The Secret Fiend

“And were I a wagering man, I would place great sums on the probability that your name is in every publication in London this morning.”

Sherlock had planned to have a sort of a victory chat with the old man this forenoon – laying out in detail his heroic actions and his solution to the Mystery of the Return of the Spring Heeled Jack. He hoped to have his explanation all finished and the apothecary’s deep admiration before he made his way to school. But this appearance in the morning publications more than gives him pause, as does Bell’s less-than-joyous attitude toward it.

“Let us have a look.” The boy reaches out for the paper.

“Perhaps after school?” Bell snatches it back.

After school?

Had Beatrice or Louise or maybe even John Silver not kept their word and informed the police, who had then informed the papers about his solution to this sensational crime? But if so … why isn’t Bell proud of him?

“Before you read the article – after school – let me congratulate you upon the arrest of at least one culprit representing himself as The Spring Heeled Jack!” Bell summons a huge smile and pats Sherlock violently on the shoulder. It is a rather poor piece of acting.

“One culprit? What do you mean by that, sir?”

The apothecary sighs. “Perhaps you should, indeed … read the article. It is on the first page.” He hands the paper to the boy and sits at the table, unable to face him.

Sherlock reads.

IT STRIKES AGAIN

The Spring Heeled Jack has struck once more. This time in Knightsbridge, near the homes of several cabinet ministers. This attack was indeed a frightening one, the villain appearing out of nowhere and knocking a coachman unconscious before pulling two terrified ladies from the carriage, manhandling them, and sending them to the ground. Both fainted and the Jack was looming over them like a monster when Constables Balfour and Cummey, who had heard the ladies’ screams, came sailing up Piccadilly to aid them. The fiend, however, took one look at the men in blue and vanished, lighting onto a water pipe and ascending it like a monkey before gaining the rooftops and disappearing into the night. The Bobbies recall a man dressed somewhat like a bat, wearing a cape, with devilish ears, and having claws on his hands. He wore large black boots as well and seemed to possess great bounding ability. Upon recovery, the victims described the assailant as well-muscled and spoke of their hearts fluttering at very high rates and the perspiration on the villain’s face actually dripping onto their own. They reported too that he had fiery red-eyes and something blue emitted from his mouth as he cried out in a deep voice. He shouted the same thing to them as he wrote on a note he left behind, described in blood-red lettering.

“CHAOS!”

Sherlock can’t believe what he has just read. Was it Crew? Or a new Jack? But despite this surprising news, there really isn’t anything in it that Sigerson Bell wouldn’t want him to see. Is there? Bell doesn’t know yet that he caught Silver last night, doesn’t know that he thought he had this case solved. Or does he? The old man has his back to him, but he is a mind reader of extraordinary power. Somehow, he knows the boy has paused.

“Read on,” he says, waving his hand.

The boy turns back to the remaining paragraphs.

Curiously, an amateur imitator of the Jack was also accosted last night at about the same time the real one struck again in Knightsbridge. This was a mere boy named John Silver, who dressed himself in a Jack costume and attempted to frighten one of the young ladies who had been attacked by the real villain a few days past. Silver has revealed to the police that he knew her in school and had affection for her. In the course of the brief investigation, it was also discovered that a friend of the young lady’s, who had been following her too, came to her aid, breaking Silver’s arm.

Members of the Force were quickly on the scene, thinking at first that the genuine Jack had struck again. A red-faced Inspector Lestrade, who came rushing to this location from Knightsbridge, emerged from interviews in a hatter’s shop nearby and, though usually tight-lipped about police matters, addressed reporters at length. He named the other boy who was in the school-boy scuffle – one Sherlock Holmes, a poor apothecary’s apprentice.

“This young brat, of Jewish origins, fancies himself an amateur sleuth, and has previously interfered with the Force. I doubt we will even charge Silver – he simply needs some stern attention to his derriere with a switch. There are too many amateurs about these days, both representing the villains and the side of justice. We will countenance no further interference. And I will assure the London public this … we will catch the true fiend and catch him soon.”

“I am sorry, my boy,” says Bell in a quiet voice.

But Sherlock isn’t feeling any sorrow for himself. He is simply seething. He is angry that he did not effectively keep his name from the news, and boiling about that ferret-faced Inspector, that buffoon who fancies himself a brilliant detective. And above and beyond everything, he is upset that he should have been in this situation in the first place. After having the good fortune to solve the Victoria Rathbone case, he had vowed that he would stay out of police work until he became a man, until he had worked diligently enough and long enough at his education, his fighting skills, his general maturity to face danger in the cause of justice, to truly help others wounded by villainy, and actually begin the job of avenging his mother’s death. He had told himself that he would only enter the fray if a case sought him out and he had absolutely no choice but to pursue it. There had not been much probability of that.

Instead, he had allowed himself to get caught up in a little concern, a personal one, brought to him by a dark-eyed girl with a pretty smile and a deep admiration for him. He had been flattered into action … and look what had occurred, look what came of such feelings. He had been publicly humiliated, and his nemesis, that boob Lestrade, had been the agent of his embarrassment. On top of everything, a real fiend, a terribly dangerous one, veritably from the pages of the Penny Dreadfuls, is on the loose in London … and he hasn’t a clue who it is. The account in the paper frightens him: this “Spring Heeled Jack,” he is sure, will soon be murdering his victims. Beatrice, it seems, has been telling the truth all along.

Sigerson Trismegistus Bell stirs on his stool at the lab. He turns and faces his beloved apprentice.

“You have only one option now, you know, my boy.”

“And what is that, sir?”

“You must come out of retirement.”

THE SPRING HEELED JACKS

Sherlock Holmes tries to be a regular boy the next day. He attends school and listens carefully. He is the only one in his form, learning at a level, he has been told, that no other student has ever reached at Snowfields. Sherlock also puts in his two hours as a pupil teacher instructing the little ones, helps the Headmaster clean up afterward, and is the last one out before the big wooden door on the ground floor of the big brick building is locked. He will clean the apothecary shop when he returns home. It will be a satisfying day’s work.

But during all of this, a tension, a burning excitement, builds inside him. A devil wants out. At times he even notices his hands shaking. So far, he has resisted the volcano inside. Sigerson Bell may be right. Perhaps he should pursue this fiend. Perhaps. Feelings welling inside him are telling him as much. But they are feelings. He must be prudent.

As he walks home along Snowfields Road and heads past the large railway station, he spots London Bridge up ahead and sighs. He likes to play little mental games to keep his brain exercised. How many steps is it from here to the bridge? He is training himself to judge distances – there may be a day when it will come in handy. Nine hundred steps, he estimates. Then he adds to his game. If I am able to travel that entire distance without once thinking of the Spring Heeled Jack, I shall resist him for good, leave him to the police to catch. That’s a vow.

At step number two hundred and twenty-two, his head cast down and his thoughts disciplined, he is