Vanishing Girl Read online

  More than three-quarters of an hour later, after steaming along without delays, the train pulls into the Hornsey Station. He still hasn’t come up with a solution.

  He has no choice but to disembark here. He cannot attempt to stay on the train, or leave and sneak back on, use any of the tricks he employed on the way north – the inspector here would be alert to him.

  He is standing at the carriage door when the train stops. He steps down and races away, smelling the burning locomotive coal as he thuds along the wooden platform, past the inspector who gives him a nod, out of the iron-roofed station, making a beeline for Scotland Yard far away near the Thames. He is still trying to figure out what he should do when he gets there.

  This race will be mostly downhill. North London is on a higher elevation than the city itself. He can see the metropolis spread out below and spots the river, the tiny dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the smoke and fog lying in clouds. The population is in pockets in these suburbs, so Sherlock isn’t being slowed by crowds. He can full-out sprint. His breathing grows louder and more labored as he rushes downward on a new foot pavement along a wide road on the edge of Hornsey Wood near an open area where a public park is being built, a beautiful place for Londoners to escape the stench and noise of urban life. But Sherlock doesn’t even glance at it. He comes to the famous Seven Sisters Road, an artery he has never seen, but often read about – it has always sounded to him like a spooky spot where witches live, and it’s true that people were once taken here and burned at the stake. Today it is nearly deserted.

  By the time he sees the yellow-brown stone tower atop King’s Cross Station, he is moving through heavy crowds. But he does well, gets past the busy area quickly, and heads farther south, through the narrower roadways in north-central London.

  Bloomsbury nears.

  That’s when the boy makes his mistake.

  The Doyles’ house. It isn’t time to talk to the philanthropist – he wouldn’t be home at this hour anyway. It isn’t that. It’s Irene. She wants Victoria Rathbone back, too. She has a stake in this. He wonders if he should stop at her house and tell her everything, get her to help. She will be amazed at what he’s done. Her Stepney boy can be saved.

  Sherlock smiles. Yes, this is the solution. He should tell her. He can use her. Given that she is the daughter of a particularly respected gentleman, Lestrade would likely believe whatever she says. Her influence might be just what he needs to draw the Force to Grimwood Hall on the double. And she can get word to a newspaperman. She will be pleased to be involved. Irene Doyle may be the answer once again.

  He reaches Montague Street and hurries along until he comes to her residence across from the British Museum. The Doyle place is three-and-a-half storeys high with a cream-colored ground floor and brown brick on the upper levels. Bright red flowers still bloom in the window boxes despite the increasingly cold nights.

  Sherlock comes to a halt at the passageway that runs off the street to the little backyard. He knows it so well. His breathing begins to slow. He had lived in that yard in great fear in a dog’s kennel after Irene helped him escape from jail during the Whitechapel investigation. He smiles for an instant when he thinks of John Stuart Mill, her gassy little dog. But sadness soon sweeps over him. In those days he and Irene had been friends … and his mother had been alive.

  He hesitates. Does this really make sense? He vowed to exclude Irene from all of his endeavors, to thrust her from his life and thereby keep her safe. The correct way to proceed is emotionless: cold and calculating. Find another way. Perhaps he can simply shout his evidence in front of the policemen and any members of the public who might be at the station. There would then be many witnesses knowing that he, not Lestrade, had found Victoria Rathbone.

  But what if there are only policemen there and every last crusher closes ranks like they’ve done before, saying that it was their boss and no one else who solved this complicated crime.

  Irene is a better option. He would only need her for a brief time and then he could distance himself from her again. Perhaps her name can be kept out of this? The villains need never know that she was involved.

  He walks down the alleyway, the argument in his head. Is he deceiving himself? Is he weakening? Will he put her in danger again? Does he merely want his friend back?

  Happy voices come from behind the house.

  He stops and peers around the corner.

  Malefactor is in the Doyles’ backyard. Irene is with him, sitting on a stone bench near the dog kennel, looking into the rogue’s eyes, appearing charmed.

