among the finest weapons that anyone can bear in self-defense. Hide it under your coat. If required, use it. It shall back any man away from you in an instant! Observe the wrist action.”
Bell snaps the stiff, three-foot long piece of leather into the air producing a frightening crack, then turns madly on another skeleton and wades into him – his first slash knocks the skull clean from its body and sends it smashing to the floor – three boney men down in one day. Bells smiles and hands the hard black weapon to Sherlock.
The boy imitates his teacher and slices the air with another magnificent cracking sound. He seems a natural. The apothecary nods.
But immediately there is a knock at the door. The two men look at each other and Bell motions for Sherlock to hide in the lab.
The boy peers around the entrance and watches the old man open the door carefully, assuming his wide stance, with hands raised near his chest, ready to strike.
But the man who comes through the door isn’t one he wants to attack.
Lord Redhorns blusters in.
“Did you receive the message which I gave your page?”
“Message?” asks Bell weakly.
“More than two days past, I informed him that you had four days in which to pay your rent or you would be summarily thrown into the streets. Do you have the funds now?”
“No, sir.” Bell looks warily back toward the lab.
“I shall be here tomorrow evening. If you do not hand me the sum the instant I arrive, I shall evict you then! Good evening, Mr. Bell.”
“Good evening, sir.”
The door closes and the apothecary stands still. When Sherlock comes out to him, he turns with a resplendent smile. “Did you hear that, my boy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That man should go upon the stage! He is an actor whose impersonations are as marvelous as the great Macready! And a lunatic! He strolls about these parts, pretending to be a wealthy landlord! I have no idea who he really is!” Bell utters a crack of laughter.
“I know who he is, sir.”
“You do?” For the first time that Sherlock can remember, the old man allows sadness to show on his face.
“And I have a plan to save us from him.”
“Oh, something will turn up. I am a devotee of the science of alchemy, and of the sociological precepts of one Samuel Smiles. If one devotes oneself to bettering oneself, then life around one will always get better. And I am working on it as we speak!”
“There is a five hundred pound reward for the capture of the Brixton Gang.”
Bell is speechless.
“And I am going to get it.”
“I … I cannot allow this.”
“I shall do it without nearing them. I have a way. I shall not put myself in danger.”
“Do you promise, my boy?” There are tears in the old man’s eyes. “You will recall … a promise involves one’s honor. To break it is disgraceful.”
“I promise,” says Sherlock Holmes, “on my mother’s grave.”
The old man smiles and opens the front door, crouching behind so no one from the outside can see him.
“May the gods be with you, Master Holmes. Be careful and come back safely. We shall write up the evidence together, and take it to the police.”
Sherlock lied to Sigerson Bell. He is going to Rotherhithe to walk straight into the lair of the Brixton Gang.
From this moment forward there will be no looking back, regardless of the danger. You either fight evil or you don’t; you either get what you are after or lose it; there is nothing in between. He takes a deep breath and slips into the night.
THE ROTHERHITHE DEN
Sherlock Holmes takes a very long route to his destination. First, he heads straight north, then west, in the opposite direction he intends eventually to go, leading whoever might be following him on a wild-goose chase all the way up to Regent’s Park. In the dim lights and shadows of the elm trees in that huge green leisure area he sees packs of London’s poor: raggedly dressed, huddled together in groups for the night, their children wailing.
“A farthing, old sir, or just an ’alf?” begs one aged woman who approaches him on her knees, just wisps of dirty hair on her head, her face, burnt by the summer’s broiling sun, the color and texture of an old leather rugby ball.
He keeps moving, hearing the faint sounds of the caged animals crying in the park’s Zoological Gardens, rushes past the circles of exotic flowers planted by the Royal Botanical Society, and then plunges south, through Hyde Park, into wealthy Kensington and Chelsea, and all the way down to the river. There he passes by the lewd amusement grounds of The Cremorne Gardens where El Nino Farini first made his name in London, high in the night air. He can hear the Gardens even though he is a quarter-mile away: the swirling dance music on its outdoor stages, the dramatic sounds of a circus at its amphitheater, and the roiling crowds.
He looks up and sees a balloon, lit with gaslights, rising above the Gardens, just as roman candles explode all around it, lighting up the banks of the river for miles. The first bang makes Sherlock jump. Oh to be there!
But instead he crosses over Battersea Bridge and begins a long journey along the south bank of the Thames, back to the frightening desolation of Rotherhithe.
It doesn’t seem like anyone has been following him. In fact, he hasn’t sensed a trailer since he left the apothecary’s. Bell’s clothes are feeling heavy as he plods along on his gigantic detour. Certain that they aren’t needed anymore, and remembering that the old man had told him they were rags anyway, he slips under the bridge and frees himself of the overcoat, fez, and medical bag, tossing them into a large dustbin near the water. He starts off again, feeling lighter.
Despite lightening his load, he’s exhausted by the time he reaches the southern entrance of the Thames Tunnel. That isn’t good – he needs to be strong and alert. His face still aches from Grimsby’s blows. He struggles along Rotherhithe Street in the dark, his eyes searching for the Asphalte Works.
He spots them, smelling worse tonight, it seems, looking darker, their black chimneys blacker. And there are the crumbling warehouses.
He crouches against the broken-down wall of an abandoned soap factory and looks across wide Rotherhithe and down the much smaller, cobblestone street that runs away from it toward the river and past the warehouses. His first plan is to try to do as much of this as he can from a distance. If he is lucky, he’ll see Dante again, maybe talking to members of the Brixton Gang, hopefully doing something that gives away their identity.
But the luck that Sigerson Bell wished for him isn’t with him tonight.
He waits, and no one comes. The warehouses stay black and silent except for a dim light and distant, muffled sounds in the upstairs floor of the last one near the river.
He realizes how ridiculous it is to think that he can do anything from this far away, but how unprepared he is to do much more. He has no idea what even one member of the gang looks like and the belief that they would somehow do something that would give them away doesn’t make sense.
No, he has to go over there … right to the warehouses. There are times, his father used to say, even in the world of science, when you must gamble, when plans are not possible and nothing is certain. That’s when the word
Sherlock has to experiment; and hope this doesn’t blow up in his face.
