Becoming Holmes Read online

  There will never be anyone else like Sherlock Holmes.

  But she wipes her tears, sets her jaw tightly, and closes the door.

  When we meet again, we will pretend it was a dream.

  On the street, the future sword of justice, the scourge of all those with evil intent, sets his jaw tightly too and marches forward.

  22

  DECISION

  Despite the fact that he is going to a graveyard to investigate a crypt and the villain who lives in it, he decides to wear his new suit that night. In fact, he vows to dress much like this, in a suit similar to this one his dear friend has just given him, for the rest of his life. It will be his uniform. One must be respectable. One must always show that one has standards, even when others don’t. He makes the necktie into a bow tie and tucks it under his collar, out of the way.

  Again, he doesn’t care if he is followed. As long as it isn’t fatal, it will eventually be helpful.

  He carefully combs his hair in the mirror again before he leaves. Bell is in his bed upstairs. He has barely moved all day. Sherlock only checked on him to make sure he was alive. He was, but just barely, breathing heavily.

  Holmes is loath to leave him, but he must. He doesn’t go until it is dark out of doors. He isn’t feeling well either. And it isn’t just because of what happened on Montague Street. He has set that aside forever. His wound has begun to hurt again and he feels a little weak. But he must ignore such things. It is time to strike.

  Sherlock’s pace is quick and purposeful until he gets past the cathedral. When he reaches Redcross Street and nears the place where he encountered the old woman, his walk slows, though he isn’t conscious of it. As Cross Bones comes into view, he actually stops. Since the day he vowed that he would avenge his mother’s murder, he hasn’t suffered from a lack of courage in dangerous circumstances. He has always felt driven during the moments when he needed to be brave, often even angry. But as he stands looking at this frightening cemetery and thinks about the perverted personality whom he is seeking inside it, he wavers. Maybe it has something to do with seeing Irene this afternoon. He yearns for her soft embrace and tries to resist it. But when he does, another person comes to his mind. Beatrice Leckie. She lives just three or four streets away.

  What if I went to see her?

  Almost against his will, he leaves Redcross Street and walks toward the hatter’s shop. He will reach it in five minutes. When he moves in this direction, he senses that he isn’t being followed. If someone, a particular someone, were tailing him, Sherlock would never go near Beatrice. It is getting late. More than likely, she will be in bed. He tells himself he can just stand outside and look at the shop, his family’s old flat above. Perhaps it will give him the courage he needs to do what he must do tonight. As he turns the last corner and heads down their little street with its tiny courtyard, he is still terribly nervous. He needs a friend. He needs more than a friend.

  Irene Doyle has always been beyond me. She has her own dreams, anyway. Beatrice is different. She would sacrifice anything for me, anything.

  He stops a hundred or more feet away. The shop windows are dark. Up above, the flat is just as black.

  That time is gone. Turn around.

  But then he hears her. The sound is music to his ears, as musical as his mother’s voice. She is laughing. It makes him happy and settles his nervous heart. Then he sees her, emerging around the corner, out terribly late, arm-in-arm with her man. It is the same friend he saw her with a few months ago. He is tall and handsome with black hair, dressed as well as Sherlock is tonight, a respectably high top hat on his head. They look at each other, smiling.

  At first, Holmes’s heart sinks. But then he feels glad too, or at least he tries to. Beatrice Leckie deserves this. I don’t deserve her. He turns to go.

  “Sherlock!” he hears her cry out. Somehow, she has spotted him all the way across the courtyard, as if she could feel his presence. He has half a mind to run, but he turns to her. She suddenly leaves her gentleman, who looks surprised, and comes toward Holmes.

  She slows as she reaches him. Her shining black curls descend around her face from her red bonnet. She might not be the loveliest woman in London, she might not be as spectacular as Irene Doyle, but she is lovely to him. She is grown up and ready to move on in her life. There is a pinch of red in her porcelain-white cheeks.

  “My,” she says as she stops and looks him up and down and glows at him, “don’t you look ’andsome tonight. I feel I should call you Mister ’olmes.”

