The Secret Fiend (2 page)

About a month ago, Beatrice suddenly left school. Holmes didn’t know why.

“I ’ave a job now, Sherlock, working as a scullery maid for a family in a good part of town,” she tells him. “My friend and I – she is a maid in the kitchen and doesn’t live in, either – we were asked to stay late because of a dinner they are ’aving tomorrow. We were so scared, Sherlock. It was just the two of us out alone. But I wanted to get ’ome, to ’elp Poppa. ’e must be so worried.”

Beatrice’s mother had died of tuberculosis a couple of years ago and her father soldiered on, doing everything, insisting that his only child continue as long as possible at school. Beatrice and Sherlock have an understanding of each other’s pain.

“We walked very brisk-like, ’olding on to each other. We kept to the right thoroughfares, and no one bothered us … until we got to Westminster Bridge.”

She begins to cry. Sherlock pulls his hand away.

“I should ’ave gone to the police, but I thought they might not believe –”

“Now, Beatrice. You mustn’t weep. Tell me what happened.”

“It was the Spring ’eeled Jack!”

The boy can’t resist a smile.
What is she playing at?

“Beatrice, listen to me. You were seeing things. The late night will do that to you. The Spring Heeled Jack is a fictional character, a Penny Dreadful shocker. You know that. The night was playing upon your imagination.”

“Then where is Louise?”

“Louise?”

“My friend! She’s gone!”

“I don’t –”

“She was with me, Sherlock. I wasn’t dreaming that. ’e took her! She’s gone!”

She is sobbing now. Sherlock doesn’t have an answer for such reactions from girls – never has had – not even from Beatrice. He can’t answer the question either, something that always makes him uncomfortable.
She must be making this up.
Perhaps he will call her bluff.

“Shall we go out and investigate?”

“Could we? Bring a blade, or a pistol, if Mr. Bell keeps one. And you must take my ’and.”

Not an entirely surprising response. I’ll play along
, thinks Sherlock.
Perhaps there will be something of interest in it.

“No need for firearms. I shall bring this whip and we will be vigilant.”

“Thank you.” Beatrice beams and looks into his eyes as she takes his hand again. “Hurry.”

“First,” exclaims Sherlock, blushing and releasing himself as he rises to his feet, “I must tell the master.”

He leads her across the lab and sets her on a tall, three-legged stool near the foot of the stairs, so she will be nearer him as he goes up to see his employer. She gives a start when she notices the skeletons hanging from nails on the walls between the teetering stacks of books and the pickled human and animal organs stored in the glassed cupboards. He retrieves his shoes, worn frock coat, and yellowing shirt
from his wardrobe, ducks behind the examining table and puts them on. Beatrice turns her back. No need for his ragged necktie tonight, though he wishes he could observe himself in the mirror. But that would be too vain and unmanly in front of Beatrice. He tries to fix his hair as best he can.

“I shall be right back.”

Sherlock rarely enters Bell’s upstairs domain, and he wouldn’t tonight either – he can accompany Beatrice himself – but the apothecary’s silence disturbs him. Has his ancient friend expired?

Sherlock tries to keep the wooden steps of the spiral staircase from creaking as he ascends. He isn’t sure why – he certainly isn’t worried about waking the old man. It is as if he suspects something of Bell, and wants to surprise him. And why wouldn’t he? The apothecary can be deceptive – he has been known to crouch at the top of these stairs and listen in silence to Sherlock’s movements on the ground floor. The boy likes Sigerson Bell, in fact, might even admit that he almost loves him, but his master seems to have secrets too: there is always something that Holmes can’t quite –

There is a sudden noise downstairs, a creaking sound like the front door opening.

Sherlock hasn’t even gotten his head above the upper floor, hasn’t yet observed the glorious mess that is Bell’s bedroom and sitting room.

He freezes.

“Sherlock?” he hears Beatrice say under her breath. She sounds terrified.

Holmes retreats carefully. He doesn’t turn around, just backs downward, retracing his steps.

My horsewhip … it’s on the laboratory table.

