Becoming Holmes (18 page)

The big thug hesitates for a moment, calculating. Sherlock tightens his grip on the other man’s arm, bringing another cry of agony from him.

“That slime was the other leader. He’s a clever rat … name is Sutton.”

“Ah, Sutton!” remarks Holmes, remembering that night in Rotherhithe. “Sutton himself!”

“I am told he lives to the east somewheres, though some says south, in a small town. No one ’as found the squeak yet, but we will!”

“Not before I do. But thank you, sir. You have been most helpful.”

Within moments Sherlock Holmes has vanished from their sight and is hot-footing it home to the apothecary’s shop.

Holmes has always feared Crew. His size, his silence, and the deadness in his eyes speaks of a soul that, unlike Grimsby, who appeared to have fallen into his circumstances from hard beginnings, is truly evil, born that way. Sherlock realizes how little he really knows about Crew. He doesn’t even know his first name.

Where in the world would such a man live? And do I REALLY want to find him, somewhere in a lair in these streets, with HIS back to the wall?

16
SOMETHING INHUMAN

I
n the morning, Sherlock Holmes once again tells Sigerson Bell every single thing that he has just done concerning the case. He explains what happened on the streets the previous night and gives him a detailed analysis of what he intends to do next. The old man receives the information with a shake of his head.

“You neglected to tell me precisely when you urinated this morning and have yet to inform me of exactly how many breaths you took since the last hour struck.”

But despite the humor in his reaction, underneath he is beginning to ponder in a deeper way why his young charge is operating in this manner. An idea has come into his head and it worries him. He barely thinks it possible.

Sherlock isn’t at school today, so he has it all to himself to continue the search for Crew in earnest. His first stop is Scotland Yard. He needs answers to two questions. After that, he doubts he will require Lestrade anymore. He hopes he can do the rest himself.

“Ah, Sherlock!” says Lestrade, not nearly as happy as his tone.

“Just two questions,” says the boy, barely looking at his ally as he rushes through the doorway. He begins to pace in the office’s tight quarters, his head down, his eagle nose to the floor, nostrils flaring, gray eyes darting back and forth. He is like a restless hound sniffing for the fox, knowing the scent is near, the chase getting hotter. “You said that Grimsby’s body was taken to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital first, before it was brought here?”

“Yes.”

“To which medical man?”

“Sherlock, I can’t –”

The boy holds a finger up to his lips, as if trying to keep back his anger and impatience, hold back the oaths he’d like to shout, angry that this inconsequential detective is hesitating to tell him what he must know.

“Which doctor?!”

“The same as we always use.”

Sherlock shouts at him. “Tell me, Lestrade! Now!”

Lestrade is shocked at the look on his face. The veins have come out on his neck and forehead. He knows this boy to be eccentric and driven. But now he seems almost possessed. Lestrade closes the door to his office, and gives up the name.

“Doctor Craft.”

“Thank you. Now, you must tell me something else, something much more delicate, so delicate that you will want to say that you can never tell me. But you must.” He is pacing even faster.

“What is it?” Lestrade dreads the answer.

“I want to know the whereabouts of one Sutton, formerly of the Brixton Gang.”

Lestrade’s mouth drops.

“Imagine,” says Sherlock, before the young detective can say a word, “that life is a very narrow thing and that, when one thinks, one always thinks narrowly. It is like that for the majority of people. Thus, let us imagine that when most of us think, we function as though our thoughts were in a box or a carton of some sort and that we could not possibly ever allow them to be outside of that container. But, if we were to
really
want to be different, to get things done in a way that others don’t allow, then we, we who are different and really want to achieve, must think outside of that container.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about, Sherlock, but I can’t –”

Holmes’s face turns crimson. “Then know that if you do not do this for me I shall never speak to you again! And that you, sir, will occupy this tiny little office for the rest of your career, instead of the big one your father had, instead of becoming the premier inspector in the world’s greatest police force!”

Lestrade can’t believe the color of Sherlock’s face. It is fear of that more than anything else that causes him to blurt out two facts.

“He goes by the name of Hopkins, in Rochester.”

Rochester is to the east of London.
East
, just as the biggest street thug said.
They are closing in on him
, thinks Sherlock.
I must move fast
.

Holmes saves almost every penny that Bell gives him and has enough in his purse to take a train to Rochester and back. There will be many going in that direction today from London Bridge Station on the London, Chatham & Dover Railway line. Sherlock knows that for a certainty – this past year, he has begun memorizing the train schedules. St. Bartholomew’s Hospital is to the east, in the City, the old part of London. He will go there on his way to the station.

The doctor saw the body immediately after it was found. The police have only vague theories. But Craft will know something about that nasty welt across the little villain’s chest – the wound the killer left behind. Has he ever seen anything like it? What exactly, in his mind, killed Grimsby? Does he think it was some unusual weapon, or technique, some machine? Or was it something else? Most importantly, can I connect Crew to it?

