While both Grimsby and Crew gape at it, Malefactor turns and boots it in the midsection, knocking it across the alley and onto the ground.
“You are a fool!” cries the crime boss and advances toward it. It lies there gasping, one of its arms folded across its chest, as if wrapped in a sling inside its costume.
“Police!” it shouts. “POLICE!” That freezes the criminals. Malefactor motions and all three run.
“The next time, you will be dead!” Malefactor shouts at Sherlock.
The alley grows quiet. Only the sounds in the streets outside are heard, the distant buzz of Southwark.
“You ’ave a goose egg, you ’ave.”
John Silver is sitting on the ground, half-dressed in his silly Spring Heeled Jack uniform, smiling up at Holmes. He is rubbing the arm that Sherlock broke, which is indeed wrapped in a sling under his crude costume.
“Thank you, Master Silver.”
“Not at all. I is glad to be of service. I ’ave been thinking about a great many things lately, overhauling ’em, I ’ave, Master ’olmes, and I want to change the way I does things … just like you said. So I thought I’d start this afternoon. I lives east of ’ere in Rotherhithe. So I was a coming this way to start events off, to find Miss Beatrice coming home to the hatter’s shop, to apologize to ’er. I was going to show ’er the costume to let ’er know ’ow ridiculous it was … and I am. Then I was going to throw it in a dustbin as she watched. The police didn’t take it from me, you know, didn’t bother. That Lestrade chap, ’e just smiled when Miss Beatrice and I told ’im about you and ’ow you ’elped ’er. I thought that peculiar. I ’ad told ’im what I did in order to raise you up a bit, because I felt wery guilty about things all of a sudden. You had been so brave and I such a fool, really. I ’ad got to thinking, straight off, when we was waitin’ for the Peelers to come that night, ’ow awful I’d been to you over the years. I felt ashamed of everything, so I wanted to do something nice for you. I don’t care if you is a Jew, Sherlock. Mr. Disraeli, ’e is one too. ’e is ’elping folks like me, I figure. ’e got the vote for me family. ’e is showing us all, ’e is. I don’t imagine any of us is so different inside.”
“No, I don’t imagine we are.”
“Well, I ’eard a commotion in ’ere, saw the two ragged boys at the entrance, ’eard that tall one with the tail coat and the top ’at shoutin’ nasty things at you. So I slipped on me costume and came at them two little guards all of a sudden-like and they runs! Then I comes in ’ere. That tall one sure kicked me good. I ’ad it in mind to fight them. But I thought better of it when I felt ’is blow. And when I saw the looks of them two with ’im.”
Silver rubs his stomach.
Moments later, as they leave the alley and head toward Borough High Street, big John grabs Sherlock by the arm. He is looking back in the direction of Snowfields School.
“That’s Beatrice, ain’t it?”
Down Snowfields Road, way down near the school, Beatrice Leckie and her friend Louise are talking to the headmaster as he locks the door. The headmaster points toward Sherlock and Silver, or at least in their direction. They are so far away that the girls don’t see them, but they begin to approach, eyes downcast, talking earnestly.
“She is a wery loverly one, she is,” says Silver.
“Yes … she is.”
“’ave you ever really conversed with her? I means, really sat down and ’ad a gab?”
“Well, we’ve chatted a little about –”
“You should. I did once, just once. It was when me guvna broke ’is back in an accident, building the new tracks out of London Bridge Station a few years past. Some rails fell off a wagon and landed on ’im.”
“I didn’t know that. I am sorry.”
“Well, she ’eard, and she spoke to me. Sat right down and gabbed for the longest time. It was wonderful, it was.”
Sherlock looks down the street at Beatrice. She still doesn’t see them. She has pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and is talking to Louise, waving it around as if frustrated about something.
“She gave me some money, she did.”
“What? Her family can’t spare any money.”
“I knows. But she wouldn’t ’ear of me family not ’avin it.”
Beatrice looks up and spots Sherlock. Those black eyes glow.
“She is a political sort, you know.”
“Nonsense. She doesn’t know a thing about it. She is an old-fashioned girl.”
“No, sir, she does. She says to me that day, she says that there should be money from the government for navies, workin’ men like my papa who gets injuries, that no man in England should go without money if he is ’urt, none should starve either, even if they don’t ’ave work. She says to me that things need to change in this country, and that the rich need to pay some of what they ’ave to ’elp the rest.”
Beatrice waves.
“Did you know that ’er father is ill, that that’s why she is working as a servant?”
“Sherlock?” cries Beatrice.
“Oh, my! I must go, Master ’olmes, I can’t face ’er! She is just too loverly. I suppose that’s why I wanted to scare ’er. I can’t never face ’er without getting all me nerves up and shaking like a leaf, like I might just puke up me guts right there on ’er dress or something or –”
Silver runs. His long legs take him up the road and then into the crowd on Borough High Street. A short while later, Beatrice rushes up.
“Sherlock ’olmes, you are just the man I was searching for.”
“Well, I am afraid you must make it brief, Miss Leckie. None of this Spring Heeled Jack stuff, I hope.”
“You look disheveled, Sherlock. Your ’air is out of place.” She smiles. “Not like you.”
In all the excitement Holmes has done little about his clothes or his hair. That is indeed not like him. He straightens his old clothes, knocks off the dirt, and is about to fix his hair when he realizes that it is likely hanging down over the growing goose egg on his forehead. He doesn’t want Beatrice to see it, so he resists perfecting his hair. It takes some doing.
“I suppose I was rushing home. Perhaps someone jostled me. Mr. Bell expects me not to dally after school, you know. I was then delayed by having the good fortune of meeting John Silver. He is really not such a –”
“Was that who that was?”
“Good fortune?” says Louise, curtsying to Sherlock as she begins. “’e was scaring us, ’e was, and an imposter to boot.”
“You know, I have never had the pleasure of being acquainted with your surname, Miss Louise.”
“It’s Stevenson.”
“Well, Miss Stevenson, I am well aware of what he was doing, but he is an earnest lad. Meant no harm, I’m sure. This silly Spring Heeled Jack scare has many folks acting strange.”
“It ain’t silly.”
“I beg to disagree.”
“It isn’t silly, Sherlock,” repeats Beatrice, dead serious. “I ’ave proof.” She reaches into her dress and pulls out the piece of paper he had noticed in her hand minutes earlier. “The Spring ’eeled Jack was seen in three locations last night. The papers all ’ave it. And ’e fastened this … to our shop door.”
She hands the note to Sherlock, but holds onto it as he reads. He notices that her hand is shaking. The note is written on the same paper that was left on Louise at Westminster Bridge.
I WILL KILL THE POOR, THE HELPLESS, THE FEMALES. JUST LIKE OUR GOVERNMENT. I’LL START WITH YOU! CHAOS!
The handwriting is similar to what was on the Westminster note too, and in the same blood-red color. Sherlock feels his heartbeat increase. Beatrice’s hand is trembling so much that she lets go of the note.
“I took it from the door before father saw it, thank God. I ’aven’t told the police … not yet. I thought I’d show it to you, that’s ’ow much I trust you. Inspector Lestrade only ’as that one constable patrolling near us … and ’e’s way out on Borough High Street.”
Sherlock can see that she is trying hard to keep her composure and his heart goes out to her. She is being very brave.
“It isn’t silly, Sherlock, it
Holmes thinks for a moment. He returns the piece of paper.
