by Lyndsay Faye
Holmes formed a sudden acute interest in the mantel clock. “If you prefer—”
“I should prefer nothing more in the world! Let us hear it.”
Still he hesitated, uncharacteristically doubtful of his own scheme. “It’s not too late to make it to Covent Garden if you dress quickly, and Aïda is supposedly—”
“Heavens no—my nerves are as tight as your fiddle strings and my bones ache whenever I shift a muscle. Bring me a little brandy and lemon if you would, and tell me how you came to meet that remarkable Sherman fellow.”
Wordlessly, though his brow cleared, Holmes hopped to his feet and took his time in procuring a pair of toddies. I was quite myself again when he returned, settling on a cushion with his back to the sofa and his long legs stretched before him as he flipped through the case file.
“Well, then. I have mentioned,” said he whilst lighting his pipe, “that in the period before I found myself possessed of a biographer to trumpet my name, I spent much of my time in the British Museum. They were good days, but they were, as was quite usual for me, rather solitary and desultory. You know that, saving yourself, I have no knack for camaraderie, but far more vexing was the fact I had no template of consulting detectives before me so that I might follow their course of study. It was a pretty conundrum which went hand in glove with inventing my own profession. You see, I’d no idea what sort of information would prove essential in future. Anyone who observed me there might have told you I was an intellectual wastrel, or else a helpless idiot, for I skipped from topic to topic like a butterfly, memorizing mammalian footmarks and types of rope and the Thames’s tidal schedule. I often wearied of being cooped up indoors, and that is when I hit upon creating a comprehensive mental map of London’s streets.”
“I perennially wonder how you formed one in the first place, let alone keep it up to date.”
The detective’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “If you prefer that I learn the solar system . . .”
“Good Lord, no. We should have perished several times over if not for your knowledge of winding little crevices. Pray go on.”
“I was memorizing Lambeth in April.” My friend’s voice had grown almost wistful; he has an iron nature, but if there is one subject upon which he speaks romantically, other than music, it is London, for he adores the place. “The sawyers’ mills, the barges bobbing on the bloated river, the stately pleasure gardens, Westminster Palace looming across the water. I had good reason to focus upon that area. According to the papers, a disproportionate number of robberies had taken place there recently and, as a fledgling investigator, I wanted a look at the houses which had been targeted.
“I walked past each in turn—Union Road, Larkhall Lane, Gaskell Street. They were quite innocuous dwellings, with freshly doused steps and budding flowers in the window boxes, modestly well-off but far from wealthy. Noting the dearth of scratches around the door locks, I inferred that the cracksmen involved were far from inexperienced. But this seemed a futile enough lead, and I had no pretext to offer the residents when requesting an interview. It was trying, Watson. Save for the fact I felt about these crime scenes as a child would staring at sweets through a window, I could do nothing but play the gawking loafer.”
“A part which has availed you well since, at the least.”
“True enough. Just a moment. You know how I loathe dining on Tuesdays—ought I tell Mrs. Hudson it shall be hot soup for you at eight? Capital. Anyhow, I had moved along and canvassed most of Vauxhall when I arrived at the queer address to which I sent you for Toby. The road was Pinchin Lane, and the most extraordinary commotion was occurring outside number three.
“ ‘You daren’t cross us, Tom Sherman! Let us in!’ a great brute of a fellow boomed as he shook his fist at the dingy red brick building. A little ginger-headed chap huddled close by, and something about him seemed equally menacing even as he cringed. The pair of them appeared coarse and cruel in a way that the merely impoverished never do despite all of them being customarily clad in the same rough wool and thick-soled boots.
“ ‘This ’ere wiper says you’ll not cross me neither!’ the resident of the first floor shrieked from above, waving a brown burlap sack in his fist. ‘This wiper is a particular friend o’ mine, d’ye hear me? None closer! He’s as good as me brother! And he’ll be biting the pair o’ you in the face if you don’t shove off. I’ll drop ’im on yer pates quick as blinking!”
