Death in the Air Page 18

  Lestrade nods.

  The Swallow releases him and turns to Sherlock.

  “Thank you, Master ’olmes.” He pauses. “You are a star in your own right, sir.” Sherlock glows. “And you taught me many things. You taught me that I can’t be just part good. I have to choose. And I have done that.”

  Sherlock feels guilty. Could he honestly say that about himself?

  “It must be awfully nice to have your brains. Developin’ your mind is an exciting and admirable thing. I’m goin’ to work on me own gray matter.”

  The acrobat reaches out and shakes the young detective’s hand, then winks at him, turns the corner, and seems to vanish.

  At almost the same instant, the stable boys brings two big chestnut horses forward down the main hall that separates the stalls.

  “You shall ride with my son,” says Lestrade gruffly.

  Sherlock Holmes has never been on a horse, the gallant beasts who are the real engines of London. He looks at their strong legs and trunks and up at their dark eyes. Their backs seem very high.

  After young Lestrade mounts his steed and settles himself into the front part of the saddle, feet in the stirrups, he reaches down for the other boy’s hand. Sherlock hesitates.

  “Come on!” shouts the Inspector’s son. He seems anxious to have Holmes with him.

  Sherlock grips the arm and feels himself hoisted way up onto the horse’s back behind the saddle.

  “Hold on!”

  The horse rears up before it charges out through the wide open wooden doors and across the cobblestones. Its hooves strike the surface like gun shots. The Inspector is out in front of them.

  “Hee-ah!”

  They bounce violently up and down in the saddle as the magnificent animals take them flying across London. Sherlock holds on for dear life.

  They cut through a smaller artery head past the fabulous Northumberland House Hotel, by Charing Cross Railway Station again, and head down The Strand until they reach Waterloo Bridge. They cross into grimy Southwark and gallop east through winding streets, wide and narrow, racing past the denizens of the night. Sherlock sees city life from another perspective now. Faces look up at them, some frightened, dirty, and toothless; others conniving and calculating. They all know this is the Force on the prowl.

  Just south of London Bridge, they pause on a street near the lawns of airy, white-stoned St. Thomas’ Hospital, where the famous Florence Nightingale is in charge. They don’t have to wait for long. Within minutes they hear the other ten policemen galloping toward them from the west. Holmes spies a bookish-looking, bespectacled young man holding on to a Peeler aboard one of the horses at the rear. He is clinging to the Bobbie’s waist and looking both terrified and thrilled: the reporter from The Times! Then they are all off again, toward Rotherhithe.

  “You take the lead!” shouts Lestrade at Sherlock several blocks later.

  “Head to the Thames Tunnel,” says the boy into his jockey’s ear, “then follow Rotherhithe Street until I tell you to stop.”

  It grows darker as they approach the nearly unlit industrial areas. Four bull’s eye lanterns bounce up and down on the sides of the horses, like big, eerie, fireflies in the night.

  When the black chimneys of the Asphalte Works appear up ahead, it is time to become much more cautious.

  “Slow down to a trot,” says Holmes.

  As Lestrade sees them ease off, he motions to his men for silence. Soon their horses are walking and Sherlock gives a signal to dismount. He can make out the warehouses on the narrow lane that runs to the river, though they are almost invisible in the hot, misty night.

  “Where?” whispers the detective.

  “In the last warehouse, by the water.”

  The men take their horses into the yard at the abandoned soap factory across the street and tie them to tethering posts by an old wooden trough. Then everyone moves like ghosts across the roadway, crouching low, lanterns spread out among the group and held close to the ground, until they gather against the soot-stained brick wall of the first building.

  Sherlock is near the front with the two Lestrades. He speaks quietly into the detective’s ear.

  “They were on the first floor of the last building. There is a staircase that leads up to it from the ground floor and a ladder to the one above, where they had their dog-and-rat fight. There are windows in the roof on the upper floor – that’s the only avenue of escape that I know of other than the front door. There are four of them plus a lad named Brim who is dressed in dark clothing and a top hat, carrying a knife … and a hunting crop. The two younger gang members are named Crowley and Sticks, the older, Charon and Sutton.”

