The Secret Fiend

old…. But didn’t the apothecary have a jar of black liquid in his hand tonight, and a full-faced mask? He might have performed some magic, transformed himself … or put someone else up to it. He thinks again of the blue flames coming from the Jack’s mouth. Sherlock chides himself. What I am considering is ridiculous.

Then again, nothing about this incident makes sense. And girls never do, especially the ones who attract you. First there was Irene Doyle, now Beatrice Leckie.

Women!

He feels in his pocket for the villain’s note. It isn’t there.

SECRETS

Sherlock doesn’t hear Sigerson Bell leave the shop later that morning. Bell is gone before the sun is up – before the boy awakes – and doesn’t return until late at night. Holmes decides to keep a close watch over him the next day. It is a Sunday, the lad’s day off, but he rouses at the same time as the old man, jumping up from his narrow bed in the wardrobe the instant he hears feet descending the spiral staircase. His master nearly falls down the remaining steps when he spots him. The apothecary adores his young charge, but has resigned himself to the fact that rising early is not one of the boy’s strong points. He is a good lad, a hard worker … once he gets going.

They lock eyes and stare at each other for a long time, neither saying a word. Suspicion hangs thick in the air.

“My boy!”

“Yes, sir?”

“What is the occasion? You are out of bed prior to my descent!”

“I thought I’d turn over a new leaf. I plan to rise early from this day forward.”

“And pigs shall fly from the rear ends of donkeys,” says Bell under his breath.

“What was that, sir?”

“Not a thing, my boy, not a thing, just an expression of admiration. I embrace this initiative on your part. Shall you be fixing my breakfast as well?”

That is indeed his plan.

Everything seems to be almost normal with Sigerson Bell this morning. That is, as normal as things usually are around the shop.

As the curve-backed old man does his morning calisthenics of jumping jacks and running on the spot and hanging upside down from the rafters to send as much blood as possible to his brain and twisting himself into extraordinary poses that he holds for extended periods, Sherlock works away at the morning’s repast: headcheese and prawns, to be washed down with buttermilk. The boy glances at the apothecary as he toils, thinking about what he knows of him. He is surprised to realize that when he actually considers it, the answer is nothing. Sigerson Bell is very good at learning about others, but rarely speaks intimately of himself. Where did he come from? Who were his parents? Was he ever married? Who is this man with whom I have so thoroughly thrown in my lot? Bell won’t be attending church this morning; he never does, nor does he insist that the boy attend either … what kind of Englishman does that?

Their Sunday paper, The News of the World, will come later in the day, so they have no choice but to converse as they begin to consume their little feast. Bell, as usual, plows into it like a starving man, eating with his mouth wide open and head down. Sherlock regards him. After a while, the old man looks up, gobs of headcheese evident between his teeth.

“Is there something on your mind, Master Holmes?”

“I was just thinking.”

“You were? Of what?”

“Of you.”

Sigerson Bell swallows awkwardly, then retrieves a stained blanket that rests on a nearby stool and wipes his face.

“How very kind of you. I am well, thank you.” He sounds disconcerted.

“I wasn’t enquiring after your health, sir. I was just thinking –”

“You mentioned that.”

“– that you have never told me anything of your past.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

Bell resumes eating. Sherlock keeps staring. Finally, the old man sighs and looks back.

“I am not given to airing my autobiography. I think it best for others to know little of me. I function better as a question mark. I believe I treat you well, and that your knowing intimacies of my past will do nothing to enrich our relationship or our conversation. In fact, it may hinder them.”

“But you know a good deal of me.”

“I deduced much of it. And you volunteered the rest.”

“You sound like an acquaintance of mine.”

“Who is that?”

“One Malefactor.”

“Ah, yes, the boy who operates the street gang. Thank you for casting me in such lovely company.”

“Only in what you just said, sir, only in that. Malefactor also cautions others to hide their pasts.”

“Well, in that, and in that alone, he has a point; though such secrecy is not for everyone. Some are given to displaying their lives, every intimate detail of them, for others to paw through. And yet, no one can ever reveal all about himself. Everyone has secrets.”

“Would you object to telling me something about your past, sir, just something, it need not be intimate.”

“Anything?”

“Yes.”

A disturbed look crosses his face. “I had a wife … and she was a witch.”

Sherlock can’t believe how bitter the old man sounds. He has never heard him like this.

“Sir, might I be so bold as to suggest that that is rather unkind, and perhaps beneath you. No matter how difficult she might have been to live with, I do not think you should call her names.”

“But she was a witch.”

“Sir, I must repeat that –”

“She was an actual witch.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“She was skilled in the ways of witchcraft. That doesn’t mean evil. She was a God-fearing lady.”

“But you said it in such an angry manner, Mr. Bell, that I thought –”

“She died when we were young.” Tears come to his eyes. “She was just twenty-four, my boy, the most beautiful witch in the world. It was so unfair.”

“I am sorry.”

“You see what comes of speaking of intimate details! I told you before that I believe in the alchemical concept of optimism. I prefer to live in the present, neither looking backward, nor ahead. Enough!”

And that is all Sherlock can draw from Sigerson Bell that day.

But there is much that seems suspicious in the old man’s actions. And Bell likely thinks the same of the boy. All day they play a sort of cat-and-mouse game, speaking less frequently than usual, constantly glancing at each other and quickly looking away, neither leaving the shop for a moment, despite the sunny late-winter day outside, both puttering away at seemingly unimportant duties – Sherlock cleaning up in places that appeared already quite tidy, the apothecary mixing solutions and mixing them again. For awhile, Bell turns to his skeletons, taking them down from their nails, gripping them in his arms and manipulating their bones, practicing his new art of skeletal adjustment, which he plans to use on unsuspecting patients with spinal ailments in the near future. He has come to