Becoming Holmes (20 page)

Sherlock doesn’t see the man he seeks at the counter, so he scans the booths. He knows what he is looking for: a man sitting alone, with his back to the wall so he can observe everyone in the tavern and see anyone who comes in or goes out. It is not just the strategy that Bell advises, but the criminal way, built upon living a life of being suspicious of others because you yourself deserve suspicion. Sherlock’s eyes rest on a particular man, at the back, of course, hunched over, looking down into his beer, glancing up every now and then to survey others. He wears a heavy coat, though it is warm both inside and out of doors. That is the criminal way too; coats can conceal many things one might need in a moment of desperation. Sherlock eyes him, and it doesn’t take long before the look is returned. The man glances away and then glances back, as if he is wondering if he knows this intense, eagle-nosed, black-haired boy in the second-hand frock coat. But the man can’t place him. He doesn’t like being observed, so he looks down and keeps his eyes on his drink.

But Sherlock can indeed place
him
.

The boy has this man
exactly
where he wants him. He smiles while still looking at his target. The rascal peeks up and sees this. An expression of concern briefly crosses his eyes.

I cannot merely ask him for the information I seek
, Sherlock had told himself while looking out of the train window.
He would simply deny that he is who I say he is. He would send me away, threaten me. It is not in his interest to
squeal on anyone else, especially the deeply feared Crew. No, I must corner him like the rat he is, in a public place. And then I must make it so he cannot refuse me
. While walking down the street, Holmes had found exactly the right words.

“Is there anyone named HOPKINS here?” Sherlock shouts. The man looks back at him, unsure of what to do. It is unlikely that he has made many friends in Rochester, evidenced by his sitting alone. But he doesn’t move. He stays there, not even glancing back. Sherlock is well aware that the mere mention of his assumed name might not move him to action. He can ignore it. But another name will do the trick.

“SUTTON Hopkins?” inquires Sherlock at the top of his lungs.

The man freezes and locks a riveting gaze on Holmes. Without even moving his head, he motions, with his eyes, for Sherlock to come toward him. As the boy does, Sutton rises to his feet and creeps to another booth, deeper in the tavern. Holmes slides in across from him, face to face.

“Who in blazes are you?” whispers the turncoat, leaning forward.

“Someone who knows who you are.”

“Evidently. What do you want? I have no money to speak of.”

Sherlock spots Sutton’s left hand moving inside his coat, and a bulge emerging there in the shape of a knife.

“No need for that,” says Holmes.

“If you try to kill me, I will kill you first. They shouldn’t have sent a boy for a man’s job.”

“I am the
man
who put you behind bars, Sutton. And if I had anything to do with it, I would be the
man
who would not only keep you there, but see you hanged.”

A look of recognition comes into the criminal’s eyes. “Ah, you!” he hisses, examining Holmes. “You are the one, that strange boy, who caught us in Rotherhithe. You have grown.” He sits back, a little wary. “I remember the great fire, you with the gun pressed to my head. I really believed you would have killed me that night. You had a lunatic’s look in your eye.”

“I
would
have killed you. I can be a lunatic when I must. But I am not here to expose you.”

“Thank God.”

“Unless the need arises.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I need two things from you. Neither involves any injury to you or my telling anyone of any sort that you, coward that you are, live here in disguise.”

Though Sutton winces at the word “coward,” he looks relieved.

“Ask me, just ask me and I will do it.”

“First, you must promise not to tell anyone at Scotland Yard that I was here, that I know of your whereabouts. If you do, I shall return here and shout your name in the town square, the name of Sutton, villainous squeak, thief, and accessory to murder.”

The man swallows. “Agreed.”

“Secondly, you must tell me where a man named Crew lives.”

Sutton swallows much harder. “Crew? No … no, not Crew. I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“You seem awfully sure of that. Why should I tell you anything about
him
?”

“Because if you do not I shall do my shouting in the town square here this
very
day, and also announce you in the East End of London in the criminal quarters, and then they will come for you, all those villains who hate you, all those beasts who wouldn’t think twice about murdering you in cold blood, in a gruesome way, I should think. Perhaps a man like Crew might do the job himself?”

