Becoming Holmes (5 page)

“Ah, he has his hands on our taxes! I must say, a rather meteoric rise from thieving in the streets of London to thieving for the government!” Bell grins. “He has switched positions. He is now stealing from the poor to give to the rich!”

“Sir, I don’t think we should treat this lightly.”

“Of course not,” says the apothecary, feeling a little sheepish.

“I smell a rat.”

“I would pluralize that! There is a rather larger one at work here too, boss to this Grimsby, who used to live on the streets with his fellow Rodentia, exceeding six feet tall and wearing a tailcoat.”

“Indeed.”

“But Malefactor has disappeared. You haven’t seen him for nearly a year and then only briefly. He spoke of attending a university, did he not? Becoming respectable?”

“In order to be more effective.”

“It appears that is now the case. He is infiltrating our government! But this Grimsby chap is not too highly placed yet, is he?”

“He may be second in command.”

“Second? Oh dear. Well, at least he isn’t first.”

But Sherlock Holmes doesn’t respond. A sudden, disturbing thought has overcome him.
What if Grimsby’s elderly superior were to soon meet with an unfortunate accident?
Malefactor could get one of his thugs to make that happen with ease, without a whiff of suspicion.
They WILL make that happen
. Sherlock has a burning desire to run to the Treasury, throw Grimsby to the ground, disable him, and force from him whatever secrets he and his evil boss are holding.
The infiltration of the police force will be preceded by murder
. The boy is becoming aware that these things are not simply future dreams in Malefactor’s teeming brain.
They are at hand
.

“Someone should look into this,” says Sigerson Bell, glancing away.

“Yes, someone should.” Sherlock’s voice is shaking.

Bell turns back and observes his charge. He can see the color changing in his face. He notices his hands twitching by his sides, turning into fists.

“You, my young knight, could make enquiries. Just enquiries, mind you. You are at a unique advantage to do so, with your brother holding an inside position, as it were.”

“I suppose I am.” Sherlock’s mind is racing. “Just enquiries,” he says quietly, his hands now so tightly clenched that the bones show through his knuckles.

If I let Malefactor do this, he will soon infest everything. This is his way in. He will then destroy everyone who dares to oppose him, including me
.

4
GRIMSBY’S RISE

W
hen Sherlock gets to Whitehall Street very early the next morning, he sees a long line of people, going west along the thoroughfare, starting on the far side of the Treasury building and growing by the minute. The sun is just peeking over the foggy streets. Folk of all stripes are in the line, no one pushing or shoving. They are rich, middle class, and poor, but mostly poor. People of such different incomes never gather together in England. Many carry flowers, and all look sad. Some are shoeless and ill, clutching wilted weeds tied up with rags. The line stretches out of sight, half a mile into the distance toward Westminster Abbey. They are lining up to walk past Charles Dickens’s coffin in the great church. Many of the poor are crying so hard that their shoulders are shaking.

Sherlock would like to join them, but there are things he must do today, an evil he
must
immediately root out. He wonders if Malefactor would kill so soon after inserting Grimsby. It doesn’t seem like a smart move.
But he is likely flushed with excitement and anxious to act. How long until he strikes? Will it be weeks? Or just a few days?

Sherlock waits anxiously on the front steps of the Treasury. He knows exactly when to be here, this time. Sure enough, just before six o’clock, Mycroft Holmes appears, coming from the same direction as yesterday, glancing at the snaking Dickens line-up, and just as shocked as before to see his sibling awaiting him.

“Ah,” he says with a suspicious look in his eye, “what a pleasure to see you on two consecutive days. What an absolute pleasure.” His younger brother looks as if he hasn’t slept.

“Dispense with the lies, sir. I have come to tell you something and ask you a few questions.”

“And they are?”

“I must admit that I was shaken by the sight of the new Treasury employee, whom you referred to at tea with some concern, who then miraculously appeared on these very steps.”

