The Secret Fiend

stiff as a board. Rather than trying to simply knock the arm away, downward, Holmes grips his enemy by the forearm with his left hand, actually holding the Jack’s arm in place, keeping it straight and held tight to the throat. Now, he has the big bone that Bell spoke of in exactly the position he wants it. Continuing to hold him firmly, Sherlock seizes the fiend under the elbow with his other hand.

“When you execute a maneuver, my boy, do so with the utmost violence!” Bell is fond of saying, his eyes alight. “No shrinking violets allowed!”

Sherlock pulls down on the Jack’s forearm with his left hand and shoves up from under the villain’s elbow with the right, moving his arm in directions it most definitely does not want to go. He does so as if he wants the elbow to fly into the air and sail over the River Thames. There is a loud crack, the sound of a big bone fracturing in two.

The Spring Heeled Jack’s scream pierces the night. He is instantly on the ground, gripping his misshapen arm, moaning with pain, pleading with Sherlock Holmes for mercy.

Down the street somewhere, they hear a loud, piercing whistle.

“John Silver!”

Beatrice has rushed forward and is standing beside Sherlock, looking down at the injured villain. Louise has arisen from her faint and is walking toward them too, holding her head.

“John Silver?” repeats Sherlock. It is indeed that boy, though not really a boy anymore. He lies in a heap, holding his arm, his clothes now obviously a crude costume he has made – his hair oiled up to look like it sprouts ears, his face smeared with coal, a ragged black cape with green stripes over his shoulders, black gloves on his hands, with nails protruding from the fingers.

“I am sorry, Beatrice,” cries Silver, “wery sorry. I was just tryin’ to scare you. I liked you so in school, but you’d never looks at me!”

“And you thought this would make me do so, John Silver?”

“I knows that some girls, they like the bad ’uns, the scary ’uns. I is big and strong, and I can handle meself. Lots of girls, they like that. I thought I’d scare you, then come back and offer to protect you. I thought maybe I’d tell you later that I was the Spring ’eeled Jack … maybe you’d … kind of like that too … maybe?”

“Then you don’t know a thing about me, Master Silver.”

The big lad, his face white with pain, drops his head and grips his arm, then looks up to Sherlock. “You’ve learned to fight, you ’as, ’olmes.”

It has been more than a year since Holmes last encountered John Silver, the former bully of Snowfields National School. He was the biggest boy there, and the most athletic, with muscles bulging through his soiled clothes, his feats in the little stone schoolyard extraordinary – he could leap like no one else. They had grappled once, on the cobblestone ground outside the school near the London Bridge Railway Station, Silver a full eleven stone in weight, pinning thin Sherlock down, spitting on him, slapping him in the face, calling him Judas the Jew, humiliating him in front of his classmates.

But that was long ago. And much has happened since.

“Yes, Silver, I have learned to defend myself. I have done quite well … for a Jew.”

“I am sorry, Sherlock. I didn’t means nuthin’ by it. I never did, really.” The big lad, now seventeen years old, begins to cry.

“You are a fool. But if Miss Leckie and Miss Louise will accept your apology, so shall I.” Beatrice and Louise nod. “I must tell you, however, that what you have been doing these last few days is against the laws of our nation, and your prank may have had more serious consequences than you imagined. Get to your feet!”

Silver struggles to his pins, gasping with pain, gingerly holding his broken right arm with his left.

“Last few days?”

“Close your mouth. I heard a police whistle at the moment I fractured your arm. I have no doubt that a Bobbie or two will be here in moments. I will stand just a short distance up the street, in the shadows. It is foggy enough now that they won’t see me. You will stay here, in this square with Miss Leckie and her friend. You shall not touch them, speak to them, or even look at them … I will watch you! When the police arrive, Miss Leckie will inform them that you attacked her, just as you did Miss Louise on Westminster Bridge, leaping down tonight from the roof of her father’s shop, but you fell and fractured your arm, and also sprained both your ankles, so badly that you could not escape. You shall admit to both of your assaults, the one on the bridge and the one tonight. As you see the Force approach, you will pretend to be crawling away, your ankles injured. Lie down.”

“But it wasn’t me, Master ’olmes! I promise you. I just got dressed up tonight, first time! I reads about it in the paper … and I thought of doing it. It wasn’t me that first time on the bridge, nor the other time! I just did it tonight.”

“Sherlock,” says Beatrice, “perhaps ’e is telling the truth, perhaps –”

Sherlock steps toward Silver, a menacing look in his eyes. “Get down! Get down or I will crack your other arm the way I did the first!”

Silver immediately slumps to the cobblestones.

“Miss Beatrice is indeed a lovely lady, too lovely to be near the likes of you. She is kind and forgiving. But you sir, must feel the full force of the law against you, or you shall do something like this again. Take your medicine, sir, go to jail, contemplate your life … and change it!”

“But …”

“I will be in the shadows up the street … watching you.”

“Sherlock,” says Beatrice, “I will tell them what truly ’appened. I will tell them ’ow brave you were, ’ow –”

“If you care for me, Miss Leckie, you will say nothing of the kind. I have had it with seeking notoriety. It is enough for me that justice has been served tonight, that this fool is off the street. Perhaps there will be a day when I feel differently. Good night. I am glad that you are safe, and that your safety has been assured into the future.”

She glows at him. He fades into the fog and hides in a doorway up the street. He must admit that it feels good to do it this way. In a sense, it makes him an even greater hero. But he shakes off that inflated notion. Justice. He has protected Beatrice the way he should have protected his mother, and Irene Doyle. That is what matters. Moments later, three Bobbies rush past, and Beatrice calls out to them.

Sherlock Holmes walks slowly back through Southwark and over Blackfriars Bridge toward Denmark Street. He feels strong and powerful on the dark footpaths, not fearful in the least. I was wrong about the Jack being Crew, that’s true, but in the end, I found the villain. He takes all the back arteries, the little lanes. The case of the Spring Heeled Jack … solved.

There are many ways that people get pleasure from life. Perhaps this is the way he will get his. Sherlock Holmes allows himself a grin.

IT STRIKES AGAIN

“Sherlock!” exclaims Sigerson Bell as he rushes into the shop the next morning. “You’re name is in the newspaper!”

The boy had come home from Southwark exhausted, dropped into his little wardrobe, closed its doors, and fallen fast asleep, dozing soundly with nary a dream or a concern (a rare thing for him), completely satisfied with his night’s work – he had done the right thing in every respect. But the old man had thrown open his doors like something earth-shattering had to be announced. Sherlock rose up so suddenly that he slammed his head against the wardrobe ceiling.

“In the newspaper? Which one?”

“… In both of them, I am afraid.”

Afraid?

The shop receives two daily papers: the serious-minded Daily Telegraph and Bell’s gift to Sherlock, the sensational News of the World.