Vanishing Girl tbsh-3

by Shane Peacock

  Be calm.

  He stops running as he turns onto Great Russell Street. Breathing hard, he walks up to the elegant stone steps of the Roman-looking British Museum and sits down. Think. Quickly, but without error. What must I do?

  What do I know? Two thieves, two carriages, intimate knowledge of the inside and outside of the house, mother with a secret, daughter acting strange, leaving the house on her own. But none of that still seems to go anywhere, so he sets it aside. What else? Think of both crimes. He remembers what Lestrade said when he found Victoria the first time. The culprits had held her somewhere on the southern coast. That tells him little as well. But … what is his instinct saying? Perhaps he can put that together with the facts. He feels there is some connection between Lady Rathbone and the robbery. It would explain the most singular fact about the crime: why the thieves didn’t so much as enter her room. Lady Rathbone … her lover … and that crime … either crime. How do they all go together? His mind slips back to the police information again. A place on the southern coast? He goes from east to west remembering coastal towns and cities. Folkestone? Eastbourne? Brighton? Portsmouth?

  A connection sounds loud and clear.

  Portsmouth…. It’s the home of the Royal Navy.

  Captain Waller.

  Sherlock gets up and heads home.

  Lady Rathbone’s secret lover may very well live in the city where Victoria was held! The police may be flying there now: frantic, Lestrade is surely at the end of his rope. The boy smiles. If the Force indeed found Victoria in Portsmouth, they will hope to pick up the trail there now – but that will be all they have. On the other hand, I may know the identity of the mastermind himself. Waller won’t have left England. He, or anyone else who is holding Victoria, knows she is valuable only if he keeps her in his hands, stays close by. All Sherlock has to do is locate him – a captain, distinguished or not, will be traceable in Portsmouth. Follow him. Perhaps Victoria is hidden in a secret navy location.

  But first, Holmes has to find a way to get there. He cannot walk all the way to Portsmouth.

  He must go back to the shop and tell Sigerson Bell his plans. He wants to get the old man’s blessing to be away this time and perhaps even gain his aid. The apothecary helped him with the Brixton gang case and recently allowed him time to investigate the Rathbones. Even so, this might be going too far. Tomorrow is Monday and a school day, the beginning of the week when Sherlock is particularly needed at work. Nevertheless, he is adamant that this time, he will do things right. He must speak to his friend. Whatever happens, it must be decided immediately.

  The sun is setting as he reaches Denmark Street. The minute he enters the front door to the tinkle of the bell, he senses that something is different. It is strangely silent throughout the shop, especially in the laboratory, but despite the boy’s acute ability to observe, he can’t spot anything out of the ordinary. He simply senses it. Bell is sitting at the wooden lab table, mixing some sort of viscous green liquid with brown. Our Mutual Friend rests by his side.

  Sherlock is ready to explode with his news, lay all his evidence and desires before the old man. But as he opens his mouth, Bell frowns, sets both torts down gently, and puts his finger to his lips, asking for silence. Sherlock looks around again, not understanding what is going on. They both sit quietly for a few minutes, Bell regarding his pocket watch and glancing upwards every now and then, Sherlock standing still, but wanting to pace, to scream out his news. Eventually the boy gets the feeling that there is someone else in the room. He thinks he can even hear a rhythmic breathing. But no one is evident.

  He can’t hold back any longer. He needs to get to Portsmouth. As his lips begin to form his first word, the old man vigorously throws up a hand and gestures with a single digit, demanding just one more moment of silence. He nods toward the ceiling. Sherlock looks up.

  A man is suspended upside down from the part of the lab where its roof peaks to an arch, more than twelve feet high. The boy instantly recognizes him as one of the greatest acrobats in the world. The one and only Thomas Hanlon is hanging from Sigerson Bell’s laboratory ceiling like a bat: he of the spectacular Hanlon-Lees troupe.

  “Good day,” the star says sullenly. He is dressed in a dark suit with a yellow cravat and has black hair, parted in the middle. Though his face is flushed red, he seems perfectly relaxed.

