He shoved the books at me. “In this book are David Hume’s Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul. He wrote them over a hundred years ago.”
“How did you-”
“I asked Sherlock to bring them to me.”
He closed his eyes and recited words he had obviously memorized from Hume’s book. “What is the meaning then of that principle, that a man who tired of life, and hunted by pain and misery, bravely overcomes all the natural terrors of death, and makes his escape from this cruel scene. That such a man I say, has incurred the indignation of his Creator by encroaching on the office of divine providence and disturbing the order of the Universe? Shall we assert that the Almighty has reserved to himself in any peculiar manner the disposal of the lives of men, and has not submitted that event, in common with others to the general laws by which the universe is governed?”
He opened his eyes and patted the book. “Promise you will read these.”
How often he had said these words to me and how I wished to be a child again. I tried to invoke those times in the past, when I was a little girl and he and Aunt Susan visited my home in Norfolk, and then, far more recently, when I came to live with him so I could attend school in London. I tried to see through the shadows to those lovely moments when Uncle read to me or discussed with me some pressing social issue, even if I were too young and inexperienced to fully appreciate it. I had never turned a deaf ear to him.
I took the books and held them to my breast. “Yes. I promise.”
He leaned back and looked at me. “You have done something quite remarkable, Poppy. You have allowed Sherlock to break through that wall of his, the one he created to protect himself from being hurt and to protect others from him. You allow him to see himself, to see his reflection and temporarily cast it off, to break through and make a connection, much as your aunt did with me. But I still want you to be careful. I do not believe he can ever free himself entirely from his own constraints or patterns. He has a need to manage himself, restrict himself to focus on his work and only his work. He may never be able to entirely shed that. You must protect yourself from being hurt, Poppy.”
He rose then. He gave me a look that was so very familiar. The one that said, ‘This conversation is over.’
He gave me a hug and a peck on the cheek and murmured, “Now go home.”
Then he walked over to Lestrade and they disappeared.
When Lestrade returned to escort me back to the Yard, we repassed the quadrangles. The walls were curiously exactly the same height as the lovely houses on Newgate Street. They were daunting, clearly a huge barrier to any escape route.
“One sweep did escape, Dr. Stamford,” Lestrade told me. “He placed his back in the angle of the wall, and by pressing his hands and feet against the masonry, he worked himself up the wall. When he reached the top, he let himself fall on his back, turned around and crept along. He jumped on a roof and entered a balcony. Nearly frightened the woman who lived there to death. Since the prisoners wear regular attire, he passed completely unnoticed and was at large for a time. But they captured him eventually. Now the walls are smooth and the top is spiked. There will be no more escapes in that way.”
I hurried with Lestrade to the police carriage, and once we were on our way, my mind tumbled with the image of that prisoner who was able to escape from Newgate. I’d dreamt of Uncle in a prison cell since he’d been taken away. I had tossed and turned, thinking about him being in a place like this and trying to figure out what I could do about it. I had considered the most absurd options. Planning his escape with Sherlock, approaching Her Majesty. And now, having seen the prison for myself, those thoughts and images pierced me like a hot poker.
43
Determined to convince someone to listen to me, I waited until Lestrade went into the Yard, then went around to the side of the building and entered through a different door. Lestrade nowhere in sight, I asked to see Detective Hopkins. I was directed to a large office where the detectives sorted out cases. I tapped on the door but no one noticed me at first.
I spotted Hopkins right away. I think he was dressed in the same inexpensive, tweed suit he’d been wearing the day we met four years ago. Though he had aged a bit and looked wearier, he still sported the eager smile and the intensely alert eyes. Hopkins was tremendously interested in new scientific breakthroughs; hence, his interest in phrenology, which seemed to be taking England by storm. He studied Sherlock’s methods with intensity and often tried to apply Sherlock’s forensic science methods to his own cases. Sherlock thought well of him, and he had mentioned several times that despite the fact that Hopkins had supplied some crucial evidence that assisted Sherlock in tracking down the Angel Maker, Hopkins had had limited success in climbing up the ladder at the Yard. Hopkins was a few years older than Sherlock, and he lamented the fact that he had not progressed more quickly.
Hopkins also had high aspirations for his son, Stanley Hopkins, Jr., who was at that time about seven or eight years of age. He came from a long line of law enforcement officials, and he hoped that when his son grew up, he, too, would join the police force or engage in private detective
