Becoming Holmes (24 page)

“My boy!” exclaims Sigerson Bell, though it sounds little like an exclamation. The old man is leaning over his apprentice in the wardrobe, face inches from him, long stringy hair cascading in little streams down toward his chest, fishy garlic-onion breath wafting out in clouds, spectacles almost falling off his big beak, and a smile on his face. He is fiddling with
the wide white bandage he affixed to his young friend’s throat, making sure the slimy liquid (made of God knows what – perhaps ground bat wings and owl refuse) is in place. Sherlock is alarmed, but not because of the disturbingly close proximity of this strange man. He adores Sigerson Bell, warts and all (and the apothecary, incidentally, has a number of real warts, the most spectacular being one the size of a walnut on the back of his neck). Sherlock’s alarm arises from the old man’s voice. He is very hoarse.

“Your voice,” says the boy.

“Just the common cold,” replies Bell, but he is unconvincing. When he pulls back from Sherlock and lets the boy get to his feet, he actually has to stagger to get to a stool by the lab table. The old man almost knocks over one of the many stacks of books that line the room. Then he begins to cough. He cannot stop, and the blood comes up in gobs. He has no handkerchief and tries to stem the flow with his shirtsleeve. It is soon bright red.

“Mr. Bell!” cries Holmes and rushes to him. He puts his arms around him and embraces him while he convulses. He thinks of the day his mother died as he held her in his arms, and starts to cry.

Bell stops coughing. “Cease and desist!” he says to Holmes. “Close your waterworks! I cannot abide it!”

“But sir –”

“Sir, nothing. I am as fit as a fiddle.”

“Sir, you are dying.”

He has never said it before.

“And what of it? We all die. I may have fifty years left!”

But it is obvious that he has just days, perhaps hours.

“I am more concerned about you, my boy. How is your throat?”

Sherlock realizes that it doesn’t even hurt. Whatever Bell has done to his wound has performed a miracle. He is not surprised. He slowly peels back the bandage and looks in the mirror he keeps in his wardrobe. The scar is ugly and a little red but already healing. He doesn’t feel “fit as a fiddle,” but is well enough for what he must do today.

“I am fine.”

“You must sleep another day or two.”

“Another?”

“You have been in your bed for nearly forty-eight hours.”

Sherlock is shocked. But then they both hear his stomach growl.

“I know a certain calf-brain scone that has your name on it!” cries Bell hoarsely.

Holmes hates to hear that familiar high-pitched voice rendered to this croak. But the apothecary prevails upon him to take his breakfast and makes sure he eats enough for two men. He won’t hear of the boy consuming fewer than two flasks of tea. In the midst of the meal, the old man staggers away, somehow climbs up his spiral staircase, and then struggles back down.

He approaches Sherlock from the rear, looking a little sheepish, holding something behind his back.

“I … I purchased this for you,” he says in a tiny voice, still awfully hoarse. He whips his present around with a flourish, so the boy can see it. He is holding a new suit of
clothes and shining black boots. They are fresh from a tailor and cobbler shop.
New!
Sherlock Holmes has never had a single piece of new clothing in his life, and he is someone who is desperate to look respectable, obsessed about a spotless appearance, even when dressed in ragged clothes. The suit is pitch black, well tailored, with a waistcoat and crisp white shirt and necktie. The boots are made of good leather and cut high to go partway up the calf. The boy will look even taller in them. This would have cost Sherlock two years’ wages.

“I thought of getting you a deerstalker hat for any trips you might make in your future out into the cold winds in the countryside, but decided against that.”

Holmes is speechless. He sees himself in this suit years from now, an elegant man, a private consulting detective in his own rooms in London. But when he pictures it, his employer is not by his side. That’s when it hits him: this present is a parting gift. Sigerson Bell has loved him and sheltered him and taught him all the remarkable things he knows, and now he is saying good-bye. He thinks of the tradition in the old man’s strange Trismegistus branch of his family, of the father purchasing a suit for his son so he will have a fine one to wear to the father’s funeral.

When Holmes looks into his master’s eyes, he sees tears forming. “Cease and desist!” cries the boy, his own eyes reddening. “Close your waterworks. I cannot abide it!”

They argue about Sherlock’s plans for the night. The boy outlines what he intends to do, and it frightens the apothecary. Bell has arranged for his ward to have the next few days off from school and had expected him to spend them quietly at home, mostly in bed recovering from his wound. But it is really the old man who needs rest. He desperately needs it. By the time they near the end of their conversation, he can barely hold his eyes open, and when Sherlock stops speaking, his fading friend falls asleep. Holmes carries Bell up to his bedroom and puts him under the covers, worried as he listens to his heavy breathing.

Sherlock can’t stay put. He can’t listen to Bell dying. Holding back his emotions (something at which he has been working particularly hard of late), he puts on his new suit and boots, combs his hair fifty times or more, and heads out into the London day, intent upon seeing Irene. He has no idea what he will say to her. But he knows a turning point has come.