  Though Lestrade is impressed with the thoroughness of Sherlock’s report he doesn’t show it.

  “If they aren’t there, I shall have you prosecuted for providing the authorities with false information,” he mutters. He turns to the other Bobbies and motions for six to come with him to the front door of the last building and the other four, the ones with the lanterns, to spread out around every side of it.

  “Look for and attend to all means of egress!” he orders urgently, but quietly.

  Sherlock can only pray that the Brixton Gang is still in there. He can see the side of Lestrade’s face under his black bowler hat just ahead of him as they sneak along the wall. It has turned red, sweat has come out in big drops on his forehead and along his eyebrows, which nearly touch in a bushy row like an overgrown hedge above his big nose.

  Sherlock feels a tug on his sleeve. It’s the reporter. He is fumbling a small, bound book in his hand but any ink and pen he might have are still in his pockets. He is breathing loudly, gulping audibly, the lenses in his little wire-rimmed spectacles look foggy and his voice is shaky when he speaks.

  “And who are you, young sir?”

  “Ssssshh!!” hisses Lestrade, motioning for the little man to move to the rear of the group.

  Sherlock’s heart leaps as they approach the last building. He can see a dim light coming through the cracks in the door. Are they about to capture the Brixton Gang? Will he actually gain credit for this? Will he get his reward?

  Lestrade makes the policeman at his elbow open the entrance. He is a big, burly man with a thick mustache and mutton-chop whiskers that wind three-quarters of the way down the side of his face – the strap of his coxcomb helmet is tight across the dimple in his square chin.

  All six Peelers, Lestrade, and the two boys enter without a sound into the gloomy ground floor, eying the staircase dimly evident up ahead. They can smell the building’s fishy inner organs. The nervous reporter follows and … whacks his boot against the wooden lip on the threshold and falls onto his face.

  The sound echoes in the building.

  There is a scurrying up above. Five pairs of feet are on the move.

  “Police!” shouts Lestrade. “Come out and show yourselves, you scoundrels!”

  As the reporter curls up into a ball on the floor, the policemen make for the stairs on the fly. That’s curious, thinks Sherlock, the fiends didn’t douse their lights. But almost immediately he knows why. The sounds of breaking glass come from above and then … the smell of gas. It is instantly pitch black. A look of horror spreads across Lestrade’s face. The criminals are breaking their gaslights and putting their candles to anything flammable!

  This old warehouse is a tinderbox.

  “FIRE!” Sherlock shrieks.

  For a moment Lestrade doesn’t know what to do. His men freeze too. Should he send them blindly upstairs into what, in minutes, will be a deathly inferno, or retreat to see if the gang can be collared on their way out … if they come out?

  He cannot miss this chance to nab the Brixton Gang!

  “Upstairs!” he cries.

  “No!” shouts Sherlock. But in an instant the Peelers are all scrambling up the steps. Lestrade stands stock still beneath, apparently unable to move.

  Sherlock seizes the Inspector’s son and pulls him to the door.

 
“Out!” he shouts. “Out!”

  “But …” begins the other boy.

  Sherlock hauls him violently and drags him into the street. There, they race for the river. In half a minute they are down by the water, looking up at the roof of the old warehouse. He spots the lights of two other constables moving along in the night: half of the group that was left outdoors.

  “Here!” he calls out. “Gather by the river!”

  Sherlock Holmes knows that experienced criminals always have a plan of escape, just as he did when he broke into homes as he pursued the Whitechapel murderer. This ingenious group, this notorious Brixton Gang, will not only have a well-planned means of getting away, but be able to execute it in a flash.

  Sherlock keeps his eyes locked on the roof. Sure enough, within minutes a window opens and a head pops out. Then another appears, then another, until there are five.

  “Ssssshhh!” Holmes warns one of the constables, who is about to shout a warning up at the building.

