Becoming Holmes

by Shane Peacock

  “What if I unleashed this thing?” It makes him smile, and then his smile broadens. “What if I set it upon Sherlock Holmes?”

  “Sir, I don’t feel much like eating,” says Sherlock to Sigerson Bell. As he does, his eyes rest on the newspapers with their black headlines. “I cannot believe that!”

  “Yes, well, you know, Dickens was not God.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Though he wrote like Him, told us about life, real life. He was a little like Mercury.”

  “A messenger?”

  “Indeed, but a very human one for someone with an Olympian ear, a flawed chap, I hear. Had a mistress and a temper and could be rather cold.”

  “We are all flawed, deeply flawed. There is so much evil –”

  “You are such a sunny chap, my boy. Might you say something, anything, that is not sad, just once!”

  Sigerson Bell’s voice is rising, his face turning red. But then he begins to cough and cannot stop. It rumbles in his lungs and growls in his larynx and something comes up his throat. He reaches for a handkerchief and catches it, wrapping the cloth close to his mouth, but not close enough to hide the red liquid that escapes.

  “And now this!” cries Sherlock, staring at the handkerchief.

  The old man stops coughing instantly. He glares at his ward. “I have had enough of you, Sherlock Holmes, you and your concern for yourself! The world changes, my boy. People die and others are born. The only constant is change! We must face it like men! Do you think that Charles Dickens groaned about in his chair all day, bemoaning his fate? No, he got on with it! He worked! If you do not stop this, you shall expire before you are a help to anyone! If you keep up these black moods, they shall plague you all your life!”

  “What would you have me do?” says the boy, and for the first time in his life he speaks to Sigerson Bell with sarcasm dripping from his words.

  “I would have you get up off your arse!”

  “My arse?”

  “Before I kick it from here to Buckingham Palace!”

  “You … you are right, sir. I have things to do here today.”

  “No! You do not!”

  “I do not?”

  “You are going out that door! Leave me! Now!”

  With that, the old man actually seizes the boy by his collar, raises him to his feet, and kicks him in the arse. Sherlock almost runs to the door and out. As he stands under a gaslight on the foot pavement on Denmark Street, a few working-class folk rushing past in the still-dark morning, he can’t reach down and summon any courage. He still feels sorry for himself. His master has literally kicked him out. Will he ever welcome him back? Sherlock feels dead inside – absolutely alone and unloved.

  So, he makes up his mind to do something he never dreamed he would. Unable to return to the shop, he decides to go to Whitehall to Her Majesty’s Treasury, the Office of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to see the only living person who shares his very blood, who might care for him.

  Back in the apothecary shop, Sigerson Bell begins to cough again. This time, the red sputum almost fills his handkerchief.

  Sherlock slouches down Denmark Street toward central London and the river, passing those imaginary black mourning ribbons on shops, early folk on their way to workplaces, and newsboys scurrying toward their accustomed spots with bundles of papers in their arms, ready to shout the news of Dickens’s funeral arrangements to the masses.

  Holmes is six feet tall now, and his voice has dropped an octave since January. Next year, I will be seventeen years old, and the following season, by hook or by crook, studying at a university. Then, I can pursue my calling. But as he walks, a chilling feeling descends upon him. He wonders if he will ever achieve his dreams. Death is not just nearby, he thinks, it is fast approaching me. He knows it. It is like a message from God.

  To the east, north, west, and south, Sherlock Holmes’s enemies are awake and plotting.

  Everything is about to change, forever.

  2

  THE NEW MAN AT THE TREASURY

  Sherlock Holmes has made the trip from the shop to Whitehall Street many times. It takes him south down modest Crown Street past a granite workhouse, into bustling Trafalgar Square, and then along the river to that famous wide street with its government buildings. But he usually stops before he gets to the offices that line it, all tall and imposing, mostly white and stone, the Prime Minister’s residence and Westminster Palace nearby. His destination is usually where sprawling Scotland Yard sits tucked back from the thoroughfare, and he often approaches from the north side to be inconspicuous. Inspector Lestrade likes to have him chased away. But as Sherlock looks across at police headquarters today, he actually smiles. His opponent has recently retired, making room for a place at the bottom of the detective pole for his ambitious son.

  The boy contemplates young Lestrade for a moment. Is he the one? Would he be that one male companion that Sherlock needs in life, helping him fight crime? He dismisses the idea. Lestrade will be a conventional detective, his methods those of his father and the unimaginative Force. I must be an irregular, independent, my ways new and daring; illegal, if need be.

  At this very minute, the little man in the barren house to the north, the villain with the murderous thoughts, is putting on his strange clothing for the day. He too will soon walk south toward Whitehall. He has no mirror with which to examine his adjusted appearance. But he doesn’t care. He knows he is ugly, even in these respectable clothes. Any joy he gets from life never comes from his appearance but from what he can do to others, what he can gain by cunning and brutality. But this morning an awful feeling is overwhelming him. When he looks through his windows, he also sees the imaginary dark ribbons on the buildings outside. He worries about what the boss has asked him to do, and feels his days are numbered. Death is all around him too.

