls, of course, and a very high ceiling. It is filled with wide, low lab tables, and upon them are bottles and torts and test tubes and flaming Bunsen lamps. Liquids all the colors of the rainbow run through clear hoses and rest or simmer in the glass containers. Bubbling and boiling sounds echo in the room. And at the far end, bending over a notepad, doing exactly what his friend Stamford said he would be doing, is the aforementioned John. He looks about Stamford’s age, a little portly, with his wide back turned to Holmes.

  “John will return here to study to be a doctor one day, mark my words,” says Stamford.

  “A young man with both sides of his brain fully developed,” says Sherlock, almost as much to himself as to Stamford. “What a marvelous companion he must be.”

  “Excuse me?” says Dr. Craft, who stands at a table halfway down the room. He has turned and noticed Sherlock. “Who are you?” He sounds angry.

  Holmes bursts into tears.

  Stamford doesn’t know what to do. He appears to have allowed someone into the room whom the doctor does not like. And now, this someone is crying uncontrollably. He reaches out to console Sherlock, then pulls back.

  “Now, now,” says Craft, advancing toward Holmes, “there is no need for that. I didn’t mean to startle you, sir.” The third man looks up for a second, then turns back to his notes.

  “It isn’t that,” sobs Sherlock, glancing up to observe Craft as the doctor puts a hand on his shoulder. He has short black hair, a goatee, and dark spectacles. His lab coat is sparkling white. Concerned about his appearance, gruff on the exterior, soft inside, will be susceptible to my particular approach. Excellent! “I … I am merely overcome by being here.”

  “And why is that?”

  “This is where …” Sherlock breaks down again.

  “Come, man, get a hold of yourself. Speak, and I shall help you with whatever you require.”

  Holmes glances at him. A genuine statement, I think. I shall pursue this. “I am a dear, dear friend of a man named Grimsby.”

  “Grimsby? That sounds familiar.”

  “Murdered a few short days ago, horribly murdered.”

  “Ah, yes, the little one who was killed and thrown into the Thames.”

  Sherlock convulses in tears again.

  “Here, here, nothing can be done about it. What can I do or say to help you? If you take hold of yourself, man, I shall assist you in your grief. You must control your nerves.”

  “I … I just wanted to know how you think it was done. I don’t know why I ask that. I have often heard it said that grieving ones always want to know such things. Perhaps it provides some comfort?”

  “Well, yes, that appears to be true sometimes, but perhaps not in this case.”

  Sherlock reaches into his reservoir of acting roles and makes the tears well up again in his eyes. “Why so?”

  “We had the body here for just a very short time, but I do recall it as a strange case. I believe he was crushed by some force that wrapped around his midsection. His ribs, on both sides of the cage, were broken from the fourth through the seventh, and at least one of them punctured a lung, in fact both lungs.”

  “Crushed by a force, did you say?”

  “Yes, a force. But that is all I can say. I cannot fathom what it was. It seemed almost … inhuman.”

  “Inhuman?”

  “But what creature, about in London, what inhuman force, could have done such a thing? I recall asking myself that question. But the victim was not someone with connections in society, as you know, so we did not pursue it. What can one do? There are so many misfortunes in this city.”

  To the astonishment of the doctor, the young man asking the questions, so profoundly sad and inconsolable just moments ago, suddenly brightens and shakes his hand vigorously.

  “Thank you, sir. You have been most helpful.”

  And with that, he vanishes from the room, down the stairs, and back out into the streets.

  Inhuman force.

  It isn’t a description that would fit the abilities of some common London thief in a street fight with Grimsby. But I wager that in some way it fits Crew. And if it doesn’t, I can make it. Now, I just have to find him.

  17

  WHAT SUTTON KNEW

  It takes Sherlock about twenty minutes to cut through the Old City, head toward the river, and reach London Bridge Railway Station on the other side, not far from Snowfields School. Once he has his ticket, he finds his platform but doesn’t board his train. Instead, he spends the half hour before it departs walking about the station watching for anyone following him. Then he heads to the wrong platform before darting back to his own and slipping onto the train just as the whistle sounds for final boarding. No one seems to have followed. He is safely on the ten past noon train to Rochester.

  They chug off through Southwark and he watches the city from the windows in his fourth-class car – the factories, the rookeries, the working-class homes jammed into each other in the gray day. But he focuses on what he must do. The train passes through Greenwich, then the suburbs, into the eastern villages, on toward the coast. They reach Gravesend near the mouth of the great river and, before he knows it, the locomotive is slowing to enter the Strood Railway Station just across the bridge from Rochester.

