The Secret Fiend tbsh-4 Read online

  Hide straightens and faces his audience. His brown eyes are glowing.

  “My fellow Englishmen!” A big cheer rises, louder than any he received before. He is indeed a growing star. “I will take up little of your time this afternoon, but I thought it necessary in these extraordinary days – nay, in this extraordinary week – to speak with you once more.” He thrusts his arms into the air. “Because we have a new man now fully at work at Number Ten Downing Street!”

  Some cheer and others groan.

  “Mr. Disraeli is a leader unlike any other. He is brilliant and open-minded, a seeker of consensus. Some say though … that he is erratic and unpredictable! An opportunist!” Hide frowns and holds his hands in fists.

  “Here! Here!” shout some.

  “I do not! He is my leader as he is all of yours, and I bow to his guidance.” He places his hand over his heart. “But … he takes office at a time when trouble continues to dog our nation, when trouble seems to be growing. The markets are poor, the trade unions are restless, and the need for further reform is absolutely necessary.” Hide begins to pace again. “Can he take us further? Change our nation, douse the flame of discontent rather than throw coal upon it by turning his back on us?” As Hide reaches the end of the sentence he is shouting and the crowd is cheering. He pauses. Silence descends. Irene stares up.

  “I believe he can. But I believe that it is up to us, to you and you and you and you,” he points at individuals in the crowd, “… and to me … to push him. We must remind him every day that England is not the way it should be – yet. We must all vote, ALL of us; we must have a secret ballot; we must pay our tradesman more; we must tax our wealthy citizens more, those who have so much!”

  A cheer goes up through part of the crowd. Others look around nervously.

  “But be not afraid, London, even in these fearful times, this fearful week. Chaos …” he pauses and laughs, “as this heinous Spring Heeled Jack fellow is telling us … is NOT here. Chaos shall never come to London or to our government as long as I, for one, have a BREATH TO BREATHE!” He punches the air with one of his big fists and everyone cheers. The sound fills the square and spills into the rest of the city. He lets it continue, posing for a moment, his handsome face upturned, holding that fist in the air, his bicep bulging under his neat, pin-striped suit, his slim waist evident as his coat pulls open. Sherlock sees Irene staring up at him, her mouth open.

  On he goes, calling for change, but standing behind the government and the “good sense of sober people.” He ends with a flourish. “Chaos comes only when fear consumes us, when fear runs loose in our streets, when fear trembles the tower at Westminster and freezes Big Ben, when you, the people, allow fear into your veins! We shall not … we shall not … FEAR! We fear … nothing!”

  For an instant Sherlock thinks he sees Beatrice, moving through the crowd near the front, and disappearing behind the stage. But that is impossible – he has just seen her south of London Bridge. To get here, she would have had to double back. Am I thinking about her too much? Am I becoming attracted to her?

  The applause continues for many minutes after Hide finishes. He leaps from the stage and the crowd folds around him. Some embrace him, others shake his hand. Sherlock stands watching, noticing Irene trying to get nearer the charismatic man. Soon, Hide moves Holmes’s way and it is only when he is almost upon the boy that Irene finally reaches him. Hide sees her, looks enchanted – who wouldn’t be – and shakes her hand like a gentleman. As he turns, he is face-to-face with Sherlock Holmes.

  “Hello, sir,” Hide says in a confident voice and takes the boy’s hand. Most people of higher social standing than Sherlock don’t even acknowledge him. They see his threadbare suit and waistcoat, his old boots, polished so often that he’s created holes and turn away. But this famous young man smiles at him. “Thank you for listening,” he says, looking right at the boy. If Sherlock Holmes can do anything, he can judge character. He can tell that Robert Hide means what he says.

  As the boy turns away, someone jostles him, and he is pushed into Irene Doyle. Their faces almost touch. For a moment they are held by the crowd, eyes inches apart. Irene, for once, isn’t frowning at him.

  “Hello, Sherlock,” she says.

