The Dragon Turn (14 page)

Sherlock Holmes knows he is not a young man of integrity at this moment. He had felt it most acutely this morning while instructing his summer students on the subject of History, and what has been, over the centuries, right … and wrong. His late August classes finish at two o’clock. He has time to do what is right today. When school ends, and after more soul searching, he finds his way … to Scotland Yard.

This is one of the most difficult things he has ever had to do. He paces up and down Whitehall Street before summoning the courage to enter the police offices. He knows that Lestrade Sr. won’t see him, so he asks for his son. The young detective appears, reluctantly.

“I am surprised that you would show your face here.”

“I was … not correct,” Sherlock blurts out. “I
may
have not been correct.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I may have been … wr … wr … wrong.”

“Wrong? Did you say you were
wrong
about something? Can you repeat that?”

“I was wrong.”

“And again?”

“Lestrade!”

The other boy laughs. But he doesn’t when Sherlock tells him what he is concerned he’s wrong about.

“You think Hemsworth is guilty?! You, who are responsible for setting him free! Father!”

The desk sergeant nearly jumps from his seat.

“
May
be guilty, I said
may
be. Don’t call your father … I can’t face —”

“FATHER!”

The Senior Inspector is in the foyer in seconds. He doesn’t hear his son shout at him with such volume often and is concerned that something is terribly wrong.

“Son?” Then he sees Sherlock. “The Holmes brat! Get him out of here!”

“Father, he has something to tell you, something you are going to be very interested to hear.”

“That’s impossible.”

“No, sir, it isn’t.” He turns to Sherlock and motions to him, as if handing him the stage.

Sherlock can barely speak at first. He starts slowly but picks up speed. Lestrade seethes as he listens, his face growing progressively more red. The boy tells him that he is worried that his solution to the Hemsworth question was too easy, that he is feeling guilty about it, that all that motivation is still very much against the magician, that he has learned of His Highness’s cruelty and immorality, that Hemsworth may very well have been acting during the hat scene, that all magicians keep adjustable hats (Lestrade almost cries out at this), that Mr. Riyah isn’t really a Jew though he claims to be, that his real name is under suspicion, that someone was hiding in Hemsworth’s dressing room both times he and Miss Doyle visited, that it may have been Riyah, that he worries that those two men have known each other for some time but pretend to be strangers and —

“ENOUGH!” shouts Lestrade.

Sherlock closes his mouth.

“You are a fool, do you know that? A boob!”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have put us into a great conundrum! Through your interference, you have freed the man whom I have known from the start to be the murderer. You have provided him with an alibi. But now, you have gathered
circumstantial evidence that veritably
proves
my theory!”

“Circumstantial?”

“None of what you say, though very telling and harmful to the reputations of a number of the principals … can hang the villain!”

“That is correct,” adds the Inspector’s son, grinning at Sherlock. “You were correct all along, sir, and you are correct now.”

“Thank you, son.” Lestrade turns on Sherlock again. “You have nothing that places Hemsworth at the crime scene. Your little hat demonstration took care of that! You do not have a murder weapon, or even any idea as to how it was done! And yet we
all
, even you, have come to the understanding that he did it.” Lestrade begins furiously pacing around the foyer. “But
how
did he do it? It didn’t matter before, when we had his hat inches from the blood, but now it does! Now we
must
know. Did Hemsworth blow him up? Did he wave a wand and make him vanish?”

“No sir. I doubt that.”

“Then how?”

“I have a theory.”

“A theory!!” shout the two Lestrades at once, both smirking.

“This,” continues the Inspector, “should be enjoyable, a tale for the London stage.” He stops moving about. “Perhaps we should sit down, serve tea? Go on. Enlighten us.”

“Sir … what … if it wasn’t a human being? What if the villain was another sort of creature? That might account for what was left behind.”

“Not surprisingly, you aren’t making sense.”

“What if it was a beast?”

“A beast? Of what sort?”

“A dragon.”

Young Lestrade laughs out loud. But his father does not. He turns and looks out the window. “A dragon?”

“Or whatever it is that Hemsworth has created to look like one.”

“That’s ridiculous,” says young Lestrade.

“Have you been to see the show, sir?”

“Of course, we watched it the night we arrested him.”

“And what did you think?”

Lestrade swallows. “To be honest … I found it … rather convincing.”

“But it can’t be a real dragon, Inspector, can it?”

“Of course not … that’s nonsense.”

“But there was nothing left of Nottingham … just his spectacles and blood … and little pieces of flesh. Can a human being do that?”