Even in the dim light of the Falstaff tavern, it isn’t hard to detect that all the blood appears to be draining from Sutton’s face.

“Answer the question, and I shall leave this tavern and never speak to you or of you again to anyone.”

The rat has been cornered. He has no choice.

“We feared Crew more than anyone else, other than Malefactor himself.”

The mention of Sherlock’s old nemesis, uttered in fear, coming from the lips of one of the most hardened and powerful criminals in London, stops Holmes in his tracks. He can’t say a word. He lets Sutton talk.

“It is singular, you know, what Malefactor has done. He gained much of his power as a youth. How did he gather such force in the London underworld?”

“Brilliance,” says Sherlock, almost against his will.

“Do you know him?”

“No.”

“But you are right. It is brilliance, indeed. I believe he is a genius. He is like a giant invisible spider now, with a web he has spun throughout the criminal world. He is no longer a boy. He is a young man destined for greatness. There is no power like his.”

“He must be stopped.”

“No one can do it. No one
will
do it. There would need to arise in London a man of equal genius, of equal bravery, of equal dedication to countering what he is and what he believes in. There would need to be a sword of justice more deadly than his great weapon of evil. There will never be a man like that.”

Sherlock Holmes says nothing. He merely sets his jaw tightly.

“Malefactor is –” begins Sutton.

“Tell me about Crew!” spits Sherlock, almost shouting.

The turncoat looks alarmed. When he speaks, he is barely audible, as if begging Sherlock to talk softly too. “Even Charon feared him. Even Charon! Crew is Malefactor’s main one, you know. Grimsby is just for show, a little fellow who will do anything he is asked and can be used.”

“Grimsby is dead.”

“Dead?”

“Murdered in a most vicious manner and thrown into the Thames. He crossed Malefactor. I spoke to the doctor who examined his body. He said that what was done to him was inhuman.” Sherlock stares off into the distance.

“How do you know this?” The man almost gets up. “Who are you, really? Are you with the –”

“Never mind who I am.”

“I –”

“Someday you will know. Everyone will know,” snarls Sherlock Holmes.

Sutton doesn’t like the look on the young man’s face. The lunatic in him has returned. His gray eyes seem to have turned black. They stare out at nothing.

“Grimsby crossed Malefactor? Then it must have been Crew who killed him.”

“Yes,” says Sherlock, nodding to himself.

“He did it as surely as we are sitting here.” Sutton actually looks afraid. “It was inhuman? Is that what you said? I … I cannot tell you anything more, not a single word.”

“You must,” says Sherlock. He grins at his listener.

“Well, I don’t know where he lives.”

“I believe you.”

“You do?”

It doesn’t make sense for Sutton to hide anything. He knows I will expose him if I am not satisfied, or that I will come back for him if he gives me an answer I find to be false. It is in his interest to tell me the truth. I will make him tell me what he knows. And I will use it
.

“I will tell you what I know.”

“I have every confidence in that. Begin.”

Sutton had known that night in Rotherhithe a few years ago that this was a unique boy, but now, as he sits here with him, cleverly cornered by him, bested at every turn in their dealings, and becoming aware that he knows things that someone of his age and experience has no right to know,
he is aware that this young man is even more than he first thought, unlike anyone he has ever met. It is as if this young genius can look at him, examine him, and know his very thoughts. It is in his best interest to spill every bean in his jar.

“Crew is a very unpleasant human being. There is something wrong with him, something not right in his brain. He is ill up there. If you have ever been in his presence, you will know that he seldom speaks.”

Sherlock thinks again that he actually knows almost nothing about Crew. Though reading others by their appearance is a specialty of his and he has honed that skill more and more over the years, for some reason he has never tried it on Crew. Perhaps there is nothing to read. The big, fat boy with that little brush mustache and the straight blonde hair parted way over on one side and hanging down over his forehead is like a blank slate, quiet by Malefactor’s side every time Sherlock has been with them, allowing his boss and the talkative little Grimsby to take center stage. He has only heard his voice once or twice – high-pitched and nasal, uttering just a few syllables, his blue eyes dead even when he speaks.