  The five dark figures move like vermin down the roof against the night sky. They are indeed heading toward the river. Sherlock looks in that direction and sees a boat, a powerful steam launch moored there.

  “Come!” says Holmes and ushers the others to a spot directly in front of the boat. As he does, he sees two more lights coming his way.

  “Block the way back to the streets!” he orders them, “and get out your revolvers!”

  The two constables with him pull out their own guns. Sherlock wishes he had his hunting crop.

  In moments the smell of gas and smoke is evident in the humid air and soon flames are licking the insides of the open window on the roof. The Brixton Gang obviously know how to light a fire like few others, how to gas it, how to fan it quickly. Before long the building will be engulfed in flames.

  Sherlock gets the men crouched low and out of sight on a stone staircase that leads to the water where the boat is tied. They are just three steps down, so they can see the scene in front of them. Looking out, the boy spots the first member of the gang leaping from the roof onto a smaller, wood-frame building. It looks like a stable and stands almost attached to the warehouse next to the river. It shakes after each fiend lands on it. Sherlock squints to see them better. They are each carrying something in their hands. He knows that two of them have knives. What do the others have? Something worse?

  “Ready your weapons,” he barks to the policemen.

  The Bobbies raise their loaded revolvers and Sherlock can see that their hands are shaking. The building is now raging in front of them, lighting up the London night. The little laneway and the area around are illuminated like a lurid stage in a West End theater, set for a ghastly drama.

  The Brixton villains are dropping down from the stable onto the ground, one after the other. Then there’s the sound of their boots striking the cobblestones as they scurry across the lane for the river staircase, their heads up and alert, glancing back at the building, but ready for any trap ahead. They look calm and capable.

  Sherlock can now see that four have knives and the fifth … a revolver.

  Where are the two other lantern-bearing policemen? And what has become of Lestrade and his men inside the warehouse? Holmes glances at it as it begins to roar. Its beams will soon fall and the whole structure will collapse. Where’s Lestrade! If the flames ignite the other buildings, a huge conflagration will rip through Rotherhithe and light up the southern shore of the Thames. Such horrific fires are not uncommon in London – and folks come from everywhere to see these shows. The crowd will be here soon: one can almost hear it rising in the night.

  But Sherlock’s concerns are much more immediate. The gang members don’t care about what they have left behind, what destruction they have wrought … nor will they fret about destroying anything that lies in front of them. People like this are barely human.

  The five fiends pound along the cobblestones. Sherlock peeks and sees their faces, the whites of their eyes. Down the lane he sees a pair of lanterns approaching, bobbing at the end of the other two Peelers’ arms, their guns in their other hands.

  But behind Sherlock an excited constable can’t wait. He gets to his feet and aims his revolver. Terrified, he fires wildly and misses.

  The blast of the weapon near Sherlock’s ear nearly deafens him, but more importantly the officer’s action gives away their position. All five criminals fix their eyes onto the figures in front of them on the stone staircase. These desperate thieves have killed people and will do it again without thinking twice. The lead gang member assesses his human obstacles in a glance as he runs, and recognizes who offers the greatest threat. As a second constable raises his gun, the criminal fires. The bullet strikes the policeman in the shoulder and he shrieks and falls. Then the crook trains his gun on the head of the first Bobbie, who immediately drops his revolver and collapses to his knees, hands thrust into the air. The villains are only yards away now and all have their weapons poised. Sherlock and young Lestrade drop too and cower on the ground, rolling out of the way to allow the Brixton Gang to pass, praying that they won’t pause to use their knives or that gun.

  The fiends are brutal, but not stupid. Escaping with speed is foremost in their minds. They merely kick the two police revolvers away toward the water as they pass and race down the steps, uttering vile curses as they go.

  Sherlock glances up and sees that Brim, the boy, is bringing up the rear. He is going by, with his knife out … the hunting crop visible, most of it jutting out of a coat pocket. Directly in front of him is Sutton, one of the two leaders.

