Vanishing Girl Read online

  “Mr. Bell, I will understand if you –”

  “Well, well,” declares the old man, “no need to wallow in past disappointments, get right down into the mud, the … cow dung of regrets … are you well, young man?”

  “I have something to tell you.”

  Bell smiles in spite of himself. He motions for Sherlock to take a stool at the long lab table and sits on one by his side. He is “all ears” at this moment, bending one of his elephantine lugs in the boy’s direction.

  Sherlock tells him almost everything. He includes the way he feels: how, against his better judgment, he tried to investigate the Rathbone kidnapping, what Inspector Lestrade said about him in public, and how desperately he wanted to defeat and shame him; how he hoped to blunt the plans of the devious criminals who did this, members of a class of humanity he hates. He doesn’t mention what Mr. Doyle might have done for him because that dream is gone, and he forgets about the little boy in the workhouse.

  “Well, first of all, one must pursue things for the right reasons,” says the old man after a lengthy pause. “And secondly … you know, you know very well, that I am an alchemist as well as an apothecary. That doesn’t simply mean that I embrace the ancient dark arts of the sciences, that I believe I shall one day make gold from another substance. It also means that I am a disciple of the philosophy of the alchemist, which is to say that I believe one can turn life into gold.”

  Sherlock smiles.

  “I embrace, I veritably hug and cuddle, the concept of optimism. It is at the core of my approach to my existence. I shall give you an example. Fetch me my stick.”

  Sherlock retrieves the Swiss fighting stick, a long, thick pole with the belting power of a stallion’s kick, one of two leaning against a wall beside the water closet, resting where it was left after Bell’s last lesson in clubbing an opponent.

  “Strike me!!”

  Sherlock doesn’t hesitate. The apothecary has taught him the importance of the tactic of surprise: get off a blow when least expected. He has also taught him to never hold back. The boy expects Bell to show him some sort of unanticipated defensive move, something that will act as a metaphor for his ideas about optimism.

  But the old man just stands there and Sherlock’s strike, delivered smartly, makes a cracking sound like a pistol going off as the stick connects with Bell’s forehead. It echoes all the way out to the shop’s front room … and likely into the street. The ancient apothecary goes down like he has been axed.

  For an instant, Sherlock can’t see Sigerson Bell. Then he hears a weak voice on the floor.

  “I shall be better shortly.”

  Though it takes the boy several hours to truly bring the old man around (a shot of laudanum is found to be most helpful), he is, indeed, eventually better. “One can rise from any blow,” he finally squeaks. That, in short, was his message, built upon a sacrifice he offered up for his apprentice.

  With the old man moaning in his room upstairs, Sherlock goes to his little bed in the laboratory wardrobe thinking about this lesson in the school of hard knocks. The boy knows that Bell has more to say to him and looks forward to the encouragement he will offer. He hopes it is enough.

  Holmes has come to understand that his is a moody disposition. The occasions when he drops into terrible bouts of sadness – recalling his mother and how he caused her death, or thinking about everyday activities and wondering where stimulation will come from next – seem to be increasing in frequency. For some reason, much of life bores him. Most of it is what he remembers the writer Shakespeare calling diurnal, just day-to-day, humdrum existence. Sherlock can’t abide that, never could. His big brain, his big ambition, needs constant excitement. Life must either be filled with challenges and thrills or … he doesn’t want to participate at all.

  But tonight, a glorious dream comes to him. At least it is wonderful when it begins.

  He is twenty-seven years old. He has found a way to achieve his plans. He is a detective unlike any the world has ever known, and everyone is aware of it. He is impeccably dressed, well groomed, and brilliant; a black-and-white pea cock that London admires. The city is at his feet, Lestrade Junior his devoted supporter, the police are his begrudging acolytes. No problem is beyond his considerable gifts of deduction and he thirsts every day for more; his methods are unique and irregular. Criminals fear his very name; justice results from his intercessions; Malefactor has been vanquished; Irene is … barely visible. She appears every now and then, looking beautiful, but much different. He can never see her clearly. He realizes too, with a start, that he is still unhappy, and wakes in a sweat.