“Keep quiet,” he whispers, but his heart is pounding.
What if this is more than a story? What if someone, somehow like the vaunted Spring Heeled Jack of Penny Dreadful legend, has followed her here? Perhaps he murdered her friend. Dismembered her body … cut her in pieces. And now he has come for Beatrice.

Sherlock reaches the laboratory in a crouch, crawls silently toward his friend, pulls her down to the floor and reaches up to the table. At first he can’t locate the whip, but he searches around and then feels its hard, leather surface. He grips it like one might hold the reins of a thoroughbred before it is released at the Derby.

“Use your wrists, my boy!” screams Bell every time they practice … usually prior to the destruction of some portion of the laboratory.

Sherlock holds the whip aloft, slightly behind his shoulder to gather maximum force, and cocks his wrist. He silently moves into the front room. Whoever is at the outside door has no difficulty getting in. In fact, he (or it) seems to have a key! Sherlock can see the intruder’s silhouette as it enters.

The boy leaps and snaps the whip, but whatever is before him is as quick as a panther. It vanishes momentarily, then is suddenly behind him, gripping his neck in a death hold. His spine is about to be snapped.

“My boy?”

“Mr. Bell?” answers Sherlock hoarsely.

The apothecary releases his apprentice, who drops to the floor, afraid that he is going to cough up the lining of his throat.

“My apologies.”

“Quite all right.”

The boy has indeed been growing lately and when he rises, his eyes are almost even with his bent-over master’s. The old peepers betray a distinct look of guilt.

“Where … where were you, sir? It is well past midnight.”

“Past two o’clock, I’m afraid.”

“And?”

“And what? Oh. My whereabouts. Yes, well … out for a constitutional … quite … a constitutional. Taking some air!”

“At this hour, sir?”

“Could not sleep.”

“I didn’t hear you go by.”

“Precisely. You never know what I might get up to, my boy.”

It is a sentence meant to end the conversation. There is a tone of irritation in the old man’s voice, which tells Sherlock that further questions are not welcome. Sigerson Bell is rarely cross with his charge and never cold. But the boy feels a breeze in these words. His master is trying to back him off. It is almost difficult to believe.

What is this about?

Bell moves toward the laboratory, then stops dead still, like a bloodhound that has sensed its quarry.

“We have a visitor? At this hour?”

Though Bell has yet to see Beatrice, he is somehow aware of her presence in the next room. As he floats through the lab door toward her, Sherlock notices that he is carrying something under one arm – it looks like clothing, though it is shiny, like a costume. It is green and black. The sight of it shocks him. He is thinking about the Spring Heeled Jack.

The old man is soon standing in front of Beatrice.

“My dear, you are trembling. Let me take your pulse and hear your tale. What brings you here at this hour? Are you an acquaintance of Master Holmes?”

He presses two fingers to the jugular vein on her neck.

“Yes.”

“And can you not visit him at more respectable hours?”

“It isn’t as you think.”

“I think nothing. I merely listen. You are nearing fifteen years of age, the daughter of a hatter, resident of Southwark but employed as a scullery maid in a wealthy part of town, beautiful and normally of good health, as fond of this boy as I … and deeply troubled by something that occurred within this past half hour.”

“I was walking home with my friend Louise, when I saw –”

“She saw nothing.” Holmes has entered the lab, his eyes still glancing down at the clothes under Bell’s arm. He can see now that the old man is holding a bottle with black liquid in it too, and a large mask that could fit entirely over someone’s face.

“She saw nothing?
Nothing
has increased the palpitations of her heart, dilated her pupils, and caused her to perspire on a February evening? I must meet this nothing. It is as extraordinary as Mr. Disraeli.”

“She had a vision.”

“A vision?” Bell turns back to Beatrice and regards her with a penetrating look. “Of what?”

“It was the –”

“She felt she was being followed.”

“By what?” Bell isn’t looking at Sherlock; he stares directly into the girl’s eyes. It is a mesmerizing regard.

“The –” begins Beatrice.

