The Secret Fiend (15 page)

Beatrice waves.

“Did you know that ’er father is ill, that that’s why she is working as a servant?”

“Sherlock?” cries Beatrice.

“Oh, my! I must go, Master ’olmes, I can’t face ’er! She is just too loverly. I suppose that’s why I wanted to scare ’er. I can’t never face ’er without getting all me nerves up and shaking like a leaf, like I might just puke up me guts right there on ’er dress or something or –”

Silver runs. His long legs take him up the road and then into the crowd on Borough High Street. A short while later, Beatrice rushes up.

“Sherlock ’olmes, you are just the man I was searching for.”

“Well, I am afraid you must make it brief, Miss Leckie. None of this Spring Heeled Jack stuff, I hope.”

“You look disheveled, Sherlock. Your ’air is out of place.” She smiles. “Not like you.”

In all the excitement Holmes has done little about his clothes or his hair. That is indeed not like him. He straightens his old clothes, knocks off the dirt, and is about to fix his hair when he realizes that it is likely hanging down over the growing goose egg on his forehead. He doesn’t want Beatrice to see it, so he resists perfecting his hair. It takes some doing.

“I suppose I was rushing home. Perhaps someone jostled me. Mr. Bell expects me not to dally after school, you know. I was then delayed by having the good fortune of meeting John Silver. He is really not such a –”

“Was that who that was?”

“Good fortune?” says Louise, curtsying to Sherlock as she begins. “’e was scaring us, ’e was, and an imposter to boot.”

“You know, I have never had the pleasure of being acquainted with your surname, Miss Louise.”

“It’s Stevenson.”

“Well, Miss Stevenson, I am well aware of what he was doing, but he is an earnest lad. Meant no harm, I’m sure. This silly Spring Heeled Jack scare has many folks acting strange.”

“It ain’t silly.”

“I beg to disagree.”

“It isn’t silly, Sherlock,” repeats Beatrice, dead serious. “I ’ave proof.” She reaches into her dress and pulls out the
piece of paper he had noticed in her hand minutes earlier. “The Spring ’eeled Jack was seen in three locations last night. The papers all ’ave it. And ’e fastened this … to our shop door.”

She hands the note to Sherlock, but holds onto it as he reads. He notices that her hand is shaking. The note is written on the same paper that was left on Louise at Westminster Bridge.

I WILL KILL THE POOR, THE HELPLESS, THE FEMALES. JUST LIKE OUR GOVERNMENT. I’LL START WITH YOU! CHAOS!

The handwriting is similar to what was on the Westminster note too, and in the same blood-red color. Sherlock feels his heartbeat increase. Beatrice’s hand is trembling so much that she lets go of the note.

“I took it from the door before father saw it, thank God. I ’aven’t told the police … not yet. I thought I’d show it to you, that’s ’ow much I trust you. Inspector Lestrade only ’as that one constable patrolling near us … and ’e’s way out on Borough High Street.”

Sherlock can see that she is trying hard to keep her composure and his heart goes out to her. She is being very brave.

“It isn’t silly, Sherlock, it
really
isn’t.”

Holmes thinks for a moment. He returns the piece of paper.

“Don’t … don’t give this note to the police. It will only make things worse for you. Stay indoors tonight, with your entrance locked. I will see you tomorrow, bearing the means to protect you.”

The boy considers how the Spring Heeled Jack struck in Knightsbridge at precisely the time he was pummeling John Silver in Southwark.
That fiend could not have been my old schoolmate.
He thinks of the reports of it appearing since then. He thinks of this note, written in the same hand as the first one, now threatening murder. He thinks of Malefactor, wanting him out of the way, right after the report appeared in
The Times
attaching his name to these sensations. He thinks of his enemy’s use of the word
chaos
; he thinks of the fact that the Jack is threatening his close friend; he thinks of that friend, Beatrice, whom he has known since he was a child, since the days when their mothers were alive and well; Beatrice, so sweet and wonderful, threatened with murder, her soft, white hand shaking with fear; and finally he thinks of something Malefactor said, something the boy’s fear had initially caused him to disregard. “… my Spring Heeled Jacks!” That’s what Malefactor had said … “
my
Spring Heeled Jacks!”

Perhaps
, thinks Sherlock Holmes,
a case has chosen me
.

WHO IS MALEFACTOR?

