Eye of the Crow

They exchange smiles. Irene’s nervous talkativeness makes Sherlock like her even more. She is wearing a red dress this time, dark red, and a crinoline underneath that makes it billow out, ending just above her white-stocking ankles. She holds a pretty blue shawl around her shoulders.

He stands at the steel door, his nose pressed through the bars. She smells like soap. The words pour out of him.

“I am here only because I read about the murder, because I visited the crime scene twice, because Mohammad spoke to me.”

Her presence is doing something to him.

“I won’t judge –”

“No … don’t say that. I really didn’t do anything wrong. But I’m going to do something now. It’s time someone did. I’m going to solve this crime. And not just for me, or Mohammad. Whoever killed that poor woman needs to be brought to justice…. It isn’t fair!” He pauses, realizing that he’s almost shouted the last three words and they’ve echoed down the hallway.

It had been a waterfall of frantic words. Now there is silence. She simply looks at him, not sure what to say. She really shouldn’t be here, but this unusual boy has drawn her.

“Solve it?” she asks.

“I have a clue,” he says in a quiet voice.

The main door slams open. A man appears in the hallway: Inspector Lestrade. The ferret-like detective fixes his eyes on Sherlock’s.

“Having a chat with Miss Doyle, are we? Anything you’d like to share?”

Sherlock is aghast at his slip. Maybe this is why they let her in. He’d actually mentioned the clue! Had he said it too loudly? He didn’t think so. But the inspector knew he’d mentioned something important and had deemed a sudden confrontation worthwhile.

“Well?” asks Lestrade.

“I … I’m … just …” He looks at Irene. There aren’t questions in her eyes anymore, just understanding. “I was … just … boasting, sir, to this young lady.”

The inspector observes Irene, who gives him a shy smile. Then he stands still for a long time, staring at Sherlock. The boy drops his eyes. They can all hear the big clock in the office ticking through the main door. The inspector starts tapping his foot in time to it.

“We have some discussions in our future, you and I!” Then he vanishes almost as quickly as he appeared.

Irene comes back the next day. This time her governess is with her, waiting in the office, bearing a note from Mr. Doyle allowing her to visit when accompanied. Last night, after Miss Stamford made her distressing report, Irene had apologized to her father, but then asked if she might begin to do some of “their work.” Mr. Doyle was impressed. (She had calculated that he would be.) He is raising her to be a strong, unique woman with a social conscience, and unusual, even unladylike ambition is to be encouraged. She didn’t mention that the first place she wanted to visit was the Bow Street Police Station.

Inside the jail, their conversation grows. They talk about their lives. He is amazed by her bravery, but also her sense of duty, love for her father and his mission, her kindness, and intelligence. She finds herself revealing details she normally keeps from inmates, and even mentions the street where she lives. He, in turn, tells her marvelous things: he shows off.

“Our jailer is five feet seven and a half inches tall, calculated by the length of his stride in the hallway. He is left-handed, married with three children, two girls and a boy. And did I mention he is forty-six years, five months, and seventeen days old?”

“You are making that up, you rascal,” she says, smiling.

“Partly,” he admits. “I heard the other turnkey tease him about his age.”

But the rest is true and he proves it. Then he does the trick again: about the other turnkey. It is like magic. It makes her laugh. But when he changes the subject and tells her about his life, he sees tears in her eyes. He is a loner, and desperate to be more than the world has allowed him to be.

But Sherlock Holmes isn’t just talking. There is a method to his conversation.

He made up his mind the night before that there are two things he absolutely has to do: keep his mouth shut about what he knows … and get out of jail. Irene Doyle is his only connection to the outside. If he has any chance, it will have to be through her.

Slowly, without once saying anything directly about the crime or what he knows of it, he tries to show her that he is the sort of person who shouldn’t be in jail. She’s met many prisoners; he has to somehow convince her that he has been falsely accused. He speaks of his sense of justice, and subtly hints with expressions in his eyes that he knows something about the murder: something that might free him, and Mohammad too. All he needs is a chance.

The next morning, as he takes his breakfast of glue-like porridge, hoping Irene will visit again, his mind is racing. His eyes dart around his cell and up and down the hall for any way out. But escape from the Bow Street jail seems impossible. It is sealed like a canning jar. He thinks until his mind goes in circles. Finally he stands up and jams his wooden spoon into the goop in the bowl. He starts to pace. Nothing! Nothing will work. When he finally sits down, he notices something peculiar. The spoon is still sticking straight up in the porridge. It hasn’t moved an inch. And when he tries to pull it out, it takes some effort. He taps the food with his hand. It has hardened into a remarkably solid mass. He can see the perfectly shaped outline of the business end of his spoon in the stiff mound. His heart beats faster. He wedges out a small piece of porridge and slips it into his pocket, then returns the bowl to the turnkey. A few hours later, when Irene comes through the door as fresh as an English country breeze, the chunk of porridge feels as hard as stone.

He molds their conversation again, trying to pull all the right levers, and just before she leaves, he makes a pointed comment.

“You wouldn’t want to eat the porridge in these parts,” he remarks with a smile, but looks straight into her eyes as if he is entering them. “It not only tastes like Plaster of Paris, but if you let it sit for a while, it hardens like it too. I would be willing to wager that I could make a tool out of it … that would split wood.”

Her eyes widen. She thinks for a moment, as if trying to make a decision. Without saying another word, she rises and leaves the jail.

There is a way out of this cell. And indeed … Irene Doyle is the key.

ESCAPE

The Bow Street jail serves breakfast to its inmates at six o’clock in the morning. At exactly that time two days later, before natural light has even illuminated the street, Irene Doyle appears at the front desk asking to see Sherlock Holmes. It is a strange request, especially given that her governess is nowhere in sight. The clerk sergeant on duty hesitates, but he knows the Doyles and their eccentric ways, and assumes that Irene has a good reason – a humane reason – to be here at this hour. Perhaps the accused boy is particularly lonely in the morning. He assumes a hansom cab awaits her.

But Irene Doyle has come alone, sneaking from her bed in the early hours and racing through the awakening streets, petrified, her shawl pulled up over her face. Before she met Sherlock, she wouldn’t have imagined doing what she is about to do. Perhaps it is evil. Or is it in the service of justice? She has decided to take a chance.

There are five Bobbies on morning duty: the sergeant at his large wooden desk in the reception area behind the public waiting room at the front entrance, an assistant at a smaller desk to his left, two constables on guard inside the main doors, and a turnkey attending to the prisoners in the holding cells.

Irene arrives just in time. The heavily whiskered jailer is emerging from the kitchen below stairs, his big black boots pounding up the worn, old wooden steps, seven bowls of porridge and seven tin cups of tea balanced on a wooden tray. His keys dangle from a ring on his belt.