Laughing heartily at my friend’s mimicry skills, I took a sip of hot brandy and lemon. The fire crackled nicely by now, and—owing to the fact that Sherlock Holmes almost never bothers with such mundane activities as lighting all the lamps—the room seemed in its subtle difference of illumination to have an almost theatrically homelike effect. I settled farther back into my nest of cushions and adjusted the afghan over my legs.
“Old Sherman and his bag of ‘wipers,’ ” I reflected. “I remember it as if I’d met him yesterday.”
“Piquant, is it not?”
“Decidedly. I’d never seen such a display in my life.”
“I’ll admit that when I sent you to him, knowing your spirit of adventure as I do, I hoped you’d be treated to the usual performance.”
“Very kind of you. Although when he threatened to throw serpents on my head, he at least did me the gentlemanly courtesy of offering to first count to three,” I added, chuckling.
“You may well laugh, my dear Watson,” Holmes returned with feigned asperity. “You had my name to offer as a password. Here I was, an aspiring detective stumbling upon a live housebreaking. Were I to walk away, I should never regain my confidence. Were I to approach, vipers would fall from the very heavens.”
My friend Sherlock Holmes, who pretends to fear nothing between Southwark and the Sahara, almost visibly cringes at the mere mention of snakes. He reserves the word itself for the most vile of epithets directed at the most degraded of criminals. On the unforgettable occasion when we kept vigil at Stoke Moran, I quite feared that the strain before he finally glimpsed the swamp adder would do him permanent mental harm. When he did spy the venomous creature, he lashed at it as if a demon had been loosed from Hell itself and he were trying to drive it back again. I would twit him over this quirk, but, as it is endearingly uncharacteristic, I instead keep my peace.
I observed, “Of course you approached them.”
Holmes tapped his pipe stem against his prominent chin as he smiled at the memory. “Naturally. It was irresistible. The creeping little chap, I soon learned, went by Jack o’ the Devil for his scarlet pate, and the gigantic lout was called Plaid Charlie. So many different plaids never have I seen on a single man at once, Watson—waistcoat, trousers, jacket, tie, all different colors and patterns to boot—and he weighed at least three stone more than I ever have. He also wore a cracked bowler over bushy black side-whiskers, and, when he saw me, he grinned as if happy at the chance of a fresh fight.
“ ‘What’s this, then? A toff on the lookout for a free hiding?’ he leered, showing rather less than a perfect roster of teeth.
“ ‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ said I. ‘I merely lacked a plaid undershirt, and wondered whether you might assist me in procuring one.’
“As Plaid Charlie’s nostrils flared like a bull’s, I studied my options other than pugilism, and my eyes lit upon Old Tom Sherman hanging out of his window. He’s a gaunt chap, you’ll recall, and seemed composed of sticks and strings, with a much-pleated neck like a leathery curtain and spectacles tinted an eccentric shade of Prussian blue, though his hair back then was a sandy brown color. Then I spied the display upon the lower story and gaped at the taxidermy in various stages of slaughtering one another. The panorama was violent, delirious, like nothing I’d ever imagined. You saw it for yourself—within the dried moss and grasses and tree branches was set a mongoose killing a snake, an owl sinking its claws into a stoat, a ferret carrying a baby rabbit.”
“Yes, and
a hawk snatching up a pretty blue and green lizard of a species I’ve never seen in any museum. It did seem a more exotic ode to Nature’s whims than I should have expected in that oddly whimsical house.”
“Quite so.” Sherlock Holmes set his pipe aside on the case file and drew one leg up with his hands clasped around his shin, reminiscing. “Well, I asked myself whether I was a detective or a toff, as Plaid Charlie would have it, and I chose the former, asking Old Sherman his name and why these men were troubling him.”
“ ‘They’re both blackguards, that’s why!’ Sherman howled. ‘Troubling decent folk is a blackguard’s stock in trade, innit now? That there’s Plaid Charlie and Jack o’ the Devil come to do me injury, and I a civilized naturalist defending me ’ome!’
“ ‘Oh, how cruel to say that!’