  Sherlock is terrified, but he has been disciplining himself over the past month, developing the characteristics he will need to function efficiently in the face of criminal activity. Desperate to find a way to stop this group of thieves from getting away, and to save his brilliant solution and its reward from vanishing into the night, he thinks quickly and dispassionately. The crook closest to him is a boy, whom he might be able to overpower; he thinks of the fact that the boy carries two weapons; and he remembers nasty young Grimsby’s effective, come-from-behind attack. A sudden move will be unexpected – the gang members think he and the others are no longer a threat.

  Sherlock rises in a flash, bends over at the waist, plants his legs, and drives forward with all the power he has, sending the hard edge of his boney shoulder into the back of Brim’s knees. The boy buckles and falls face-first down the steps, smashing his teeth into the stones. As he groans and releases the knife, Sherlock enacts the next part of his plan.

  Sutton is directly in front of Brim. He glances back for an instant and sees the boy with the hawk-like nose leaning over his young comrade, then reaching for an overcoat pocket and seizing the hunting crop. Almost immediately, Sutton feels the business part of that horsewhip laid across the back of his calves, not only removing a line of flesh from them and shooting searing pain up his legs, but also snaking around to the front of his knees, gripping them and, with a pull from his enemy, sending him reeling to the ground.

  Sherlock Holmes is indeed a natural with Sigerson Bell’s favorite weapon.

  Just as he hoped, the other armed constables arrive at the staircase at that instant.

  “Point your revolver at this one’s head!” he shouts at the first Bobbie, indicating the wounded Sutton, now on his knees on the ground. “And seize that boy!” he cries to the other.

  The gun is leveled at the leader’s temple, inches away, poised to end his life. The other arriving policeman pins Brim to the ground.

  But Sherlock Holmes doesn’t want just these two thieves – he wants them all – every last member of the Brixton Gang. He wants to wipe them from the face of London’s crime world and remove their evil blight from its midst. It’s the only way to get his money.

  He begins the final part of his plan.

  “You three!” he cries at the top of his lungs, calling to the escaping criminals. They keep running without glancing back, racing over the muddy bank and leaping into the steam launch
. But as they turn to seize the boat’s ropes from the little wharf they realize that two of their lot are missing. In the light of the huge, crackling fire from the warehouse, growing in flickering reflections in the dark water, Sherlock can see the falling face of Charon, the other gang leader. That reaction is what the boy hoped for – Malefactor has told him many times that the phrase as thick as thieves has a great deal of truth in it. Crooks stick by one another … they have their code. That brutal man standing in the steam launch has a touch of good in him mixed with all his evil. He will be hard pressed to desert his accomplice, especially if it means condemning him to death.

  “Lift him up!” Sherlock barks at the Peelers.

  They raise Sutton to his feet, the gun still cocked and held tightly to his head.

  The crowds are beginning to gather. At first there had been just a few street people, then drunks from the nearby taverns, but now many working-class folks are arriving, some in barely more than underclothes, drawn by this magnificent, deadly show. On the water, boats are drawn to the billowing flames too, as the fire adds heat to the already hot night. The sounds of the bells of the Southwark fire brigade and of their charging horses grow louder.

  And suddenly, out of the nearly collapsing building, comes Lestrade and his six policemen, coughing and staggering about, one gripping a frightened and quivering reporter by the collar. The Metropolitan Police’s senior detective sees Sherlock and four of his men down by the river. They appear to have two of the gang members in custody. But why is a revolver being thrust into the temple of one of them? Lestrade stumbles forward.

  “If you try to escape,” shouts Sherlock at the boat, his anger rising, “we shall put a bullet into the brain of your friend here!”

  “No!”

  It isn’t the other gang leader responding. Charon simply stands stock still, his mouth wide open. It’s Inspector Lestrade.

  “This is highly irregular!” he cries, staggering toward Sherlock.

  The boy speaks without looking at him. “Precisely! Irregularity is now in demand!”