Eye of the Crow (21 page)

She tries to lift her head and force a smile. It looks terribly painful.

“Don’t move,” he says.

“I’m all right.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For doing this to you.”

“You? The murderer did this, not you. And we’re going to catch him.”

The words on the chart above her bed read: “mild brain trauma, bruised right cheekbone, fractured left humerus, fractured left metacarpal, cracked 3rd right rib.” Sherlock swallows.

Irene isn’t going to catch the villain. She isn’t going to have
anything
to do with him. Not now. Not ever.

He stands above her, not listening as she speaks. She is planning what they should do next, what he might investigate while she recovers.

“My father thinks it was an accident.”

Staring down at Irene’s battered face, he feels tears welling in his eyes.

He interrupts her.

“I think I should go.”

“Pardon me?” she asks, taken aback, trying to turn her head to see him better.

“I should go. I’m sorry for this. This will never happen again.
Ever.”

“Sherlock? … What are you …?”

But he is gone out the door. The tears are flowing now,
rolling down his cheeks. He grinds at his face to wipe them away, rubbing his smelly coat sleeve into his skin until it turns red.

He has brought Irene into a desperate world, one of murder and hatred and greed. It was wrong. Malefactor was right. It isn’t a place for her. It is for people like the killer, the Irregulars … and Sherlock Holmes.

I hope I never see her again,
he tells himself as he hurries down the stairs. He stops at the little door where he entered and straightens up, willing his sadness away and replacing it with anger. If he has to reject the only friend he’s ever had, the only one he will
ever
have … that is what he will do! Cold, hard reason will be his guide from this moment forward.

Sherlock flings the door open.

Ten strides later he is lying on the cobblestones in the big square in front of the Smithfield Market. Someone has seized him in a wrestler’s death grip, both rough fists under his chin, a face within an inch of his.

Malefactor.

He has grabbed Sherlock as if he wants to murder him.

“I knew you’d come here, Jew-boy! I’m warning you. Leave her alone, and leave all this alone! You’ve done enough damage. You don’t know this world. You’ll kill more with your meddling. Whoever attacked Miss Doyle will know that you speak to
us!
Go back to the hole you crawled out of and stay there!”

He lifts Sherlock and rushes him into an alley, out of the view of passersby There he throws him into a wooden rain barrel, bowling it over like a cricket wicket. Malefactor
walks up and stands over the boy, taking off his hat and coat, and handing them and his walking stick to Crew.

“I should have done this long ago,” he growls. “I shall teach you a lesson!” The Irregulars stand around them with grins on their faces, anxious for the beating to begin.

“Kill ’im!” shouts Grimsby and it seems like it is going to happen.

But Sherlock shocks them. He isn’t one tiny bit afraid now. Instead, his blood is boiling. Kill
him
? Not likely. Not anymore.

Malefactor expects him to curl up into a ball, or if he actually fights back, to stand up and raise his fists.

But Sherlock lashes out from the ground, swinging his long legs around like the blades in a field mower, spinning them powerfully, taking the older boy’s pins right out from under him. Malefactor lands in a heap, hard on the ground, a look of utter astonishment on his face. Then Sherlock is after him. He piles on and drives his fists into the criminal’s stomach, his face, his throat, between his legs. When fighting the devil, any way of fighting is just.

But when the others pull him off, the strangest thing happens. Malefactor looks at him and laughs.

“Why, Master Holmes, I do believe you have some spunk!” There is blood around his mouth.

“If I had my way, you would get what you
deserve
!” Sherlock screams, unconcerned about who hears. “And everyone who ever hurt anybody in this world would get the same!” The Irregulars are struggling to hold him.

“Ah, an idealist. Stamp out all evil worldwide? Utopia! A noble goal, Master Holmes.” His face turns angry. “For an idiot!”

“I’ll catch the murderer! You’ll see!” spits Sherlock, still straining to get at him.

“The Arab’s trial is in ten days, Holmes. Let him die. We live in an evil world. That is the way it is. I have made my peace with it. You should make yours. Justice is a fiction. Let this be!”

“I
know
I can’t change the world … you fool! But I can change
this!
” rages Sherlock. “I will find the person who killed that woman and whoever hurt Irene. You can make a scurrilous wager on it, and win yourself some coins. That would make you happy. Money always does, doesn’t it, every pinch of it that you steal?”

With that, he makes a sudden move and breaks free from the Irregulars. His strength, when summoned, surprises him. He takes two steps toward Malefactor, then stops … the crime boss’s tall hat is still in Crew’s hand. Sherlock kicks it from his grasp and sends it flying across the alley. Then he walks backwards toward the Smithfield Market eyeing his foe, not certain that the gang leader won’t attack him from behind.

