Death in the Air

Grimsby seems to have something wrapped around his knuckles, like a piece of iron. He speaks as he works, spitting out his words. Sherlock is in the hands of a bully far worse than any ever seen in a schoolyard. Like all those bullies, he has demons; his anger comes from his fears.

“You think you’re better than me, don’t you? … You think the boss respects you more? Think … I’m … a … Jew? … I’ll … show … you!”

“MALEFACTOR!” screams Sherlock, finally hitting on what to do. “YOU’RE A COWARD!”

It works, thank God. It isn’t something Malefactor can stand to hear, especially on Montague Street.

“Cease,” says the young chief quietly through clenched teeth. He had returned from Great Russell Street, and had been standing at the edge of the mews, just around the corner out of sight, listening to the beating.

Sherlock gets up. His ribs ache and there is blood at the corner of his mouth, but he raises himself to his full height and stands as erect as he can despite the pain. Then he turns to Malefactor, whose face is red.

“I am no coward,” he snarls, smoothing out his tailcoat and using every effort of will to contain his rage. “I am a knight of the streets. You wouldn’t understand my kind of honor.”

“Then speak to me … and call off these piglets.” Sherlock is gasping for air.

The roughs glare at him. Malefactor waves for them to stand back.

“I shall decide if this is to continue,” he pronounces, “depending on what you have to say. But I must warn you that your chances are not good.” He examines his fingernails for flaws.

“Your honor? Do you call it honorable to trap me in a dangerous part of London, to turn my life over to villains?”

“Who says I did?”

“Me.”

“And you are an expert, no doubt.”

“Is that not why you are avoiding me today?”

“I want nothing to do with you, especially now.”

“Frightened of something, are we, Sir Galahad?”

Malefactor clenches a fist.

“Anyone disturbing the Brixton Gang in any way will be removed … from life,” he growls. “We all respect that. If you choose to pursue them, then you are a grievous liability … not just to them but to anyone who knows you, including me. Do not whine about it. You have made your bed, now lie in it!”

He nods to Grimsby and Crew.

“Take your medicine!” adds Malefactor as he turns to exit the lane.

But not a single hand is laid upon Sherlock Holmes. In fact, everyone freezes, though Malefactor looks like he might melt.

Irene Doyle is standing at the entrance to the lane dressed in a white silk dress, a white bonnet tied with flowered laces on her head.

“I heard a shout,” she says quietly.

Malefactor snaps around and holds a hand up to Grimsby and Crew.

“What is happening here?” she asks, looking at Sherlock’s face, an expression of pain crossing her own. She takes a few steps toward him.

“He fell down, Miss Doyle,” says Malefactor, “and we were helping him.” He moves between her and Holmes.

Irene is unconvinced but doesn’t resist. She looks back and forth between the two tall boys. The three of them standing in this triangle are a lonely trio, each desperate for friendship, but caught up in life’s circumstances. Irene knows that gentleness can solve all this. Her eyes plead with Sherlock’s, but he steels himself and looks away.

She takes Malefactor by the hand. Holmes steps forward and almost cries out. But he stops himself and stands still.

“Thank you for being so kind,” Irene says to the young dark knight, but her eyes are watering.

“This gentleman,” spits Sherlock, pointing a stiff, accusing finger at Malefactor and backing away from the others while nearing the entrance to the street, “was just telling me about his sense of honor.”

Malefactor bows.

“He said I wouldn’t understand it. I wonder if you would, Miss Doyle?”

She gently removes her hand from Malefactor’s and says nothing.

“I have one question for him before I leave,” adds Sherlock, taking a few more steps toward the street, still warily facing the ruffians. “I want to ask this, straight out. Did you have me trailed last night, and will you have me trailed again?”

Malefactor looks from Irene to Sherlock. Then he regards his enemy with a deathly stare.

“Such things are mysteries,” he says coldly.

Sherlock turns to leave.

“You know what they say about playing with fire, Master Holmes,” adds Malefactor. He reaches out and takes one of Miss Doyle’s gloved hands and kisses it. She can’t resist a smile.

Sherlock walks away. No one follows. They wouldn’t dare chase him in Irene’s presence. He wishes he could go back, wrench her from that devil’s grasp and escort her safely home. But he can’t. He has bigger fish to fry … in Rotherhithe.

BELL’S SOLUTION

Sherlock Holmes doesn’t know how he will do it. He walks back to Denmark Street puzzling over his problem. He’s gained no assurance that Malefactor isn’t plotting against him and doesn’t know if others are onto him either. How can he get from here to those crumbling Rotherhithe warehouses without being detected and trailed? And then there’s the potentially more dangerous problem of how he will confirm that the Brixton Gang is actually in one of those buildings. But he must take one difficulty at a time.

He enters the apothecary’s shop.

“Attack!” Bell screams from the lab. Sherlock rushes through the reception room to see the stooped alchemist and a well-dressed woman in a respectable, mauve bonnet, facing one of the skeletons that hangs on a nail in the lab. The woman is approaching it stealthily. She lifts her dress slightly and gives the bone-man a tap with her foot. Bell sighs.

“With all due respect, Mrs. Hawkins, that would not do much harm to a wood fairy. No, no, no. I want you to attack this villain. Look at the way he leers at us! Observe.”

He takes up his walking stick, pivots, and turns upon another skeleton. With his feet splayed in a wide stance, somehow perfectly balanced despite his crooked frame, he wields the stick like a sword, confronting an enemy. He thrusts it forward, parrying first and then smacking the skeleton with an alarming blow as he shouts an equally alarming oriental word at the top of his lungs.

“ KI-AI!”

Then he closes in on his target, releases the stick, allowing it to clatter on the floor, and seizes the skeleton in a complicated grip. From that position he sweeps one of his legs forward to knock his skinny combatant to the floor. He takes the boney fiend down hard, with an elbow dug into its neck. In an instant, he springs back to his feet and turns to Mrs. Hawkins.

“Now, I want to see that sort of evil attitude in your combat, though you shall do it as you are attired, sans the walking stick. A lady would not be carrying one, would she? I have taught you the technical skill, the maneuver, but I want to see attitude! You must identify his tender regions and strike them without mercy! ATTACK!”

The lady lifts up her dress to a shocking height, almost to knee level, feints one way with one foot and then drives the other deep into the skeleton’s crotch. Her opponent’s entire hipbone shatters and it falls into a heap on the floor.