  “I am thrilled,” he hears her say.

  John Stuart Mill barks and the instant he does, Sherlock is lying face-first on the cobblestones at the entrance to the yard, Grimsby sitting on top of him, Crew looming over them.

  “Caught a bad guy, boss.”

  Irene and Malefactor get to their feet. She colors; he smiles. John Stuart Mill advances, whimpers, and smells Sherlock’s face.

  “Bring him here.”

  Sherlock thinks his bones may snap, so tight and nasty is the expert grip Grimsby puts him in, twisting his arms behind his back. But Holmes won’t satisfy them with a grimace. He relaxes his face and smiles.

  “Sherlock Holmes, I perceive.”

  “Irene, I want –”

  She looks away.

  “What you want isn’t germane,” growls his rival. “What you were doing sniveling around here is. You were spying on us.”

  Sherlock is in deep trouble. He can’t talk to Irene now, knows it was ridiculous to come – he was being weak.

  “Speak!”

  Malefactor, to say nothing of his two idiot lieutenants, has appeared at precisely the wrong time. If Sherlock isn’t out of here in minutes, doesn’t devise a plan on his way to the Yard and get back to St. Neots this same day, Victoria Rathbone is dead.

  “Maybe we should let him go,” says Irene.

  We?

  “Not yet. Something you want to share with us, Holmes?”

  An idea occurs to Sherlock. Maybe there is, he thinks. Yes. He should tell Irene whether Malefactor hears it or not. It’s his only option if he wants to get to the Yard on time. Maybe telling his enemy what he’s found isn’t a bad idea after all. Perhaps it will impress him, somehow make him back off. And if Malefactor is intrigued, wants to show off, he might even be helpful – he knows the police like no one else.

  Sherlock yanks himself away from Grimsby.

  “I know where Victoria Rathbone is.”

  “But …” begins Irene.

  “Please, Miss Doyle, let Master Holmes continue.”

  The young crime lord’s expression is disturbing: he doesn’t look angry; something more like amusement comes over his face. Off to the side, Grimsby and even Crew are laughing. Sherlock can’t figure it out, but he goes on.

  “I can convey the exact location to the police. I know where her kidnappers can be found and how many there are. There is no time to be lost.”

  Irene wants to speak, but Malefactor holds up his hand.

  “A most intriguing tale. You have triumphed again.”

  Grimsby laughs out loud.

  “Shut your gob, you boor.”

  Malefactor menaces the little goon with his walking stick and then turns to Sherlock with a smile. “You are in luck, sir. Lestrade, that moron, is about to speak to the journalists at this very hour. You shall have the entire press of London as your audience. I must admit that I have underestimated you, Holmes. This will be an extraordinarily shameful moment for the Force and I shall enjoy it. Here is what I suggest: all five of us should make our way with alacrity to Scotland Yard. We shall even pay your way upon the omnibus, our lady here, of course, ensconced comfortably inside. At the police headquarters, we three shall make ourselves scarce. Miss Doyle’s presence will ensure that you are not evicted from the crowd by the Force: no one can resist the desires of the fair daughter of Andrew C. Doyle. You can then speak up, Holmes, shout your solution for all to hear, l
oud and clear.”

  Irene has a pleading expression on her face as she glances at Malefactor. But he won’t look back.

  Sherlock is flabbergasted. Malefactor has come up with a similar, yet more effective plan than his own. The young villain has the means to execute it, too. Why is he being so helpful? Just to shame the police?

  They find an omnibus on bustling Oxford Street, the four boys on the knifeboards up top, Irene in more genteel confines below. She won’t look at Sherlock. He tries not to think of her and readies himself for the thrilling task ahead.

  The scene at Scotland Yard is not what he expected.

