Vanishing Girl

opens on its own.

Sigerson Bell. He has come home early and he’s eyeing Sherlock suspiciously.

“My boy.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I observe a reddening of your face.”

“Calisthenics.”

“Ah! Shall I join you?”

“I have just finished. I was going out.”

Sherlock isn’t sure, but it seems to him that the old man’s eyes wander to his coat pocket, where the boy’s hand has slipped inside to guard the vial.

“Well, if you must, I shan’t stand in your way. I trust your work is done.”

He steps aside and the boy begins to pass through the doorway.

“Sherlock!”

The old man seldom refers to him by his first name.

“Yes, sir?”

Sigerson looks stern at first, then smiles.

“Whatever you do, in the end … be a good lad.”

“I promise I shall, sir.”

But his first stop on the way to Belgrave Square is for distinctly evil purposes. His pockets are empty again, and he is planning a robbery. In the late spring, while living on the streets during his pursuit of the Whitechapel murderer, he had successfully stolen from a shopper at busy Smithfield Market. He’ll try it again. If he is caught, he will be instantly arrested, and there are many Bobbies in the markets. His whole future hangs on his light-fingered skills.

The last time, he had a full day to pick his victim and had chosen a female servant who was new to her market job, who set down her baskets while paying for her goods, giving him an opportunity to swoop and then disappear into a thick crowd. He doesn’t have the luxury of time now. No easy targets appear. It is very late afternoon and the last day of a bleak November so the market has a sparser look: fewer stalls, limited vegetables. Should he really try this? It’s too risky. But he must. He walks down a makeshift aisle in the middle of things, with barrows and carts lining it and vendors crying their goods in a crowded din. He sees a fishmonger, a poor old man with sores on his ruddy face, with long hair and a beard, wearing dirty, over-sized clothes … who turns his back for an instant. Almost unconsciously, Sherlock snatches two fistfuls of fish, already gutted and wrapped in newspapers, and is lost in the crowd before the man even notices.

He is halfway to Belgravia in minutes, his hands red and freezing as he clutches the ice-cold goods. He doesn’t feel proud of what he’s done. What had possessed him to steal from that poor old man? He at least could have chosen a different monger, but he had been thinking about no one but himself. It is done, he tells himself; it is useless to worry about it now. This could be the means to help Paul Dimly. That thought reassures him. It is time to move on.

Belgravia nears.

His father’s admonishments about observing are deeply ingrained in him and have been re-emphasized by Sigerson Bell. But listening skills are almost of equal importance. Both his mentors agree. “Listen to what everyone in the world tells you,” Wilberforce Holmes once said, “whether it is a royal declaration or a shout in the street.” He had tuned his ear to the constables when they discussed the Rathbone ball and listened to every syllable as Miss Doyle spoke of the contents of the great house and the servants who worked within.

Footmen are the most costumed of all the domestic help in a nobleman’s home. They dress in distinctive uniforms and wigs, with white stockings, and breeches. They are supposed to be tall and are often young. Irene described one who was very young, a sort of apprentice, only used on busy occasions. Thin and with strands of black hair just like Sherlock’s evident under his wig, he also had, as Irene recalled, a rather prominent nose. Holmes’s own proboscis, he has to admit, is not without prominence.

Sherlock is certain that this boy will be working tonight. He assumes that many on staff hardly know the lad and that the Rathbones, who barely recognize their own daughter, are certainly not apt to be well acquainted with one of their infrequently employed servants.

The little private ball and masquerade will be preceded by a meal. That will be helpful too. He walks quickly into Belgrave Square carrying his fish. The sun has already set. Supper time is fast approaching. He waits in the park and watches the guests arrive – they must all be indoors before he makes his move. When he nears the great house a short while later, he sees a sort of parade through the tall windows at the front: bejeweled ladies with low-cut dresses, and perfectly groomed gentlemen in dark suits and white silk cravats, all carrying masks and paired off with carefully chosen partners, descending the pink marble staircase from the drawing room. In moments they will be in the dining room, ready to eat. Then they will remove to the upstairs again, to the ballroom. He needs to act smartly.

He gets past the liveried coachman standing guard outside by pointing to his newspaper-wrapped fish. He grins at him, holds his nose, and motions to the house with his head.

Wealthy homes have big kitchens in the basement and Irene has told him exactly where to find this one. He shoots down the stone stairs and opens the door without knocking, as if he were meant to. There is a mass of servants scurrying about in a sort of ordered chaos, frantic as the supper hour descends on them. It is very loud. He can disappear in here, whether fish is on the menu or not.

“Confidence is the key to anything you do,” Sherlock once heard Malefactor tell his charges. Holmes had been hiding in the bushes at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, fascinated, in those days, with the underworld.

The boy knows that his rival was right. He has to be bold now and act as though he is exactly who he pretends to be.

He spots the cook, a big-bosomed, middle-aged woman wearing a white apron and dress, who is sending her assistants and other servants off in all directions. Sherlock holds the fish in full view in front of his chest, but turned away from the cook (since she is in charge of the menu), and heads toward an unattended wooden table that looks to be filled with food for a later course. Just as he hoped, no one questions a delivery boy’s presence and he sets his smelly load down and has both hands free.

Then he spies his prey; the young footman who looks a little like him. Dressed in the scarlet Rathbone uniform, he is waiting to take the hors d’oeuvres of imported oysters up to the dining room, and is staring longingly down at them in the manner a groom might regard his bride.

Seventeen years old, missed a small streak of his father’s working-class grime on his left cheek. Hungry, as befits his class. First few weeks on the job … and shall eat at least one oyster on the way up the stairs.

Sherlock slips over, his hand on the vial in his pocket, and stumbles, falling into the big plate of oysters and deftly knocking one to the floor.

A kitchenmaid turns and glowers at him.

“Many pardons, mum,” he says, reaching down to pick up the morsel.

“No one is eatin’ that ‘un, you savage. Throw it out and be on your way.”

“Yes, mum.” But his eyes are on the footman, whose eyes are on the oyster.

“I have a rule,” whispers Sherlock into the other boy’s ear as he rises. “In fact, I am the originator of it, mate. It’s this: once a portion of food strikes the floor, it can be eaten within three seconds, no later. That’s the ‘Three Second Rule.’ The time grows longer dependin’ on your poverty, as your lodgins is deeper in Whitechapel, Stepney, or the Isle of Dogs.”

The young footman grins, takes the dirty oyster from Sherlock’s open hand, holds his head back, and quickly tips the contents into his gaping mouth. Sherlock sees the brown, powdered opium enter with it and the footman’s Adam’s apple bounce in his gullet.

“I shall be off.”

He waits outside, around the back, at the rear kitchen door, hidden from the view of the coachman out front. No more than five minutes later, the footman staggers out the door, perspiring heavily and feeling drowsy.

“Anything wrong, mate?” asks Sherlock quietly, offering his shoulder.

“It’s you, boy. I am seeing strange things … I am feeling … feeling …”