T
he boy almost runs back to the shop. He doesn’t even realize it. His mind is churning. Saturday and Sunday are before him, two days without school, two days to save Beatrice … and himself. He almost wonders if he should have taken her with him, installed her in the shop somewhere, safe with Sigerson Bell. But that would not only involve informing her father and terrifying him further – he must have been horrified that she was involved in the first attack – but would also make Beatrice less tantalizing bait. He hates to admit it, but he needs her to look like an easy victim, alone or with Louise, walking the streets in Southwark. He had been so careful to keep Irene out of danger, but now he is using Beatrice. He tries not to think of it.

He has three tasks before him. First, he must protect her. Then he must learn more about who Malefactor
really
is; where, other than roaming the streets, he might be found – best to know where your pursuer is at all times. And last, he must catch Malefactor or one of his gang in the act, hopefully about to commit murder, so that he is sent to prison for
a long, long time.
But where can one find intimate facts about that secretive boy?

“A pistol, my boy?” asks Sigerson Bell about an hour later.

“Yes, sir.”

“I have one here, but I do not carry it. I consider it beneath my dignity to resort to such mechanical means of protection. And though I could procure another for you in an instant, I forbid you to carry one as well. You cannot have it.”

“It is not for me.”

“Not for you? And whom are you arming, sir?”

“Miss Beatrice Leckie.”

Sherlock had wanted to keep the events of the day a secret, but he knows he can’t, so he explains. First, he lifts his hair and displays his goose egg, now turning orange and purple. The apothecary lets out a cry and springs to his feet, rushing to his cabinet to retrieve a jar of frog eggs and another of lama milk, which he whips together with a mortar and pestle as Sherlock speaks, and applies to the boy’s injury. But as Holmes gets to the part in his story where he receives this blow and explains what his enemy intends to do to him, the old man emits a shriek, his face turns an alarming shade of red, and he rushes up the spiral staircase.

“Sir?”

There is all sorts of noise coming from the floor above, pots and pans flying about, and a good deal of grunting and cursing from the old man. “Dog poop!” he exclaims. But
then he is coming down the stairs, taking four at a time. He doesn’t even look at Sherlock as he flies past. He has his own horsewhip in hand, is dressed in his bizarre fighting outfit, complete with obscene, tight leggings, a bandana tied around his head in combat mode, and his pistol tucked into his pants, right in the crotch.

Sherlock rushes after him.

“Sir? Sir, where are you going?”

They reach the front door.

“To eliminate a certain villain and his two lieutenants! This shan’t take long! They shall not know what hit them!” He pulls the door open.

Sherlock slams it shut.

“Sir, you cannot do that. That would be murder!”

“And?”

“I don’t think you would allow me to do such a thing.”

“But … but … but they want to kill you, my boy. My own boy! I will stalk them until I find the three of them together. Then I will sneak up behind them, silent as a ghost! Then, I will employ the Bellitsu moves explicitly set out when one is confronted by three. I shall cartwheel and catch each, one after the other, with an upside-down kick to the jaw, rendering them all unconscious. Then, I will tie them up with my whip, explain to them, very calmly, what their crime is and how their lives must be terminated for the good of all … and then I’ll shoot them!”

“No, you won’t.”

“I won’t?”

“No, sir.”

The old man’s shoulders slouch. “No. No, I won’t. It wouldn’t be right, you are correct.”

“You would be the villain and they the innocent victims.”

“Hardly innocent.”

“But before the law …”

“Yes, quite. We must catch them in the act!”

“We?”

“Well … you, Master Holmes, you … I suppose. And we must, indeed, arm Miss Beatrice!”

Bell is gone and back with a new pistol within the hour. It is an American model, a Smith&Wesson. “I know a cowboy,” explains the apothecary, “helped him with his back … too much horse bucking, or whatever those people call it.” He takes a few bullets out of his pocket, spins the chamber, loads the gun, and then fires a bull’s-eye into the skull of one of his skeletons. Sherlock instinctively ducks.

“I will show you how to use this, and you will do the same for your young lady friend.”

Sherlock had spent the time when Bell was gone writing a letter to Irene. In it, he asked for more information about Malefactor.

The letter goes into the post that night. He expects a response in the morning and he is not disappointed. There isn’t a great deal that is new to him throughout most of her letter, mostly just tales of Malefactor’s happy early Irish childhood, the family’s downfall, his sister’s death,
his bitterness. Irene also writes that she can see through Sherlock’s words, that he is trying to say nice things that he may not mean. At least, she says, he is trying. Then, right near the end, almost unknowingly it seems, she tells him something that rivets him – it is the opening for which he is looking.