  He must find Hopkins. It won’t be easy. And when he locates him, things might even turn violent. This will be a desperate man. Holmes feels for his horsewhip in his coat sleeve. But he has a better tool than that, one he intends to employ to his utmost this time – his brain.

  Sherlock gets out at the Strood Station and crosses over the cast-iron Rochester Bridge on the River Medway. The dun-colored town is on display from here, sitting on the far side of the blue water, its remarkable cathedral and ancient castle rising above the modest homes and businesses. He hears the gulls and smells the North Sea.

  Where to start?

  He puts himself in Sutton’s place. The police would not be paying him to live here. They would have simply let
him go with several provisions. Sherlock has made it his business to study all aspects of the criminal and police world and he is well versed in this sort of thing – he knows how it works. This was a deal with the devil Sutton, who put to death the even more despicable Brixton Gang boss, Charon. Sutton would be required by the police to stay out of trouble (or they would be happy to hang him), find honest employment, report his whereabouts on a regular basis, and never ask for their help, whether those who want to kill him are on his trail or not.

  Sherlock wishes he could simply have asked Lestrade exactly where to find him. But he couldn’t do that to his colleague. It would have put the young detective into a terrible situation if the release of sensitive information were found out. He had said the absolute most that could be asked of him. And anyway, Lestrade might not have known any more than he gave up.

  If I had done what Sutton did, where would I go? I would seek employment in a profession that my enemies would never think I would take up, in an office or a store or a place of business where they themselves would never go.

  Sherlock runs through the sorts of professions that this might include. Sutton is a clever man and well spoken, remarkably so for a man of his kind, one of the sinister minds behind the many brilliant Brixton Gang crimes. But he has only been free for a short while, not even a year. He hasn’t had time to take up a profession that would require training or education, to become a solicitor or a medical man or a clerk of any sort. He would need to seek a lowly job at first, while he plotted his emergence into something more respectable and profitable.

  Where would the evil men who pursue him never look for him? Where would they never go?

  Holmes is at the final span on the bridge, almost on High Street in Rochester. He stops in his tracks and looks into the town … at the famous cathedral.

  High Street is a tight artery, jammed with taverns, shops, lodging houses, and other businesses. It is easy to find your way to the cathedral in this town. You simply look up. Sherlock turns right just a couple of streets down, onto College Yard, and approaches the magnificent building. Just a stone’s throw from the equally remarkable castle, it rises high in the sky, a light brown, almost white stone gem as big as the giant churches in London. Every English schoolboy knows about the Rochester Cathedral. Sherlock stops for a moment on the expansive green lawn and looks up. It is awe-inspiring, with five spires, the last a massive one, and a huge exterior stained glass window, almost the width of the building, somehow glistening despite the meager sun.

  Holmes sees an old man on his knees tending to one of the gardens. Perfect – a working man who would know another worker. The big church’s clergy might not know of Hopkins if he is doing some menial job here. And it would be better, anyway, not to involve them in his hunt for this devil.

  As Holmes pauses near an ornate black bench nearby, the man gets laboriously from his knees, dusts himself off, and enters the cathedral. Sherlock follows. He feels a little guilty about being inside this sacred place, and its quiet beauty overwhelms him for a moment. He stares up.

  “Can I ’elp you, young man?”

  It is the old fellow he had seen tending to the garden. Holmes was lost in his own head. I must ask now and seem inconspicuous, just a nobody asking a casual question or two.

  “Y- yes, you may. I am seeking someone, an old friend.”

  “I shall tell you if I ’ave made ’is acquaintance.”

  Even their lowered voices echo in the massive church.

  “Do you have many new employees here?”

  “Is you looking for employment, as well?”

  “No.”

  The man eyes him up and down and seems at first reluctant to say anything more, but then relents.

  “New employees is rare ’ere, but –”

  “But what?”

  Sherlock has cut him off suddenly. The man is taken aback. He looks even more suspicious.

  “I was commencing to say that we ’ired one just a number of months back, first new one in all my time ’ere, which runs now about a ’alf century.”

  “That is impressive, sir, but you were saying?”

  “I was saying that we ’ired a new one. To ’elp me, in fact, though I don’t need it. It was as if the ’and of God ’ad opened up a job that we didn’t ’ave before and gave it to this bloke.”

  “By the name of Hopkins?”

  Mistake.

  Sherlock has spoken too quickly. He wasn’t able to resist. The man looks at him for a long while.

  “ ’Ow did you know that?”

  “Because … he is a friend, as I said, and I had heard tell that he had gone out this way and been employed in churchly doings. I thought of the cathedral first, of course.”

  “You don’t say. So, ’e is who you is seeking?”

  “Is he here?”