  “Sherlock will do. You are busy. I should go.” He looks off toward the other man, who is walking toward them appearing suspicious.

  She glances at him too, then back at Holmes. “No, no, it’s nothing. Well, it isn’t nothing, but you are ’ere. We ’aven’t seen each other for so long. Sherlock … were you coming to see me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were?” She smiles. “I will tell ’im.” She flies away, speaks to her companion, who embraces her for a moment then lets her go and tips his hat to Sherlock as he walks away. She rushes back and takes Holmes by the hand.

  “Come!” she cries. “Let’s go indoors. I want to ’ear why you came ’ere.” She sounds excited and puts her hand to her chest momentarily as if to calm herself.

  “But, your gentleman?”

  “I told ’im we were old friends.”

  Moments later, he is lighting the fire for her in the shop. They have retired to the living room behind the inner doors. Her ailing father is asleep in his bedroom. Neither of them feels uncomfortable that Sherlock is here, veritably alone with her. They are like family. It feels cozy near the fire. He is glad to be nowhere near that frightening cemetery. When he sits and looks at Beatrice in the big chair across from him, with her bonnet off now and her dress pulled up a little when she sits, which shows her pretty ankles, he feels almost as if he were at home.

  Home.

  It is an intoxicating thought, almost as addictive as Beatrice herself. Home had been upstairs here. Home had been playing with her as a child. Home is in her beautiful eyes. Their chairs are close together, and she pushes her feet out so they touch Sherlock’s.

  “Excuse me,” she says and giggles, not pulling them back.

  “It is wonderful to see you.”

  “Even more for me to see you. What brings you ’ere so late at night?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “That can mean many things. You could be putting it that way because it is ’ard for you to say, because you have something important to relate to me?” She looks at him with anticipation.

  “I have missed you.”

  “Oh, Sherlock.” She leans forward.

  “I am doing something dangerous tonight. That’s why I can’t say exactly why I’m in the area.”

  “Oh.” She looks disappointed, sits back, drops her head, and fiddles with the pleats on her plain red dress. “It is a criminal matter, I suppose.”

  “But I came to see you because I wondered if I should do that dangerous thing … or stay here with you.”

  She sits forward again.

  “And what did you decide?”

  “That fellow of yours, he seems like a fine gentleman.”

  “Well, ’e is. ’E ’as good employment, a clerk in the City. ’E is above my station, but ’e doesn’t care. ’E wants to marry me, Sherlock.” She looks up at him with a pleading expression. “I would not need to work in the service no more. I would be his wife and raise our children, work for causes for the poor and be ’appy.” But she doesn’t look like she is sure as she peers into Sherlock’s eyes.

  “Then you should.”

  “Should I? Should I really?”

  “That isn’t for me to decide. He is a handsome fellow.”

  “Yes, ’e is. But who can match you tonight?” she smiles, patting him on the knee.

  “You know, Beatrice, when I came near here to pursue this criminal this evening, I was frightened.” She takes his hand. Hers feels
warm. Home. “And I thought, why am I doing this? I should be with Beatrice.” He thinks of how comfortable it feels here, how right.

  She looks like she might cry with joy. But then she too says something that ends their relationship forever.

  “If you were to marry someone like me, and I don’t say me, but someone like me, you could still avenge your mother’s death. You could still be what you want to be. We, or two people like us, that is, could live in a nice ’ome. I, or ’oever you married, could work at a job, and I’m sure ’oever you married would be ’appy to work in order to be with the likes of you. I know what you want.” She pauses. “You could be a policeman.”

  Sherlock had been thinking how well she understood him as she began to speak. She was envisioning a future where he could fulfill his destiny. But then she uttered that last word. He stood up.

  “I have to go, Beatrice. You stay inside and keep warm. Lock your door. And marry your gentleman. I am very happy for you. You, of all people, deserve happiness.”

  She doesn’t even get to her feet as he leaves the shop. She doesn’t even know what she said wrong.