  Sherlock’s heart sinks. He won’t be able to say a word about the case until the acrobat leaves.

  “I have been treating Professor Hanlon for feeling low,” says Bell in a remarkably calm voice, as if he is trying to soothe all three of them. “He was, as you might know, the victim of a horrific accident in America a few years back, during which a portion of his skull was knocked in. He now suffers from depression of the brain. My solution is an injection of ape adrenaline, followed by a good hanging to let it all shake down into the medulla oblongata. You may extricate yourself, Mr. Hanlon.”

  The great gymnast pulls his feet out from the rafters without even reaching up. It seems to take almost no effort at all. In an instant, he is falling, but he twists in the air and lands on the soles of his shoes. He walks calmly toward Bell and deposits a coin on the table.

  “Feeling better, Mr. Hanlon?”

  “A little livelier, yes.” His voice is a monotone.

  “Thinking too much about oneself is part of the disease, sir. It makes an individual morose.”

  “But when one is at the top of one’s profession, one has little time for others. One must dwell on one’s own work, one’s destiny,” says Hanlon. “You wouldn’t understand … though I appreciate your help.”

  The intrepid acrobat leaves the shop.

  “I have my doubts about him, Sherlock,” says the old man, “He has done some sort of irreparable damage to his brain. I give him less than a year to live.”

  “I need to ask you something,” says the boy impatiently.

  “Always ready for interrogation.”

  “It is about the Rathbones.”

  “Ah!”

  “I must ask you if –”

  “I have a question for you first, my boy. Sit down.”

  Sherlock sits, his heels tapping anxiously on the floor.

  “Why do you do these things?”

  The boy doesn’t like the tone of the inquiry. It seems as though the old man may be about to put a stop to his opportunity at the very moment when he most needs his support. Bell opens a door in his glass cabinets, takes down the jar of opium, and looks meaningfully back at Holmes.

  “Uh … uh …”

  “That doesn’t sound like a good reason.”

  “I …”

  “Is it for the attention it may bring you? Is it to help these superior-class folks? Is it really in the cause of justice?” Bell looks over his eyeglasses at Sherlock Holmes, then turns back to the opium jar, seals it up again and returns it to the cabinet.

  “I …” Sherlock begins, and then thinks. “I would like to help a little boy.”

  Sigerson Bell turns sharply back to his apprentice with a look of intrigue.

  “Go on.”

  “There’s a child in a Stepney workhouse, five years of age, by the name of Paul Waller, who needs medical attention to his eyes. He has a terrible, apparently untreatable infection. His corneas are cloudy and his lids are swollen and turned back. They say he will be blind in a week. Lord Rathbone has the power to help him. He can put the boy into the hands of his personal physician, the only man in London, perhaps in Europe, who can cure him. Victoria Rathbone has promised to make her father do it. But … there has been sensational news … she has been kidnapped again!”

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “I have my sources.”

  Sherlock is a bit taken aback, but he goes on.

  “If Miss Rathbone cannot be found, then the little boy will go blind. But … I may know the identity of the fiend we all seek. And I think I can locate him.”

  “And you want to do this for the c
ause of the little boy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That settles it then.”

  “It does?”

  “Whatever you wanted to ask of me, the answer is yes.”

  “It is?”

  “I am guessing that you want to go to the southern coast … Portsmouth?”

  As Sherlock looks at him in disbelief, the old man spins like a whirling dervish and advances toward his little strongbox.

  “Yes, I too would make a devilishly good detective,” he smiles. “The first train available to you is the six o’clock morning express. Fare by the London and South Western Railway will be one pound return. Take this and be off with you.” He hands the boy a couple of coins. “School and this shop shall await anyone with such lofty goals.”

  An idea occurs to Sherlock.

  “Would you come with me, sir?”

  The old man is as agile and alert as a rabbit. He wouldn’t be a burden, and his quick mind would help the boy at every turn of the Portsmouth investigation. There shouldn’t be much danger in this outing, and Sherlock likes the idea of having a companion, especially in the person of his dearest friend.