“The word among the few who know anything of Crew is that he came from a military family. That upbringing is still there in the way his hair is shaved up so high on the back of his neck. His father believed that affection was not for boys. Crew was rarely touched as a child, not even by his mother, that’s what the street says. There was never any tenderness. He grew to hate his father and murdered both his parents, horribly and effectively. He escaped prosecution.
Malefactor was intrigued. He investigated the celebrated crime and collected evidence that proved the identity of the murderer. Then he brought Crew into his employ with the threat of exposing his despicable deed. But soon he discovered that Crew was happy to be with him, anxious to commit whatever atrocities were required, simply in need of a brutal leader to tell him what to do. It is a perfect marriage. If Malefactor wants you dead, you will be, silently and viciously, and Crew will do it.”

Sherlock thinks of Malefactor’s threats in the apothecary shop and feels a little faint.

“Crew is incapable of affection of any sort,” continues Hopkins. “It is certain that he lives alone and has no friends. He hates many people and things. He hated Grimsby, for sure, and hates even Malefactor, though his loyalty to his boss is unswerving. He also hates animals – it is said that he kills them for amusement. He doesn’t like anyone who isn’t English. He hates the Germans, the Dutch, the Irish, especially the black Africans, and, of course, the Jews.”

Sherlock winces.

“There is only one thing that he loves.”

“What is that?”

“The dead, human dead. He has been seen lingering over bodies after he kills, fascinated by corpses, the human shell with the life and spirit gone from it. It is said that he likes to talk to the dead too. Someone once heard him screaming at his father.”

“Can you, at least, harbor a guess,” asks Sherlock in a shaky voice, “about his residence?”

“I have never spoken to anyone who knows where he lives. I am sure that is by design. We all know not to follow him. We know that if we ever tried, that would be the last thing we did. But I do know this: he is often seen crossing London Bridge heading south late at night. Crew does not like to walk. He does not like exercise of any sort. So, one would guess that wherever he lives is just over the bridge in Southwark.”

That is both good and bad news for Holmes. Bad because the mad and brutal Crew obviously lives close to his school and not far from Beatrice, but good because Grimsby’s body was thrown into the Thames not far from there, making the chance that Crew committed this crime and could be made a suspect and perhaps convicted a better possibility.

“I take it that you have seen him crossing the bridge?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Can you tell me anything about that? You are schooled in examining others. Is there ever anything in his dress, his person, his attitude, that might indicate where he is going?”

“Nothing. He is an empty human being. He has no character. There is only evil in him.”

“Does he ever carry anything? Does he buy a meal anywhere and bring it with him?”

“He sometimes has a sack. But I don’t think it contains food.”

“Why do you say that?”

“They are always thick canvas sacks, usually large, sometimes so large he can barely handle them, and there is often something moving inside them.”

“Moving?”

“Squirming, writhing.”

Sherlock swallows. “What could that be?”

“I am loath to guess.”

“Anything else?”

Sutton wants to do all he can to help this brilliant young man. The more he can give him, the more satisfied he will be. He is no fool and knows he must please his inquisitor. Only that will keep him safe.

“I feel I misspoke when I said that he hates animals. He doesn’t hate them all. There are stories that he buys exotic creatures. No one knows what, though many say they are of the lethal sort. Everything I know about Crew has been told to me. I never ask questions about him. So, I have never enquired further.”

An idea has come into Sherlock’s brain. He immediately gets to his feet.

“That is all I need from you.” He turns to go.

“You,” says Sutton, “you won’t tell them, will you? You won’t tell anyone?”

“I am a man of my word.”

“I thank you for that. Might I shake your hand?”

Sherlock looks at the extended hand as if it were a cloven hoof. “You, sir, are on the wrong side.” He walks briskly from the tavern.