  Sherlock walks with purpose out of the shop and into the courtyard. He had almost been seduced by the warmth of her hearth and her heart. He had almost been seduced by true love. He cannot, he can never, let that happen. Others may be policemen. They can follow the rules and succeed sometimes and not others. They can put a little dent in evil. They can be regulars in that battle. But not me. I will not play by the rules. I will stab evil in the heart. I will put myself in danger, and villains in much greater peril. I will be Sherlock Holmes.

  He erases Beatrice’s kind face from his mind on his way to Cross Bones Graveyard. I shall live as if I never knew her, never knew Irene … never even lived my wretched past. His heart is pounding again, but not because he is afraid. He is thrilled. He is going to enter the lair of the most dangerous criminal in London.

  And he is going to destroy him.

  23

  INSIDE THE CRYPT

  He gets over the fence this time without incident. But when he lands on the other side, he is almost paralyzed with fear. He can literally feel the dead beneath his feet. He forces himself to move forward. While the ground is hard and strewn with rocks and pebbles in most places, it is spongy in others. This makes his toes curl within his new boots. He imagines all the poor souls who are buried here, the prostitutes from centuries ago, the poverty-stricken, and the nobodies. Oh, how horrible it would be to be nobody, to die without even a funeral, to not be memorialized, remembered in any way. He can see the occasional skull and bone and keeps his head up. Here and there he feels that spongy sensation again.

  How many layers of bodies are beneath me?

  But he cannot allow himself to be preoccupied with such terrors. He must be alert. Crew could appear from behind from anywhere at any second. He would enjoy murdering me here. The bushes and trees, many of them dead, block his view of the crypt up ahead, though he sees parts of it, its white marble-like walls shimmering in the moonlight. Sherlock’s footfalls seem to strike the ground with great volume, even though he is walking as slowly and gently as he can, his head on a swivel. It is difficult for him to believe that he is actually here. His heart keeps pounding.

  He approaches the crypt without being attacked. As he nears, the whole building – which he can see now is circular and about thirty or so feet in diameter and not as tall as he is – comes fully into view. He thinks he can hear sounds coming from inside, though they are faint.

  His footfalls seem to resound even louder throughout the quiet graveyard. He moves at a snail’s pace, taking forever to come right up to the crypt. When he finally arrives, he can see its thick wooden door, like an entrance to a dungeon. It is sealed shut, likely locked from the inside, and a keyhole is evident.

  How do I get in? Should I even try? The evidence is in there. I must.

  Sherlock Holmes moves around the circular building, his fingers on the cool surface, feeling it, wondering what to do next. He knows what to look for once he gets inside. But how in the world do I accomplish that? He could pick the lock, but he would risk being heard.

  As his fingers glide silently along the wall, he feels something unusual. Exploring it more thoroughly, he realizes that it is a hole, about the size of his hand. When he looks down, he sees a slight light coming from it, and when he lowers his face and puts his eye to it, he can see inside the crypt!

  What he sees takes his breath away. It is bizarre almost beyond description.

  The interior of the building is dug out, so its floor is a good seven feet below ground. Crew is lying on a marble slab that appears to be his bed. He is naked. But he is partially covered up … by snakes. Holmes’s eyes bulge. There must be at least five of them, big ones, crawling all over the fiend, wrapping themselves around his neck, his midsection, his legs and feet. One even grips his head near his eyes. When Sherlock adjusts his view, he can see four or five more slithering about on the spare marble furniture, hissing and rattling, forked tongues darting out, some pursuing rats the size of small pigs, seizing them to squeeze them to death or bite them with their fangs. There are lizards and frogs too, some convulsing on the floor from snake venom. Crew is on his back, staring up at the ceiling in a sort of frenzy, saying things that Sherlock can’t make out. He seems to be talking to them, as if they were pets he is controlling. The snakes are remarkable colors, bright gold and green and black, with ingenious patterns on their skin. They vary in size from little ones no more than a foot or two long to massive cobras of stunning girth and length. One, which he recognizes as an anaconda from an illustration he saw in a book about the Amazon River, is wrapping itself around Crew’s chest (to his ecstasy) and looks to be nearly a foot thick. Its length is hard to estimate from where Sherlock watches; much of it is out of sight. It is so big that it seems like some sort of monster from the imagination of a sensation novelist.