  But Bell’s answer surprises him.

  “No,” he says instantly, “no, I … uh … I have … work I must do.” He looks like someone who is hiding something. A guilty expression spreads across his face.

  I know he can spare the time. What is he up to? And how did he know about Portsmouth?

  “Now, I would suggest to you that you clean up this shop and then take to your bed. You have much to do in the south, a long day ahead of you. You must be up early and on your way. Shoo!”

  The old man usually rises before the boy in the mornings. Holmes is given to lingering in his wardrobe, pondering his life and then spending a good deal of time at the mirror. Today, Bell is up long before him. Just as Sherlock appears, the apothecary quickly throws a cloth over a vial of liquid ammonia and a shard of yellow sulfur, with which he had obviously been experimenting. He then motions to the table. The boy’s breakfast is already waiting: a display of fried liver and buttermilk arrayed in mortars and tubes. The minute the apprentice has swallowed it, Bell begins rushing him.

  “Now go. Go, go, go!” He says, almost shoving the boy toward the door. But just as Sherlock walks through it, the old man takes him by the arm.

  “Are you sure that you are doing this for the child?”

  Sherlock considers his answer for a few seconds. “Uh … yes, sir.”

  When Holmes is almost all the way down Denmark Street in the cold and bustling London dawn, he glances back at the shop. He isn’t sure, but he can almost swear that the front door is held open a crack and one lens of a pair of field glasses is eyeing him as he walks away.

  Within the hour, Sherlock Holmes is speeding toward the southern coast.

  As the first morning train on the London and South Western Railway from Waterloo Station pulls into the Portsmouth terminal, an hour and a half after departure, Sherlock gets up from his seat and walks toward the doors. He is clutching the backs of the wooden third-class benches, staggering about as the locomotive chugs to a halt, warily watching the passengers, anxious to get out.

  He wants to be down near the dockyard now, the area where the Royal Navy has its barracks, its officers’ mess, its magnificent ships in the Portsmouth Harbour. He is telling himself that he has made the right choice coming here. A southern coastal town? A captain in the navy? That must go together. But he has begun to have doubts. His faulty reasoning in St. Neots still affects his confidence, and all the time he had to think on the train has made him wonder why he is assuming that Waller must be involved in either of the crimes. There is really no sound evidence, just clever guesswork, and he remembers how his father felt about guessing. But Sigerson Bell thought Portsmouth a good choice, too. Why, he isn’t sure. Because it is a city known for its crime, the best of all the port towns for getting away by sea?

  Then he spots something that puts all his doubts on hold.

  There’s a youth, a little older than he, stepping down from the second-class carriage ahead, glancing around in a suspicious manner. Sherlock smiles. The lad wears a beard and mustache. Definitely wears it. Underneath all that hair, Holmes detects a ferret-like face.

  He follows young Lestrade along the platform under the curving glass ceiling, through the beautiful booking office and out of doors. On Station Street, he buys the morning edition of the Portsmouth News from a vendor, something to hold in front of his face should his prey suspect a lurker and look back. Lestrade must be on his way to the very spot where Victoria was found the first time she was kidnapped. He will lead Sherlock right to it! Searching for Captain Waller can wait.

  Lestrade, heading south and slipping in and out of crowds of pedestrians and often glancing back, is sticking to a main thoroughfare, but when Sherlock looks down side streets he sees the tightly packed neighborhoods for which this gray-and-brown city is known. They house its tough, seafaring class. This is where Charles Dickens came from and it seems fitting. There appear to be pubs on every corner, drinking holes for sailors, and a sense of danger hangs in the air.

  Sherlock expects his guide to take him toward the dockyard or into the heart of the city. Instead, he is heading south in the direction of the green Commons and the suburb of Southsea, a newer, middle-class area much more genteel than the center of Portsmouth. It isn’t where one would have expected to find much criminal activity.

