goes all the way to the old city, through it, and into the East End. It isn’t an area where Sherlock wants to be. It’s where Lillie Irving was murdered in the little lane north of Whitechapel Road, where he came several times to investigate her gruesome death – once with Irene, other times alone in the dead of night.
Working-class people, returning home, dominate the wide street. Jewish old-clothes salesmen who ply the trade his poor grandfather once pursued, trudge past with hats piled high on their heads, glancing at him with distant looks of recognition. He passes a street named Goulston, then sees Old Yard off to his left.
Dante veers and Sherlock follows. At first he fears they are heading for Lime House, the area southeast of the Thames where the scariest parts of Mr. Dickens’ latest novel are set, where perhaps the roughest, most violent men in all of London live – those who make their living from the docks and the river. If he is indeed being led toward the haunt of the Brixton Gang, this area would be perfect. But Dante goes straight south instead, through poor residential neighborhoods with dirty little brick houses packed together along many small winding streets. This is a bad parish too, but Sherlock keeps his wits about him, ready in case he is pounced upon. He wishes he knew more about defending himself.
Several times, he thinks he loses the scurrying boy in the red clothes, but the lad keeps reappearing, far ahead on narrow cobblestone roadways like a tattered fox still in view of the hunt. Behind Sherlock, another hunter seems to keep following, but when Holmes looks again, no one is apparent. Soon they are at the London Docks, where giant British ships are built, or simply loaded. From here they make for Canada, India, the Orient – the world.
There isn’t much activity this time of the evening, just the sounds of a few men working, cursing, and grunting as they struggle with heavy cargo loads in the night.
Ahead, the one-eared fox stops. He looks back. Sherlock ducks down behind a big wooden crate. He peers through its cracks and sees that someone has come out of the shadows and is approaching, a figure just a little taller, dressed in black, apparently wearing a frock coat and tattered top hat. They talk in hushed tones for a moment.
Sherlock wonders if this might actually be a member of the Brixton Gang. His heart rate increases. The sweat drips from his face to his clothes. He must get nearer. He needs to hear what they are saying, know exactly where his prey is lodged.
Just as he rises, the two figures part, moving in opposite directions. Quickly! Whom should he follow?
“I know someone who knows someone who knows whom you seek.” That’s what Malefactor had said.
He chooses the second figure.
This one moves even faster. At times Sherlock has to run. That means taking more chances. He glances back again to make sure that no one is pursuing, and sees shadows flitting about in the darkness, hears sounds – perhaps just the rustlings of the big cat-sized rats that live here. He presses on. Before long they are almost on the banks of the river.
Then the dark figure does something surprising. He rushes up to the doors of an octagonal, marble building. It is the entrance to the Thames Tunnel that runs under the brown river to industrial Rotherhithe on the south side. The world’s first underwater tunnel, it was a tourist attraction in the past, with shops down its descending stairs, along some of its thirteen-hundred-foot length, and up the ascent on the other side. But lately things haven’t been going well: folks fear for their safety inside these days – the shops are not as numerous or respectable as they once were, thugs loiter in the vacated alcoves, robbing victims who dare to enter alone. A few months ago, it was purchased by a railroad company, and shut down this very week to investigate the laying of tracks.
Up ahead the dark young figure is doing something to the latch of one of the great doors with a knife of some sort. He toils for an instant and then slips inside. It seems foolhardy to approach. That boy has a weapon. And what if Sherlock has been spotted? This would be a perfect place for someone to wait in hiding, and attack him.
Holmes crouches outside the building for a while, not knowing what to do. But he can’t wait for long. He has to decide. He thinks of Sigerson Bell sitting alone and distraught in Soho Square, of the five hundred pounds that would change their lives.
Sherlock rises and approaches the door. It obviously had been locked, but then pried open and … left slightly ajar, just a crack, as if inviting him to follow.
He grasps the door with a trembling hand … and opens it. It creaks. He slides in and drops to the floor. The sound of the door closing echoes in the big rotunda. But it’s the only sound he hears.
There’s no one in here.
He’s heard stories about this place being haunted – many men died when it was being built, buried under collapsing soil or horribly drowned in an inescapable underwater underworld.
There are a few dim gaslights left on. The rotunda is impressive, at least fifty feet across, walls lined with deserted vendors’ stalls, a little ghost town of sorts. Across the round room sits a cage for the penny-ticket collector and a turnstile, abandoned too. Sherlock, with his long legs, steps over its iron spindles. In front of him is a set of steps leading downward. What awaits him in that hell below?
His legs feel like jelly. He approaches the stairs nervously and starts down. At the bottom of this first flight another flight descends the opposite way, then another, and another. He is dropping deep below the River Thames. The air is hot and thick down here.
Up above he hears a sound … like someone entering the building and walking across the rotunda!
What if they have him in a trap, one brute in front and the other behind? It would be a perfect maneuver. No one goes after the Brixton Gang and comes out alive. Another terrifying thought passes through his mind. Is this Malefactor’s doing? Is this why he had that strange look on his face – the evil expression? Has he been drawing his rival in these last few days, setting him up for this? Sherlock remembers how quickly Malefactor’s words had calmed Grimsby how the bloodthirsty lieutenant had laughed. Malefactor is not to be trusted … he could easily want Sherlock dead.
He turns to face whoever is coming down the stairs, but there are no footsteps anymore.
He stands still near the bottom of the last flight, holding his breath. Still, no one comes out of the dimly lit space above. He reminds himself of the prey he is pursuing. He turns and scurries toward the tunnel.
Before him is a dirty, gray-bricked archway about six or seven body lengths across with a high ceiling. In its heyday, its alcoves were filled with shops and other enticements, even ladies telling you your future by reading the palms of your hands. But today everything is dank and empty. Sherlock hesitates at the entrance – he can’t hear the dark-dressed boy anywhere, yet this
Silence.
He is near the middle of the tunnel now and there is nothing but curving dark walls in the gloom around him and the only sounds are his own breathing. When he begins running again he hears those footfalls once more. He stops again. They stop.
Several strides later the gloom turns to utter darkness. Sherlock stops running and walks carefully, his hands stretched out in front of him, into black.
He feels something. A human face!
He screams.
It screams.
“Who are you!!!” it shouts. It’s an old woman’s voice. His hand has gone into her mouth and feels her toothless gums.
Sherlock pulls away and begins to run as hard as he can, his stomach burning, heart pounding, sprinting in complete darkness, not knowing if he will run face-forward into another vagrant human being, a wall, a ghost, or a