  She is so utterly beautiful this close that his knees almost buckle.

  “H … H … Hello.”

  “We shouldn’t be fighting, you know. Mr. Hide is right. We should all be together.”

  “I agree,” says Sherlock, before he can even think.

  “Let us put the past behind us, what do you say?”

  “I say that is wise.”

  “Walk with me.”

  She must have come alone, not a rare thing for this remarkable girl. She puts her arm through his and they move northward, up St. Martin’s Lane, past the church. Irene Doyle has never been afraid to be seen in public with Sherlock Holmes. He has always appreciated that. Others stare after them, but she doesn’t take notice.

  They talk about politics. At least, she does. She despises Alfred Munby, but admires Disraeli, the Liberal Gladstone even more, and Bright and Hide the most. She believes that women should vote. Before they know it, they are on Montague Street, nearing her house.

  “I am sorry for the way I have treated you,” he says.

  A pink glow comes to her cheeks.

  “I understand.”

  “You do?”

  “Well, I’m trying.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Would you like to come in?”

  “I’m sure your father wouldn’t –”

  “He isn’t home. He’s out with Paul.” There’s a bitter tone in her voice.

  “Then I shouldn’t be inside. There would just be the two of us.”

  They had been alone in the house before, but that had been out of absolute necessity, when he was an escapee from jail, running for his life. It wouldn’t be proper for him to be there now, not with a young lady of Irene’s standing.

  “Sherlock, this is a new day. If I want to have a gentleman in my home, I shall do so.”

  There is something in her expression that disturbs him. It isn’t just her clothes that announce a new Irene. As he’s walked with her today, he has been acutely aware of how completely she is changing – Miss Doyle is going to be a different sort of woman than he once imagined. She is becoming as bold and as expressive as her dress. In her conversation, he can feel her anger about life – about the time her father spends with her stepbrother, about women’s roles, about not being allowed to state her true feelings, about being held down.

  “Damn my father and brother,” she says.

  He gapes at her.

  “Just being silly,” she giggles. “Shocking word, isn’t it?”

  Sherlock goes in with her. They sit on the old settee where they used to lounge, and John Stuart Mill, her gassy little Corgi dog, waddles up to him and stretches out nearby. Holmes hopes the little mutt can keep his flatulence to himself.

  Irene talks non-stop. It is as if she has been holding a flood of emotions back, and they are finally bursting forth. She says she loves little Paul, but that her father is soft in the head about him, attached to him as if Paul were the reincarnation of her dead brother.

  “That’s fine, if that’s what he wants to do. It is time for me to cut the apron strings and be independent anyway. I am ready to be a new woman. He speaks of encouraging that sort of thing, but I doubt he wants me to be truly independent. I am sick of spending all my time helping him with his work. Not that I don’t support him, but he is so removed from reality, even though he thinks he isn’t. He doesn’t really understand the unfortunate. He looks down on them from above and tries to get them to help themselves when that is often quite ridiculous. I would rather be truly close to them, understand them. Mr. Hide comes from a less-than-savory background. They say his father was a criminal, but he reformed. It makes him very authentic. I want to be like that, somehow. I want to live a real life, connected to my feelings. I am l
earning a great deal from Malefactor. I think I am beginning to gain his trust.”

  Sherlock has to bite his tongue.

  “Oh, I know you hate him. I know you think he wants to hurt you.”

  “He does, Irene.”

  “Not if you don’t confront him.” She slaps him playfully on the shoulder. “I have learned more about him. That’s why I am sure I can change him. I know you know that his family pulled themselves up from nothing, and then lost everything. But did you know that he was a brilliant student too, a mathematical whiz who could have been a professor in any university?”

  “It doesn’t matter what he could have been. He chose otherwise.”

  “Yes he did, but he can turn back too. He could be such a positive force.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “I know you do. You have an old-fashioned view of someone’s ability to change. He has spoken to me of his admiration for you, what do you think of that?”