  Yes, a crowd is gathering in the square in the center of the Yard, dominated by men bearing pads and pencils, and standing in the same spot they gathered two days ago, but Lestrade is looking alarmingly pleased and so is his son. How can that be? They are running out of time. Lord Rathbone is there too … with a glow on his face. His perfectly groomed, graying whiskers are veritably shining.

  What is going on?

  Malefactor and his thugs spread out and vanish into the crowd. Irene stands next to Holmes, her head down, not even making a motion to escort him to the front.

  The boy is growing uneasy, not sure if he wants to raise his voice to interrupt once Lestrade begins.

  “Sherlock, I must tell you something. You know that Malefactor has ways of finding out things, people who can bring him news from even inside Scotland Yard…. Well, he came to see me this morning because … he had just found out that –”

  “I am here this fine day,” announces the senior detective loudly, “to revel with you in the solution of the case of the vanishing girl!”

  “What?” gasps Sherlock out loud.

  “Here she is! Safe and sound!”

  An apparition appears before them on the little platform. Victoria Rathbone! She steps forward, smiling, tightly gripping her father’s arm, leaning her pretty head on his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” says Irene, keeping her head down.

  Sherlock scans the crowd. He spots three laughing young thugs in three different places. When he looks up to the podium again, he sees that Lestrade has noticed him, and is beaming.

  “We have confounded the fiends,” proclaims Rathbone to a cheer. “We have proved once and for all that one must never give way to villainy. When we find them, I shall have their heads!” The crowd roars.

  When they find them? The kidnappers haven’t been found? How can that be?

  Lestrade steps forward again and puffs out his chest.

  “Our tactics worked perfectly. After we consulted the public about this case, we received several helpful tips. A note came to us early this morning and through it we traced this dear child to the culprits’ lair just hours ago. The cads, having somehow been warned of our approach, had only just vacated the premises. But we shall catch them! I assure you that we are on their trail!”

  Another cheer goes up.

  “As to the location, she was found …”

  “In St. Neots,” says Sherlock under his breath, “at Grimwood Hall.”

  “… on our southern coast.”

  The boy nearly drops.

  “A perfect place to keep her, mind,” continues Lestrade, “where a sea-going getaway would be simple. But our knowledge of the workings of the criminal brain had caused us to suspect the region beforehand, and we already had elements of the Force in that area. The time between our gaining knowledge of her whereabouts and our arrival on the scene was barely more than an hour. A special locomotive has never moved so quickly!”

  “Can you tell us where on the coast?” shouts Hobbs.

  “The continuing pursuit of the villains prohibits that, sir. All shall be revealed when we have them in chains.” Lestrade fixes another smile on Sherlock down in the crowd.

  But Holmes has stopped watching. His shoulders droop as he moves out through the reporters. Irene follows.

  “Sherlock, I’m …”

  He picks up his pace and leaves her behind. A tear streaks down her cheek as he walks away from her.

  “About my acquaintance with Victoria … I …” she says to herself.

  He has failed; failed miserably. There can be no doubt. Lestrade has once again put the bullet into him.

  He wonders for a moment if the police are lying about where they found her. But it wouldn’t matter if they were. They have her. And why would they lie anyway? He thinks of his “evidence,” considers it coolly and rationally for the first time, and it all begins to seem ridiculous. It shatters like that bust dropped on the hard floor at Grimwood Hall.

  Old Muddle had merely said he believed the residents of the manor house purchased the stationery – and he was deaf and barely of sound mind. Even if they did purchase it, what did that really prove? And the locked door upstairs at Grimwood? He remembers now that he didn’t locate the bolt. It was almost certainly locked from the inside … which means no one was keeping that girl captive – he had made absolutely unfounded deductions. She had obviously locked herself in and was crying about something else, maybe an argument with the other three. No one in their right mind should have assumed that she was the Rathbone heiress. He had been far too rash. The girl was barely visible in the dimness through that crack in the door and was sitting at the far end of a room. She likely didn’t have the color of hair he thought or the dress or anything – he had wanted her to be his catch. Whomever he saw at St. Neots wasn’t who he assumed she was.

