Becoming Holmes Read online

  The anaconda is getting closer. The boy appears absolutely terrified. Crew would never dream of letting him go now. He has him. He isn’t even bothering to use his derringer pistol.

  Up at the hole in the wall outside in the graveyard, Lestrade is watching and listening and astonished. Holmes has figured it out! There is no one like him. He is destined for greatness, Lestrade is certain.

  Landless has his ear near the young detective, listening too, a second witness.

  “Clever theory, clever plan,” says Crew again. “Clever Jew must die.”

  Satan reaches the bed and slides onto it, showing his fangs as he touches Sherlock’s boots.

  Lestrade is running now, Landless at his side, leaving at just the moment they were instructed to make their move. They rush for the locked door.

  But inside, Satan is already halfway up Sherlock’s trousers, slipping his huge head between his legs, beginning to coil around him. The boy cries out.

  Lestrade and Landless reach the door. The detective fires at the keyhole, just as he was told to do, and blows it to smithereens.

  But now Satan has begun to pull Sherlock Holmes into an inhuman hug. He is wrapping around him, climbing up his torso. It won’t take long.

  Crew’s head had shot up at the gun blast. As he turns now to the stairs, he sees Lestrade and a gigantic policeman with a head like a bulldog’s, flying downward. “Holmes? Not stupid,” he whines. “I should have …”

  Satan is beginning to squeeze. Sherlock has never felt anything like it. He is wrapped in a warm embrace. At first, it is strangely kind, almost loving. Holmes doesn’t know whether to resist or let it happen. Which would give me an extra second? Instantly, he cannot breathe. He shrieks.

  “LESTRADE!”

  The big anaconda has raised its head to see what is happening on the stairs. The young detective cocks the gun.

  “No!” screams Crew.

  Lestrade fires. Satan’s head explodes.

  “Clever Jew,” cries Crew, beginning to sob.

  The anaconda’s coil springs loose like a jack-in-the-box releasing. Sherlock writhes out of it as if he were in excrement, kicking at the monster that had held him tightly, catching his breath. Lestrade points the gun toward the other snakes, his eyes wide, his hands shaking, training it on one and then another. They move toward him, hissing, standing up on ends, fangs bared.

  “No shooting!” shouts Crew. He says something incomprehensible to his snakes, as if speaking in an evil tongue, and they back away, slithering to the walls, the plants, and into the swamp water.

  Landless takes three giant strides across the room and seizes Crew.

  But out of the blue, another voice echoes in the room. “No one move!” it snarls.

  They all freeze.

  A man in a tailcoat and top hat, with sunken eyes, a tongue darting along his thin lips like a lizard, and a bulging forehead, is stepping slowly down the stairs and into the crypt. He has a walking stick in hand. He pulls on it and produces an air gun from its insides. He has entered at precisely the moment that Lestrade turned to Crew, putting his back to the entrance. The man trains his gun on the rear of the young detective’s skull.

  Malefactor.

  26

  CONFRONTATION

  It is what Holmes was hoping for – he had known that Malefactor was out there watching him, had been on his trail these last few days even though he had done so like a shadow, more invisible than he had ever been before. Sherlock had also known that Malefactor had wanted to stay out of things, simply let Crew destroy his rival for him. But Holmes knew that if he could put Crew into this situation and corner him, Malefactor would show himself.

  “This is your man!” cries Sherlock to Lestrade, pointing at his great opponent.

  “I prefer ‘professor.’ You are well dressed tonight, Holmes! My compliments to you.”

  “Observe him!”

  “Drop your weapon,” says Malefactor to Lestrade. “You and your brainless giant and the meddling half-Jew will not lay a hand upon Mr. Crew. Your time on this earth, your time obstructing my plans, is over.”

  “No,” says Holmes to Lestrade, “don’t move.”

  The young detective looks terrified. He seems about to soil his trousers. He maintains his grip on his revolver as much out of fear as decision.

  Holmes leaps from the bed and runs. He rushes past a startled Malefactor and is almost up the stairs before his enemy can consider firing. Lestrade and Landless dart behind Crew.