“A thief, a rough of some sort who meant her evil, but she escaped from whatever it was, if it indeed ever existed. Miss Beatrice is, as you say, quite healthy.”

“Did you see this … rough?”

“No, she didn’t.”

“Were you alone?”

“I –”

“Yes, she was.”

“Sherlock,” says Bell with irritation as he turns from the girl to the boy, “can she not speak for herself?”

“She is very frightened. I don’t want to cause her undue upset.”

“Quite.”

“I was about to take her home.”

“By all means.”

Bell turns to Beatrice again. “And you are sure you did not get a good view of this fiend?”

She looks to Sherlock, reads the concern in those gray eyes, and stiffens her resolve.

“No. No, sir. I did not.”

“Well, then … you must be on your way.”

In seconds they are out the door. Sherlock would never think anything sinister about Sigerson Bell. And he isn’t doing so now. He is just being cautious. He has seen many images of the Spring Heeled Jack in the Penny Dreadfuls. There are rumors that this fiend once truly existed and haunted the streets of London … back in Sigerson Bell’s day.

It wore a costume.
It was green and black.

MYSTERY ON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE

“I
have a confession to make,” says Beatrice shyly, feeling safe and thrilled to have her arm through Sherlock’s, as they walk south past Leicester Square and the magnificent Alhambra Palace Theatre on their way to Westminster. The square is quiet now. The glimmer of the gas lamps barely penetrates the dark, frozen night; only their footfalls and a few claps of horse hooves, a few mumbling voices and sudden shouts echo in the gloom. The last survivors of the glorious evening before, are straggling home or lying on cobblestones. A drunken tradesman stumbles toward them, his crooked nose leaking blood from a scrap. Sherlock steers Beatrice from the square and across a narrow street to the opposite foot pavement.

“’Fraid of me, is you lad! Come back and get some of what I ’as! I comes out at night and turns into the devil, me friend. The devil! That’s what’s inside o’ me!”

Beatrice appears to be trembling, so Sherlock holds her a little tighter and doesn’t notice the smile that comes over her face. She glances at him.

“I ’ave been following you, I ’ave,” she says.

He stops. “You what?”

“It’s of no consequence, honestly, Sherlock. I was just interested in what you were taking up your time with. That is, when you weren’t assisting your master.”

Sherlock’s heartbeat increases. “You followed me?”

“Well,
following
might be stating it a pinch strongly, now that I think on it.”

“Have you done this often?”

“No, no. No, Sherlock, not often. Not often at all. But –”

“But what?”

“I know you do police things. And I know it was you who ’elped Scotland Yard catch the East End murderer and the Brixton Gang and that you were some’ow involved in finding Victoria Rathbone.”

“How did you –”

“No other boy could do such things. I’m proud of you, Sherlock ’olmes.”

She is looking up at him with those big black eyes, leaning against him, warming him, gazing at him as if he were a great man. Sherlock Holmes considers himself to be beyond flattery. It is a thing born of weak emotions. But Beatrice Leckie disarms him. She isn’t a deep thinker like Irene Doyle, but she isn’t a fool, either. She wears her emotions on her poor sleeves, with none of the arts of feminine artificiality practiced by most English “ladies”: the veneer of weakness, the fainting, the standing on ceremony, the clever games meant to gain things from men. He hates such dishonesty. Beatrice Leckie is a real girl, a real
person
– the
personality you see on the surface is who she is. Mixed with her unadorned beauty, it is an intoxicating perfume … which Sherlock inhales.

“You know what I think,” she says in a sweet voice, “I think you could be a great detective one day.” This is almost more than he can bear, so he keeps quiet.

They pass through a near-empty Trafalgar Square, its fountains stilled, and head toward the heart of Westminster, the river now just a stone’s throw to their left. The magnificent granite government buildings rise on either side of the wide avenue known as Whitehall; and Scotland Yard stands dark and mysterious near the water. Even the Lestrades will be home now, fast asleep. A few steps more and they pass Downing Street, where the day before yesterday, Mr. Disraeli, the Jew, took up his post as the leader of the United Kingdom.