Eye of the Crow

or for murder. They think I’m guilty of something else.”

He knows their theory.

“We’re thieves and work together…. The Arab is bigger and good with a knife, he was simply meant to scare her with it … I was young, fast, and street-wise, meant to snatch the treasure and make off with it … the Jew’s job. But our robbery went badly. She struggled and the Arab killed her. I fled with the purse. I hid it somewhere in a hurry and I keep going back to the area to get it, but haven’t retrieved it yet. That’s what they think! That’s why they’re holding me in jail without visitors and why they placed us beside each other. They want to see if I’ll let something slip about the purse to Mohammad, or better still, confess…. Then they will have the Arab, the half-breed, and the money.”

Strangely, for an instant this discovery actually makes him feel a little better. Now he has two clues: the glass eye and an understanding of the authorities’ motives. He isn’t entirely helpless anymore. He has lit a small candle, however dim, at the entrance to the tunnel of this mystery.

But what consolation is that? Doesn’t this mean they think Sherlock an accessory to murder? Can’t they put him to death for it? He won’t have a barrister, either. They can hang boys at thirteen! He curls up into a ball on the bed, petrified. What hope does he have now? Nothing can ever give him hope again. But he is wrong. The very next day, hope comes into the jail in the form of a girl.

She arrives about noon, accompanied by her father.

A turnkey and a constable strut up to Mohammad’s cell. They take him out. The constable holds a pistol cocked and pointed; the turnkey binds the prisoner’s hands behind his back and shoves him onto a chair. There, his feet are strapped to the wooden legs. They push him, chair and all, back into his cell.

“Mr. Andrew C. Doyle,” bellows the jailer, “and his daughter, Irene, with express permission of Scotland Yard.”

The large man with the big walrus mustache and well-cut tweed suit doesn’t interest Sherlock. The girl doesn’t either, at first. They pass him. The man’s eyes, brimming with kindness, never stray from Mohammad in the next cell, but the girl notices Sherlock through his barred window. She glances his way: just a glance. There are questions in her face.

The boy goes back to his bed and sits on it, listening.

“Good day, Mr. Adalji, I am as announced,” says the man in loud but friendly tones that are obviously meant to soothe. Slight Scottish accent, thinks the boy, raised in the Edinburgh area, came to London in his teens, religious, a freethinker, and a respected philanthropist. Sherlock sizes him up in an instant. The boy is especially glad of his skill of analysis now. As of today, it will be very important to know others well and imagine what sort of threat they might be. He has made it a point to study traits such as accents, even how they fade after people settle in London. He can tell many things by the tone of the man’s voice, the fact that he is in a jail speaking with a foreigner accused of murder, and his clothes. He is a spiritual man (though perhaps a dissenter), holds certain political views, wants to help others, gives to the poor.

“This is my daughter, Irene.”

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” she says kindly.

The boy imagines her sitting on the stone bed next to her well-groomed father, looking sympathetically into the eyes of the poor accused murderer. She’d floated past in an instant, but Sherlock recalls her perfectly.

“I am with The Society of the Visiting Friends of London,” begins Mr. Doyle. “We comfort the unfortunate, the guilty, the falsely accused, whatever you are, sir. We go into the rookeries, the jails, and opium dens. I read about your case in The Times and was given special permission to see you. We are simply here to talk. We will not judge you. Everything said between us will stay between us.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“That is between you and God. We are your friends.”

The girl is tall for her age. Sherlock likes that. She has long blonde hair that curls at the top and runs down the back of her neck in thick, shining waves; and dark brown eyes, darker than his own gray ones. Her clothes are plain: a white blouse frilled a little near the neck where a red ribbon is tied, a beige woolen shawl, a dark cotton dress that hangs down almost to the top of her black boots, no crinoline. She seems about his age. He likes that too. He wonders what questions she had when she looked at him. And he wonders why she and her father don’t judge Mohammad Adalji.

Sherlock wishes he could know more about her. But for some reason he can’t get a complete picture. She is a bit of a mystery. He likes that too.

The Arab won’t say much to the Doyles. He speaks a little about his past, about coming to England, his dreams. But he always stops before he arrives at that horrible night in the East End. Sherlock can hear the girl responding to him, encouraging him to say more. But before long, he simply stops.

They thank him and call for a turnkey. Then they stand outside the cell while Mohammad is untied. Mr. Doyle blesses him with a Christian prayer. As he does, Sherlock gets up and watches from his door. He has a clear view through the bars. Irene has her eyes closed, her hands clasped in front of her. Sherlock lowers his head. When he lifts it, she is looking at him.

The prayer finishes at that instant. She closes her eyelids abruptly and then opens them again. Andrew Doyle regards Sherlock.

“Bless you, my son,” he says.

Irene simply nods.

And then they are gone.

It has a remarkable effect on Sherlock. A sort of peace comes over him. The cells seem even dimmer without her. He thinks long and hard about those dark brown eyes.

In the night, he tries again to imagine more about her. But still, she seems elusive. He isn’t used to that. He thinks of the advice his father so often gives him.

“Observation,” Wilber always says, “is not only the primary skill of the scientist, it is the elementary talent of life. Use your eyes at all times, my boy. They will not lie to you if you focus them fully. Use all your senses: hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching (though that last one, your mother can say more about than I). Truly seeing things is a great power. It will give you strength even when fate seems to have made you weak.”

But try as he might, he can’t truly see this girl. He estimates her age, remembers her face, that hair, but that is all.

The next day, he lies in his cell feeling sorry for himself, convinced there is no way out of the hole he is in.

Then he hears a sweet voice.

“I understand your name is Sherlock Holmes.”

He almost leaps to his feet. She has come alone this time. It has taken remarkable courage. Respectable young ladies rarely venture out alone in London.

“Yes,” is all he can say. She is standing in the hall in front of a burly turnkey who clutches a truncheon in his hand.

“You are very young to be in jail, sir,” she says.

“I am innocent.”

He wishes he hadn’t said the words the instant he utters them. He is sure that every prisoner who has ever been in this jail has said them many times. And he is very sure that she has heard them so often that it makes her numb.

“I am your friend,” she responds.

Those words sound wonderful.

“They want me to talk with you from the hallway.” She smiles. “And I don’t want them to tie you up.” The turnkey is walking away down the hall and she lowers her voice, “I’m surprised they allowed me in, though father’s name carries a great deal of weight. I was passing the Opera House across the street in the crowds with my governess and slipped away. I have never done anything quite like this before, but you looked awfully lonely yesterday.” She takes a breath. “Father has always taught me to be independent, you know, very much so. We do things differently at our house … though this may be a bit too different, even for him. Miss Stamford is likely quite frantic by now!”