  “I am fully recovered, my boy,” croaks Bell in the morning, as the flames in the fireplace struggle to catch. The two friends huddle over their breakfast of asparagus and brown sugar spread on a thick slice of bread. The old man sports a goose egg the size of a small orange on his forehead. But there is a smile on his lips.

  “This is what you must do, Master Sherlock Holmes. You must move forward immediately. You must return to your studies, fighting lessons, our chemical investigations, your work around the shop … and perhaps some violin lessons?”

  Sherlock smiles and nods.

  “And we shall continue to read, read, read, read, read.” The old man nods toward the teetering books that surround them and then winces.

  “That shall not only take your mind from your brief stumble, but increase your powers. You must always be increasing your powers … looking for gold, doing it for the right reasons. That attitude shall get you where you want to go. Life is about growth. Let’s remind ourselves again to be patient, my boy, never rash: meticulously build yourself into what you want to be.”

  They eat silently for a few moments, Sherlock vowing to himself that he will work with even more dedication than before. He will do all that the apothecary says, attend school every day, too, and make sure his grades keep heading all the forms.

  “And we will continue to scan the papers!” shouts the old man, smiling like he has a secret. He says nothing again for a while and eats in his characteristic way: with his maw gaping wide open, the green-brown oily goop of the asparagus and sugar evident on his darting tongue and hanging in drips inside his mouth. But he can’t keep quiet for long: the twinkle in his eye is betraying something. “And I … I shall have you ask a news agent this morning,” he finally blurts out, “to arrange for both The Illustrated Police News and The News of the World to be delivered to my door, or you may pick them up from Dupin himself at Trafalgar Square!”

  Sherlock’s heart soars. His scandal sheets! He is back on the job. He can at least search for another case, a perfect one. He is ready, again, for anything.

  But the crime he will soon discover stuns even him.

  Three days later, in the East End, the windowless exterior of the Stepney Workhouse looks darker than usual in the cold rain. It towers, like the wall of a fortress, over the hansom cab that pulls up to its front doors, the hooves of the black horse clapping on the cobblestones. Inside the two-wheeler sits a large, well-dressed man and his beautiful daughter. He takes his hat from the rack and rises to back out, so he will be in a position to help the girl down after he lands.

  “Wait,” says Irene, pulling him back to her side. “I can’t go in.”

  Andrew Doyle sighs and eases back onto the cushioned seat. “I doubt I can face him, either.”

  “I don’t understand why Miss Rathbone won’t see me. It’s been three days. You would think she would be overjoyed to be home and safe, and anxious to speak to others. Instead, she seems to be in seclusion!”

  “She is just overwhelmed, I’m sure. I will seek an interview with her father again tomorrow.”

  “He saw you the moment you sent your card last time.”

  “Let us see what tomorrow brings.”

  “I fear more of the same…. little Paul can’t go on if he is blind.”

  “Be strong, my son.”

  Doyle’s error is out before he can stop it. He g
rimaces – he’s made this slip before. “My dear sweet girl,” he adds quickly.

  Irene forces a smile, and then takes her father’s walking stick and raps it against the roof.

  “Driver! Home to Montague Street,” she says sharply.

  Inside the workhouse at that moment, Paul is making a mistake. He steps from his little room into the hallway to meet the folks who are to see him. He is clutching his most prized (his only) possession under his arm. Usually, he hides it in the thin blanket on his bed. But he wants it near him today for good luck. Two dirty, burly boys approach, their gray, sack-cloth uniforms adorned by greasy chokers tied in similar bows at their necks and tattered caps cocked at devilish angles on their heads.

  “Why if it ain’t Captain Paul out for a stroll. A rare thing it is! Down to Rotten Row?” cracks one.

  “Paul … Dimly!”

  The little one doesn’t look up. He can barely see them anyway. He edges forward.

