Becoming Holmes

by Shane Peacock

  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

  Sherlock 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 –”

  “Sir, you need not convey your thoughts on that subject in such rich, descriptive words.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “You heard everything?”

  “Oh, yes, everything, even that last part that you spoke out loud to yourself. But I believe I cut you short. You had more to say, did you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, your further plans are?”

  Sherlock is reluctant to tell him. It is enough that the sickly old man was following Malefactor and the dangerous Crew through London to the shop. But then Sigerson Bell begins to cough. He retches for almost a minute, holding his handkerchief up to his mouth, hiding the liquid that he ejects into it. Sherlock moves toward the spiral staircase, looking up at his master. He wishes he could at least put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him. He had done so just a week or so ago during another coughing fit. Bell had felt alarmingly bony and his skin had been hot and wet through his shirt.

  My master is dying. I love him. He is thrilled by what I am going to do with my life. He has always, in his own way, wanted to be part of it. He will be dead very soon.

  “Sir, let me tell you what I am planning.”

  The old man stops coughing and looks down at Sherlock with a suddenly resplendent expression.

  “You read my note about what transpired last night and you burned it, I believe?”

  “Indeed!” Bell is veritably glowing, leaning slightly forward as if to urge more information out of his ward.

  “As you heard, while I spoke out loud to myself, I am now sure that Malefactor is not aware that I suspect he knows Sir Ramsay Stonefield’s secret. He and his closest associates were not on the streets of Hounslow last night.”

  “Yes, that was very clever, my young knight! You drew that out of him without his detecting it! Brilliant!”

  “Thank you, sir, it was a trifle.” Sherlock is surprised to feel his face glowing. “That information combined with an incomplete theory I have has hatched my next move.”

  “You are going back to Hounslow in the small hours of the morning!”

  Sherlock pauses. Bell has done it again. He has veritably read the boy’s thoughts, and not just his thoughts, but rather involved plans that he hadn’t assumed the old man would follow. But this is not new.

  “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  “My secret entrance will come into play concerning that, but go on.”

  “Something worried me about what I saw last night, and it had nothing to do with simply discovering that Stonefield has a secret. It is the fact that this secret is not exactly what it seems.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because they are both sad.”

  “They?”

  “Sir Ramsay and his wife. I do not think that this secret is just his. I think it is somehow theirs, together.”

  “So, that is why you must go back!”

  “Precisely. This is not a matter of simply being aware that Malefactor knows Stonefield has a woman on the side. If it were so, then my only task would be to, first, bring Grimsby down, and then perhaps to expose the Governor as a cad.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t do that. None of your business, sir! Gentleman must be allowed such things.”

  “I’m not sure I agree, but nevertheless, he may not be such a cad after all. I must go back and find out just exactly what this is about. That and that alone will lead me to what I will do next. It is the key to everything I must undertake.”

  “And so, I give you my secret entrance! You must use it. You cannot go out our front door. You must slip out the back!”

  “That is an excellent suggestion, sir, but not enough.”

  “Not enough?”

  “I must be in disguise as well. Who knows what sort of surveillance Malefactor has in place. He is desperate to protect Grimsby’s position at the Treasury, anxious to push him forward very soon. He will want to know exactly what I know. Going out a back entrance will help, but if I go out as myself, someone will see me in the streets before too long. The very letterboxes will be watching.”

  “You could go dressed as Sigerson Bell again!”

  “We must not repeat ourselves.”

  “Then what?”

  “You have an unusual array of clothing, sir.”

  Sigerson Bell has been known to dress in some of the strangest apparel in London, and that is saying something. A red fez, a green greatcoat, a pink Egyptian robe, loincloths, fighting leotards, and some of the most colorful nightshirts on the earth hang in his wardrobe. Or lie in piles at the bottom of it.

  “I do?”

  “Let us take a look at all of them.”

  Moments later, the old man is throwing every spot of clothing he owns down the spiral staircase toward the boy. It is indeed a remarkable collection. Not only do the spectacular nightshirts, fezes, greatcoats, leotards, and robes descend, but there are many items that look to have been featured in costume balls, including crowns, furs, and a few dresses (the boy doesn’t ask). But one item, which billows in the air and takes a long time getting to the bottom of the stairs, catches Sherlock’s eye.

  “What is this?” he asks, holding the massive piece of material up to the old man, who slides his face over and peers down from above.

  “Just the Fat Man’s trousers,” he says and yawns.

  “A fat man?”

  “No, no, no, not a fat man, the Fat Man. Oberon Obese, they called him. He weighed more than fifty stone in his heyday. That is rather large, my boy. He ca
me to me in retirement, asking to shed some flesh. I managed, through skillful control of his diet and a regimen of exercise, to cut him in half, down to a svelte, how would your generation put it, 350 or so pounds? He gave me his trousers as a souvenir.”

  “And you kept them?”

  “Of course! Why not?”

  “Yes.” Sherlock smiles. “Why not?” He looks up at his master. “I have an idea.”

  9

  A DEEPER SECRET

  Sherlock Holmes doesn’t attend Snowfields School every day any more. There is little that they can teach him now. He has had the best grades in this working-class institution near the London Bridge Railway Station since the day he entered it and lately has been applying himself like an addict in an East London den to his opium. He has been a pupil-teacher for two years and has been urged to take his papers to become a full-fledged teacher. His headmaster assures him that he could someday helm the school. But Holmes has informed him that he has other, undisclosed ambitions that involve his attending one of England’s best universities. Though the headmaster has come to admire Sherlock Holmes a great deal, he wonders how a half-Jew in a lowly school, however brilliant, can even consider the idea of being an Oxford or Cambridge man. Both schools have only recently allowed Jews admission, and the poor, of course, never attend. But not wanting to discourage his prize pupil, the master is tutoring him in advanced subjects required at the great schools. This is being given twice a week in exchange for three days of Holmes’s own tutoring of Snowfields’ most accomplished students.

  Sherlock is scheduled to be at school the morning after Malefactor’s appearance in the shop. His enemy will know if he does not attend. Crew or others (or perhaps the letterboxes) will not only be watching the shop’s front door, but all of Denmark Street, the adjoining arteries, and probably the boy’s entire route to Snowfields.