The Secret Fiend

gets tired. She works so ’ard, she does, but keeps up the letters to our folks and friends, too. Why are you carrying that sack, sir?”

“May I see her?”

“Yes … yes, Master ’olmes. Just go through. She is always ’appy to see you. I’ll just lie down ’ere again. Won’t bother you two young folk.”

Sherlock walks silently across the dark room, avoiding the hats hanging from hooks. When he gets close to the door, he stops and simply looks at her. Her head is bent down and she is writing carefully, thinking about what she is saying. She seems to be pressing the pen down hard onto the paper. Her bonnet is off and her long black hair hangs in ringlets almost onto the paper. There is a little wooden box on the table near her hand. Because she is next to the fire, she isn’t wearing a shawl. In fact, she has pulled the sleeves of her dress up, so her slender forearms and wrists are visible. Sherlock beams. A wonderful idea comes to his mind. In my new life, I can have a partner. There would be none better than Beatrice Leckie, and I know she would choose me too. Perhaps, in a few years, I can send for her. What if we talk about it … tonight.

He pushes the door and it creaks. Beatrice turns with a smile, but when she sees who it is she gasps and puts her hand to her mouth.

“Sherlock!” The look of fear dissolves into happiness. But there is something else there too. Guilt. Instantly, she turns to her writing and stuffs the paper into her dress pocket.

The boy drops his cloth sack on the floor. “Doing your correspondence?”

“Yes … yes, I like to write at night.”

“The way you put your letter away when I came … it must be very private. I suppose you are writing to someone special. Perhaps I should go.” His heart is sinking. Why would I assume that Beatrice Leckie has no one special in her life? There were many boys at school who liked her.

Beatrice sees his intent. “Oh, no! No, Sherlock, it isn’t like that!”

“That is fine, Beatrice. I was just going, anyway.”

“Sherlock!” she rises and takes him by the hand. “Don’t go. I’ll … I’ll show you what I would write … if I were writing to you.”

She takes another piece of paper from a sideboard nearby, leans over it with a coquettish smile, hiding its contents from the boy. She writes. The ink is red. She hands it to him, glowing up.

“I LOVE YOU,” it says.

But Sherlock isn’t smiling back. There is a shiver going down his spine. And it isn’t pleasurable. Her handwriting! It is EXACTLY the same as the Spring Heeled Jack’s!

He seizes her. For an instant, she thinks he is trying to embrace her. But he has her by the arms and is pulling her to her feet, hard.

“Sherlock! You’re ’urting me!”

“You wrote those notes! YOU!”

“Please let me go!”

He pins her to the table and reaches into her dress, fishing out the notes from her pocket. She wrests one arm free and holds it over the little wooden box on the table, as if to keep the lid down. Sherlock wrenches that arm off and almost in the same motion, flicks open the lid. There is a stack of papers inside. He sees two words written in red across the one on top, same handwriting, TREASURE FAMILY, and then some numbers and a word he can’t read. Struggling to hold her, he flicks it and sees the note underneath. MUST HAVE it says, but the rest is ripped. He sees the word CHAOS! on another note under that.

“A family was murdered!” he shouts at her. He can feel tears coming to his eyes, but he won’t let her go. He digs deeper into her pocket. She sinks her nails into his hand, but he pulls out all the papers. There are three of them, one with writing, the other two blank. She reaches out and claws at him, but he throws her to the floor. He spreads the notes on the table.

“Beatrice?” Her father has risen from his bed and is coming toward the door.

MARCH 10 reads the first note and two addresses in Lambeth. He recognizes them as poor areas.

“What does this mean?”

On the floor, Beatrice is crying. “Sherlock, please don’t! You won’t understand!”

March 10 is tomorrow.

“WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?”

“I can’t tell you!” she cries.

A startled Mr. Leckie is now at the door. “What is going on in here?” he asks.

It’s a schedule. It’s tomorrow’s locations for the fiend’s attacks! It is growing dark outside. The police will be coming … the villain is about to prowl. What about tonight? Where is he scheduled to strike tonight?

“Who is the Spring Heeled Jack, Beatrice? WHO IS HE!”

“Don’t … don’t ask me,” she cries, putting her hands to her head. “I can’t tell you, Sherlock.”

Mr. Leckie grips the tall boy and tries to knock him to the floor. “I can’t allow this! Why is you asking ’er this? What is you up to? Is you this fiend, Sherlock ’olmes!”

“Let him go, father!” shouts Beatrice, getting to her feet and pulling him away from the boy. “He means no harm.”

“Oh, yes, I do, Miss Leckie! I mean harm to anyone who means harm to others. And you are one of those!”

“No, Sherlock!”

“You were writing up the schedule for planned assaults for tomorrow night!”

“No!”

She wrote the notes that were left on the victims, in order to protect the Jack, in her girlish hand so the handwriting could never be traced to him. Very clever. But what about these schedules? For some reason, she was asked to make them up. Why? Is she the mastermind? Does the Jack want everything written down? If so, he’s an amateur – it leaves a trail. Are the notes sent by mail? Then he doesn’t live nearby.

“Tell me one thing and save your soul, Beatrice Leckie. Tell me where he will strike tonight!”

She sobs, holding her father, and says nothing.

“Tell me!”

“I can’t! I just can’t!”

He turns back to the notes on the table. He remembers how hard she was pressing with the ink pen, making big, thick letters. He looks at the first of the two blank notes beneath. She must sit here at night and plan for attacks in different parts of London, moving things around to keep the police guessing – eluding them. She must have done this last night too! Then she sends them to the Jack! He picks up a blank paper and sees a faint outline of letters, impressed into the page. He can make out the words MARCH 10. That came from writing today’s note. He picks up the other blank sheet. The trace of handwriting is very faint. This must have been made yesterday! It will have today’s attacks on it! But he can’t read it. He steps toward the fire.

“NO!” shouts Beatrice and tries to grab his arm.

He snatches the sheet away and holds it close to the flames. The impression becomes visible.

MARCH 9 – ONE APPEARANCE – OLD NICHOL STREET ROOKERY, BETHNAL GREEN

Crying, Beatrice is hugging him now, as if he were as dear to her as a husband. He shoves her away, picks up the notes from the table and the box, and leaving his cloth sack behind, runs out the door and into the street.

“HOLMES!”

It is Inspector Lestrade. He is just down the street, rushing toward the hatter’s shop, three Bobbies by his side. Several feet behind, as if reluctant to be part of this, is his son.

Sherlock is off like a shot, and they are immediately after him. But he has run through the twisting and turning arteries of The Mint since he was a little child, and within minutes, he has lost them. He takes them south. Now, he doubles back and heads north, making for London Bridge. He tries not to think of Beatrice Leckie, his “flawless friend” … in league, somehow, with this violent fiend. Trust no one. Malefactor