After he reaches Montague Street, he spends at least an hour standing next to the British Museum on the far side of the road, working up the courage to see her. There are so many memories attached to that house. He remembers the first time he came here, more than three years ago, when Irene was a sweet and innocent girl who helped her father with his many charities. She and Mr. Doyle had visited him in jail where he was being held on suspicion of involvement in the
Whitechapel murder. When he escaped, he came here. He had been drawn to the house, to her. And she had protected and sheltered him. She had hidden him in the doghouse at night, and they had plotted together during the day in the house’s beautiful wood-paneled dining room. Smart and inventive, she had helped him solve the case, but she had nearly died too. It had frightened him to his soul.
Irene can’t ever die
. He wonders if pushing her away from his life has been part of what has changed her. She is certainly no longer innocent. She has plans of her own. She is an independent young female, a new woman.
Maybe I shouldn’t resent that. Maybe I should just go with her
.

He walks up to the front door and knocks. Mr. Doyle doesn’t keep servants. A progressive thinker, he doesn’t believe in it. Sherlock hears the yap of a dog.
John Stuart Mill!
He smiles at the thought of that squat little corgi, full of gas.

It is Irene who comes to the door. She is alone, as often is the case at their home – her father is out doing things for others, his new son with him. Miss Doyle is wearing a long, snow-white dressing gown with a high, frilly collar. Her lustrous blonde hair is unpinned, falling down over her shoulders, and she carries a silver brush in her hand. When Sherlock sees her through the glass in the door, she looks as if she were floating. She is an angel, a real and strong-willed one, floating up the hallway toward him.

“Sherlock,” she says and actually blushes. He is overjoyed to see that. She looks him up and down, examining his new suit that fits tightly on his long slim frame. “Come in,”
she says with only a slight hesitation. It isn’t something most respectable young women would do, or be allowed to do. But this is Irene Doyle. If she wants to be alone with a young man in her house, she will be.

As she ushers him into the living room, he notices that she isn’t wearing shoes. In fact, as he looks closely, he sees flashes of her bare feet under the dressing gown. It makes his heart thump. Her
naked
feet. They are small and so pretty that he can’t stop glancing at them. Her gown is pulled tightly around her form and she smells like a rose. She turns with a smile to him as they walk and says, “You look very handsome tonight,
Mister
Holmes.”

“So … so do you,” he stammers, which makes her giggle. “I mean, you look …”

“Beautiful? Stunning? Gorgeous? There, you have three choices.”

“All of those,” he replies. He thinks he can detect, from behind, that her neck colors a little.

“So?” she says when they are seated. She says it with an air of expectation. As he puts his hands on the table, she stretches out hers so they are almost touching. Almost.

John Stuart Mill, now ancient, has been licking Sherlock’s pant cuffs as they walk. Now he settles beneath the two of them and offers a little sound that doesn’t come from his mouth.

They both laugh. The laughter fades and there is an awkward silence.

“Why are you here, Sherlock?”

“You are leaving soon?”

“Tomorrow, back to New Jersey, then to Paris in the spring.”

“For how long?”

“For at least a year, perhaps more, perhaps many years. I may go to Italy too, to Milan.” The look on her face is almost pleading. But Irene Doyle has grown too strong, too willful, to ask him directly.

“Many years?”

“Paris and Milan have the best theaters, the best opera houses, the best opportunities for me. It will be so much fun. It would be fun … for anyone.”

“You know, Mr. Bell has taught me French and Italian.”

A look of hope comes to her eyes and she smiles broadly. Sherlock Holmes has never seen anything so beautiful.

“Mr. Bell is a clever man. I am sure you learned quickly.”

“I have a facility with languages.”

“You have a facility with everything, Sherlock Holmes.” She touches his hands.

“Paris would be an exciting place to live,” he says.

“Well, you know, there is a great deal of crime there and a great need for detectives, for the best of that lot.” She smiles again.

But when she does, she dips her head, a little affectation intended to look slightly shy and irresistible. It is. But it also ends their relationship forever.

As she moves, he sees a scar. It comes out from her hair, the hair she had been combing when he arrived, and snakes across her temple. It is fading now and easily covered when she fixes herself up to go out in public or when she sings on
a stage. Sherlock knows where that scar came from – it is slightly more than three years old. It was inflicted upon her by the Whitechapel murderer’s horses and coach in High Holborn Street when that villain was attempting to frighten Sherlock away from his trail.
He was trying to murder her, the irreplaceable Irene, my independently and fabulously spirited girl. It was because of me, because of what I did and what I will do!
He sees his mother collapsing in his arms.

Sherlock rises to his feet.

“I … I have come to say good-bye.” He can barely say it and can’t look at her. He turns and marches down the hallway without even touching her. He cannot touch those soft, beautiful hands. If he does, he will never leave her again.

He goes out the door and closes it with a slam. She can feel the passion in that sound. But she sits alone at the table. When she begins to cry, it is in sobs.

Out on the street Sherlock is trying not to think of her. He is concentrating on what he will do to the villainous Crew.
I must seek justice!
But one thought keeps intruding.
There will never be anyone else like Irene Doyle
.

She finally gets to her feet and goes to the door. She opens it and gazes down the street. He is far away, looking handsome even from here in his elegant suit, turning at the front of the British Museum. She isn’t sure, but he seems to look back for an instant, and she swears their eyes meet. There is one thought in her mind.

There will never be anyone else like Sherlock Holmes
.

But she wipes her tears, sets her jaw tightly, and closes the door.

When we meet again, we will pretend it was a dream
.