Eye of the Crow

get past the sergeant in a flash. There is really only one policeman to elude. When he gets to the other room, he will know exactly where to find the front doors and their latch.

Then a noise comes from behind.

“What in the name of –” a voice exclaims. It is the old jailer, who has roused from his sleep to find an empty cell.

Sherlock leaps to his feet.

Run!

He makes for the open archway, the jailer in hot pursuit, darting through the room in an instant. He figures the Bobbie on the bench in the outer room will rise to stop him, so he goes low, like a rugby athlete below a scrum. Down he goes, under the Peeler’s grasp and out into that waiting room. There are the doors. But suddenly policemen are materializing out of walls! Three more Bobbies are on their feet – all had been lounging on other benches, hidden from his view.

But he was right: he has the element of surprise. Speed is what matters. Only one policeman, close to the doors, has a chance to collar him. The man dives at him. He ducks again and the Bobbie flies over him, catching part of his black frock coat in a hand. The boy wrenches himself free and flings a big door open. In a second he is fleeing down the stone steps, past the wrought-iron gates and round blue lamps, and into the night.

That strangeness is in the streets again: that eerie opera of bizarre people and criminals who come out in the dark. Sherlock races through this nightmare, the Force on his trail. He hears the violins again, playing frantically. The fog hangs thick tonight.

The last thing he did as he lay awake in the dark was make a plan for what he would do if he made it outside. He thought of every possible situation, all the way from the best … to the one he is in now, with Bobbies in close pursuit. He can’t go home; he can’t outrun the police; he can’t hide for long because no one will hide him … except maybe a criminal, one who lives on the streets, who knows how to avoid the authorities, who might in some twisted way, feel there is something to gain by helping him.

Malefactor! Where are you?

He races across Bow Street, west into Covent Garden, running past the gas-lit Opera House without even giving it a glance. He never won a single race in school, but that was because he hadn’t cared. When he cares, he can do nearly anything. His legs are thin and long like a greyhound’s.

He turns north and up toward the narrower streets, places he knows Malefactor frequents with his Irregulars. His boots hammer on the cobblestones. Rain drizzles down again. He hears the sound of his own explosive breathing.

Where are they?

He has no good reason to believe that the boy criminal will help him. It’s just a feeling, an intuition of the sort that he often has about that nefarious street knave: that something about this situation will appeal to him, that he and Malefactor have some indefinable attachment. His enemy may just save him in order to hound him.

They often stay near here. Somewhere.

As he flies, he glances down every alleyway. Nothing. The police are shouting behind him, their voices echoing in the dim, fog-filled streets. He scrambles west, past closed taverns and black shop windows, and then up a narrow street to the north. In seconds it becomes even narrower. Then he realizes where he is … in The Seven Dials. He has never dared to come here before, to this intersection of seven little streets in the heart of London: an infamous part of the rotting core, known for its abject poverty, its violence – and as a haunt of thieves. But this is where he has to be. This is where Malefactor can be found.

The police are getting closer, their boots pounding louder in pursuit. At the intersection, he selects a street and runs into that dark artery. It is a canyon of broken-down three-storey buildings. Several half-clothed people lie on the narrow foot pavements and out onto the road. He flashes past tight little passageways jutting off from the street, where only the human sewer rats of London go. Skidding past one, he notices some movement in the darkness.

Irregulars?

It would make sense. The little alley bulges out into a tiny court and then narrows again on the other side. It is a perfect place for them to sleep. He vanishes into the passage, heading for the shadows. Even now, in his desperate situation, this frightens him to his boots. He’s never slithered into a hole like this.

A human head is slowly lifting and facing him through the fog. Then a whole torso rises. Sherlock comes to a sudden halt. There are bodies lying everywhere. The torso is long and thin.

“Master Holmes, I perceive.”

He doesn’t even sound sleepy. All around their leader, the Irregulars are lying in heaps, snoring loudly.

“Malefactor!”

“Troubles, young sir?” His yellowing teeth are dimly evident in the dark. He looks pleased.

“They’re after me.”

“Heard you’d been for a visit at the Bow. Escaped have we?”

There is a tinge of admiration in his voice.

“They’re after me!”

Malefactor glances down the passageway behind Sherlock. The first policeman has arrived. He is peering in, hesitating despite the nearness of his prey

“This way!” exclaims Malefactor, shoving Sherlock past him. “Go east, then north. Vanish!”

Sherlock doesn’t need to hear more. He struggles to pass Malefactor, stepping on Irregulars. They groan and swear and begin to rise.

“Let him through!” hisses their boss. “I’ll expect a report! Some information!”

Sherlock is gone, out the other end of the alley. Malefactor turns to face the policemen coming their way.

“Irregulars! Stand up and stay standing! I want a delay of at least a minute for Master Holmes this evening. These crushers have nothing on us, can’t nick us for standing in a walkway.”

The police collide with the Irregulars. Heated curses come from the deeper voices, earnest apologies from the younger. But somehow, despite apparent attempts on the part of the Irregulars to get out of the way, they seem to keep placing themselves directly in front of the Bobbies. It is nearly a minute before they get to the end of the passage. When they look out onto the street beyond, the boy has vanished.

His father has taught him to listen to experts, so he does as Malefactor says. If the boy criminal says to go east then north, then east and north he will go. There’s another reason, a very good one, to flee in that direction.

He zigzags as he flies, until he reaches the trees on beautiful Bloomsbury Square. He’s entering an area where the police would not expect him to be. The British Museum, that wonderful depository of information, is down the street to his left; farther ahead stands the University College of London, where his father’s dreams once seemed possible.

He is nearly out of breath. He hasn’t heard or seen the Bobbies for several minutes. It is time to walk. He won’t look as suspicious this way either.

This is a very different neighborhood from his own. It’s where the educated reside: professors, philanthropists, and where he can find … Irene.

Yes. North and east has been the perfect direction, fitting into the last part of his escape plan.

Irene and her father live somewhere near here. Montague Street: that’s what she said. The avenue he is now on is well lit with tall, black iron gas lamps – all the wealthy areas are. He walks north to the end of the foot pavement and looks up at the name imprinted on the last building. Bedford Place. He is close; he knows it. He is at the south end of another park. He turns left toward the Museum, massive and made of gray stone with Roman pillars, rising on the west side of … Montague.

Irene is asleep somewhere on this street.

He prowls along the footpath, examining the houses. They are all in a row, all attached, narrow, but three- and-a-half storeys high, with cream-colored ground floors and brown brick or white stone on the upper levels. Bright flowers grow in window boxes. Numbers aren’t posted on all the houses, but some have business and family names.

He keeps reading, squinting from the street, not daring to go close to the front doors. Shiny, black iron fences