The Secret Fiend

by Shane Peacock

  “Did you see this … rough?”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “Were you alone?”

  “I –”

  “Yes, she was.”

  “Sherlock,” says Bell with irritation as he turns from the girl to the boy, “can she not speak for herself?”

  “She is very frightened. I don’t want to cause her undue upset.”

  “Quite.”

  “I was about to take her home.”

  “By all means.”

  Bell turns to Beatrice again. “And you are sure you did not get a good view of this fiend?”

  She looks to Sherlock, reads the concern in those gray eyes, and stiffens her resolve.

  “No. No, sir. I did not.”

  “Well, then … you must be on your way.”

  In seconds they are out the door. Sherlock would never think anything sinister about Sigerson Bell. And he isn’t doing so now. He is just being cautious. He has seen many images of the Spring Heeled Jack in the Penny Dreadfuls. There are rumors that this fiend once truly existed and haunted the streets of London … back in Sigerson Bell’s day.

  It wore a costume. It was green and black.

  MYSTERY ON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE

  “I have a confession to make,” says Beatrice shyly, feeling safe and thrilled to have her arm through Sherlock’s, as they walk south past Leicester Square and the magnificent Alhambra Palace Theatre on their way to Westminster. The square is quiet now. The glimmer of the gas lamps barely penetrates the dark, frozen night; only their footfalls and a few claps of horse hooves, a few mumbling voices and sudden shouts echo in the gloom. The last survivors of the glorious evening before, are straggling home or lying on cobblestones. A drunken tradesman stumbles toward them, his crooked nose leaking blood from a scrap. Sherlock steers Beatrice from the square and across a narrow street to the opposite foot pavement.

  “’Fraid of me, is you lad! Come back and get some of what I ’as! I comes out at night and turns into the devil, me friend. The devil! That’s what’s inside o’ me!”

  Beatrice appears to be trembling, so Sherlock holds her a little tighter and doesn’t notice the smile that comes over her face. She glances at him.

  “I ’ave been following you, I ’ave,” she says.

  He stops. “You what?”

  “It’s of no consequence, honestly, Sherlock. I was just interested in what you were taking up your time with. That is, when you weren’t assisting your master.”

  Sherlock’s heartbeat increases. “You followed me?”

  “Well, following might be stating it a pinch strongly, now that I think on it.”

  “Have you done this often?”

  “No, no. No, Sherlock, not often. Not often at all. But –”

  “But what?”

  “I know you do police things. And I know it was you who ’elped Scotland Yard catch the East End murderer and the Brixton Gang and that you were some’ow involved in finding Victoria Rathbone.”

  “How did you –”

  “No other boy could do such things. I’m proud of you, Sherlock ’olmes.”

  She is looking up at him with those big black eyes, leaning against him, warming him, gazing at him as if he were a great man. Sherlock Holmes considers himself to be beyond flattery. It is a thing born of weak emotions. But Beatrice Leckie disarms him. She isn’t a deep thinker like Irene Doyle, but she isn’t a fool, either. She wears her emotions on her poor sleeves, with none of the arts of feminine artificiality practiced by most English “ladies”: the veneer of weakness, the fainting, the standing on ceremony, the clever games meant to gain things from men. He hates such dishonesty. Beatrice Leckie is a real girl, a real person – the personality you see on the surface is who she is. Mixed with her unadorned beauty, it is an intoxicating perfume … which Sherlock inhales.

  “You know what I think,” she says in a sweet voice, “I think you could be a great detective one day.” This is almost more than he can bear, so he keeps quiet.

  They pass through a near-empty Trafalgar Square, its fountains stilled, and head toward the heart of Westminster, the river now just a stone’s throw to their left. The magnificent granite government buildings rise on either side of the wide avenue known as Whitehall; and Scotland Yard stands dark and mysterious near the water. Even the Lestrades will be home now, fast asleep. A few steps more and they pass Downing Street, where the day before yesterday, Mr. Disraeli, the Jew, took up his post as the leader of the United Kingdom.

  The young couple is silent as they walk. Beatrice holds Sherlock’s arm tightly, an acceptable thing to do in the street at night and her right, under the circumstances. Sherlock, despite himself, feels flattered to be the object of such affection. For a few moments they forget their mission.