  Sherlock starts to think, and this time, it’s a mistake. Suddenly, the junior Lestrade isn’t there. Holmes picks up his pace, anxiously searching the crowds ahead. The streets aren’t nearly as busy here: he can see everyone in front of him, respectably dressed folks bundled up in early winter clothes … and not one of them is his quarry. He approaches a park. Disgusted with himself, he slouches down on a bench.

  “May I be of assistance?”

  Young Lestrade is standing right behind him.

  Sherlock starts. “How … Master Lestrade, nice to see you.”

  How does he do that!

  “On a seaside visit, are you? Perhaps the ferry over to the Isle of Wight?”

  “You know why I am here. We might as well continue our walk. I shan’t cause any troubles. I simply want to see where she was found.”

  “I don’t have the slightest idea what you are talking about.”

  “So, you are on holidays, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “A stroll through lovely Southsea?”

  “Without question.”

  “A walk along the boardwalk?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “In the early winter breezes?”

  “One can’t be choosy.”

  “In disguise?”

  Lestrade doesn’t respond at first. They look out across the park.

  “You must turn around and go back to London, Master Holmes.”

  “I will not.”

  “Oh, but you shall. Or I will call a constable to send you on your way.”

  Lestrade sits down beside him, smiling.

  “What will be the charge? I am causing no harm. But you … you are a boy in disguise. Very suspicious. Does anyone know you here? Perhaps it is I who should call the police?”

  The other boy glowers. “Then I shall notify my father and the detectives who are with him.”

  “Thank you for informing me of the presence of your father in this city, and should you do as you say and speak to him, I will have reason to doubly appreciate you … for you will lead me directly to the scene of the crime…. I assume that is where your father is?”

  “I will not lead you anywhere!”

  “Then … we shall wait.”

  The two boys sit on the park bench for a full half hour without saying a single word. But it is Lestrade who is first to suffer from a case of the twitches, then a distinct coloring in his face. He rises to his feet.

  “All right! You have me … this time!”

  “Master Lestrade, you cou
ld simply return home and I would be none the wiser as to the location of the scene.”

  “You know I don’t want to do that! You know I want to be part of this!”

  “Yes, I do. Who wouldn’t?”

  “Here is the deal we shall strike. You may follow me, but only at a distance. You must not enter the building, and you must not speak to my father or let him see that you are in the city. Your presence will be our little secret.”

  “Agreed.”

  “This thoroughfare is called King’s Road. In about five minutes we will turn off it and go downhill in the direction of the water. Our destination is a small street called Bush Villas, the address is number one. I shan’t speak to you or see you again in Portsmouth or anywhere nearby. Good day.”

  He stalks away at a great pace.

  Sherlock keeps him in sight, but slows when they near the crime scene for he sees the lean figure of Inspector Lestrade far ahead, coming out the front door of a three-storey brick home. The detective’s son nods to his father and enters the house, glancing furtively back to make sure Holmes is nowhere in sight. He has stopped in the alcove of a church nearby and is considering how to proceed. All is fair in love and crime. The English Channel isn’t far away and a cool breeze wafts in from the water. Gulls cry above.

  This is a strange neighborhood indeed, in which to keep a kidnapped girl. Instead of hiding her where all sorts of skullduggery is a daily occurrence, where one could vanish into the snaking streets and alleys and hole up in a grimy, little flat, where grappling with a struggling victim wouldn’t make a scene or cause others to run to her aid, where lips are sealed … they chose this middle-class area with it’s wide-open vistas. Why?

  What if she wasn’t struggling?

  Lestrade is speaking to a man in a suit with a checked waistcoat, who carries a top hat and walking stick. The detective shakes the man’s hand and sends him on his way, then reenters the house. Sherlock steps out from the safety of the church and approaches number one Bush Villas. From a first-floor window, the younger Lestrade spots him and frantically motions for him to leave. But Sherlock is watching the well-dressed gentleman briskly pacing away, regarding the other houses as he goes, heading not into Portsmouth central, but toward the wealthier residential areas in Southsea.