Vanishing Girl

“Paul … Dimly!”

The little one doesn’t look up. He can barely see them anyway. He edges forward.

“What’s that you got, Captain?”

He ignores them.

“I do believe I knows what it is. Let’s ‘ave a look at it.”

The bigger of the two kicks the little boy in the stomach, making him release the hat, which the other expertly snatches. As Paul drops to the floor, trying to get his breath, they toss it back and forth.

“Paul Dimly’s dad ‘ad military might.”

“But ‘e dumped ‘is son without a fight!”

Paul rises. His face is beet red.

“Come and get it, dwarf.”

“Dimly dimly dimly dimly dimly.”

Paul lowers his head and charges, intending to butt the other boy’s midsection like a battering ram. But the bigger one simply reaches out and seizes him by the hair. The little bull then becomes a tiger. Reaching up, he digs his filthy nails into a cheek and rakes them across the skin, drawing blood and a curdling howl. The hat drops to the floor.

There are footsteps coming up the stairs. They fall faster and a young man in a clean but modest suit appears, rushing onto the floor.

“Paul?”

The three boys turn and the man instantly understands what has happened. He’s seen this before.

The bullies run off.

“You mustn’t let them get your goat,” says the young medical student. “Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then, face-to-face…. God will look after you.”

The little boy says nothing. He simply picks up his hat and holds it tightly to his thin chest. He keeps looking down.

“I am sorry to say that the Doyles don’t seem to be coming. They must have a pressing engagement elsewhere. But you and I shall have a visit, just the two of us again. I shall have you in my school next year, you know, whether those peepers are working well or not. I promise…. May I see your hat today?”

The boy holds it tighter to his chest.

“It is a captain’s hat, is it not? A fine one, I must say.”

“My father,” says the boy.

“Yes. Yes, I know. Your father’s.”

“My father.”

“I believe you, Paul…. Now, we must take your pulse and check those eyes.”

When the news comes on another cold morning three weeks later, Sherlock doesn’t have to search the papers. It is there on the front page of each and every one. Friday, November 29, 1867:

LORD RATHBONE ROBBED!

And it wasn’t a little job. The thieves didn’t take a vase or two, or even a stack of bank notes from a safe. They cleaned him out. The Rathbones’ fashionable home in Belgravia was stripped of all its greatest valuables.

The Daily Telegraph:

Police estimate that the nobleman may have been relieved of precious items, paintings, and assets numbering close to a quarter-million pounds, perhaps the most lucrative getaway in the annals of English crime. Inspector Lestrade was not available for comment.

“Take my hand, lad!” shouts Sigerson Bell, and he and Sherlock Holmes dance around the lab, performing a sort of Highland fling in duet, the old man kicking his legs clean above his head.

“I dance not due to the misfortunes of the eminent Rathbone family, for whom I am sorely grieved. One cannot but feel distraught for snobs who are rich beyond their merit … and are relieved of their baubles!” Bell performs a little jig. “I dance for you, my knight. You, who can entertain your brain with this!”

The news is indeed a stunning turn of events. What are the chances that one man could suffer such indignities twice in the same year? Perhaps the crime world has had enough of Lord Rathbone and is fighting back. Perhaps these two crimes are connected. Sherlock unlocks himself from Bell’s grip and sits down to read on, buoyed by the possibility of having a second opportunity at a crime attached to the Rathbone family. It almost feels like a reprieve. He couldn’t solve the first case, but perhaps he can shed some light on the second. What if he could beat Lestrade just when the detective thinks he has him down? What if he could steal back the thunder Scotland Yard gained just weeks ago … and humiliate his persecutor?

He turns to The News of the World:

The thieves struck at precisely the opportune moment. The Rathbones, overjoyed at the recovery of their child, had retired to their country home and taken almost every servant with them. Even the groom and footmen had been withdrawn. The hooded villains bound and gagged the two housemaids who had been left behind and went through the home, making quick work of their job. Only Lady Rathbone’s bedroom was left untouched. Carriages or carts of an undetermined kind and number were loaded near the stables at the rear of the home. It wasn’t until the following day that a passerby noticed one of the maids banging her head against a window and notified the Force. Inspector Lestrade was not available for comment.

Sherlock wants to get up and dance again, but a voice inside nails him to his stool. What is he thinking? Has he learned nothing? He is entertaining ideas he has no right to consider. This is what caused him to make a fool of himself at St. Neots, got him captured by the Brixton gang, put Irene in danger, and killed his mother. It isn’t for him to solve this crime.

But … can’t he just investigate a little from a distance? Discover a few points the police might not observe? Make a few deductions to see if they turn out to be accurate? Across the burn-streaked, chemical-stained lab table, the old apothecary, still breathing hard, is holding up his copy of the Telegraph and pretending to be engrossed in another section.

“Were I a medium upon the stage reading the synapses of your brain, I would divine that you shall be requesting the morning off,” he says into the pages. “It is a Friday anyway. Look into this, mon garcon! Just keep your distance!”

Moments later, Bell is pacing like an aging robin on a worm-filled ground as Sherlock fixes himself in the mirror and puts on his tattered frock coat.

“Anything in particular stand out for you in the reports, my boy?”

“Lady Rathbone’s room was left untouched.”

“Precisely! Ah, this is like the beginning of a diagnosis!” The apothecary takes several more bobs. “And where do you start?”

“At the crime scene.”

Sherlock turns to go. Bell is given to talking to himself even when others are in a room. Before Sherlock reaches the out-of-doors, he hears the old wizard say in a voice chocked with emotion:

“I cannot wait to find out who did it! Go to it, my boy! For England!” Then there is a pause. “Calm yourself, Sigerson. Calm yourself!”

Holmes doesn’t see Irene Doyle standing near the door as he walks out. She is wearing a heavy pink coat and bonnet, but is shivering, and trying to decide whether or not to enter.

“Sherlock!”

Every time he sees her, he feels as though he will immediately give in to her and allow her back into his life. Today, it is tempting indeed. It isn’t just the way she looks – the milk-white skin pinched with red by the cold air, the magnificent blonde hair cascading out from her hat, and the style with which she holds her rose-colored umbrella over her slim shoulder. The expression in her large brown eyes draws him too – she looks distraught.

“Let us be friends again,” he says to her … but only inside his head.