  Big Ben chimes five. More working-class folk are on the streets now: milk women, dustmen, charwomen, costermongers readying their wares on two-wheeled wagons, grooms driving horse and carriages, and humble people in the uniforms of the domestic service. Sherlock dares to sit for a moment on the steps of the Admiralty. The fog has not entirely lifted yet.

  What will become of me when Mr. Bell dies? If young Lestrade can’t be my confidant, then who can be? Not a woman; I cannot put her in danger. It should be someone clever, though not as ingenious as me, for I must make myself smarter than the encyclopedias on the shop shelves. A man skilled in science, yes, with some courage, who would listen to me, ordinary but not too ordinary; loyal and dedicated to my cause, but with his own profession. I must be the boss. An idea comes to him. What about a writer? One who could record my cases, spread my fame, and frighten criminals. Doesn’t that make sense? He balks at it. I cannot do this for fame. But then he reconsiders. What if he wasn’t a real writer, just a direct man who can tell the truth?

  Further thoughts are arrested by the sight of his brother waddling up Whitehall toward him in suit and cravat, tall top hat on his head, walking stick pacing the foot pavement, also deep in thought. A little pudgy and over six feet tall, he is the first respectable man Sherlock has seen.

  “Mycroft?”

  His older brother almost falls over at the sight of him.

  “Sherlock? I … I …”

  “You are early.”

  “Yes, well, the early bird gets the worm, especially if such an ornithological creature is of half-Hebraic heritage and worms are not offered to him. What are you doing here?”

  “You said you would host a visit from me.”

  Mycroft glances up and down the street. None of his colleagues are in sight yet. “Yes, I did, didn’t I? I suppose you never actually send round your card first?”

  “Shall we go in?”

  “Well, perhaps … not yet. There is a lovely establishment nearby that will give us morning tea. Shall we?” He gestures down the street. Big Ben has not yet chimed six.

  They are soon huddled together at a small table in an inn, all wood and cigar s
moke and ale, uncomfortably close to one another. Sherlock loves to apply penetrating stares to suspects to break down their identities, but neither he nor his brother is given to looking into the other’s eyes. If the younger sibling is searching for someone with whom to commiserate, he has come to the wrong man. Mycroft is brisk in his manner and evasive of anything like warm emotions. He introduces the subject of their parents immediately, as if to deal with it and be done with it, mentioning that, statistically, they have been orphaned at an advanced age and have nothing to complain about. It makes Sherlock feel as though he has been acting and thinking like a coward. Still, he cannot shake his sense of impending doom, but he tries to control it.

  “I must say that I am impressed with your ambition to be a professional fighter of crime.”

  “You are?”

  “Indeed. A career in the police department is admirable.”

  “I will not be a policeman.”

  “Pardon me? Surely this stumbling about on your own and helping to collar the odd bad man independently is not a way to proceed professionally.”

  Sherlock has revealed few details to him about his cases. As far as his brother knows, he was very much on the periphery of such investigations as the Whitechapel murder, the Rathbone kidnapping, and the Hemsworth-Nottingham affair.

  “It was more than stumbling about.”

  “But, Sherlock, you are a mere child.”

  “I am sixteen years old. I am almost ready to become a professional.”

  “No more schooling?”

  “I am preparing for university. I hope to attend somewhere, and then return to London.”

  “University? That will be tricky.”

  “I have a plan, God willing.”

  “God willing? Concerned about mortality at your age, are you, Sherlock?”

  “One never knows.”

  “But why do you need higher education? Surely police training will be enough for –”

  “I told you, I do not want to be a policeman. I hope to be a detective.”

  “Yes, well, the Force has a department for that now, you know.”

  “A private detective, a consulting one.”

  “Private? Consulting? Never heard of –”

  “An irregular; I must do what others cannot.”

  “You are ambitious, Sherlock.”

  “And you are not?”

  “I will do what a half-Jew must do to have influence. I will rise quietly and subtly, but rise nevertheless, at the seat of real power.”

  “The Chancellor of the Exchequer?”

  “To start with; then I will find my way upward in other departments even more important to our empire’s policy and security. But the Treasury, you know, is in charge of the money. Control that, and you control a great deal.” He smiles.

  Mycroft had begun as an errand boy. Just as brilliant and ambitious as Sherlock, he intends to one day pull important strings from behind the scenes. Unlike his younger brother, he has no appetite for attention.

  They sink into silence and find it difficult to know what to say to each other. Despite what they have in common in terms of brains, drive, and blood, there is little they can share when it comes to small talk. They sip their tea awkwardly, seeking the bottom of their last cups.

  The little man who dreams of killing Sherlock Holmes is approaching, making his way to work well ahead of arrival time, as he has been told to do. He is thinking about his boss. “He ’as big plans this time, ’e does, biggest ever,” he murmurs out loud. “There’s something behind it that ’e is keeping from me. There’s a murder ’e is planning too, very soon, I figures. But ’e won’t let me do it; ’e’ll let Crew. Fat pig.”

  Back at morning tea in Whitehall, Sherlock offers his older brother a question to kill the final few moments of their get-together.

  “And so, how goes the business of the Treasury?”