  “What’s that you got, Captain?”

  He ignores them.

  “I do believe I knows what it is. Let’s ‘ave a look at it.”

  The bigger of the two kicks the little boy in the stomach, making him release the hat, which the other expertly snatches. As Paul drops to the floor, trying to get his breath, they toss it back and forth.

  “Paul Dimly’s dad ‘ad military might.”

  “But ‘e dumped ‘is son without a fight!”

  Paul rises. His face is beet red.

  “Come and get it, dwarf.”

  “Dimly dimly dimly dimly dimly.”

  Paul lowers his head and charges, intending to butt the other boy’s midsection like a battering ram. But the bigger one simply reaches out and seizes him by the hair. The little bull then becomes a tiger. Reaching up, he digs his filthy nails into a cheek and rakes them across the skin, drawing blood and a curdling howl. The hat drops to the floor.

  There are footsteps coming up the stairs. They fall faster and a young man in a clean but modest suit appears, rushing onto the floor.

  “Paul?”

  The three boys turn and the man instantly understands what has happened. He’s seen this before.

  The bullies run off.

  “You mustn’t let them get your goat,” says the young medical student. “Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then, face-to-face…. God will look after you.”

  The little boy says nothing. He simply picks up his hat and holds it tightly to his thin chest. He keeps looking down.

  “I am sorry to say that the Doyles don’t seem to be coming. They must have a pressing engagement elsewhere. But you and I shall have a visit, just the two of us again. I shall have you in my school next year, you know, whether those peepers are working well or not. I promise…. May I see your hat today?”

  The boy holds it tighter to his chest.

  “It is a captain’s hat, is it not? A fine one, I must say.”

  “My father,” says the boy.

  “Yes. Yes, I know. Your father’s.”

  “My father.”

  “I believe you, Paul…. Now, we must take your pulse and check those eyes.”

  When the news comes on another cold morning three weeks later, Sherlock doesn’t have to search the papers. It is there on the front page of each and every one. Friday, November 29, 1867:

  LORD RATHBONE ROBBED!

  And it wasn’t a little job. The thieves didn’t take a vase or two, or even a stack of bank notes from a safe. They cleaned him out. The Rathbones’ fashionable home in Belgravia was stripped of all its greatest valuables.

  The Daily Telegraph:

  Police estimate that the nobleman may have been relieved of precious items, paintings, and assets numbering close to a quarter-million pounds, perhaps the most lucrative getaway in the annals of English crime. Inspector Lestrade was not available for comment.

  “Take my hand, lad!” shouts Sigerson Bell, and he and Sherlock Holmes dance around the lab, performing a sort of Highland fling in duet, the old man kicking his legs clean above his head.

  “I dance not due to the misfortunes of the eminent Rathbone family, for whom I am sorely grieved. One cannot but feel distraught for snobs who are rich beyond their merit … and are relieved of their baubles!” Bell performs a little jig. “I dance for you, my knight. You, who can entertain your brain with this!”

  The news is indeed a stunning turn of events. What are the chances that one man could suffer such indignities twice in the same year? Perhaps the crime world has had enough of Lord Rathbone and is fighting back. Perhaps these two crimes are connected. Sherlock unlocks himself from Bell’s grip and sits down to read on, buoyed by the possibility of having a second opportunity at a crime attached to the Rathbone family. It almost feels like a reprieve. He couldn’t solve the first case, but perhaps he can shed some light on the second. What if he could beat Lestrade just when the detective thinks he has him down? What if he could steal back the thunder Scotland Yard gained just weeks ago … and humiliate his persecutor?

  He turns to The News of the World:

  The thieves struck at precisely the opportune moment. The Rathbones, overjoyed at the recovery of their child, had retired to their country home and taken almost every servant with them. Even the groom and footmen had been withdrawn. The hooded villains bound and gagged the two housemaids who had been left behind and went through the home, making quick work of their job. Only Lady Rathbone’s bedroom was left untouched. Carriages or carts of an undetermined kind and number were loaded near the stables at the rear of the home. It wasn’t until the following day that a passerby noticed one of the maids banging her head against a window and notified the Force. Inspector Lestrade was not available for comment.