Lestrade swallows again. “I have long suspected that there is something magical about this crime. But —”

“Sir, it would be simple for you to either prove or eliminate this possibility. You have the power to stop the show at the moment the dragon appears.”

Sherlock doesn’t want to tell the Inspector about the third chamber below The World’s End Hotel. He will hold that card up his sleeve. He has no idea what is down there anyway. At this point, the police are not even aware of the second room. If he were to send them on an investigation of
the inner chambers and they found nothing of interest, he would look like an even greater fool than he appears now.
I know that this apparition, this dragon, appears on The Egyptian Hall stage at the end of every show. I don’t know what is in that chamber. If I have to gamble, I should bet on the surer thing, what I have seen with my own eyes … we must seize this thing, whatever it is, red-handed, during the performance
.

“I cannot subject us to possible ridicule in front of an audience,” snaps the Inspector.

“Then you could simply position yourselves backstage and keep the dragon from being secreted away again, as it somehow must be following each performance? You, sir, could examine His Highness Hemsworth’s great illusion.”

Lestrade looks tempted. He starts pacing again. “If the magician … has something, even a disguised lion or tiger, or a giant hound, then we might be able to, at least, keep the case against him in motion, put the circumstantial evidence together with him harboring a murderous beast capable of …” He comes to an abrupt halt and barks at the desk sergeant. “I want this Riyah fellow brought in!” He hesitates to give his next order.

“There is no show tonight, sir. Hemsworth performs every other evening. You could attend tomorrow.”

Lestrade regards him for a moment, then turns back to the desk sergeant. “Get us some tickets to the next Egyptian Hall spectacle!” He glances at the boy. “Get one for him as well.” Then, looking directly at Sherlock, he mutters, “This had better be worthwhile!”

On the street outside the station, Holmes has the feeling that someone is watching him. He scans the court in Scotland Yard and thinks he sees a dark face peering around a corner just two buildings away. He runs toward it, but by the time he arrives, it has flown, out into the heavy crowds on Whitehall Street. Sherlock squints and looks into the masses. He thinks he sees the man, wearing a black greatcoat, much like Riyah’s.

The boy pauses in the majestic park in front of Buckingham Palace for a while on his way home, watching the swans in the queen’s ponds. He decides to walk past The Egyptian Hall. It is a hot afternoon and the front doors are open. The boy can hear music and a beautiful voice. It sounds familiar. He walks up to the entrance. Someone is accompanying a woman on a piano, both the playing and the singing informal, like a rehearsal. The voice is familiar indeed.
Irene
. Then he hears a scream, a bloodcurdling shriek. He runs into the lobby, past a few attendants, who are lounging about and smoking. He rips open the doors of the amphitheater and comes to the top of the lower bowl. Irene Doyle is standing on the stage close to a piano, where Hemsworth sits playing. The magician rises.

“Master Holmes?”

“Sherlock?”

“Are you all right, Miss Doyle?”

“I am fine, Master Holmes.”

The attendants enter and seize the boy from behind.

“Unhand him, gentleman,” says Hemsworth. “I shall take care of this.” The attendants slouch back to the lobby.

“But that scream …”

“It is a frightening show, my boy. Severed heads, live dragons?”

“We are working on a song, Sherlock. There may be,” she smiles at Hemsworth, “a scream involved.”

Holmes doesn’t like that smile.

“I hear you are coming tomorrow, Holmes?”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Well, I am clairvoyant, you know. I read minds, tell the future, that sort of thing.”

“Are you finished, Miss Doyle? Would you like me to accompany you home?”

Holmes hasn’t had a chance to tell Irene about his suspicions. It also occurs to him that she might consider his visit to the police a betrayal, an interference that might destroy her great opportunity. He glances at Hemsworth, who grins back at him.

“We have just begun, Sherlock. You go on. I will see you later.”

What if she is rehearsing with a murderer?

“Are you sure?”

“Please go.”

Holmes doesn’t return to the apothecary shop. He walks toward Irene’s Bloomsbury neighborhood, thinking about all the evidence he has accumulated. Circumstantial or not, it is compelling. Both Lestrades are sure who did it.
Hemsworth is
no fool. He must know that I know. I could tell by the way he looked at me. How on earth does he know we are coming tomorrow night?
The boy reaches Montague Street and waits near a side entrance to the British Museum, watching the front door of the Doyle home on the other side of the street. But he waits in vain. Irene doesn’t appear. Just before midnight, he trudges home.