  Malefactor must make a decision. He must tend to them or chase me. If he even takes the time to try to wound them, I will be lost. I know which one he will choose.

  Sherlock is barely into the graveyard when he hears running footsteps behind him.

  The villain has sacrificed Crew. Grimsby is dead. There are two down and one to go, the big one.

  Holmes takes him on a race up Redcross Street, through St. Saviour’s Cemetery, and back across London Bridge. Just before they left Scotland Yard, he had told Lestrade to muster a half dozen Bobbies, arm them all, and send them to Cross Bones when they were ready. He is calculating that the Force will be coming up Fleet Street now or on Cannon Street or nearing it, about to turn toward London Bridge. They will seize anyone who is chasing me, especially if he is bearing a weapon.

  Sherlock is thrilled. Even as he runs, even as he worries that Malefactor may be able to hit him with one good shot from behind, he is filled with an overwhelming sense of anticipation. He has caught the other two, and now he will snare the biggest fish of all, the one with whom he has been battling for so many years. He is guessing that even if Malefactor can find a moment to fire accurately, he will prefer to wing him, perhaps injure him in a leg, so he can approach him, haul him down to the river, and finish him there, looking into his eyes. But the monster does not know that Holmes has everything planned. The Bobbies will soon be here.

  But it is isn’t the Force that the boy sees as he reaches the top of the stone stairs that descend from the bridge down to the street on the north side of the river. He stops. Malefactor is more than halfway over the viaduct behind him, close enough to spot him clearly and take an accurate shot.

  It is Sigerson Bell.

  The old man is coming their way, somehow marching at a good clip, using every ounce of energy he has left in his body. His face looks milk white, his eyes, even from here and behind his spectacles, are fire red, almost shining in the night. He is coughing horribly. Everything about his sickly form and struggling movements shouts determination. He is dressed in his best black suit, the one he once told Sherlock his mother gave him to wear at his own funeral. Sherlock knows that the old man is coming to see him to say good-bye.

  “RUN!!!” cries the boy.

  But when Bell runs, he runs the wrong way. Instead of turning around and making for Cannon Street or Cheapside, in the direction from which the police will be coming, he heads east along Lower Thames Street toward the Tower of London. Thankful that Malefactor hasn’t fired, Sherlock flies down the steps and tears after the old man, calling out, telling him to turn the other way. But the ancient apothecary, running in a stagger, keeps moving, aware that his charge is frightened, that he is in danger, and that he must take to his heels and get away as best he can.

  “AH!” cries Malefactor when he reaches the top of the stairs. He fires a shot. It isn’t directed at Holmes. He shoots at Sigerson Bell.

  Sherlock is beside himself with terror. The villain is trying to kill his dear friend, knowing instinctively that this will be to his advantage; it will either bring Holmes to a halt or slow him down if he needs to help his old mentor run, if he must carry him.

  The boy’s plans are in tatters. Now that he is chasing after Bell in the wrong direction, all is lost. Malefactor will soon be at the bottom of the stairs and then running after them. In minutes, the police will have passed them, gone up the stairs and over the bridge toward Cross Bones. Every chance to not just collar him, but perhaps save themselves, will
be lost.

  Sherlock has no choice now. He must try to rescue Bell and himself. But that seems impossible. In less than a minute, he has caught up to the old apothecary. He doesn’t say a word to him, doesn’t reproach him for making the wrong decision. How could he have known? Sherlock berates himself for not telling Bell everything. It had seemed that he was giving him so much information over the past few days, too much information – that was by design – but really, he wasn’t telling him what mattered: his great secret. Now, it is too late. They simply have to survive.

  He takes Bell by the arm and helps him run. They are at the Billingsgate Fish Market, where he had forced Malefactor to help him with the Whitechapel murder long ago. It seems like ages since they met here. The smell of fish and the odors of the river fill the dark air. There are few gaslamps in the area. The Tower of London looms ahead, beyond it St. Katherine’s Dock, and then the massive Docks of London.