  But Westminster Bridge is nearing. Soon they feel the looming presence of the famous Abbey near it: the ancient, twin-towered Anglican church that holds the bodies of the kings and queens, and great statesmen and authors in its vaults. Even more imposing is the gothic complex that rises behind it: the Palace of Westminster, containing the House of Commons and the House of Lords. It is the seat of power of the world’s greatest empire, perhaps the greatest the world has ever known. These days India, Canada, Australia, Ireland – and half the world, it seems – is kneeling before England’s queen, the majestic Victoria … and her cunning new prime minister.

  Whenever the boy is this close to Parliament, he feels a yearning in his chest. He never knows if it is fear or pride … or awe. The Clock Tower, Big Ben, is above them now. He looks way up and sees the dial’s massive black-and-white face. His earliest memory is of being four years old and standing near here, viewing the tower’s thirteen-ton iron bell that was cast in a foundry in Whitechapel, as it arrived on an open cart pulled by sixteen horses. The crowds were ten deep, the cheering deafening. His father the Jew held one hand, his mother the English lady held the other, his brother, Mycroft, by their side. As they walked away afterward, a man spit in front of Sherlock’s black-haired, olive-skinned father and muttered that his mother was a disgrace.

  Suddenly, Big Ben tolls. Its gigantic gong vibrates in their chests and seems to shake all of London. Beatrice cries out. Sherlock, startled at first, pulls her closer. Ben tolls again, and again. Three o’clock. There is something terrifying about those sounds, something like a warning in this time of the people’s riots in Hyde Park and the Irish bombings in the streets. There are always Bobbies near the Parliament Buildings these days – Sherlock sees them now. One is looking toward him. Sometimes it feels as though the world is about to come to an end. Could London, could the English Empire fall apart from within?

  The brown bridge is wide and imposing, made of cast iron and set on granite bases. A series of seven semi-circular arches marks its appearance, looking like monstrous, half-submerged eyes, staring down the River Thames. Gas lamps rise into the mist every thirty feet or so, casting dim spotlights into the murky darkness.

  “It was over ’ere,” says Beatrice as they step up onto the bridge, pointing toward the balustrade wall a few dozen steps away. “We were walking this way, our gaze straight ahead, not looking to either side, ’oping to get ’ome without any mischief befalling us. There was almost no one else about.” Their shoes scuff along the stones.

  She pulls Sherlock with her and then stops about a quarter of the way along the stone surface. “Then we ’eard it.”

  “Heard what?”

  “I don’t know if I can rightly describe it. It was like an ’iss.”

  “A hiss?”

  She pulls away from Sherlock and turns toward Big Ben and the Parliament Buildings, rising above them in the night. She holds her arms wide and her face has an expression of horror, as if she were an actress emoting on a stage.

  “Yes. And we turned. And there it was.”

  “The Spring Heeled Jack?”

  “It ’ad been kneeling against the balustrade, and as we turned, it climbed up onto it … and spread its wings.
”

  “Wings? Now, Beatrice –”

  “It ’ad wings, Sherlock. I don’t say that they were real, but it ’ad wings.”

  “What color?”

  “They were black, as was the rest of ’im, but there was green too – green borders and streaks.”

  Sherlock thinks again of Bell’s black and green costume.

  “And … and ’e ’ad something like ’orns on his ’ead.”

  “Like the devil?”

  “I know it sounds fanciful.”

  “So … it climbed up –”

  “No. That isn’t right. I misspoke. It didn’t climb … it leapt.”

  Sherlock looks at the nearly five-foot high balustrade and runs his hand along its top, a surface only six inches across.

  “He sprang up onto here? From a crouch?” Sherlock looks down more than fifty feet to the freezing water below.

  “Yes, ’e did.” She begins to weep.

  He goes to her and puts a hand on her shoulder.

  “It ’ad an ’orrible look on its face, a beet-red face, so angry …”

  “A young man or older?”

  “It was ’ard to tell, it was so distorted … but its ’air was black and its eyes … its eyes were black with red centers, and when it ’issed again … a blue flame came from its mouth.”

  “Now, Beatrice!”