  Sherlock is reconsidering the idea of entering the crypt. The size and appearance of that giant snake literally staggers him, and he steps back from the hole. When he does, his foot connects with a skull behind him and he falls on it. It explodes beneath him like a gun going off. All that is left of the human being is dust.

  Holmes leaps to his feet. Could Crew have heard that? He doesn’t dare to even put his eye back to the hole. But he doesn’t want to run away. Nothing has been proven yet. If he gives up now, all will be lost. He moves around the outside of the crypt, farther away from the hole and the entrance. His breathing becomes louder. It is like a bellows fanning flames.

  When he reaches the opposite side of the building, he stops and stands very still. He listens intently for noises in the night. His hands shake as they rest on the crypt’s marble exterior. Then he hears something. He listens again. Footsteps! He turns in their direction.

  But sounds are difficult to locate in this unearthly graveyard. And at that instant, someone comes from the opposite direction and seizes him from behind. Just before he feels a shooting pain in his neck, one that paralyzes him from head to toe, he glimpses Crew’s ugly head inches behind his own, breathing on him, uttering little whining sighs. One of his big hands is wrapped around Sherlock’s neck. He can feel the villain’s heart pounding against his back. It thumps at a disarmingly slow pace, like the beat of a cold-blooded reptile.

  Holmes has never been this terrified. But he cannot move, cannot even consider a Bellitsu maneuver. His opponent knows his capabilities and has neutralized them.

  Crew begins lugging him back toward the entrance, to take him down into the crypt … with the snakes.

  24

  SATAN AND HIS FRIENDS

  Crew seals the door behind them. They descend wide stone stairs into the crypt. It feels hot and muggy inside. Thick webs line the ceiling, spun by spiders the size of fists. There is a fire blazing in a marble hearth, a few tropical plants, and a little pool with thick, putrid water. It smells of snakes and their refuse.

  Sherlock
cannot move a single muscle. His opponent has his thick fingers on a nerve in his neck that is being squeezed so hard that the effect is paralyzing him. Crew pulls Sherlock over to the marble bed and throws him onto it. Holmes’s head cracks against its hard surface. He lies flat and is barely able to look up. When he does, everything is blurry.

  “Sherlock Holmes, good fighter,” says Crew. He embraces him for a moment, feeling him, caressing his arms with his hands. “Ah,” he hisses and slightly smiles. He steps back, still a little cautious, and picks up a small pistol, a derringer, from a marble table near the bed that has legs carved with images of snakes. He trains the gun on Sherlock and walks backward, never taking his eyes from him.

  Holmes has only heard him speak once or twice, and even then he had just uttered a few words. The sound of his voice still amazes the boy – high-pitched and whiny, very nasal, so tiny a voice for a big, tough, young man. It is almost childlike. The fiend is hesitant when he talks, as if he understands not only how embarrassing his tone is but also that he is terribly inarticulate. Crew has little interest in communicating with others, so he hasn’t cultivated that skill in the least.

  “Good fighter,” he says again and turns, muttering to himself, “must be careful, keep him down.”

  He is examining his snakes.

  Sherlock manages to raise his head and looks toward them. In a fog, he sees that they are coiled on the floor and around the plants and lounging in the scummy little pond. He must have pulled them off the bed before he rose and went upstairs to catch me. He looks at Crew. His sole clothing is a pair of dark trousers, which he must have hastily pulled on. His bare upper body is as white as the marble in the room. There are rings of fat around his middle. His skull is wide in the jaw and narrow in the upper area. There is a blank look on his face.

  “Choose one,” says Crew to himself, “for Sherlock Holmes.”

  If this were Grimsby, if he had Holmes at his mercy in this way, he would have been excited beyond description. But Crew looks like a clerk in a bank doing his job. He is choosing a snake to murder Holmes.