The Secret Fiend

down, then turns sharply back to Beatrice, his eyes sparkling.

“How big was this fiend?”

“I don’t … I can’t …”

“As big as me? Nine or ten stone?”

“A little taller I’d say, and ’eavier.”

“Is Louise your size?”

Beatrice blushes. “We are about the same ’eight, a little past five feet … and she is ’ealthy, not too stout –”

“But a little stouter than you?”

She blushes again.

“I SAID … a little stouter than you? The truth, Beatrice!”

“Yes, Sherlock. Yes, I am a little slimmer.”

“Wearing a bonnet, a servant’s frock, no crinoline? Petticoats over a corset beneath? Like you?”

This time her face turns very red, but she answers. “Yes.”

He turns back to the bridge, calculating. There is no ice on the river below. Let’s imagine this really happened. The drop is a little more than fifty feet, their weight about nineteen stone, their clothes heavy. The man leapt out from the bridge, may have held out his bat-like wings to cushion the fall. The river is deep here.

“If they did this as you say, then they lived,” he says out loud, “and they could have landed near the shore.”

With that, he turns and walks briskly back toward Big Ben. Beatrice, after a moment’s hesitation, follows on the run. In minutes, he is off the bridge and down the stones steps and near the river. A few small boats float on the water. The mudlarks, those who make their living from finding things by the shore, aren’t out at this hour. Though the muddy shoreline is filled with stones and piers and wharfs of all sizes, there are bushes and brambles here and there. Sherlock spies a clump of them about even with the spot where the pair would have entered the water. Rushing forward, he sees two sets of footprints in the cold mud – a man and a woman’s – leading from the water into the bushes. Five steps into the brambles, he finds a piece of black cloth, bordered with green…. Then he hears a moan.

“Over here, Beatrice!” he cries.

Sherlock hears something moving, scurrying away, about fifty feet or so down the shore. When he looks that way, he thinks he sees a shadow, rushing off. He wants to follow, but he must look for the girl – that is what matters.

It doesn’t take much searching. He finds her, lying under the bushes, covered by them. Louise is insensible, but alive. Up ahead, the shadow has vanished.

“Oh, Lou!” cries Beatrice and kneels beside her.

There is a note pinned to Louise’s dress, written in red on a large piece of white paper.

I HAVE RETURNED!

Sherlock pulls it off and stares at it.

No watermark. Careful writing, not rushed, almost feminine, a young hand.

A handful of frigid water scooped from the Thames and splashed onto the young lady’s face brings her around immediately. Her green eyes, which go charmingly with her curly red hair, snap open and she starts. Surprisingly, she has no cuts, no apparent bruises, and rises to her feet without much trouble. Her purple dress and dark blue shawl have somehow already dried, are just a little damp. Sherlock frowns, glancing back and forth from the victim to the note. He throws his frock coat over Louise’s shoulders and helps the girls up the embankment before seating them on a bench near the Parliament grounds. He crosses his arms and frowns at them again. Beatrice glances up at him, then back to her friend, then up again, appearing concerned about Sherlock’s reaction.

“Do you two mind telling me what this is all about?”

“I don’t know that I follow you, Sherlock. I ’ave told you what ’appened.” He thinks he detects a slight tone of guilt in her voice, but isn’t sure.

“What really transpired here?”

“It is as I said.”

“Yes, Master ’olmes, it is as she said. And I is much obliged, I’m sure.”

“How do you know what Beatrice said, Miss Louise?”

“I … I imagines it. I imagines she said what ’appened, true and clear. Beatrice is an ’onest sort, always ’as been.”

“But you are not bruised from your mighty fall, you have no cuts, your dress and shawl are almost dry, you are not traumatized. It was easy to find you. This … this note looks like it was written on a desk in a clear hand, not scribbled by an agitated fiend. What could he have wanted with you? He did nothing to you. He simply fled.”

“It ain’t for me to judge what a devil wants. ’e ’as evil intent for women.”

“Did he act out that intent?”

“Sherlock!”

“We must get to the truth of this, Beatrice. Did he, Miss Louise, act out his intent? Did he lift your dress and undergarments and brutally –”

“NO!”

“Then, why?”

“Louise said that it was not for ’er to know why such a fiend does as ’e does … and she is right.”

“This fiend from a Penny Dreadful magazine? This figure, this bogeyman for the children of England, who has so many times appeared in drawings looking more terrifying and vivid than anything Mr. Dickens might imagine?”

“Imagine! Is that what you think? What could be our purpose?”

“That, Miss Beatrice, is for you to tell me.”

“Why do you stand ’ere talking rubbish? This villain must be caught and punished! You ’ave friends at Scotland Yard. You must go to them. We will come with you and make a full report.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I would not dare confront Inspector Lestrade with such a fairy tale.”

“FAIRY TALE!”

“Why did you do this, Beatrice … do I not pay you enough attention at –”

The slap that strikes his face is unlike any crack of a parasol he has ever received from Irene Doyle. Those were mere caresses next to this. Beatrice Leckie smacks him across his cheek with a stroke that comes out of nowhere and would have scored many centuries on the cricket field and brought all of England to its feet. Her strong working-class hands are small but not delicate – and there is passion in her blow. She indeed cares about Sherlock; he can feel that now. But whether there is hatred or love in her mind is uncertain.

He actually falls backward from the slap.

“Return to your master, you … you little boy! Go back to your dreams and your selfish ambitions! There is more to the world than you imagine. Leave us! We will get our own ’elp!”

There is nothing else he can do. Stunned, he leaves them sitting alone, seething on the bench under Big Ben. As he trudges home, he reconsiders everything he has seen and what the girls said, wondering if he might be wrong. But he can’t believe that this “crime” was anything but a setup, created to draw him in. It was all too easy. Of the millions of possible targets in the city, why would this fiend strike his close friend, causing her to run directly to him? It is like an occurrence in a melodrama. But why did Beatrice strike him like that, why such absolute fire in her eyes, why was she so emotional about his refusal to help? There was real fear, real feeling in her anger, not just the reaction of a schemer found out. Was there really a Spring Heeled Jack on the loose in London? And why was Sigerson Bell carrying a black and green costume and sneaking around in the middle of the night … just when the villain appeared?

People aren’t what they seem, not even friends. Everyone is a potential suspect at all times. Trust no one. That is the only wise thing that Malefactor has ever said. But … Sigerson Bell, dressed up as a fiend? It doesn’t make any sense. After all, the villain had black hair, wasn’t