  “Don’t believe me, if you want!” It is the first time he’s ever heard her angry with him. “But THAT is what I saw! And if it isn’t true, then where … where is Louise?” At this she puts her head into her hands and sobs.

  Best to stick to the problem, thinks Sherlock, try to solve it for her. And she indeed has a point … where is Louise? … Maybe Louise wasn’t here to begin with.

  “How did he take her?”

  “’e flew down from the wall at us, ’is wings widespread. I pulled back and so did Louise, but ’e seized ’er and lifted ’er up with enormous strength, carried her across the bridge to the opposite side … and leapt up.”

  “Leapt up onto a balustrade again? Carrying Louise? Are you sure?”

  “And then … then … then ’e dove –”

  “Dove off the wall? From there into the river?”

  “I ’eard a sound like them striking the water. I ’eard ’er scream. It was nearly deserted ’ere and no one else was near enough to intervene. I didn’t watch. I was lying on the ground. I should ’ave done more! But I just … just got up and ran … to you.”

  She throws herself into his arms, but he lifts her away and shakes her.

  “Beatrice, control yourself. I know you can. You aren’t weak and helpless. Now, you say you saw this, so you can help me shed some light on it … tell me exactly, and I mean EXACTLY where they left the wall when they descended.”

  She walks across the bridge toward the balustrade.

  “It was … ’ere.”

  Sherlock wishes he had his father’s spyglass. He follows and examines the surface. It is icy in places, but right where Beatrice indicates, it has indeed been disturbed. His heartbeat increases. He lowers his big, hawkish nose to the surface … and smells it like a bloodhound. He detects something. What is that odor? It’s like rotting eggs. Then it comes to him. Sulfur! Bell keeps bottles of the yellow crystals in his laboratory and melts them into a red liquid. It has a distinct aroma. If one were to light it, it would indeed produce a flame that would look blue in the night. Anyone with an elementary knowledge of chemicals could dab sulfur in their mouth and pull the trick of having blue fumes emit as they spoke. The boy gazes straight down, then turns sharply back to Beatrice, his eyes sparkling.

  “How big was this fiend?”

  “I don’t … I can’t …”

  “As big as me? Nine or ten stone?”

  “A little taller I’d say, and ’eavier.”

  “Is Louise your size?”

  Beatrice blushes. “We are about the same ’eight, a little past five feet … and she is ’ealthy, not too stout –”

  “But a little stouter than you?”

  She blushes again.

  “I SAID … a little stouter than you? The truth, Beatrice!”

  “Yes, Sherlock. Yes, I am a little slimmer.”

  “Wearing a bonnet, a servant’s frock, no crinoline? Petticoats over a corset beneath? Like you?”

  This time her face turns very red, but she answers. “Yes.”

  He turns back to the bridge, calculating. There is no ice on the river below. Let’s imagine this really happened. The drop is a little more than fifty feet, their weight about nineteen stone, their clothes heavy. The man leapt out from the bridge, may have held out his bat-like wings to cushion the fall. The river is deep here.

  “If they did this as you say, then they lived,” he says out loud, “and they could have landed near the shore.”

  With that, he turns and walks briskly back toward Big Ben. Beatrice, after a moment’s hesitation, follows on the run. In minutes, he is off the bridge and down the stones steps and near the river. A few small boats float on the water. The mudlarks, those who make their living from finding things by the shore, aren’t out at this hour. Though the muddy shoreline is filled with stones and piers and wharfs of all sizes, there are bushes and brambles here and there. Sherlock spies a clump of them about even with the spot where the pair would have entered the water. Rushing forward, he sees two sets of footprints in the cold mud – a man and a woman’s – leading from the water into the bushes. Five steps into the brambles, he finds a piece of black cloth, bordered with green…. Then he hears a moan.

  “Over here, Beatrice!” he cries.

  Sherlock hears something moving, scurrying away, about fifty feet or so down the shore. When he looks that way, he thinks he sees a shadow, rushing off. He wants to follow, but he must look for the girl – that is what matters.

  It doesn’t take much searching. He finds her, lying under the bushes, covered by them. Louise is insensible, but alive. Up ahead, the shadow has vanished.

  “Oh, Lou!” cries Beatrice and kneels beside her.