The boy walks back along Fleet Street and swings north before he reaches St. Paul’s and the London Wall. He smells the meaty odor of the Smithfield Market and slows. He is almost there. If he had a choice, he wouldn’t go to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital at all. He knows that being inside its walls will upset him. He stops for a moment on Charterhouse Street, listening to the shouts and the bellows of the animals in the market.

He remembers the first time he was in Bart’s. It was three years ago, in the spring of 1867, when he sneaked in to see Irene after she was nearly killed by the Whitechapel
murderer’s coach. Sherlock had caused that nearly fatal accident, just as he had caused the death of his mother. To be more precise, his friendship with Irene had caused it. She had been targeted by his enemies. And so, to protect her, he had pushed her away – the beautiful and dynamic Irene, now resident in America, soon to be in Europe,
never
to be with him.

He steels himself and banishes all thoughts of Irene Doyle. He must go to Bart’s, get inside, and find what he needs to find. What he is doing today must be his priority. He cannot live in the past.
I must never look backward
.

The hospital is so huge that it takes up several blocks, a monster building with tentacles everywhere, made of brick and rather ominous, looking in places as old as the many hundred years it is said to be. He finds the arched entrance through which he passed when he went to see Irene. He knows his way inside these two big wooden doors. Assuming that Dr. Craft will be somewhere upstairs, where Sherlock recalls that the chemical laboratories are, he passes the big outpatient room on the main floor, hears moans from patients, and flies up the big stone steps to the first floor. Here the halls are wide and whitewashed and everything smells of medicine. He remembers spotting several labs down one particular hall. He finds it and is relieved to see that he won’t have to pass the Accident Ward where Irene convalesced. He keeps his head down and doesn’t look into the eyes of the nurses who pass and only lifts his head when he nears the laboratories. The doors are tall and wooden, going almost all the way to the ceiling. A feeling of excitement begins to fill him, and not just because he feels he may
be nearing the doctor who first examined Grimsby’s body. Laboratories
always
arouse him. Bell has taught him everything he knows about chemistry, and the boy adores it. There is nothing better for both of them than experimenting with the chemicals and alkaloids in the old man’s modest lab. He thinks of the space, equipment, and materials available in this, the largest of London’s hospitals. It almost makes him shake with excitement.
Imagine being allowed in here to experiment!
He considers the things he could learn, the theories he could test, the gruesome crimes he could solve with such a place as his ally.

In his reverie, he actually begins to walk past the chemical laboratory door that bears Craft’s name. But someone comes out of the entrance and walks right into him.

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” says the man.

Sherlock looks at him.
Age seventeen or eighteen, a student, not ambitious, wants to be an assistant of some sort here, perhaps a dresser
. Holmes observes everything in a flash: the student’s blonde hair, his spectacles, and the dirty white lab coat that barely fits him. Though they say a great deal about him, nothing speaks louder than his attitude and his words.

“I am frightfully sorry,” sputters the young man. “Can I help you?”

Talkative, accommodating, and apologetic. Perfect
.

“I am looking for Dr. Craft.”

“Well, you have come to the right place.” He glances up at the name over the door. Sherlock blushes. The obvious is not always his forte. “I work for him,” continues the young man, “or, that is, I have volunteered to help him in my spare
time away from studies. A friend and I assist him, actually. The doctor’s experiments are most intriguing. My friend is a much better medical sort than me, I am afraid. Is Craft waiting for you? Do you have a card?”

“Uh …” says Holmes, “my name is Sherrinford. No, I do not have an appointment.”

“I see. Well, I can’t leave a chap standing in the hall. I like to find the best in others, so I shall assume you have something of importance to convey to the great doctor.”

“Yes, I do. Thank you.”

“My name is Stamford, and my friend is named John. You shall view him in a moment, though you may not see him face on, since he is a most assiduous and dedicated chap, much more so than me, and is always bending over his studies and taking notes for Dr. Craft. ‘Notes’ is not the correct word. He writes veritable stories about our experiments, makes them
so
interesting. Craft just adores him and loves to read his reports.”

Stamford opens the big doors. Sherlock is instantly transported into heaven. It is a big room, with white walls, of course, and a very high ceiling. It is filled with wide, low lab tables, and upon them are bottles and torts and test tubes and flaming Bunsen lamps. Liquids all the colors of the rainbow run through clear hoses and rest or simmer in the glass containers. Bubbling and boiling sounds echo in the room. And at the far end, bending over a notepad, doing exactly what his friend Stamford said he would be doing, is the aforementioned John. He looks about Stamford’s age, a little portly, with his wide back turned to Holmes.