Vanishing Girl

“Master Holmes, I went to see this gentleman last night and told him that you had run away from your London family. It is best that you be moved along. He agreed to see you off.”

“None of your tricks either, boy. Penny Hunt is a good woman. I watch out for her when I can. If she says you are a good lad, then I will believe it, though I have my suspicions. The children about these parts have encountered you, they have, and don’t like the look of you. I shan’t examine the inside of your frock coat, I just want you gone from St. Neots forthwith. The inspector will let you pass. You can disembark at Hornsey Station, north of the city. We knows the ticket man there. Word is being sent and he will let you by. Be off with you. And if I ever see you in these parts again, I shall place you in the stir and put you before the magistrates.”

Bradstreet turns on his heels and walks away.

Penny stays with Sherlock while the line moves toward the entrance. She speaks softly and looks about.

“I’ll tell you why I asked the constable to move you along: other police was here last night.”

“Other police?”

“From London. And do you know where they made their visit? To the paper mill, not long after I left. Must have almost passed you and me by the river. A friend rapped on our door after supper and told me. It was the Force themselves at the mill, Master Holmes: three constables and a detective named Lestrade.”

Sherlock is stunned. The old inspector isn’t as dull as he looks. It took him a while, but he must have traced the paper, too.

“My friend heard them talking as they left, mumbling about bad clues and returning to London.”

“They didn’t go to Grimwood Hall … or Little Barford?”

“I don’t know why you would ask that, Master Holmes, but no, they didn’t. The foreman spoke to them himself, didn’t allow any worker to even near them.”

Sherlock smiles. Lestrade’s trail is cold. It died in the paper mill.

“I don’t like your smiling. Did you lie to me about your father, too?”

The boy wipes the look from his face.

“I came here for good reason, Mrs. Hunt, I promise you. I was looking for someone. And I think I found …”

“Who?” The color has risen in her cheeks.

Sherlock’s voice drops to a whisper.

“I can’t say anything more.”

“Promise me it isn’t you that the London police is after.”

“No, Mrs. Hunt, it isn’t. I promise you on my mother’s grave. I only lied to you to do good.”

“That is a queer idea, lad.”

“I know.”

“It is my understanding that the police didn’t ask after you. But I thought it best that the constable move you out. He doesn’t seem to have any interest in you – I counted on him just wanting a loiterer gone.”

“I …”

“But I surely don’t like you asking about Grimwood Hall, Master Holmes. I don’t know why you wanted to go to there, or if you went, or how you got out alive if you did. It is fortunate for you that you reminds me of my eldest … who left us … stood up to her father, she did…. You have her look, Master Holmes, her stubborn look. Your mother, God bless her, would want me to get you away from here.”

“Thank you.”

As he starts to step away, she pulls him back.

“I know there is bad happenings about. And I know that you are mixed up in them. Let whatever your concern is be, child. Don’t ever come back here. I pray the curse of Grimwood Hall hasn’t touched you … like I fear it has touched my own.”

The Hornsey Railway Station in North London is more than an hour’s walk from Scotland Yard. Sherlock must speak to the police as soon as possible. The ransom note said the kidnappers would kill Victoria Rathbone before the sun sets today. Every minute that passes puts her in mortal danger. He will barely make it on time to save her, and that’s if there are no delays.

He sits upright this time on his bench in the third-class carriage. There are so many things running through his mind. Not only does he need to get to the police on time, but he must find a way to immediately draw them out to Grimwood Hall without giving everything away. He simply can’t tell them what he knows because Lestrade would leave him out of it, just as he did twice before. And he must bring witnesses other than the police who will acknowledge that he, Sherlock Holmes, solved this crime. That way, Mr. Doyle will know as well. Could Sherlock do what he did when he found the Brixton gang last summer? Insist that Scotland Yard bring the reporter from The Times? What if Hobbs is not available? And St. Neots is so far away.

More than three-quarters of an hour later, after steaming along without delays, the train pulls into the Hornsey Station. He still hasn’t come up with a solution.

He has no choice but to disembark here. He cannot attempt to stay on the train, or leave and sneak back on, use any of the tricks he employed on the way north – the inspector here would be alert to him.

He is standing at the carriage door when the train stops. He steps down and races away, smelling the burning locomotive coal as he thuds along the wooden platform, past the inspector who gives him a nod, out of the iron-roofed station, making a beeline for Scotland Yard far away near the Thames. He is still trying to figure out what he should do when he gets there.

This race will be mostly downhill. North London is on a higher elevation than the city itself. He can see the metropolis spread out below and spots the river, the tiny dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the smoke and fog lying in clouds. The population is in pockets in these suburbs, so Sherlock isn’t being slowed by crowds. He can full-out sprint. His breathing grows louder and more labored as he rushes downward on a new foot pavement along a wide road on the edge of Hornsey Wood near an open area where a public park is being built, a beautiful place for Londoners to escape the stench and noise of urban life. But Sherlock doesn’t even glance at it. He comes to the famous Seven Sisters Road, an artery he has never seen, but often read about – it has always sounded to him like a spooky spot where witches live, and it’s true that people were once taken here and burned at the stake. Today it is nearly deserted.

By the time he sees the yellow-brown stone tower atop King’s Cross Station, he is moving through heavy crowds. But he does well, gets past the busy area quickly, and heads farther south, through the narrower roadways in north-central London.

Bloomsbury nears.

That’s when the boy makes his mistake.

The Doyles’ house. It isn’t time to talk to the philanthropist – he wouldn’t be home at this hour anyway. It isn’t that. It’s Irene. She wants Victoria Rathbone back, too. She has a stake in this. He wonders if he should stop at her house and tell her everything, get her to help. She will be amazed at what he’s done. Her Stepney boy can be saved.

Sherlock smiles. Yes, this is the solution. He should tell her. He can use her. Given that she is the daughter of a particularly respected gentleman, Lestrade would likely believe whatever she says. Her influence might be just what he needs to draw the Force to Grimwood Hall on the double. And she can get word to a newspaperman. She will be pleased to be involved. Irene Doyle may be the answer once again.

He reaches Montague Street and hurries along until he comes to her residence across from the British Museum. The Doyle place is three-and-a-half storeys high with a cream-colored ground floor and brown brick on the upper levels. Bright red flowers still bloom in the window boxes despite the increasingly cold nights.

Sherlock comes to a halt at the passageway that runs off the street to the little backyard. He knows it so well. His breathing begins to slow. He had lived in that yard in great fear in a dog’s kennel after Irene helped him escape from jail during the Whitechapel investigation. He smiles for an instant when he thinks of John Stuart Mill, her gassy little dog. But sadness soon sweeps over him. In those days he and Irene had been friends … and his mother had been alive.

He hesitates. Does this really make sense? He vowed to exclude Irene from all of his endeavors, to thrust her from his life and thereby keep her safe. The correct way to proceed is emotionless: cold and calculating. Find another way. Perhaps he can simply shout his evidence in front of