“And why is that?”

“I know him.”

“You know him? Then I was indeed correct about his hiding his low accent. Does a rather poor job of it, I must say. His origins are as a working-class man, or am I deceived?”

“You are not. He is working class, indeed!”

“You say that with some feeling.”

“He is a scoundrel and thief. He has somehow raised himself from –”

“My! There he is now! Goodness, he is coming even earlier today. It is as if he were trying to compete with me.”

Mycroft is looking over Sherlock’s shoulder as he speaks. “Ronald?” he calls out and waves for the Treasury’s new employee to join them.

“Ronald?” says Sherlock. He turns and sees Grimsby coming to a halt. Their eyes meet.

“Yes, Ronald Loveland.” Mycroft lowers his voice. “I am sure he is not as bad as you say. Perhaps you and he had some disagreements in the past, but calling him a scoundrel and a thief, my boy, that is rather dramatic. One must get over one’s personal squabbles. I have reservations about him too, as you know, but he will likely do fine. One must not disparage one’s colleagues. It isn’t good form.”

Grimsby isn’t moving.

Mycroft calls out. “Ronald, you must come forward and meet my brother, Sherlock Holmes.” He leans toward Sherlock and lowers his voice again. “I am glad you have washed your horrible frock coat since yesterday, my boy, though by its condition, it looks as if you wash it most every day. You should get more sleep too. You must say hello to my colleague right
here
, out of doors, and I am afraid that you must then depart. Thank God it is still early. There aren’t too many others around yet. Let us do this quickly.”

Grimsby still hasn’t moved. Sherlock can see his villainous black eyes looking unsure beneath his disguise – under his glasses, his black bowler hat, slicked hair, and fancy suit. Holmes thinks of others like Grimsby he has dealt with, how this one is among the worst, a sort of symbol of evil for him, a cowardly little devil but capable of so much painful mischief. He remembers the beatings Grimsby tried to inflict upon him, his desire to hurt him, break his bones, and disfigure him. He is a little sadist with dark ambitions.

Sherlock turns and quickly advances toward him.

“Sherlock?” says his brother.

Holmes almost runs to the little man. Grimsby flinches.

“You will keep your distance, sir.” He points his walking stick at him.

It is Grimsby’s voice, indeed, though he is struggling to make the accent sound respectable.

“You will keep your distance!”

Holmes seizes him by the lapels.

“SHERLOCK!” cries Mycroft.

“I do not know how you came to this employment,” whispers the tall, thin boy, inches from his enemy’s ear, “but I know it is for no good. I know what you are planning. I shall discover how you got here and use that to put an end to it!”

Mycroft begins running toward them.

“You, ’olmes, shall do naught of the kind,” hisses Grimsby as quietly as possible, turning his face so his lips are an inch from Sherlock’s. “Things is in motion now that is well beyond you, well beyond the little games we used to play. HE is making plans. They is developing. If you do not cease this ’ere scene, it is you who will be in grave danger in a wink.”

“I am quivering in my hobnail boots.”

“If you lays a finger upon me, you will be murdered before you reach your little apothecary shop.”

“I don’t care what –”

“And your apothecary with you. Perhaps I shall do that myself?”

Sherlock hesitates. Mycroft arrives.

“What is this about, Sherlock? My God, unhand him!”

Sherlock releases Grimsby’s lapels.

“No worries,” says Grimsby in his awkward new voice. “This is just a misunderstanding, a case of mistaken identity.” He smiles at Sherlock. “Isn’t it, sir?”

Sherlock says nothing.

“Well, Ronald, my brother is rather impulsive, shall we say, and not as serious-minded as those in our profession. You may see this by his dress. But he is a good lad, inside.”

“I am sure. Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.” Grimsby extends a hand. “Ronald Loveland, at your service!” He keeps his lips closed when he smiles, hiding his pointed, yellow teeth.