“This isn’t over!” shouts Malefactor as Holmes turns the corner and vanishes into the crowds. Sherlock has a strange feeling … that his opponent has a smile on his face.

On his own on the street, his brain is on fire. He tries to calm himself, to think clearly and dispassionately, just as his father taught him. But it is difficult. He is absolutely enraged. He has lost his only friend. He has caused her immense pain. His hatred of the murderer is a seething cauldron inside him.

He will live on the streets from this day on and do anything …
anything
… to solve this crime. He is going to enter Malefactor’s world. Whether it is a place he can survive in or not, he will go there. He will be like those people, do what they do. He will free himself and Mohammad Adalji.

Sherlock will have to wait a few days to hear from his mother about Mayfair, but then he will go straight after his target. There will be no more caution. He won’t allow himself such weakness. He has just ten days.

He slips into the shadows. He’ll have to steal to endure, sleep in alleys, and avoid the police. But it will all be worth it.

His mother will find something, he is sure. Then he will flush out this fiend! He is certain now that he has the courage to do it.

THE WILD SIDE

T
wo days later, Sherlock goes looking for his mother.

She teaches wherever she is hired in London, and Mayfair girls are her most frequent students this time of year. The “fashionable season” is about to begin: the upper class is moving from their country estates into city homes for the summer. If the villain lives in Mayfair, he will be there now.

Sherlock can’t speak to Rose near their home, so he sets out to find her elsewhere.

He imagines what route she might take from Mayfair to Southwark. He knows she often leaves for home about the time he flees Trafalgar, about five o’clock, and guesses she will walk through the Square hoping to catch a glimpse of him.

As the yellow fog grows thicker that day, he cases the narrow streets she might take, keeping his cap tugged down low and hiding among the flowing crowds. Almost as if on schedule, not long after Big Ben chimes 5:00, he sees her. She emerges magically out of the fog, a light in the brown mass of pedestrians. She is moving down the other side of a street in Soho, keeping under the shop canopies, not far
from Lear the glassblower’s place, looking warily at people as she walks. She appears grayer and tired.

He crosses the street behind her and pursues. Keeping inconspicuous, he dodges through the crowd until he catches up. Passing by, he gently bumps her and murmurs into her ear.

“It’s me.”

Sherlock moves on, knowing she will follow.

He leads her through the back streets and then into the alleyway behind the Haymarket Theatre. It’s a perfect place. When it seems they are alone, she takes him into her arms and doesn’t want to let go. “You are in
such
danger,” she whispers. He doesn’t always respond to her affections, but can’t help himself this time. He hugs her too, and waits.

When she pushes him gently back and looks into his eyes, there are tears streaked on her cheeks and her lip is trembling. But he has to be dispassionate, to the point – he has to ask her now, because there is no time to waste.

“Do you have news from Mayfair?”

She can’t speak: just shakes her head.

His heart sinks. But then he upbraids himself. He knows what he has to do.

“I think I can solve this, mother,” he says, hoping he can convince her.

“I pray you can, Sherlock, but …”

“I can, praying or not.”

“But how? You are just …”

“I need you to be
brave,”
he says with feeling, emphasizing the last word.

It takes her a while to realize what he means. For a moment she seems to hesitate, but then nods.

“I’ll make direct inquiries.”

Sherlock’s voice quavers as he responds. “Never to the gentleman of the house, never to his wife, his family, his footman … or his coachman especially. Be very careful …”

“Direct inquires. I will find people to ask. That’s what I’ll do,” she insists in a strong voice, summoning her courage once more, the kind she’d had in the days when she defied her parents.

They leave the alleyway separately, Rose trying to keep that steely resolve, Sherlock working hard to prevent his feelings of guilt from overwhelming him.

“I’ll find you in four days,” are his last words to her. He tells her nothing about the attack on Irene.

There is little more Sherlock can do while he waits. He has his hands full just avoiding all his pursuers: the police, and the villain and whoever might work for him. Steering clear of the first isn’t his most difficult challenge. At least he knows what the Bobbies and most detectives look like, and where they tend to be. But eluding the other threat gives him constant terror. He expects an attack at any moment. He keeps changing his appearance, trading coats and hats with other street people, frequenting different parts of the city. Each night he sleeps in a new alleyway – the second night he walks far out of the city and makes his bed in long
grass next to a stone fence in a pasture. And all the while he thinks of his parents and prays they are safe … especially his mother.