Becoming Holmes (8 page)

It doesn’t add up. He considers it again.

What if I could make it add up? What would it all mean then?

7
BAD MAN

T
he shop is silent when he wakes at nearly noon the following morning. Sigerson Bell, despite his poor health, is still going out to see patients these days.

“I have a man, a bricklayer in Lambeth,” said the apothecary yesterday afternoon, explaining where he would be the following morning, “who swallowed a whistle whilst officiating at a local children’s football match. He moves about the neighborhood whistling whenever he becomes excited and absolutely playing tunes when he is, uh, aroused, shall we say, by his lovely wife (and she is a most buxom woman, I might add) when she advances upon him in their marriage bed. She has insisted that I get it out or she does him grievous harm. It cannot be good for his digestive track either. I do not want to cut him open from stem to gudgeon, so I am developing a battle plan that may involve extricating said whistle from an aperture that is … not his mouth.” The old man had raised his furry white eyebrows at Sherlock in a knowing look.

Thus, the shop is quiet. But when the boy finally gets out of his wardrobe and begins making his tea and heating a
pair of the apothecary’s legendary calf-brain scones, he keeps thinking he hears something. A bell always tinkles when the outer shop door opens and several times he stops to listen, wondering if it has gently jingled.

The coals are still hot in the fireplace. The boy stirs them, thinking of the note he left for Bell last night, telling him what he had been up to, what he had seen in Hounslow. He had done so because he knew the old man would appreciate it, love it, in fact. Sigerson Bell seems to thrive on intrigue and deeply enjoys the pursuit and destruction of evil. The two of them are well suited. He had asked his master to burn the note after he read it. He knew the old man would take joy in doing that too. It is nowhere to be seen.

But Sherlock continues to hear noises. He keeps making the trip from the laboratory into the outer room and the shop entrance, constantly thinking someone is either at it, or somewhere inside. Finally, he gives up and sits down at the lab table to eat. He drinks the tea, hot and black, as caffeine-filled as possible, and crouches over his scones. Something tells him to look up. When he does, someone is sitting across from him, staring into his eyes.

Malefactor!

Sherlock jumps to his feet and lets out a cry.

His enemy smiles at him. His top hat is resting on the lab table, gloves within it. “Master Sherlock Holmes, I perceive.”

Holmes can’t speak.

“You must construct a more complicated lock on your door, my boy. And you must develop some testicles. You look as though you have micturated into your trousers.”

Sherlock looks down. He hasn’t peed himself, but he might as well have.

“Malefactor,” he says weakly, trying to slow his heartbeat.

“Ah, you recognize me. You are a genius.”

The criminal does look different – older and his voice deeper. But that domed head, those sunken eyes, that way of extending his neck out as he speaks are all the same. He is dressed as a gentleman now, a black cravat tied perfectly under his starched white collar. His old black tailcoat is gone, replaced by a spotless new one of identical cut. Though he is just in his late teens, his hair is thinning on his pate.

“I have nothing to say to you,” remarks Sherlock, “other than that your days in your despicable career are numbered. I may not have the wherewithal to pursue you fully now, but I can at least thwart your plans. When I have trained myself thoroughly, I will return, and destroy you.”

“Such romantic words! But you have no grounds to do anything to me, sir, either now or in the future. You see, I am near to achieving the respectability I seek. I am well into my university training. Mathematics has seldom seen genius like mine. Chaos theory? The binomial theorem? They are child’s play to me. I shall be esteemed within my world. On the surface, I will be as clean as the Queen’s china. It shall be very difficult indeed to lay a hand upon a university professor of my standing.”

“I will find a way.”

“Higher education is in your future too, I hear.”

How does he know that?

“I shall keep an eye on that skull of yours, Holmes, to see if it grows anymore. If it maintains its puny size, it will never contain what it must to confront the likes of me.”

“We shall see.”

“Take the occurrences of the last day or two, for example. You are making a poor job of it.”

What does he know of my movements?

“Oh? How so?”

“Well, to confront Ronald Loveland in broad daylight. My God, have you learned nothing?”

“I was angry.”

“Yes, you were undisciplined. You will not be a worthy enemy for me if you continue to do such things. It is rather disappointing.”

“Here is something I do know. You follow people.”

“Ah, you are not completely without a cranial sponge. Indeed, observing others closely is one of our prime operating principles. Yes, follow those of influence and learn little details that may be of use. But how did you know this? Never mind. It does not matter. I will someday be a man of enormous influence in this metropolis. In fact, I am approaching that position at a greater speed than even I predicted. The police are already not far from my grasp.”

“Ronald Loveland will never ascend above his current station.”

“Will he not?”

“I will see to it. In fact, I assure you that he shall soon lose the position he has now. I will keep his superior safe. I will stop any little plans you have.”

“You will die first.”

Sherlock pauses and tries to hide the fact that his heartbeat has instantly increased again.
Be calm. Learn something useful from him while he is in front of you
. Holmes speaks up.

“That is an idle threat. It does not concern me. And neither do you. I slept well last night, as I do every night, a good long sleep, not one thought of you. You, however, appear to have spent your night thinking of
me
, since you are here to confront me.”

