turning to the news?” He tilts the arm of one of his hanging skeletons upward and sets the newspaper in its hand.
Sherlock tries to rush the meal preparation along. As he wipes the tall, wooden lab table, which is used as often for digging into corpses and mixing chemicals as eating food. In fact, he sees traces of blood and poison as he cleans it this morning. He moves about, looking toward the skeleton, trying to read the whole headline. Finally, he makes it come fully into view.
“ALARMING ACCIDENT AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE”
Bell is bending over a pan, cooking sausages, and tending to the tea he is boiling in a flask, both on tripods over Bunsen lamps. Sherlock turns back to his task, racing back and forth from the counters to the table, grabbing mortars to use as bowls, and two scalpels for utensils. He sits down at the table, hoping this will speed up the process. Finally, the old man plops the meat into the bowls and pours the tea. The newspaper is still clutched in the skeleton’s hand.
“Sir?”
“Yes, my boy?”
“Shall I retrieve the
Bell furrows his brow and looks suspicious.
“Shan’t we eat first? What is the hurry?”
“I shall read to you as we eat. It would be my pleasure.”
Sherlock has the paper in hand and is back at the table in an instant. He leans forward, sticking his eagle nose almost onto the sheet, consuming the story, but trying to read without emotion:
“Monsieur Mercure, the bird-like leader of the Flying Mercure Family of Gaullist extraction, peers of Leotard and the Farinis, suffered a terrible fall yesterday afternoon at Sydenham. Spectators are divided as to whether the daring man made a gross miscalculation during a particularly tricky manoeuvre, or if there was some mechanical failure of his equipment. In any event, he fell 100 feet and struck the hard wooden floor of the Palace in a stomach- turning manner. He has many broken bones, the exact nature of which we shall not reveal here so as not to offend the sensibilities of our readers. He has also suffered a brain concussion and severely fractured skull. He was taken by carriage to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in the City and has been unconscious since his fall; he cannot speak and is not expected to live to the end of this day. The question of the acceptability of such dangerous performances is expected to once again be put before the Home Secretary for his scrutiny. That the citizens of London, the fair sex and children among them, should be subjected to such horrific scenes as this, and that which befell the wondrous Zazu last week at the Royal Holborn Amphitheatre, is the concern before us all. Police suspect no foul play”
Though the article goes on to describe Mercure’s career and that of the three other members of his troupe, Sherlock reads on with only passing interest. His eyes keep flashing back to the last sentence in the first paragraph.
“Hmph!” snorts Bell when the boy is done. “If you live by the sword …”
They eat in silence for a moment, or at least Sherlock does. Bell consumes his food with his mouth wide open, smacking his lips and groaning with pleasure.
“Might I pose a question, sir?”
A large slice of greasy brown sausage is about to enter the apothecary’s watering mouth, speared as it is upon his scalpel. He hesitates, sets his food back in his bowl and smiles. He loves these sessions.
“Pose away.”
“What exactly occurs when one suffers a concussion of the brain?”
“Ah,” announces Bell, thrusting his pointing finger into the air, “the flying gymnast’s wound.”
“Precisely,” answers Sherlock trying not to seem too interested.
“The brain is like a jelly … imagine tomato aspic.” The old man pauses and peers over his glasses at the boy. “Do you have it now?”
Red, jellied tomato aspic the size of two fists is riveted in a picture in the boy’s own brain.
“Perfectly.”
“Now imagine that tomato aspic inside your skull.” He pauses again and leans forward, examining the boy. “Do you have it?”
“I do.”
“Dispense with all those absurd ideas about phrenology that one hears these days – that the bumps on one’s skull, prominent or underdeveloped, indicate one’s particular kind of intelligence or lack thereof, or the ridiculous idea that the African or Oriental man has inferior intelligence due to the shape of his helmet. The skull is a mere bone of protection for the tomato aspic inside. Its bumps and curves say absolutely nothing about one’s intelligence. It’s that jelly that matters.”
“Yes sir.”
“When one receives a severe blow to the cranium, as this trifler upon the flying trapeze contraption did, the tomato aspic sloshes about inside.” Bell shakes his head in an alarming manner before continuing. “Different parts of the brain govern different human powers: motor skills, memory, that sort of thing. A concussed brain is a banged-about, bruised, or even bleeding brain. It has been paralyzed, shut down. Some of its functions may be damaged.”
“For good?” asks Sherlock. “The aerialist may have lost his memory, for example?”
“Perhaps, though that is the least of his worries. His tomato aspic has suffered a great deal of trauma. It’s sounds to me as though he will die.”
The boy wants to get away. Bell is going out, as usual, to see a long list of patients, and Sherlock is supposed to guard the shop, tend to any customers who appear (though it seems, curiously, that very few ever do), and clean the lab.
But he has no intention of doing any of that. In fact, he is planning to deceive his boss. He has never disobeyed him before, not about anything. But what harm can it do? Bell’s trips are usually long ones – gone all day, busy as a Canadian beaver, pursuing his thriving business. Sherlock will get out and back without the old man knowing. But first, he has one more question.
“Have you ever treated a circus performer?”
“Oh yes,” says Bell. “They go in for unconventional things, you know. Hengler, the rope-walker, once came to see me himself. Inner ear infection. Helped him regain his equilibrium.”
“What are they like?”
“Very independent and self-reliant, looser morals than the rest of us, thick as thieves, but jealous of one another too. I remember Hengler was quite put out that a more youthful funambulist was causing a sensation that same week. He was anxious to get back up in the air. Said the younger man was an upstart; that he’d like to knock him off his rope. Struck me that he’d do it with a crossbow if he had one!”
The old man utters a burst of explosive laughter.
Bell leaves with a cheery good-bye and moments later, Sherlock is out the door. He rushes along Denmark Street – he has much to do today. First, he wants to talk to Malefactor, and then, he will fly to the Palace to examine the crime scene. He shall be gone most of the day, but still hopes to get back and clean up the shop before the apothecary returns. It will be a risky task.
Malefactor’s attitude toward Sherlock has changed since he solved the Whitechapel murder. Before, despite a strange connection between the two, he had treated Sherlock with disdain, setting his dozen little Trafalgar Square Irregulars on him from time to time, teasing him, making references to his mongrel blood, sneering at his interest in criminals and the city’s celebrities. But since Rose Holmes’ death, since her son solved the murder, the young crime lord has left him alone, just watching, a look more like respect in his eyes.
Sherlock knows where to find him. The Irregulars will be gathering at a park called Lincoln’s Inn Fields, getting pick-pocketing instructions for the day, discussing the fencing of their latest stolen goods.
But not long after he starts out, Sherlock sees something shocking.
It’s Sigerson Bell. Though he had left the shop nearly five minutes earlier, he’s still barely down Denmark
