“May I come with you?” she asks, as she hastily signs the visitors’ book.
“Uh …” the turnkey looks at his superior. The clerk sergeant nods.
“Right this way, Miss.”
They walk past the desks toward a big, iron door at the back of the reception room. A constable meets them there. He opens the door, ushers them through, and follows. The cells are down five stone steps at the back of the station house, on ground level, in long whitewashed hallways gathered around a central courtyard.
Sherlock doesn’t register any surprise when he sees Irene appear with the two men.
Today, all the prisoners confined in the holding area are in one hallway. The jailer will start distributing the gooey paste at the far end of the passage, working his way back to the boy, who is nearest the entrance.
Irene stops at Sherlock’s cell. She nods to him. They begin talking about the weather as the policemen walk away down the hall to give out the porridge.
Soon the two Peelers return. There is just one bowl left. The jailer stands in front of Sherlock’s cell, the constable looking on as he searches for the right key, a big, uncomplicated iron instrument. He finds it and inserts it into the lock.
“May I serve him?” Irene says.
It is another strange request and it makes the turnkey uncomfortable. He has a routine. He likes routines. He glances at the constable and then back at Irene.
“Uh … I’m, uh …”
Irene takes the bowl from the tray. The big key is still in the lock. In order to hand the bowl to Sherlock, she has to step between the jailer and the key, which is attached to the man’s belt by a small chain. She reaches out and pulls the key from the lock. As she does, she drops it into the bowl.
“Oh my!” she cries.
“Not a worry, Miss,” says the jailer, gingerly removing the iron tool from the porridge. “He’ll eat it no matter what. That’s all they get ’til past noon.” He places a beefy arm in front of her. “But I’m afraid I have to serve him. Regulations.”
Irene hands over the porridge and stands back. The turnkey opens the door and passes the bowl to Sherlock, who takes it and sets it on his stone bed. He looks down at it. The distinct outline of the key remains clear on the surface of the thick porridge, next to the wooden spoon that stands almost straight up.
Sherlock leaves it standing. He can hear the door close behind him.
“Aren’t you going to eat, Holmes?” asks the turnkey peering through the bars.
“I’m not very hungry.”
The big jailer laughs. “You will be. Inspector Lestrade has scheduled a … ‘discussion’ … with you for tomorrow morning. I’d suggest you eat up.”
But Sherlock doesn’t move.
“Suit yourself.”
The jailer shrugs. He has a chair in a spot where he can see all the prisoners’ doors, but he likes to pace back and forth. Each morning since Sherlock has been there, the guard has paced seven times up and down the hallway before he sits. On his fifth trip this morning, Irene intercepts him. They meet at a point where he can’t see inside Holmes’ cell and she delays him, inquiring about the details of visiting hours this week.
The instant she departs to meet the jailer, Sherlock rushes across the cell to his bed. He takes out the wooden spoon, scoops off the surface of the porridge and sets the layer of hardening paste, complete with the key’s impression, on the bed against the wall, then dips out another blob, this one much bigger, and plops it down beside the other. When he is done, he sits in front of them.
Irene thanks the turnkey for the information and lets him return to his routine. She quickly says good-bye to Sherlock, walks up the steps toward the front office, and the big door opens and closes. The turnkey’s footsteps echo down the hallway, getting nearer.
“Ah, I see you have regained your appetite, Master Holmes.” Sherlock is seated on his bed, the bowl of porridge on his knees, spoon in hand, apparently partway through his meal.
Every time the jailer rises to pace that morning, Sherlock turns like a cat to his two splats of porridge next to the wall. Within half an hour, he has made his very own porridge key. He finishes just in time. The paste has almost hardened into its infamous rock-like consistency.
The Bow Street jailers are certainly not supposed to sleep on duty. But Sherlock knows they sometimes do. Frightened and unable to settle in, he has awakened several times the last few nights, and each time has made an observation: his night watchman, sitting on the chair down the hall, has a habit of nodding off at about four o’clock in the morning. The boy knows the hour by the position of the moon, which he can see through one of the little hall windows, that looks out into the courtyard.
He watches the moon through his bars. The crude key, modeled on an equally crude one that is meant for a very roomy lock, is clutched in his hand. It is as hard as a cricket bat.
Sure enough, at about four o’clock, the jailer’s chin goes down onto his chest. He is a veteran who can likely rouse himself from slumber at the scratch of a rat.
Sherlock inserts the key.
He tries to turn it. The lock creaks. The turnkey stirs.
“Prudence, I drank but one mug of beer, I swear …” he mutters, never opening his eyes, his mouth munching as if he were tasting something. He drifts off again.
The boy is frozen in place beside the keyhole. He waits. But not too long: the jailers’ naps are always short.
The key is still in the lock. He tries to turn it. It won’t budge. Maybe his key isn’t sturdy enough. He tries again. This time he holds it directly in the center of the lock so it will push the bolt perfectly and turns it very slowly praying it won’t snap. But he can feel his porridge-iron tool beginning to crack. He pulls it out and tries one more time, twisting even more gingerly. Slowly … it turns.
He’s unlocked the cell!
Now he has to open the door. It squeaks every time the jailers move it.
Sherlock begins pushing the door gently. Every few seconds it creaks and the turnkey stirs, but soon he’s opened it enough to slip out. He slides into the hallway. He can’t believe it. His heart is pounding. He moves toward the main door, but then stops.
Mohammad.
When he sneaks to the next cell, he is shocked to see the Arab looking back at him, wide awake, standing right at the bars. There is a different look in the man’s eyes in the darkness. They appear calculating. The accused man doesn’t seem so young anymore.
The jailer stirs again.
The two prisoners stare at each other for several breaths. How does Sherlock know for
In a heartbeat, silent as a ghost, Sherlock moves up the steps, through the door at the end of the hallway, barely opens it, and slides through. He finds himself in the reception room of the front office. Looking ahead and to his right he sees a small desk and then a large, wooden one farther away. No one is at the first, but a night sergeant sits at the second. Sherlock is slightly behind him. The man’s head is down. He’s writing in his books, dipping his pen in an ink bottle. The boy drops to the floor and advances to the smaller desk, crouching behind it, out of sight. His breathing sounds as loud to him as the bellows the old hatter uses when he lights his fireplace. He tries to calm himself. The policeman is five yards away. Sherlock starts sorting through the photographs his mind took of the front part of the Bow Street Divisional Police Station when he was brought in a week ago. He knows that the London evening and freedom are to his left, through an open archway in this room, and then about six steps across the waiting room and out the big, black front doors. But the night sergeant, whom he can’t entirely see, can spot anyone who goes in or out.
He peeks around the desk and looks through the arch way where he spies a Bobbie sitting on one of the benches in the front room.
He’ll have to make a run for it. But the element of surprise will be in his favor. He’ll use his street smarts and