Sherlock hesitates again. He looks down at the ugly little hand. The fingernails aren’t groomed as they should be. In fact, he sees dirt under them and wretched red cuticles that look as though they are still being gnawed, just as they were when the two first met.

“Well, Sherlock, take his hand.”

Sherlock shakes it as limply as possible. It feels wet and cold. The fingers are short and stubby. Grimsby is still smiling at him. “Good day,” he says, lifting his bowler and bowing slightly. He has used too much oil in his hair. He rushes up the steps to the Treasury.

“Sherlock!” cries Mycroft as soon as Grimsby has gone. “You cannot do this to me!”

“He is who I say he is. He has designs you cannot imagine. They will be enacted soon.”

“I shall repeat: one must get over one’s personal squabbles. It is beneath even you to carry a grudge and to manifest it in such words as ‘thief’ and ‘scoundrel.’ ”

“I know him to be, quite literally, what I say he is. Just a year or so ago he was upon the streets running with a gang, getting his living by criminal means, one of two lieutenants to the most heinous and successful young thug in London, a regrettably brilliant villain who has now left the sewers to further his career of crime by hiding his true intentions in a cloak of respectability. That leader, who calls himself Malefactor, has ambitions of a leviathan sort. He has the faculties and the passion to someday dominate this city’s, perhaps this country’s, perhaps this continent’s, criminal world. At this very moment, he is trying, via this ugly little man, to lay his hand upon the police.”

“But this is preposterous. Ronald Loveland? You can’t be serious … can you?”

“There is no doubt. Under that bowler hat, those spectacles and suit, he is an animal named Grimsby.”

“Grimsby? But how could this happen?”

“An excellent question.”

“Perhaps he isn’t associated with this chap you mention anymore? Perhaps he has reformed?”

“Grimsby does not reform. Had you heard what he said to me under his breath, you would know that to be true.”

Mycroft pauses. “Well, we Holmeses may be many things, but we are not liars, not mendacious sorts.”

“I am not lying.”

“That is what I am saying. I believe you.”

“Thank you.” Sherlock almost smiles.

“Or at least I believe that
you
believe it to be true. And if you are right, even somewhat right, this must be looked into.”

“A crime is being planned, Mycroft, and after that, there will be many more. If we do not put a stop to this, Grimsby will be just the first invisible germ – much like the kind the queen’s physician Dr. Snow speaks of and Sigerson Bell believes in too, that gets into people’s physical systems and destroys their health – that will infect not just our police force but our very government for many years to come. We must cure it now!”

“Not
we
, my dear Sherlock; perhaps you, but not we. This is not my game. But I will tell you what I know. Father always said the most important thing to do at the beginning of a scientific problem –”

“Was to ask the right questions.”

“Absolutely. And the question you must answer at the outset is:
Exactly
how did this young thief, if he indeed is so, come by this job? That is your first move.”

“I have no doubt that Malefactor is behind it.”

“Well, I do not know of anyone by that name making decisions for the Chancellor of the Exchequer,” quips Mycroft.

“No, I am sure it did not work that way. He has done it in some brilliant and secretive manner, behind the scenes.”

Mycroft glances up and down the frontage of the Treasury. There are still few fellow employees about. He speaks more softly.

“I can tell you that appointments in the Treasury are made by upper civil servants; the lower the position, the lower the civil servant who does the hiring. The upper positions, the important jobs, are filled directly by a committee, rather than the Chancellor.”

“Mr. Robert Lowe.”

“Yes, the albino genius himself, a favorite of Prime Minister Gladstone’s and said to be ruthless.”

“But is he crooked? Could he be bribed?”

“I doubt it, not Mr. Lowe. He is too ambitious and in love with himself. He would not allow a stain upon his character. And as I say, he employs a committee to make the highest appointments anyway, so there is no appearance of favoritism. The hiring of Loveland is a middling one, but not insignificant. The committee might or might not have done it.”