  But, slowed by the old man’s infirmities, they don’t get past the Tower. Malefactor gains on them quickly. When they come to the far side of the Tower Wharf, about to reach St. Katherine’s Dock, he fires a shot that goes between their heads. Sherlock knows it is time to surrender. Perhaps he can save his friend. He stops running, releases Bell, and pushes him away. They are just where the wharf rises highest above the river. A big ship, a fancy new steamer, sits in the water nearby, being repaired, a crane over it with pulleys hanging down.

  Curiously, Bell doesn’t object to being shoved away from Holmes. In fact, he shuffles right to the very edge of the high wharf as Sherlock steps toward his mortal enemy.

  “Kill me,” he says. “Let the old man be. He is dying. Give him his last hours.”

  Malefactor looks from one target to the other. His lizard tongue darts out and licks his lips. His sunken eyes shine, his bulging white head glows in the night. There had been a time when Sherlock had thought this villain to be a sort of romantic figure, a rogue of the night. Irene had thought that too, for a while. She had been drawn to this bad boy. But she knows better now, and so does Sherlock Holmes. There is nothing attractive about Malefactor, or whatever his name is. There is nothing attractive about evil. The street thug is still a street thug, professor or not, refined language or not. It seems to Sherlock that as this fiend’s depravity has grown, his looks have diminished. An ugly man now stands before them with ugly intentions.

  “I shall be glad to finish you, Holmes. In fact, I will do it without my weapon. You and I shall wrestle here on the banks of the River Thames to see who is the better man. You may think that you are equipped to defeat me with your skills, but you will be surprised.”

  “Very surprised,” says Sigerson Bell.

  Malefactor looks irritated. “He would do best to close his mouth.”

  “Mr. Bell,” pleads Sherlock, “please, let me confront him.”

  “Were I healthy,” continues Bell, ignoring his apprentice, “I would defeat you myself. You are a coward and a thief. You pretend that the hardships of your youth, which were your criminal family’s own fault, give you the right to be a selfish pig and hurt others.”

  “Old man,” says Malefactor, “be quiet!”

  “I doubt it is you who kills your victims anyway. I assume you have that animal, Crew, do all your dirty work.”

  “Would you like to see some of my dirty work, old man?”

  “Mr. Bell, please, be quiet!” says Sherlock.

  Malefactor steps toward Bell, still training his air gun on Sherlock.

  “No, please, don’t,” says Holmes.

  The young crime boss picks up momentum as he advances in Bell’s direction. The apothecary now looks as if he were about to faint; he staggers on the very edge of the wharf, reeling there, the water a great distance below, the ship with the hanging pulleys just a few feet away.

  With a smile, Malefactor takes a mighty swing at the old man, to drive the gun into his face and knock him unconscious into the river.

  But Sigerson Bell has been faking. The instant Malefactor swings at him, throwing himself forward, the apothecary pulls his head away like lightning. When the villain misses, he goes completely off balance, teeters on the edge, and falls. As he drops, his head strikes a big iron pulley. When he enters the water with a splash, he is limp.

  27

  MASTER SHERLOCK

  Sherlock runs to the edge and takes Bell into his arms and keeps him from falling as they both look down into the water. Malefactor has disappeared in the river. Big concentric circles form on the surface. He doesn’t come back up.

  They stand there for several minutes, saying nothing, the sounds of London in the background – horses and carriages and fading shouts in the distance, foghorns nearer on the river.

  “My boy,” says Sigerson Bell weakly, now looking as if he might collapse, “I want to go up to the bridge. There are things I must ask you and other things I must tell you.”

  “Why are you wearing this suit, sir?”

  “Never mind.”

  It takes them a while to get up to the bridge. No longer motivated to find or save his apprentice, Bell is so feeble that he can barely walk. It is amazing that he even summoned the energy to come to this area tonight, and incredible that he had it in him to confront Malefactor. It was as if some unseen force, given to him by God or the gods, empowered him when he needed it, when he had to help Sherlock Holmes.