  Perhaps he saw a ghost in that haunted house … because he had just observed Victoria Rathbone in London. She was standing there in full public view, in the flesh, right beside her own father and a gloating Inspector Lestrade.

  PART TWO

  ROBBERY

  Feeling ashamed and weak, Sherlock wants to go home. All his plans seem pie-in-the-sky now, far too adult for a boy his age. A detective? Sherlock Holmes? What he really needs, as Penny Hunt said, is his family. But where is home now? Is it the apothecary shop from which he has been away without permission for nearly two days? Will Sigerson Bell take him back? His dear mother is dead, his little sister too, his much older brother employed and distant, and his father … could Sherlock go south to the Crystal Palace and talk to Wilberforce Holmes? He needs his wisdom and love. But it is difficult for his father to even look at him now. Wilber will always be reminded of the death of his wife when he sees his son. Sherlock doesn’t want to put his father through that. The boy knows he has done all of this to himself: this is where his selfish pursuit of glory, his pride, has taken him.

  He holds back his tears as he trudges toward Denmark Street. He can’t see Irene, he’s wary of Malefactor and his gang … he is all alone.

  Or is he?

  The apothecary has been like a father to him before. Perhaps, if he is contrite, the old man will accept his apology. Baring his soul, telling Bell exactly what happened would be difficult, but maybe it is what he has to do. He approaches the latticed bow windows of the little shop with his mind made up.

  There’s an awful sound coming from the laboratory at the back when he arrives. But it isn’t one of those terrible explosions he has often heard, the result of Bell’s inventive and reckless mixing and heating of chemicals, that have variously: shaken the building, left slime on the walls, shattered glass, and singed the septuagenarian’s bushy white eyebrows clean off. Neither is it a gunshot, which the boy has occasionally heard in the shop too…. The alchemist sometimes empties his firearms indoors, picking off various ribs or even the eye sockets of his hanging skeletons.

  No, it is music … or so Bell thinks.

  He is sitting in his favorite basket chair holding his old Stradivarius violin in that awkward, gypsy-styled manner of his: low on a knee. His face is red, sweat pours down his substantial dome onto his forehead, and he is humming at the top of his lungs. Every now and then he stops playing and conducts, flailing his bow through the air. It isn’t that the music is being played so badly: Bell is as strangely gifted a violinist as h
e is at many other eccentric pursuits. But his sense of invention on the instrument, which goads him into experimenting with all sorts of pieces, new and old, results in admixtures of music at least as bizarre as his dangerous chemical concoctions. It is an alchemy of sounds, resulting in a jarring alloy.

  Sherlock doesn’t mind. This is his mother’s favorite instrument.

  Sigerson Bell doesn’t hear the boy enter, so when he looks up and sees him, he is so startled that he flings the bow across the room.

  “Excuse me, Master Holmes,” he apologizes, scurrying, bent-over in his question-mark shape, to retrieve the implement from the porcelain sink where it has landed.

  Then he stops in his tracks.

  “YOU!” he says loudly, pivoting with stunning quickness and pointing a crooked finger at the boy, “You are two days late for your work! Where have you been?”

  He has never sounded so angry. Has the ancient apothecary run out of patience after all? Is the apprentice about to be sent back to the streets? While Sherlock was away, he had barely given a thought to the fact that he hadn’t told his old friend where he’d gone and that he’d missed school. All he had considered were his own goals.

  “My deepest apologies, sir,” says the boy. And he means it.

  Sigerson Bell has a heart as soft as a marshmallow. It is especially squishy when it comes to Sherlock Holmes. He admires the boy’s brains and integrity, though he worries about his inwardness and the sadness he doesn’t seem able to shake.

  “Solipsistic, that’s you,” says the apothecary, clearing his high-pitched voice. “Look up that word in Dr. Johnson’s dictionary some day, my boy. Solipsistic!”