  There is a note pinned to Louise’s dress, written in red on a large piece of white paper.

  I HAVE RETURNED!

  Sherlock pulls it off and stares at it.

  No watermark. Careful writing, not rushed, almost feminine, a young hand.

  A handful of frigid water scooped from the Thames and splashed onto the young lady’s face brings her around immediately. Her green eyes, which go charmingly with her curly red hair, snap open and she starts. Surprisingly, she has no cuts, no apparent bruises, and rises to her feet without much trouble. Her purple dress and dark blue shawl have somehow already dried, are just a little damp. Sherlock frowns, glancing back and forth from the victim to the note. He throws his frock coat over Louise’s shoulders and helps the girls up the embankment before seating them on a bench near the Parliament grounds. He crosses his arms and frowns at them again. Beatrice glances up at him, then back to her friend, then up again, appearing concerned about Sherlock’s reaction.

  “Do you two mind telling me what this is all about?”

  “I don’t know that I follow you, Sherlock. I ’ave told you what ’appened.” He thinks he detects a slight tone of guilt in her voice, but isn’t sure.

  “What really transpired here?”

  “It is as I said.”

  “Yes, Master ’olmes, it is as she said. And I is much obliged, I’m sure.”

  “How do you know what Beatrice said, Miss Louise?”

  “I … I imagines it. I imagines she said what ’appened, true and clear. Beatrice is an ’onest sort, always ’as been.”

  “But you are not bruised from your mighty fall, you have no cuts, your dress and shawl are almost dry, you are not traumatized. It was easy to find you. This … this note looks like it was written on a desk in a clear hand, not scribbled by an agitated fiend. What could he have wanted with you? He did nothing to you. He simply fled.”

  “It ain’t for me to judge what a
devil wants. ’e ’as evil intent for women.”

  “Did he act out that intent?”

  “Sherlock!”

  “We must get to the truth of this, Beatrice. Did he, Miss Louise, act out his intent? Did he lift your dress and undergarments and brutally –”

  “NO!”

  “Then, why?”

  “Louise said that it was not for ’er to know why such a fiend does as ’e does … and she is right.”

  “This fiend from a Penny Dreadful magazine? This figure, this bogeyman for the children of England, who has so many times appeared in drawings looking more terrifying and vivid than anything Mr. Dickens might imagine?”

  “Imagine! Is that what you think? What could be our purpose?”

  “That, Miss Beatrice, is for you to tell me.”

  “Why do you stand ’ere talking rubbish? This villain must be caught and punished! You ’ave friends at Scotland Yard. You must go to them. We will come with you and make a full report.”

  “I wouldn’t dare.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I would not dare confront Inspector Lestrade with such a fairy tale.”

  “FAIRY TALE!”

  “Why did you do this, Beatrice … do I not pay you enough attention at –”

  The slap that strikes his face is unlike any crack of a parasol he has ever received from Irene Doyle. Those were mere caresses next to this. Beatrice Leckie smacks him across his cheek with a stroke that comes out of nowhere and would have scored many centuries on the cricket field and brought all of England to its feet. Her strong working-class hands are small but not delicate – and there is passion in her blow. She indeed cares about Sherlock; he can feel that now. But whether there is hatred or love in her mind is uncertain.

  He actually falls backward from the slap.

  “Return to your master, you … you little boy! Go back to your dreams and your selfish ambitions! There is more to the world than you imagine. Leave us! We will get our own ’elp!”

  There is nothing else he can do. Stunned, he leaves them sitting alone, seething on the bench under Big Ben. As he trudges home, he reconsiders everything he has seen and what the girls said, wondering if he might be wrong. But he can’t believe that this “crime” was anything but a setup, created to draw him in. It was all too easy. Of the millions of possible targets in the city, why would this fiend strike his close friend, causing her to run directly to him? It is like an occurrence in a melodrama. But why did Beatrice strike him like that, why such absolute fire in her eyes, why was she so emotional about his refusal to help? There was real fear, real feeling in her anger, not just the reaction of a schemer found out. Was there really a Spring Heeled Jack on the loose in London? And why was Sigerson Bell carrying a black and green costume and sneaking around in the middle of the night … just when the villain appeared?