  They stand in the middle of the bridge, far above the black water, leaning on the thick stone balustrade, dim gas lamps above them. The Tower of London, white and light brown during the day, gray and black at night, looms to their left down by the banks, the rest of the great city behind them. Sherlock can still see the ship docked where Malefactor met his fate.

  “I am about to die,” says Bell.

  “No!”

  “Yes, I am. And that is not a bad thing. Everyone’s life comes to an end, though I shall miss you.” Sherlock detects tears welling in the old man’s eyes, but he shakes his head, as if to send them away. “The Esquimaux who live in the arctic regions of the newly formed country of Canada have a tradition, I hear, when they grow aged and useless. They merely walk out into the snow and die. I like that. It seems very brave and practical, not to mention poetic. I should like to do something like that.”

  “I should prefer that you live, sir.” Sherlock is finding it hard not to break down. He got all that he wanted tonight, but to lose Sigerson Bell would make everything for naught.

  “I should not. I believe in the rhythms of life. I am descended from the Trismegistus family, as I have often said. The first Trismegistus, the great one, was a man who, legend says, in ancient times, made himself into a god. He wasn’t the God, mind, but a god. He believed that human beings could be so much more than they are. Alchemy is like that too. It theorizes that materials can be turned into gold. I have always held to that principle. I have held to it in my education of one Sherlock Holmes.”

  The boy smiles.

  “You, sir,” says Bell, “were like a gift to me. And you can be a gift to humankind. You believe in the right things. I shall leave you to it. I shall leave you to being the sword of justice that this city, this country, this world needs. I believe in you. I believe you are destined for greatness. It need not be anything that you broadcast to the world, though I imagine you will, since you have a sprightly sense of yourself, my boy, which powers you at times. You will find a way, a person, perhaps, to tell everyone how great you are.”

  “Sir, I doubt I will …”

  Bell smiles. “That is fine.” His face darkens. “But there is something else that is not fine, not fine about you.”

  Sherlock is taken aback. “What have I done, sir?”

  “You have been keeping a secret from me, this last week or so.”

  Sherlock swallows. “A secret?”

  “And now, you are about to tell me that secret. It is important that you do so before I die.”

  “I don’t know what you are –”

  “Who killed G
rimsby, Sherlock?”

  “Well, I will prove that it was Crew.”

  “Yes, you will, but who really killed him? Who murdered Grimsby?”

  “I don’t know what you –”

  “I taught you some deadly Bellitsu, Sherlock, did I not? I remember a particularly ‘inhuman’ maneuver.”

  “I –”

  “Who murdered Grimsby?”

  “Uh …”

  “Say his name. Tell me, my boy, who murdered Grimsby in cold blood?” Bell looks angry. “Say the name of the villain who murdered him!”

  The boy hesitates and then lowers his head.

  “Sherlock Holmes,” he says. “I killed him. I murdered that swine, down here near the docks!”

  “Yes, you did. With a Bellitsu move, a bear hug administered in just the right place to crush four ribs, puncture the lungs, and squeeze the life out of that little man. I taught you to do something so brutal, so decisive that even a doctor wouldn’t believe a human being had done it.”

  “Grimsby was evil. He deserved it.”

  “The first part is correct. The rest is for the courts and for God to decide, not you.”

  “I was angry.”

  “I know.”

  “My mother …” Sherlock holds back tears. Bell puts his arm around him. “And then that poor little girl with the monster head with nothing in life but her kind blue eyes. My mother had blue eyes. I wanted to kill him the moment he took her life. I had had enough. I knew that he and Crew and Malefactor would be the instruments of the murder of many more if they were allowed to go on. I didn’t know how to stop him. The woman in Hounslow said I couldn’t tell anyone. He was going to get away with it again. He was going to ascend in the Treasury and contaminate our city and our country, our world. There are so few people who do evil, but they destroy life for so many. I went out that night. I tracked him like a hound. I knew the part of the city he would be in. I knew he would be frightened of Malefactor, not wanting to go home. I was sure he would be running in the streets he knew. So I went there. I found him. I destroyed him.”