I’d countered with, “Oh, come now, you’ll never retire, Sherlock. What do you think you’re going to do? Buy a house in the country and keep bees or something?”
He’d said, “I might just fancy that.”
Now that he was playing apprentice to Dr. Haviland with his bee colonies at St. Bart’s, I half-expected him to do precisely that.
I must admit I rather hoped that Stanley, Jr. would benefit from Sherlock’s tutelage, if detective work were indeed his bent, but I also wanted him to emulate his father, for Stanley Senior had a pleasing personality and people skills, a characteristic Sherlock sorely lacked.
As I entered the office, to my surprise, I also saw Sherlock when he turned around. He’d been facing a great board with drawings - crime scenes, I believe - but now he was pacing back and forth as if he were a panther on the prowl.
I closed my eyes, and my mind flashed back to our first few encounters. Back then, when we first met, he had been strong and driven, yet awkward and fragile, eccentric and often disagreeable, a bundle of contradictions. He was still eccentric and anti-social, but he was more focused now, always intent upon unlocking an enigma. When he solved a puzzle, his face took on the patriotic glow of a proud soldier.
I opened my eyes and watched him speaking to Hopkins. I could tell that this case was like a maw, the gullet of a voracious, insatiable beast into which Sherlock had fallen prey. I could tell that it was incomprehensible to him that his own brother was blocking him at every turn. It was like Sherlock was an army forced to fight on two fronts, or a firefighter called to put out a blazing house. He sees the flames engulfing the structure. He feels the heat on his skin. He gets into position to fight the fire, equipped only with pails of water, but each time he puts out a section of the fire, a gust of wind ignites the dying embers again and they shoot to the roof.
I tapped on the door again. This time, all eyes turned. Hopkins and Sherlock hurried over to me.
“Poppy,” Sherlock said, “tell him to listen to me.”
Hopkins cast his eyes downward. Then he looked at me. “Unlike Mr. Holmes, I am an official member of the police force. I am subject to rules and regulations and the law in instances where he is not.”
“Oh, Hopkins!” Sherlock squawked. “You are subject to incompetent leaders, failed institutions, and feckless city officials. Do you not apply my methods at every turn? Do you not study the science of deduction and see the evidence more clearly?”
“I’m in a different position, Mr. Holmes. And that impacts how I may go about solving cases.”
“Use your ingenuity, man! Think for yourself. Have I not told you a hundred times that the others see but they do not observe?”
This was classic Sherlock. Willing to take risks that the case required of him. Willing to bend rules, toss them out, if necessary, to bring down the perpetrator of a crime.
“My dear Detective Hopkins, how many times have you come to me and asked for my assistance? Granted, sometimes I say, I am busy, I hope you have no designs on me tonight, but then, when you made it known that you were not clear about your case, that you could not make heads or tails of it, that it was too tangled a business for anyone - except me - to resolve, did I not always invite you in, offer you a cigar and a cup of tea with lemon, and help you sort it all out? Have I not always said, ‘Do sit down and let me hear about it?’”
Hopkins’ face turned red.
Sherlock turned on his heels to face me. “Why have you come, Poppy? Shouldn’t you be bandaging a scraped knee or something?”
I bit my tongue. I stared at him a moment, still wanting to flog him for revealing my doubts to Uncle. And now, his insolence and rudeness made my blood boil even hotter. “Must you always be so insensitive?”
Then I turned to Hopkins and forced a calm voice. “Sir, I have some information I would like to share with you. Information that can exonerate my uncle.”
Before Hopkins could get a word out, Sherlock said, “Wiggins told me what transpired at the museum, Poppy.”
“Wiggins? Who is Wiggins?”
“Archibald!” he yelled, clearly losing his patience. “The boy who accompanied you to the museum - his name is William Archibald Wiggins. On the streets, his friends call him Bill. His mother was so knockered, she named her second son William as well, so I’ve taken to calling him by his second name. “
Detective Hopkins shook his head and looked at me. “Do you see what I mean?” he asked me. “He is outside the law. He employs children... street urchins and beggars like this Wiggins character.” He turned to Sherlock. “And Mr. Holmes, this is one method I can neither condone nor endorse... using destitute children who live by stealing, scampering around our streets like vermin-”
“They needs must fend for themselves,” Sherlock retorted, “but I do not encourage them to steal, sir. I simply employ them to go places I cannot and hear things I cannot. I compensate them for the information
