The Secret Fiend

How does he know that?

“I memorized it, I did, from today’s paper. It makes me blood run cold. I will kill the poor, the ’elpless, the females. Just like our government. I’ll start with you. Chaos! There is an animal, a freak of nature, on the loose in London, Master ’olmes. This ain’t like the one I remembers when I was young, or even the one from the Penny Dreadfuls. This one is the devil.”

Why did Beatrice give that note to the police? He had specifically told her NOT to. Or did she give it directly to the press? That would be even worse. “What happened last night?”

“You don’t know?”

“I know it was terrible, that it was murder.”

“It wasn’t murder, Master ’olmes, it was murders, five of ’em.”

Sherlock’s heart thumps.

“Five? It killed five people across London?”

“Not across London … in just one place. It was a whole family, poor as church mice: the father, the mother … and three children, all little girls. It was ’orrible.”

Sherlock is speechless. Could Malefactor do that? And if it wasn’t him, then who is this despicable fiend?

“What is our world coming to? It’s days like this that makes you feel it is falling apart. The government ’as to respond to this, Master ’olmes, the Jack is forcing them. Mr. Disraeli, ’es being tested. It’s as though this Jack is saying that if the politicians won’t ’elp the poor more … ’e’ll kill ’em all. It’s blackmail and terror. ’ere’s the paper. No charge. I’d like to get them off me ’ands today. It’s like they is full of blood. When you read this, it will make you sick.”

Sherlock takes the paper. The story isn’t difficult to find. It screams across the front page.

EVIL IN THE ISLE OF DOGS

A most heinous crime occurred last night in the marshes on the Isle of Dogs. After the sun had descended, a fiend dressed as the Spring Heeled Jack attacked and brutally murdered a family of five. They were residents of nearby Millwall, living in the shacks on Maria Street, the father, Mr. Treasure, a part-time employee of the local rope factory, his wife a seamstress. It is a rough, industrial area, south of the West and East India docks, near the construction location for the new Millwall pool. There are patches of crude homes amongst the factories and shipping wharves, and great stretches of deserted land and black mud. Police seldom patrol there. The Force believe Mr. Treasure was attacked and killed on the doorstep of his little home, which was then entered by the villain, who knocked the wife and little girls insensible and, with fiendish strength, dragged them all out into the marshes in the center of the peninsula. Screams were heard and trails of blood were discovered near the Iron Works, the Lead Works, and the rope-walk that leads to the marsh. Though much blood was found (in fact, it saturated the lying water in the area and turned it red) the bodies were not recovered. It is believed that the fiend butchered them and threw them into the Thames at the Blackwall Reach.

A note was recovered, which the police have not allowed the press to see. One assumes it said something further about killing London’s poor, and its females, until the government does more to help them. It seems a vicious and backwards way to go about being of service to the unfortunate.

Mr. Disraeli, who has been avoiding comment on other attacks, will almost certainly be addressing this incident in the Commons today. If he does not, Mr. Bright shall surely force him.

There were two other Spring Heeled Jack attacks last night, without injury, in working-class areas. Both times the fiend materialized briefly and instantly vanished. The police do not know if these appearances were perpetrated by the same beast responsible for brutalizing the Treasure family.

Sherlock looks up, feeling numb. This doesn’t seem real. He sees another man reading the same story not far away. The man looks shocked, his face as white as a Mayfair bed-sheet. The boy turns back to his own newspaper. It has one more paragraph.

It is also rumored that a revolver was stolen from a desk at Scotland Yard some time yesterday. The news that some villain, perhaps this murderous one, may have infiltrated the inner sanctum of our Force does little to alleviate the fear now gripping our streets.

It’s like one more blow in the stomach. And then his eyes fall on another report on the front page: of a bomb going off in a suburb, the act attributed to the Irish Fenians, those experts in terror, who are using fear to force the government to give Ireland its independence.

It takes Sherlock a few seconds to be able to move. There aren’t many people in the square at this hour, but as he makes his way toward a stone bench, he notices that others who have newspapers are also staring at the front pages in disbelief. He shoves his copy of The News of the World into his coat pocket and slouches down onto the bench.

Using Beatrice as bait, not an idea he was entirely comfortable with in the first place, is now impossible. The police will be watching the hatter’s shop like hunting dogs, likely stationing a half-dozen men there. Malefactor may not know that Sherlock was with Lestrade last night, but he might, and if the Jack is indeed one of his people, then it saw Holmes at the railway bridge. Sherlock glances around the square – he would be after me with all his might – I may be next. The boy has no real evidence that connects the Irregulars to this crime and even if he did, he doubts Inspector Lestrade would listen to him. He would be more apt to find a way to arrest him.

Bell always gives the boy Sunday mornings off. He can go where he wants, do what he must do. He sits on the bench, immobile. Perhaps I should simply hide. Beatrice is safe now – she doesn’t need his protection. But can I abandon this case? If Malefactor is indeed behind this Jack, turning angry, murderous, and anxious to contribute to the uneasiness in London, then he must be imprisoned, both for the city’s sake … and his own. I must act! But how?

An hour passes. Various faces and actions involved in the crimes flit across his imagination. He begins to think about Louise. Who is she? Was there a reason why the Jack attacked her first? He considers Sigerson Bell’s comments about women – they are more than they seem.

But at that moment, he is distracted by the sound of drums and bagpipes. It grows louder. The square has been filling up, now it stirs. Rising, the boy sees a mob coming down The Strand, led by men carrying clubs and axes, some holding placards high in the air. “FAIRNESS NOW!” “DOWN WITH THE RICH!” “IRISH SOLIDARITY! MUNBY FOR PM!” And one reads … “THE JACK IS RIGHT!” They are singing a union song. Sherlock can’t believe how big and disorganized the mob is – this appears to be a spontaneous demonstration. The parade flows from The Strand and across the street into Trafalgar Square, ignoring traffic and bringing it to a halt. As a gentleman in a black top hat passes the demonstrators, a tough-looking protestor shoves him and knocks him to the ground. When two Bobbies approach, they are surrounded and have to fight their way out, running toward nearby White Hall and Scotland Yard. Gentlemen and ladies – anyone dressed in clothing that looks better than working class – scramble from the square.

“The Jack is a Irishman, I wagers,” Sherlock hears a dirty-faced man say. “Me member of Parliament even thinks it is. Said as much. They should round up them Paddies, and beat ’em until one confesses. The Jack wears green on ’is black suit, don’t ’e?”

The crowd forms a big circle, and some of the working-class men begin to speak in its center, screaming profane words and abuse directed at the government and the Irish. Some make nasty racial comments about Disraeli. They are calling for violence, for an overthrow of the class system. Sherlock spies Alfred Munby in the mob, trying to blend in and look inconspicuous.

Holmes, wearing his shabby clothes, isn’t bothered by anyone. He stands and watches in disbelief. The crowd continues to grow. A lady in a pink hat with flowers and a long pink coat passes in a beautiful barouche carriage, open to the crisp March air. Several men run after her, knock her coachman from his perch and pull her from her seat. She screams as they carry her toward the mob. In a moment she is at its center, alone and weeping. Another man advances and knocks her to the ground.

But at that instant, Sherlock notices a ripple in the crowd. Someone is plowing his way through, shouting at the others and pushing them aside. In a flash, he is at the center of the circle too. He stands between the brute who knocked the woman to the ground and the lady, facing the rough. The crowd gasps and goes silent. It is Robert Hide. He turns to the lady, offers her his hand and helps her to her feet, then nods to three people in the mob and instructs them to return her to her carriage.

Fascinated, Sherlock rushes through the crowd toward the front. He notices John Bright approaching, passes