  “No.” At first, Sherlock thinks the man won’t say anything more, but after a pause he continues as if there is something about Hopkins he wants to get off his chest. “ ’E keeps leisurely hours, does ’e, and the church seems to let ’im. I would not be allowed such liberties.”

  He doesn’t like him. He thinks he’s lazy. I’ll ask him straight out.

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “Oh, I can fathom an estimate.”

  “Which would be?”

  “Falstaff’s Tavern, eight doors to the east after you turn on High Street.”

  Hopkins is close by!

  Ten minutes later, Sherlock Holmes enters the Falstaff public house. He thinks he looks old enough now to appear to be a patron, not some boy coming to retrieve a father home for a mother. He expects no one to ask him any questions or threaten to throw him out, although what he plans to do once he gets inside and positions himself in the right place will likely end in his being removed rather quickly, or at least secreted into a private booth – he hopes by a particular individual.

  On his way back down College Yard and past the eight doors along High Street, he perfected the plan he had formulated on the train. There would be no need for the horsewhip.

  The inside of the tavern is much like every old ale house in England, with a low ceiling, dimly lit and full of dark wood, smoke clouding the air, the smell of body odor and beer abounding. It is mid-afternoon and not the loud, public place it will be by nightfall, but far from empty. A man wearing a black bowler jauntily on his head and a woman in a red dress cut low on her chest to show her ample bosom are serving from behind a counter, talking to patrons in a lively manner, and filling their mugs and glasses. A dozen or so others are sitting in the wooden booths that line the walls, mostly two per table. Not one looks to own much more than the pound or two they are spending here.

  Sherlock doesn’t see the man he seeks at the counter, so he scans the booths. He knows what he is looking for: a man sitting alone, with his back to the wall so he can observe everyone in the tavern and see anyone who comes in or goes out. It is not just the strategy that Bell advises, but the criminal way, built upon living a life of being suspicious of others because you yourself deserve suspicion. Sherlock’s eyes rest on a particular man, at the back, of course, hunched over, looking down into his beer, glancing up every now and then to survey others. He wears a heavy coat, though it is warm both inside and out of doors. That is the criminal way too; coats can conceal many things one might need in a moment of desperation. Sherlock eyes him, and it doesn’t take long before the look is returned. The man glances away and then glances back, as if he is wondering if he knows this intense, eagle-nosed, black-haired boy in the second-hand frock coat. But the man can’t place him. He doesn’t like being observed, so he looks down and keeps his eyes on his drink.

  But Sherlock can indeed place him.

  The boy has this man exactly where he wants him. He smiles while still looking at his target. The rascal peeks up and sees this. An expression of concern briefly crosses his eyes.

  I cannot merely ask him for the information I seek, Sherlock had told himself while looking out
of the train window. He would simply deny that he is who I say he is. He would send me away, threaten me. It is not in his interest to squeal on anyone else, especially the deeply feared Crew. No, I must corner him like the rat he is, in a public place. And then I must make it so he cannot refuse me. While walking down the street, Holmes had found exactly the right words.

  “Is there anyone named HOPKINS here?” Sherlock shouts. The man looks back at him, unsure of what to do. It is unlikely that he has made many friends in Rochester, evidenced by his sitting alone. But he doesn’t move. He stays there, not even glancing back. Sherlock is well aware that the mere mention of his assumed name might not move him to action. He can ignore it. But another name will do the trick.

  “SUTTON Hopkins?” inquires Sherlock at the top of his lungs.

  The man freezes and locks a riveting gaze on Holmes. Without even moving his head, he motions, with his eyes, for Sherlock to come toward him. As the boy does, Sutton rises to his feet and creeps to another booth, deeper in the tavern. Holmes slides in across from him, face to face.

  “Who in blazes are you?” whispers the turncoat, leaning forward.

  “Someone who knows who you are.”

  “Evidently. What do you want? I have no money to speak of.”

  Sherlock spots Sutton’s left hand moving inside his coat, and a bulge emerging there in the shape of a knife.

  “No need for that,” says Holmes.

  “If you try to kill me, I will kill you first. They shouldn’t have sent a boy for a man’s job.”

  “I am the man who put you behind bars, Sutton. And if I had anything to do with it, I would be the man who would not only keep you there, but see you hanged.”

  A look of recognition comes into the criminal’s eyes. “Ah, you!” he hisses, examining Holmes. “You are the one, that strange boy, who caught us in Rotherhithe. You have grown.” He sits back, a little wary. “I remember the great fire, you with the gun pressed to my head. I really believed you would have killed me that night. You had a lunatic’s look in your eye.”

  “I would have killed you. I can be a lunatic when I must. But I am not here to expose you.”