  “In the black, my boy, and running like clockwork. Speaking of which, I must be getting back.” He gets to his feet.

  “And you, Mycroft, how are you making out in your own particular corner there?”

  “Everything according to plan; I have my own office now.”

  Mycroft drops a few coins on the little table and ushers Sherlock out the door. The bell tinkles as they leave.

  “So, no worries?”

  “No, Sherlock, none, though I cannot say that for all my colleagues.”

  “Oh?”

  “There have been a few surprising dismissals of late.” They turn the corner into Whitehall Street and walk at a brisk pace. The magnificent Treasury building nears, tall and long, pillared and elegant. “And the dismissed have been replaced by especially surprising chaps.”

  There is still half a block to go.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, one young man, whose qualifications I must say I doubt, has been placed in a rather delicate and powerful role at the Treasury for a new employee. He shall have some say over funds allocated to the London police; this, right off the hop, to a neophyte. I find it bloody dangerous.”

  “Curious.”

  “Indeed,” Mycroft frowns. “His superior is an elderly man, and this young fellow is one of several who could have his position soon! He could exercise some control over our police force within a year or so.” Inwardly, Sherlock is smiling, enjoying his big brother’s evident jealousy. They say nothing for the next minute, their pace increasing, Mycroft’s walking stick leading them quickly toward the Treasury’s front steps.

  “Ah!” he says suddenly, looking away just as Sherlock is hoping he will extend his hand to shake good-bye. He lowers his voice. “There he is! The very man!”

  Mycroft is motioning with a nod of his head to someone walking briskly up the wide stone steps. It is barely seven o’clock, so this fellow is obviously ambitious too, almost as driven as one Mycroft Holmes.

  Sherlock looks across at the man. He is very short but wears a pin-striped suit with cravat, a black bowler hat, black hair greased back underneath, and new spectacles glistening in the mid-June morning sun. He sports black kid gloves, sparkling black shoes, and carries an expensive umbrella, though there is little evidence of threatening rain. The suit is slightly ill-fitting and somehow hangs uncomfortably on him. It is almost as if he were wearing a costume. The little man notices that he is being observed. He turns and looks directly at the Holmes brothers. When he does, Sherlock nearly collapses.

  It is Grimsby!

  3

  HIS WAY IN

  The boy is too stunned to say another word to his brother. He takes Mycroft’s hand and shakes it, not even hearing his farewell, then stumbles away. He needs to talk to someone he can trust about this, now. There is only one person in whom he can confide.

  But will Sigerson Bell even let him back into his shop?

  The apothecary is actually waiting at the door, peeking out the window, then pacing, wringing his hands, aghast that he actually thrust his dear boy out the door, literally kicking him in his arse. He is praying for his return. “I should not have been so cantankerous! So curmudgeonly! So supercilious!” he mutters. The sight of the boy through the bulging latticed windows nearly makes him jump up and down. He flings open the door. Sherlock has been wondering if he should knock. They begin apologizing to each other simultaneously. It arrests them into silence. The old man looks longingly into the boy’s eyes and immediately sees something there, a light trying to emerge under the sadness.

  “Aha!” cries Bell.

  “Aha?”

  “You are stimulated by something!”

  “Yes, well, something decidedly odd has happened, very odd indeed.”

  “Step into my laboratory and we shall converse!”

  Moments later Sherlock has reacquainted the old man with just exactly who Grimsby is and the fact that he now appears to be employed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to help oversee funds allocated to the Metropolitan London Police. The apothecary knows that Holmes deeply despises the little str
eet thug, and not just because he is his great enemy’s lieutenant.

  “Ah, he has his hands on our taxes! I must say, a rather meteoric rise from thieving in the streets of London to thieving for the government!” Bell grins. “He has switched positions. He is now stealing from the poor to give to the rich!”

  “Sir, I don’t think we should treat this lightly.”

  “Of course not,” says the apothecary, feeling a little sheepish.

  “I smell a rat.”

  “I would pluralize that! There is a rather larger one at work here too, boss to this Grimsby, who used to live on the streets with his fellow Rodentia, exceeding six feet tall and wearing a tailcoat.”

  “Indeed.”

  “But Malefactor has disappeared. You haven’t seen him for nearly a year and then only briefly. He spoke of attending a university, did he not? Becoming respectable?”

  “In order to be more effective.”

  “It appears that is now the case. He is infiltrating our government! But this Grimsby chap is not too highly placed yet, is he?”

  “He may be second in command.”

  “Second? Oh dear. Well, at least he isn’t first.”

  But Sherlock Holmes doesn’t respond. A sudden, disturbing thought has overcome him. What if Grimsby’s elderly superior were to soon meet with an unfortunate accident? Malefactor could get one of his thugs to make that happen with ease, without a whiff of suspicion. They WILL make that happen. Sherlock has a burning desire to run to the Treasury, throw Grimsby to the ground, disable him, and force from him whatever secrets he and his evil boss are holding. The infiltration of the police force will be preceded by murder. The boy is becoming aware that these things are not simply future dreams in Malefactor’s teeming brain. They are at hand.

  “Someone should look into this,” says Sigerson Bell, glancing away.