  “That he is using you.”

  She frowns. “You give me little credit, like most men do women. I am not naïve. I understand his evil tendencies, believe me. I shall alter him, bit by bit, before he harms you. And he is changing me.”

  Sherlock feels ill at ease.

  “He has encouraged me to be myself, to not be the good little girl who simply accepts everything her father wants her to be.”

  “Is he encouraging you to commit crimes?”

  “I shall ignore that comment. He is encouraging me to enjoy life, and to, among other things, explore my interest in singing. It connects me to my soul. You heard me sing, once.”

  “You are suited for better things.”

  “You sound like your grandparents.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Isn’t that what they said to your mother? Didn’t they try to hold her down? Didn’t she love your father even though he wasn’t deemed suitable for her? Didn’t she give her life to their love, their marriage?”

  He knows she is right.

  “How well did I sing?”

  “Uh …” he recalls her beautiful voice, her racy song, “… very well.”

  “I may actually take to the stage. I’m guessing that more than surprises you. But I want to do something different, and it is a worthwhile life, not disreputable as old-thinking snobs feel. The theater will be properly respected in the future – it not only addresses issues, explores true human emotions, it makes folks happy. Malefactor knows people who know people in the profession – powerful people. Perhaps I will go to America in a few years, create a whole new existence for myself, a whole new biography to put in the play programs and papers. Did you know that I had a wild American upbringing?”

  She laughs, but Sherlock doesn’t.

  “I shan’t marry someone my father chooses, either. I will marry whom I choose … or perhaps I won’t marry at all! There is so much fun to be had.”

  Sherlock frowns.

  “Oh, Master Holmes, you are so straightlaced! You need to bend a little. I am learning to, so can you. No matter what happens, I will still be me.”

  “I have a career path too, Irene. I think it not only worthwhile, but absolutely necessary. It is what I am destined to do.”

  “Then we both have our goals.”

  “You are under the influence of a blackguard.”

  “I am under the influence of myself, and a bad boy is not necessarily an evil one. Sometimes they are the most fun of all. But I tell you, Sherlock Holmes, I still know what is right and wrong. I will always help others, in my own way.”

  “Malefactor is fun?”

  “Yes, fun. Shall I sing for you?”

  “But the last time I heard you, you –”

  “Didn’t want to? I was shy about it, wasn’t I? You will see I have changed. Just sit there and listen.”

  She stands up and tosses her hair. She begins to sing in that gorgeous voice he heard from the window at Christmas time last year. It is a love song, just as bold as the first one. She moves about in front of him, expressing the words with her actions. He feels uncomfortable, but also drawn in. The way she walks, lifts her arms, sticks out her hips, all makes him excited inside, though he tries to hide it. But when she lifts her dress to display her leg all the way up to her knee, he averts his gaze. She keeps smiling at him, looking right at him, making him look back, her face so happy it seems she will break down and laugh.

  I have a secret deep in my heart

  A little surprising

  And a little smart

  I enjoy a cigar

  I want to go far

  Ah, there’s so much bliss

  In a stranger’s kiss

  Sherlock has sneaked into penny theaters before, heard comic belters sing rough songs, listened at the Royal Opera House to great voices with his mother … but he has never heard anyone sing like Irene Doyle. It isn’t perfect, it isn’t trained, but it conveys exactly what it intends.

  And then she does it.

  As she reaches the finish, she struts right up to him, places one of her heeled boots on the arm of the settee, leans down to him, bending like an acrobat … and kisses him … on the mouth. Her lips feel warm and a shock goes through him, starting in his chest and going down to his stomach. He knows he should pull away but he sits there and receives it. Only when she is done and smiling at him, does he jump to his feet.

  “Irene!”

  “I want to live, Sherlock. And I will.”