“On the contrary, Mr. Loveland simply mentioned that you were asking after my health, so I thought I should let you see that I am well and that you need not bother him anymore. I fear that it is
your
health that might take an immediate turn for the worse should you continue to worry yourself over his appointment. I slept like a baby last night, thank you for asking, though we
were
plotting.”

Sherlock thinks for a moment before he responds.

“Plotting? In your lair?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, in my well-appointed country home, thank you very much, far from this rat-filled city. I shall never live here again. I will simply haunt it from afar. But I will never rest, especially when
anyone
is interfering with my plans.”

“You may leave.”

Malefactor looks startled. Holmes has abruptly dismissed him. Sherlock has discovered something during their conversation and now has no immediate use for his adversary.

I have what I need
.

The criminal eyes Sherlock, examining his face, searching for what he has just been up to. Then he smiles. “Do not be too clever for your own good, my erstwhile friend.”

“That is impossible.”

“It would be a shame to lose you so early in the game.” He gets to his feet. “And don’t say I didn’t warn you when you are lying in a pool of blood or gasping for breath. Leave the Treasury situation alone, and I will have no cause to harm you. I am and always shall be a gentleman, until I am pushed.”

“You may see yourself out.”

8
FAT MAN

S
herlock knows what his next move will be by the time Malefactor is back in the street. It is built upon two starting points. First, the information he has just cleverly gleaned from his opponent, without the villain detecting it:
“Malefactor said, ‘WE were plotting.’ And he said they were doing so in the countryside far from London. That means his lieutenants were with him last night discussing my confrontation with Grimsby, which also means that no one was following me. Malefactor didn’t think I would act so quickly, acquire so much information so fast. He does not know that I have learned whose secret they are on to and exactly where that secret is housed on that street in Hounslow.”
Sherlock is so excited that he is speaking out loud. He pauses for an instant to consider the second idea that is motivating his plans. But he doesn’t get to it.

“Aha!” says a high-pitched voice from upstairs. Sherlock almost drops off his laboratory stool.

“Sir!” he screeches up at Sigerson Bell. “How long have you been up there?”

“Well,” says the apothecary and begins to descend the spiral staircase. But he sees that it will be too slow a process,
a painful one that he does not want the boy to observe. He doesn’t have the appetite for another slide down the banister either, though the goose-down pillow is in its place at the bottom of the steps. So, he edges back up to the top and lies on his side, glowing down at his charge, excited to be playing detective again. “Well, I went out early this morning to see my whistling man in Lambeth. By the way, I was indeed able to extricate said whistle from his innards, out that passage that is decidedly NOT the mouth but located in the nether regions. To be more precise, I removed it from his ar –”

“Sir! I do not need that information. Just tell me how you came to be upstairs without my knowing it.”

“Oh, yes, of course, my young knight. Let me see, I was coming home from my appointment when I spied Mr. Malefactor (though you and I know that is not his real name) crossing Trafalgar Square with that other lout of his, not Grimsby but the bigger one?”

“Crew?”

“Yes, Mr. Crew, a frightening individual, if I may say so. Something not quite normal in his upper stories. One can deduce as much by the look of him.”

“Agreed.”

“They appeared to be on the march and headed this way, so I followed them, surreptitiously and adroitly, since, as you know, I am skilled in such things.”

“You are?”

“Sherlock, just go along with what I say, please! So, I skillfully followed them –”

“Because they never thought they’d be followed by
an old man who appeared incapable of doing anyone any real harm.”

“Uh, yes, perhaps that is true, though that is an unkind interpretation and I would rather see myself as remarkably elusive and sensationally unpredictable.”

“Understandable.”

“And, what do you know, but they come right up Denmark Street, Crew beginning to lag behind a little and looking about. I could tell he was going to be the sentinel, the lookout for his leader, his, as the Germans say,
führer
. Malefactor was rummaging about in his coat.”

“Looking for his lock-springing tool?”

“Yes, Master Holmes, indeed. Now, we come to a part of the story of which I am not particularly proud.”

“Oh?”

“I have a secret entrance to the shop, the location of which I have kept from you.” He drops his head, looking a little ashamed.

“A secret entrance?”

“Well, you didn’t ask.”

“Hmm.”

“There were days, after the death of my lovely witch, when I was pursued most vigorously by many beautiful ladies intent upon locking me up into matrimonial entanglements. I was often in fear that they would tear the very clothes from my body.”

“Really?”

“You sound surprised.”

“Oh, no, sir.”

“So, I needed a secret entrance. I have told no one of it until this moment, but I am telling you now so you may use it in the future. In fact, I have a feeling you may have need of it very soon.”

“Soon?”

“Yes, but more of that in a moment. I quickly (well, maybe not so quickly) and inconspicuously (well, maybe not so inconspicuously) walked around to the rear of the shop, down the little lane not more than two feet wide at the back, entered the shop via my secret entrance, and made my way up to my bedroom via a dumb waiter I keep for such purposes in the wall. I was installed in a very quiet position by the time you finally noticed that Malefactor was in the laboratory. I saw his marvelous performance and your, at times, stirring response. My, there were moments when he made you look like a fool, a complete idiot, a nincompoop of the first order, a horse’s –”