The Secret Fiend

self-defense as he, is frightened of no man. In fact, the boy pities any thug who might try to accost him.

They pass south of Cheapside and the old man swings down to Thames Street next to the river. Sherlock can smell it. The Tower of London looms up ahead, looking ominous against the black sky. The boy’s breath is evident in the cold night.

Bell stops suddenly, pulls the costume and mask out from under his arm as if readying it to put on, then scurries into one of those impossibly narrow streets in this ancient part of the city. Everything here is cramped, made for smaller people of a bygone era.

By the time Sherlock turns into the street, Bell has vanished. He must have entered one of the buildings. The boy begins examining them. They are block-like and jammed together, made of dark granite, gone black from centuries of grime and decades of soot. A few have business names on plaques, a barrister here, an exporter there. But one sign stops him in his tracks. It is unlike any other. There are no words, just a symbol containing a compass and a square joined together, with the large letter G in between. The door looks very heavy, curiously bolted from the outside. Is it locked from the inside as well? If so, what a strange entrance.And he thinks it especially so when he sees a dim light through the cracks – someone is in there! Somehow, that person can lock and unlock the outside bolt from the inside. The door also features remarkable decorations, carved right into it – a whole series of pyramids each with a single eye peering out. Should he enter? Sherlock carefully draws the bolt, then reaches out and grips the handle. Suddenly, the door swings open and just as suddenly, he is on the ground. Someone has taken his legs out from under him with a deft move of a foot and an expert push from a forearm. His assailant stands over him.

“My boy?”

His master is astride him … frantically throwing off a black and green costume.

“Mr. Bell?”

“What, in the name of Hermes, are you doing here?”

“One might well ask the same question of you, sir.”

The old man offers a hand and raises him to his feet.

“Yes, well, one might indeed, I suppose.” Bell glances back at his costume, now lying in the entrance behind him, and tries to kick it through the doorway. “You are such a curious lad. Let us step away down the street here and I shall explain.”

He is trying to get me away from the building. Sherlock looks above the doorway to the roof, searching for a clue to its identity. He sees nothing that helps, but then notices the costume, still lying on the threshold, not quite all the way through the door.

“By all means,” says the boy. As the old man relaxes in response, turning his back to pick up the costume to throw it indoors, Sherlock makes a quick move, darts past Bell, and seizes the material. In an instant he is standing out in the street, several yards from the apothecary, examining it. It is mostly black, with stripes of green, but not really stripes – they are symbols of some sort, moons and suns, and more compasses and squares, more of those pyramids with eyes. Then he spots some lettering, written in a sort of Elizabethan calligraphy – The Hermetic Order of the Sacred Dawn.

“What?” says the boy aloud.

“I really wish you had not done that!” shouts Bell. He is advancing on the boy. He snatches the material from him and takes him by the collar. He drags him down the street and into an alleyway, looking right and left to make sure no one has followed them.

“I am required to kill you now.”

“What?”

“That is what I am required to do.”

“By whom?”

“By the Hermetic Order of the Sacred Dawn. You know of us now, you know our name, and you know that I am part of it.”

“And I know you are the Spring Heeled Jack!”

Sigerson Bell’s eyes look like they may pop out of his head.

“I’m what?”

“The Spring Heeled Jack!”

A smile spreads across Bell’s face. “You have always been a strange one, Sherlock Holmes. But now you’ve done it. You have officially gone and lost your marbles.”

“Say what you will … I am on to you.”

“Yes, yes, I am a fictional character from a Penny Dreadful magazine…. You have caught me!”

“Why did you attack Beatrice and her friend? Or did you dress up someone else to do it?”

“Ah!”

“What do you mean … ‘Ah!’”

“So that’s what it was! Her vision was of the Spring Heeled Jack.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know. Don’t pretend it is a surprise. I have caught you, red-handed. You have been using me, somehow. This was all set up. Why did you draw me into your employ in the first place?”

“Because I needed an assistant … and you are a wonderful young man, who thinks a little too highly of himself from time to time, full of troubles and indecision, yes, but a wonderful young man … who seeks justice.”

“What? I thought you were about to kill me.”

“I didn’t say that. I said that was what I was required to do. But I would be as apt to actually do it as I would be to harness a thousand crows and use them to fly to the moon and back.”

“But …”

“But nothing. Close your mouth and listen to me. I am not the Spring Heeled Jack. Neither am I Robin Hood, Goldilocks, or the Big Bad Wolf.”

“But …”

“But nothing. I am a Mason.”

“A Mason? You mean … someone who goes to meetings at Masonic Lodges?”

“Precisely. Most people know something of Masons, I am sure you have your own impressions. We are the descendants of the great builders of England and Europe, the architects of the world, creators of many structures since the time of Solomon’s Temple, formed into lodges, all of us with philosophies and in pursuit of knowledge, seeking the Supreme Being together.”

“Masons are secretive, aren’t they? Once they’re inside the walls of the lodges? You have secret codes, secret symbols, don’t you? But aren’t Masons just ordinary folk too … you aren’t terribly secretive, are you?”

“Most lodges aren’t. But we are. The Hermetic Order of the Sacred Dawn is a higher sect of our kind … a very high order. I am the highest ranking apothecary and alchemist, once the Worshipful Master here. I … I come from a long line of apothecaries, Master Holmes, my father and his father before him and on and on. There is a family story that the Bells once had the name Trismegistus and originated in Egypt long before we came to England, that we knew magic, real magic of the occult sort, not the stuff silly prestidigitators attempt on the London stages, sawing ladies in half and the like.” He looks down at the green and black material. “This is what I wear when I enter the holy altar inside. Some outfits have masks with them too, black paint to mark our faces. Our order has associates all over Europe. We wield greater power than most can imagine…. And no one is to know our members’ identities.”

“No one?”

“No one. An outsider discovers us on pain of death.”

Sherlock gulps.

“But I doubt the folks inside those walls,” he waves down the street toward the building, “could ever kill another. I know I certainly couldn’t … or maybe I could … but not you, Master Holmes, not you.” He smiles at the boy.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Your lips are sealed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sealed with the best glue one could make from any horse in London? A triple promise with sugar piled on