“Jack o’ the Devil finally spoke, removing a filthy beaver hat to reveal more of his fiery hair and an extraordinarily broad smile. I’ve scarce ever encountered such a repulsive individual, Watson, and you will concede that I meet more than my share of that sort. His voice was highly unnerving—a mixture of the pleading and the invidious, grating through his throat—and he bowed repeatedly up and down. He meant the motion to be coaxing, I imagine, but in fact it was intensely disturbing. I was reminded of a wicked marionette with a tuft of red yarn attached to its wooden pate and a queerly wide grin painted across its face, bobbing about a miniature stage.
“ ‘Don’t even think that, Old Sherman, for all yer old partner wants is a word or two. Don’t break me ’eart so, I beg. ’Tisn’t Christian of ye.’
“ ‘This man is your partner?’ I called up, attempting not to note how loosely Mr. Sherman held his bag and the prisoner within.
“ ‘Former partner!’ shrieked the proprietor. ‘The wretch was sacked! The villain was sent packin’ and I meant it to be fer good and all. Watch the wiper, for ’ere she comes!’ ”
My friend smiled ruefully. “At this juncture, Watson, matters were growing a trifle unfriendly, and nary a constable in sight. As I had been memorizing less than harmonious neighborhoods, I was armed with a weighted stick, and thus I decided that the best course would be to adopt a more forceful manner.”
For my own part, I failed to picture Sherlock Holmes as anything less than forceful, but bade him continue.
“ ‘You are obviously unwelcome,’ I called out. ‘Be off before I whistle for reinforcements—I am a plainclothes detective inspector, and were I not already engaged, I should have you in darbies.’
“ ‘Oh ho!’ cried Plaid Charlie. ‘You, a ’tec! And I’m Mary Magdalene!’ ”
“As you can imagine, Watson, it was immensely flattering that, even at such an early age, no one could possibly confuse me with a Yard inspector. The memory still gratifies me. But while I thanked him in my heart, I sought to lend my story some credence and nevertheless advanced, my walking stick at the ready.
“ ‘I’ve business of my own to see to,’ I repeated to Plaid Charlie. ‘However, I observe that, while your attire is sagged at the knees and elbows and your boots are cracking, your cravat is made of fine silk and fastened with a Celtic-patterned gold tiepin matching the description of an item stolen from Exton Street not two days hence. Your cowering companion, despite his similarly shabby togs, is wearing ivory kidskin gloves which I should wager have been worn twice at most, if the cleanliness of the fingertips is any indication. Given the evidence against you, I suggest you bless your maker for a few more days of freedom and get out of my sight.’
“ ‘What if,’ Plaid Charlie snarled, ‘we thought that snuffing yer lights ’ere and now was a better lay, you scrawny jack?’
“At this time, he deemed it best to take a swing at me. I’ve no doubt he could have taken my head clean off, Doctor, save for the fact that I had been studying defensive techniques, and that large brutes often severely underestimate their opponents; for the first time, I congratulated myself on my choice of at least one of my studies, for aptitude with a singlestick proved then and there to have been a prudent selection. A snapping block with the cane followed by a left hook and then a sweep under his leg laid him out in the street. But I knew it could not be for long and glanced back to find Sherman. He stood in the now-unlocked doorway wildly beckoning me to come inside.
“This seemed wisdom despite my callow hubris, so I dashed for shelter. As I went, however, I heard a terrible hissing voice calling, ‘Your name then, Inspector, for this affront will haunt you.’ It was Jack o’ the Devil, and a shiver runs through me whenever I recall it.
“Stopping on the threshold, I lit on the name of the only detective inspector I had ever consulted with and cried out, ‘You’ll rue the day you crossed Athelney Jones!’ ”
Holmes paused in his narrative, either because his sense of timing is so apt or because I was laughing so hard I could scarce breathe—laughter which turned quickly into wheezing, which led to coughing, which led to some concern on my friend’s part. The fit would not seem to pass, but I could not regret it, so preferable did the ache in my lungs feel to my former sullen misery. Water was fetched, and sipped.
“My God, it’s priceless. How old were you?” I managed finally.
The faint flush which praise always brings to Holmes’s thin face had appeared. He resumed his perch on the floor before my knees and rested an elbow on the settee’s edge with an impish twinkle in his gaze.
“Twenty-two. Ridiculous, was I not?”
“I shall defer answering. Come, what did you think of Sherman’s shop?”
