Vanishing Girl

Sherlock is waiting with breakfast already prepared (onion and parsnip sandwiches) when Bell descends in the morning.

“You have risen early, my boy! Is there an occasion? Is it not a Saturday?”

“Yes, sir, and I am ready to work.”

“Ah! Nothing planned on the Rathbone front?”

“No, sir.”

Though it pains him to be so patient, Sherlock doesn’t even broach the subject he dearly wants to pursue while they eat, or even for the first hour afterward. He waits for the opportune moment. The old man has been reading Dickens’ latest novel, Our Mutual Friend, and begins his day, much to Sherlock’s chagrin, by holding forth on its message.

“We are all connected, my boy, in a complicated web of humanity, we are all in a sense friends. We look more alike than we realize we do, act more alike, think more alike. We are all motivated by the same things … like money. Money is our mutual friend too! We are all very, very, very selfish. The more aware we are of this and try to put a stop to it, the better off we are.”

Finally, Bell puts the book down and turns to what Sherlock hoped all along he would do: continue the boy’s chemical education in the properties of various alkaloids and narcotics. Holmes is depending on the old man coming around to the subject of the poppy plant, so opium can be discussed. But for what seems like an interminable amount of time, likely only about ten minutes, he sticks to much more benign extracts. Finally, Sherlock forces the issue.

“What about the poppy, sir?”

Bell is a bit taken aback.

“The seeds of the poppy? The solidified latex of its pods? That isn’t for today. We will get to that in a fortnight. Now let me show you what –”

“I find it of particular interest.”

“You do? Why is that?”

“Because it is so … because its effects on the human being can be so extreme.”

Bell looks suspicious. “Yes, well, that is true. After all, opium, morphine, laudanum, and heroin are its by- products. None of them trifles.”

“And opium can render one unconscious, can it not? I believe you told me that once.”

“I did.”

“And yet one may purchase it from any chemist … or apothecary.”

“Yes, I keep it here, a great deal of it. I have often had occasion to prescribe it, in small, carefully measured amounts, mind you.”

“You once told me that if one were to powder it and mix it liberally with a meal, it would have serious side effects on anyone who consumed it.”

“I did?”

“What, exactly, would occur … in biological terms, that is?”

“Anyone who ingested it would slip into a stupor from which he would not awake for perhaps four or five hours, depending on the amount. But that isn’t something you need to know.”

“Quite right.”

“May we return to the garlic onion and its properties? It is a plant not well understood upon our shores.”

“Yes, sir, I am sorry to have diverted you.”

“Not at all.”

But Sigerson Bell seems to find it difficult to concentrate after that. He speaks for a while and then eyes the boy as if trying to read his mind. Finally, he calls things to a halt.

“Master Holmes, you aren’t planning to do anything, shall we say, sinister, with powdered opium, are you?”

“Why would I do that, sir?”

“It escapes me. But the powers of chemical elements are to be used by professionals for the maintenance of the human body, to heal others, not to injure. Fighting, likewise, is either a test of human skill in a freely-agreed- upon match between apparent equals, or simply a matter of self defense against a fiend. You cannot do evil to someone in order to do good. Your methods must always be of the highest standard. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

But Sigerson Bell has his doubts. He knows that justice is an enormous concern in the boy’s life and that he believes it is acceptable to use any means to achieve it. That is a fact that both disturbs and thrills the old man, though he wishes it were merely the former.

Sherlock acts the instant Bell leaves to attend to a Southwark lion tamer in the early afternoon. He is up on a stool in a flash, examining the contents of the apothecary’s glass cabinets. Everything has been meticulously labeled. He reads: Cocaine, Deadly Nightshade (the very name frightens him), Laudanum, Morphine … and Opium.

He takes the big jar down, sets it on the lab table and retrieves a mortar and pestle. Just a bit, enough to do the job, but little enough so the old man won’t notice a pinch is gone. He cuts a small piece off with a scalpel and drops the bit of hard brown material into the cup-sized stone dish and begins to grind it. Dust rises and some wafts up his nose. It tickles and makes him smile. Life can be so boring, but sometimes …

There’s a noise near the entrance to the shop.

Sherlock hesitates. Should he put everything back? Or just cover it up? He throws a cloth over it and goes out into the front room of the shop. It’s someone rapping at the latticed bow window, knocking clouds of dust down onto the wide sill inside. The shadowy figure, seen through the dirty translucent glass, seems tall and dark. Then it moves toward the door.

What should he do? Should he answer? Rush back to the poppy plant extract and put it away? What if it’s Bell? No, he wouldn’t be knocking. Or what if it’s … then the boy notices that the figure is only a head, or rather just wings and a very small feathered skull. It’s a black bird, a crow or a raven, smacking its wings against the glass and then flying off.

Stay calm, don’t be thrown by such trifles, or you won’t be able to do this.

His heart still beating fast, but under control now, he returns to his job, finishes, and pours the powder into a tiny vial. It will carry well in his pocket. When the opium is put back in the jar and set up on the shelf and the cabinet is closed, it looks just as before. At least that’s what he tells himself.

Next is the daily paper. Some days he goes out to get the shop’s copies in the morning. Other times, like today, they wait for the news agent to deliver in the afternoon. Theirs come from Dupin at Trafalgar Square. Sherlock hides the vial and slips out to find him.

The cripple is always glad to see Sherlock, though he notices something different today.

“Your face is lit up like a tallow candle, Master ‘olmes.”

“I am onto a scent, Mr. Dupin.”

“Looks like more ‘an that. Looks like you is ready to kill someone.”

“Nonsense.”

He finds the society pages and reads while he walks, unable to wait until he gets back to the shop. He needs to check something.

“THE BALL WILL GO ON

Word is that Lord and Lady Rathbone’s private Celebration Ball to toast the return of their daughter, Victoria, shall go on as intended. The best of society shall be gathering this evening, no doubt to attempt a cheering-up of our tenacious, leather-skinned Lord, he whose pocketbook and home have suddenly become distinctly lighter. Art works and silverware have been brought in to make those in attendance feel at home. Guests shall be arriving at seven.”

Bell isn’t supposed to return for another hour, so when Sherlock returns to the shop he takes his time getting ready. He drops the paper onto the lab table where the old man will see it and retrieves his small vial of opium from under the blanket on his bed in the wardrobe. But just as he is about to open the outside door to the street, it