  MALEFACTOR’S MIGHT

  Sherlock Holmes isn’t the sort who looks forward to Friday as the best day of the week – he actually enjoys school, or at least he has for the past year. That is especially true the next day. The pressure from Beatrice and Sigerson Bell and in a sense, Lestrade to be involved with the Spring Heeled Jack case, vanishes when he reaches Snowfields. So do Malefactor and his threats, and for the most part, the irresistible attractions of Irene Doyle. It is such a relief. He can just relax and learn, knowing that his growth here is a key to his future. Only once or twice does he find himself thinking about Irene. He recalls that kiss. What she had said just before made a good deal of sense … in a way. Perhaps he is on the wrong path, is too stiff and narrow thinking. He has begun to wonder if he could, indeed, resume his friendship with her. She is becoming wayward. Perhaps she needs him. Perhaps they need each other?

  By the end of the day, the headmaster is so pleased with Sherlock’s work that he says he will clean and lock up on his own. He tells the boy he can go a little early. Holmes heads out, actually whistling a tune, unaware that it’s the one he heard yesterday afternoon from the lips of Miss Irene Doyle.

  His father, a scientist, taught him how to be an observing machine, and Sigerson Bell has taken the teaching even further. The old man likes to instruct him to be alert about everything at all times, including being attacked.

  “You know the expression, my boy, have eyes in the back of your head? You, sir, if you are going to proceed with this future of yours, must have eyes everywhere: in the back of your legs, your spine, your hands, even peering out from your derriere! Learn to see, feel, hear, smell, and taste simultaneously and at all times. Be ever vigilant! It is a tenet of the Bellitsu practitioner!”

  But Sherlock is so carefree after this happy school day that he leaves Snowfields, whistling that tune, without the least sense of vigilance. It is a decidedly unusual state for him, but he is enjoying it. He doesn’t play any mental games as he strolls, doesn’t try to exercise his brain. Instead, the powerful mind of Sherlock Holmes is startlingly blank.

  And that, it turns out, isn’t a good thing.

  There are many alleys winding out from the little lanes near the school. Other than the railway station, Snowfields itself, a workhouse, and a few broken-down residences, this is an industrial area. Tradesmen are everywhere. They dump things in these alleys.

  He doesn’t notice the two smallish working-class men with their caps pulled down coming toward him until they have actually gripped him by both arms and lifted him into
the air. In seconds, he is pinned against the wall at the back of an alley that takes a sharp turn after it leaves the street. He is out of view of pedestrians.

  And the two hardworking “men” who are now slamming him against the wall … are in disguise. Irregulars! He looks up and sees Malefactor walking toward him with Crew and Grimsby on either side. The boss carries a big iron bar about four feet long. All three begin to remove their coats. Malefactor motions for the two who hold Holmes to leave.

  “Stand by the entrance. Do not let anyone come in here.”

  He turns back to Holmes, looking angry, so angry that he is shaking.

  “If you live through this beating, you will know how to conduct the rest of your life. And it shan’t be as any sort of detective! If you do not live, I apologize to the fishes in the Thames for such a scrawny meal.”

  Grimsby lets out a cackle. His face is red and he is perspiring. He smiles like a lad about to enter a circus. He can barely contain his excitement. Beside him, Crew is impassive.

  “I told you I would kill you, Sherlock Holmes. There will be little interest in a search for an insignificant half-breed like you. Lestrade will be happy to ignore it: your childish competition with Scotland Yard has given me such an opportunity. This … is a free kill!”

  Sherlock can see he means it and is suddenly terrified. His stomach burns, his heart begins to race, and he feels as though he may be sick or soil himself. This is how it is going to end for me. Child of a poor Jewish man … and a beautiful English lady, dead at age fourteen, nothing accomplished.

  “If you struggle, it will go worse with you.”

  “I will beat you with my fists, Jew-boy,” growls Grimsby, “but if you calls out, I will smash your ’ead against that wall until your brains spill. The boss is going to break your legs and your arms and your ribs with that there railway bar. Take the blows that bust your bones and ’e may just leave you crippled … maybe!” He giggles again.