  Sherlock wants to get up and dance again, but a voice inside nails him to his stool. What is he thinking? Has he learned nothing? He is entertaining ideas he has no right to consider. This is what caused him to make a fool of himself at St. Neots, got him captured by the Brixton gang, put Irene in danger, and killed his mother. It isn’t for him to solve this crime.

  But … can’t he just investigate a little from a distance? Discover a few points the police might not observe? Make a few deductions to see if they turn out to be accurate? Across the burn-streaked, chemical-stained lab table, the old apothecary, still breathing hard, is holding up his copy of the Telegraph and pretending to be engrossed in another section.

  “Were I a medium upon the stage reading the synapses of your brain, I would divine that you shall be requesting the morning off,” he says into the pages. “It is a Friday anyway. Look into this, mon garçon! Just keep your distance!”

  Moments later, Bell is pacing like an aging robin on a worm-filled ground as Sherlock fixes himself in the mirror and puts on his tattered frock coat.

  “Anything in particular stand out for you in the reports, my boy?”

  “Lady Rathbone’s room was left untouched.”

  “Precisely! Ah, this is like the beginning of a diagnosis!” The apothecary takes several more bobs. “And where do you start?”

  “At the crime scene.”

  Sherlock turns to go. Bell is given to talking to himself even when others are in a room. Before Sherlock reaches the out-of-doors, he hears the old wizard say in a voice chocked with emotion:

  “I cannot wait to find out who did it! Go to it, my boy! For England!” Then there is a pause. “Calm yourself, Sigerson. Calm yourself!”

  Holmes doesn’t see Irene Doyle standing near the door as he walks out. She is wearing a heavy pink coat and bonnet, but is shivering, and trying to decide whether or not to enter.

  “Sherlock!”

  Every time he sees her, he feels as though he will immediately give in to her and allow her back into his life. Today, it is tempting indeed. It isn’t just the way she looks – the milk-white skin pinched with red by the cold air, the magnificent blonde hair cascading out from her hat, and the style with which she holds her rose-colored umbrella over her slim shoulder. The exp
ression in her large brown eyes draws him too – she looks distraught.

  “Let us be friends again,” he says to her … but only inside his head.

  His silence makes her tentative.

  “Have you read the papers?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  “What do you make of it?”

  Be like steel.

  “What you or I make of it doesn’t matter. This is for the police to sort out. There are heinous fiends about in this city, doing terrible things every day. It is best we stay clear of them. All of them. This is a new case and Victoria Rathbone is not part of it, so it is no longer your worry. She is as safe as houses. I am sure the family has done what they can for your workhouse boy.”

  He is expecting Irene’s umbrella to come down on his head again and has measured the distance he must keep from her. But she surprises him. She doesn’t become angry. Her eyes are filling with tears.

  “The Rathbones won’t speak to us. And this crime will make things worse. We are powerless: we still can’t help my bro … that little boy.”

  She is so upset that Sherlock is again in grave danger of giving in. He straightens himself.

  “My father feels strongly about this,” she says.

  “As strongly as he did before?”

  “Yes.”

  Holmes does all he can to hide the thrill that goes through him.

  “You could gain as much as before,” she says, and reaches out to take his hand. But he steps back. Her expression turns to a glare and she wipes her cheeks.

  “Perhaps I will join forces with my other friend then. I didn’t when Miss Rathbone was kidnapped. I held off. But I doubt I can wait this time. He may know who did this, and might tell me … so I can deliver the news to Inspector Lestrade. At the very least, I am guessing that my friend would consider helping me.”

  The words are spit out.

  “Should you be referring to a certain blackguard who roams the streets at night with a group of ne’er-do-wells who prey upon the London populace, I would advise against it. I could produce these villains before he or Lestrade were even on their trail.”