Eye of the Crow

His eyes blink awake. Birds are singing. It feels damp and warm. John Stuart Mill is nowhere to be seen – no bad smells. A third of a loaf of bread and a small mug of milk are inches from his nose. And there is a note. He snatches up the bread, sits with his back crouched against the dog kennel wall and bites off a piece. Even without the miserable mutt in here, his head nearly touches the ceiling and his legs feel cramped. But he pays little attention. He pulls back the cloth from the entrance, spreads out Irene’s note on the ground and allows the morning light to hit it perfectly.

“This is what I discovered at the Guildhall Library,” it begins in Irene’s pretty hand.

Rushing past her next few words, he comes to what matters.

There are two columns: one a list of medical equipment suppliers in central London, another of glass blowers. He runs his finger down the first, about a dozen names. None start with either L or E, the two letters he’d found scratched on his glass eyeball. He searches the second: Boffin … Fledgeby … Headstone … Hexam … Lear …

Lear!

Lear Glass Blowing … Carnaby Street. It is in Soho and unexpected. It’s far from the East End, just a short stroll from Mayfair and the wealthy residential districts.

But this is his only lead. He has to use it somehow.

Sherlock sits cross-legged in his cramped dog’s house, plotting.

Mohammad Adalji is sitting too, over on Bow Street on his stone bed in the holding cell. He has been here for two weeks now, dreaming at night of sunny Egyptian skies. His only ray of hope is that tall, dark-haired half-Jewish boy, who told him a tantalizing tale of finding a false eye at the murder scene. But the boy vanished from this station four days ago and hasn’t been found since. If the young Jew is out there, he is likely running, making himself scarce, his passing interest in justice long gone, Mohammad’s only hope gone with him.

The Arab knows that the police keep him here instead of at the Whitechapel district station or Newgate Prison because they want him far from the East End. He imagines how the London public must loathe him. His trial is no more than a week or two away. He’s been as much as told it won’t go well. Murderers are hanged right after trials. He drops onto his knees on the hard stone floor. The jailers won’t tell him exactly which way is east, so he has to imagine it. He turns in that direction and prays.

When Andrew Doyle is at home, Irene is careful about how she leaves food for her backyard lodger. She sets his meal on the steps. Sherlock always snatches it quickly, beating the lumbering J.S. Mill to it when he must. She appears about the same time every night.

Mr. Doyle is home this evening. When Irene slips away to the door and secretly sets the morsels outside, she feels a tug on her dress. Looking down, she spots Sherlock.

“Make me an eye patch,” he whispers, “and meet me tomorrow morning.”

Her governess is off the next day. Sherlock waits all morning for Irene to appear. Through the windows he can see her father moving about in the house, holding a thick book in his hand, questioning Irene about its contents. The boy is almost pleased to see that she may not be able to accompany him. Maybe his plan isn’t wise. Maybe he needs another, safer idea. The morning turns to afternoon. Lying there curled up in the dog kennel, he falls into a daydream.

He thinks of his parents and drifts into that other time, before he was born. There she is, gorgeous and happy in a magnificent white silk dress, readying herself to see The Thieving Magpie. And there is his father, dressing for his first visit to the opera, and …

The Doyles’ back door opens. Out comes Irene with a black eye patch in her hand. Sherlock edges toward the light and looks up.

“Father went to a meeting. He’ll be gone for a while.” She bends down to meet his gaze. “What are we doing?”

She seems excited, happy to be released from home again. That almost makes it worse.

“I’m not sure you should accompany me.”

She gives him a look. It is stern, alarmingly like an expression his mother sometimes uses when she isn’t pleased with something he’s done. He realizes he has no choice.

“We will be shopping,” he says, “for a glass eye.”

He leaves first and they meet on the street. The black patch is over his left eye, just under his screwed-down cap.

Soho is a fabulous and daunting place. It is overcrowded, full of spidery streets, colorful characters, friendly ladies, food, and languages of every sort. A spirit of adventure is alive and multiplying. You can find nearly anything here.

They pass a loud English street band filling the air with brassy sounds, a conjurer playing tricks and shouting, and a fire-eater dressed in red satin who tilts his head back and dramatically lowers the flame to his lips from above, all the while watching Sherlock Holmes intently. Why is he looking at me? It unnerves the boy. He presses Irene to move faster. Soon their shop comes into view.

Lear Glass Blowing is a little establishment halfway down Carnaby Street with a latticed window extending across the storefront. A bell tinkles as they enter. A man with a bulbous head, big whiskers, a red face, and thinning salt-and-pepper hair steps from the back room to the counter. His teeth are gray and his hands nearly black. His eyes squint at the strange couple as though he were trying to bring them into focus – a well dressed young woman and a dirty street urchin with a patch over his left eye.

“May I be of service, Miss?” he enquires, smiling directly at the young lady The street boy might as well not be there.

Sherlock is amazed at the acting abilities Irene displays. She is calm and collected and plays her role to perfection.

“I am here on a charitable errand. This young gentleman,” she motions toward Sherlock, who keeps his head lowered just enough to be hard to recognize, “lost an eye as a child and has no means to replace it. I give him a few copper coins when I see him, but would like to do more.”

“Yes?” asks the glass blower, still only regarding the young lady.

“Are you Mr. Lear, himself?”

“In the flesh,” he smiles proudly, puffing out his chest, which barely extends beyond the big belly inside his dirty blue-checked waistcoat. It is a big grin and those gray teeth are on display. He runs a blackened hand forward on his round, red head, smoothing down the thin hairs that flow over his pate. They look like the white worms that wriggle in the muck on the banks of the Thames.

“I am looking for someone who can make this boy a glass eye. Is that something you do?”

“It is, very much so. I would be glad to Miss … Miss?”

Irene says nothing. Sherlock has made her promise not to reveal her identity.

Lear continues. “I would be glad to, Miss, but the lad must see a doctor first.”

His customers look disappointed.

“A doctor, Miss,” he explains. “I make the false eyeballs, you see, for a medical supplier, Copperfield’s just down the street here on Beak. But I never have anything to do with the patients. I can blow you a beautiful paperweight, my dear. How about one of them swans that Her Majesty has in St. James’ Park?”

“That won’t be necessary. I shall have him see a physician. Thank you.”

“Copperfield’s is a very reputable firm, you know,” adds Lear smugly. “That’s why they employ me – best workmanship in London. Lear Eyes are custom made. I can match any human peeper on this earth. Copperfield’s takes orders from only the finest of doctors.”

They had moved to go, but both stop in their tracks.

“And … who would they be?” asks Irene, turning back.

“Mayfair doctors exclusively.”

“Much obliged, governor,” says Sherlock hastily with a cockney accent, showing the glass blower the top of his head as he lifts his cap. A smile has come over his face.

The store bell tinkles as they leave.

A thick man in a coachman’s black livery with two thin red stripes on his coat is standing in the shadows just