Holmes shook his head. “You’ve seen that magical menagerie, Watson. It had not changed in the interim and still has not to this day. All the walls were lined with cages, a veritable zoo, and several of the beasts within reared up at the appearance of a stranger. The tables were littered with the macabre tools of the taxidermist—sewing needles and skinning knives and mysterious awls—and the air was pungent with chemicals and manure, but for all these defects it was incongruously cheerful. Well, perhaps some would not say so. Still, my young self was rather taken with the place. Perhaps I thought it as odd as I was. I recall a monkey chattered from the rafters, disturbing the dozen or so plumed birds who also resided there, a pair of conjoined twin weasels bared their teeth and hissed as one at me, and what appeared to be a tamed fox shied away upstairs at my approach.
“ ‘Where, then, is the viper?’ I asked with due caution after Sherman had bolted us safe within.
“ ‘Cor, he’s only a corn snake—there’s no harm in ’im, sir, no harm in the world. ’E’s as gentle as that wee bunny yonder. And I’d not risk ’im harming ’imself in a fall fer all the world. But if you wave a wiper, it gets ’em to thinking, supposing as they try to muscle you, eh?’
“It was on my lips to question this reasoning further when a stair creaked from on high and a small woman—very small, almost a child’s size, but well over forty years in age—came shuffling down from the living quarters. She was dressed as plainly as Mr. Sherman, with a cloud of auburn hair streaked with grey and gleaming brown eyes, and she held in her arms a beautiful mottled spaniel pup.
“ ‘It’s all right, luv,’ Mr. Sherman called to his wife, for so she was, ‘you can come down. It’s safe enough now, and the door bolted and all. This young inspector ’ere drove the wolves away.’ ”
“There is a Mrs. Sherman?”
“No, but there was.” Holmes cast a glance to ensure I was at ease; I smiled encouragingly. “You would have liked her, Watson. In any case, the pup she was holding had escaped and was sniffing my trouser legs and boots, doubtless learning as much as it could of the streets I’d been walking for hours, when Mr. Sherman remarked, ‘You don’t look like any policeman as I ever saw, sir. But you’ll be wantin’ to know what that row signified?’
“I succumbed to base temptation and said yes, and here is what Old Sherman told me: Jack o’ the Devil had once been his assistant at bird-stuf
fing. As repellent a man as he was, he was deft at the work, and business was thriving enough to make him quite valuable. Old Sherman had something of a reputation for dramatic staging, which led to both local and mail orders. Whenever a request came in for a fowl, Jack would do the more menial dressing with tremendous skill and speed, and Old Sherman—who really is something of an artist, Watson—would arrange and put the finishing touches on the pieces.
“When Jack o‘ the Devil took up with Plaid Charlie, a known cracksman, Mr. Sherman didn’t like it, but he could hardly tell his assistant who to share a pint with of an evening. So he clucked and hummed but said nothing to the purpose. Then the single treasure the Shermans owned other than their exotic animals, a diamond brooch passed on from Mrs. Sherman’s mother, went missing. Old Sherman decided he’d had quite enough and sent Jack o’ the Devil packing. Now it seemed that Jack would not be shaken off and wanted his position back, and I had interrupted what must have become a violent altercation.”
I listened, rapt. “Did you decide to pursue the sinister connection between Jack o’ the Devil and Plaid Charlie?”
“Excellent hypothesis, but wrong: I lingered. You know how reclusive I am, but the dog had taken a liking to me—whining and pawing and generally making a spectacle of herself. After bragging for ten minutes that Molly the spaniel already had the best tracking nose in London despite her youth, Mrs. Sherman would not allow me to depart before I had taken tea. They were poor in funds despite their revenues on account of the veritable zoo they maintained, but they laid out a feast of tea cakes and some very passable Darjeeling and I found myself loath to deny them. In fact, I confess I stayed still longer talking of obscure byways in biological science with Mr. Sherman, and then the training of tracking dogs with Mrs. Sherman, and when I departed I left my address, though by then I was too ashamed to leave my name.”
“Do you know, I would have liked Mrs. Sherman,” I decided warmly. “Go on, old fellow. The next day you began your campaign?”
