Becoming Holmes (28 page)

It is time to move in
.

Holmes whispers into Lestrade’s ear and then sneaks around to the door of the crypt. He finds the keyhole and begins working on the lock inside it. He has sprung similar puzzlers over the years, his skill borne of instructions he’s secretly heard Malefactor give his minions. He even keeps a tool for these purposes now, a perfectly pointed and bent big pin.

But it doesn’t work tonight.

As he labors away, the door suddenly opens with great violence, knocking him forcefully to the ground. His face is driven into the smelly earth and Crew again has him by the neck.

“Sherlock Holmes,” whines Crew, right into his ear as he lies on top of him, “being stupid.” He hauls him to the door, closes it behind them, and drags him down the stairs again, muttering. “Sherlock Holmes almost killed Satan. Sherlock Holmes must die.” He slams him onto the marble bed again. He has no need to feel the boy’s arms or even inspect his boots this time. The boy carries no weapons in his hands, and the horsewhip lies in the swamp water, where Satan now keeps it.

“Jew-boy will die. Hate Jews. Hate,” says Crew. As he turns, he keeps whispering, “Hate darkies, hate Chinamen. Hate.” This time he doesn’t bother to call on the Black Mamba, the Taipan, the Sidewinder, or the Saw-Scaled Viper – he merely asks for the giant anaconda. It is no longer tethered.

“Satan?” he says, as though inquiring if a child would like a candy. The big reptile crawls forward.

“Is this what you did to the others?” asks Sherlock in a shaking voice.

“Not them all.”

“But some?”

“Oh, yes. Great fun.”

“Who?”

Satan is out of his swamp, slithering across the floor. He is between Crew and Sherlock. The boy is weaponless and cannot get away.

The fiend names a few men, mostly well-known criminals who stood in Malefactor’s way, who have disappeared from the streets the last few years. Crew lists his victims with great pride, uttering each name clearly.

“I knew it,” says Holmes.

“Clever Jew.”

“You did it for Malefactor.”

“Malefactor, yes. Not his real name.” Crew almost bows, and shakes his head.

“And Grimsby?” Sherlock’s eyes are large, staring at the anaconda.

“Grimsby?” asks Crew.

Satan is nearly at the bed.

“He was thrown into the river near here!” cries Holmes. “He had a horrible, thick welt around his chest! His ribs were broken! He was squeezed to death, the doctor said, the doctor will testify, by something inhuman!”

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

I
t 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.