top?”
“Yes, sir.”
“For life and beyond?”
“Absolutely. And I’m sorry about the … the Spring Heeled Jack idea.”
Sigerson Bell laughs so loudly that he has to put his hand over his mouth to prevent someone from hearing and coming their way. “Give me a moment, let me gather myself. I shall put away the papers I had come to arrange and we shall walk home together. I want to hear more about Beatrice’s vision.”
An hour later they are strolling arm in arm along Fleet Street toward home. The sun will rise in an hour or two. Now a few milkwomen are out, walking on their thick white-stockinged legs, their yokes over their shoulders, from which big pails dangle.
Sherlock tells Bell all about Beatrice’s encounter on Westminster Bridge and what he found when he went to investigate. “So, in the end, it was nothing, sir. Especially now that my suspicions of you … and I must say again, sir, that, I am sorry …”
“Not at all, rather flattering I must say, at my age.”
“… it was just a young girl enamored of me.”
“Oh! Is that what you think? You have a rather high opinion of your animal magnetism when it comes to the fairer sex, think you not? Do you really believe that a young girl would go to such lengths just to impress you? It seems unlikely to me.”
“She is a nice girl, sir, very pleasant, but a simple one. I’ve known her since we were children. Her father is a hatter.”
“I have seen this ‘simple girl’ with my own eyes, Sherlock. And I say, ‘Beware.’ She is more than she seems … as most women are. I shall tell you some day about my witch.”
They part ways at Trafalgar Square, the old man anxious to get home to bed, the boy deciding to take a stroll down to Westminster Bridge before he heads back. He knows he won’t be able to sleep. He has always been like that when something is on his mind – he could continue wide awake for a week, he sometimes thinks, if he were really intrigued by a problem. Perhaps he has been unfair to Beatrice, perhaps she and her friend were indeed accosted by someone on the bridge, nothing to really worry about – a lunatic of some sort – someone acting in a way that disturbed her impressionable female mind. Or perhaps it
When he arrives at the bridge, it is still pre-dawn, but there are people crossing toward the main part of the city, and a few going south. They are mostly working class, ready to start their trades early. But then Sherlock spots someone who stands out among these ordinary folk. He wears a bowler hat, and is examining the very spot on the bridge where Beatrice said she and her friend were attacked.
FEAR IN THE STREETS
It isn’t the senior Lestrade, not the police inspector himself. It’s Sherlock’s friend, Master G. Lestrade. That narrow-faced lad, a few years older than he, is dressed, as always, in a sort of imitation of his father – checked brown suit with tie, brown bowler for a lid. The wisp of a mustache is just beginning above his upper lip. Though Sherlock respects him as a human being, he has yet to gain much admiration for his supposedly burgeoning detective skills. The only ability young Lestrade has that the boy cannot quite fathom, is his knack for sneaking up on others without notice. He has done it several times to Holmes, and it galls him.
Sherlock slips through the crowd and sneaks right up to the older boy. He comes within a few inches and then speaks softly into his ear.
“
Young Lestrade nearly leaps over the balustrade, into the river – his hat comes flying off and almost sails overboard too, though he catches it at the last moment, in an unintentionally comic move. Recognizing the voice at his ear, he gathers himself, straightens his suit, and calmly sets his lid back on his head, cocking it at a fashionable angle. He doesn’t turn around.
“Master Holmes, what a strange thing to say.”
Then he turns and smiles at the boy, their faces just a foot apart.
“Rings no bells with you?”
“All is silent.”
“You are here for no purpose?”
“I am just on my way to the office.”
“And I thought your family lived west of the city, north side, not south – curious that you would be out on this bridge. No need, really, on one’s way to Scotland Yard.”
“You know where we live?”
“There is a slight turn in certain vowels employed by many long-time residents of Hounslow. You and your father exhibit as much.”
Lestrade sets his jaw tightly. “I thought I’d come out here and look at the river.”
“Brown and smelly and cold on the second day of March? Lovely, that.”
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
“You have it with you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The note. The one the so-called Spring Heeled Jack left last night.”
Young Lestrade is barely able to contain his surprise, but he keeps his mouth from opening into a gape.
“Beatrice Leckie is a long-standing friend. She told me this yarn as well, brought me to this very spot last night, in fact. She must have taken the note to police headquarters. Is that how you ended up with it?”
The note had been written on a big sheet with big letters – Sherlock has noticed a bulge in Lestrades’s left suit-coat pocket, one that such a sheet, folded many times, would make.
Lestrade says nothing for a moment, but soon relents. “All right. Yes, she brought it to Scotland Yard early yesterday morning. My father thought it nonsense.”
“The only wise thing he has ever thought.”
“I will thank you to never say anything of that nature in my presence again. You are not capable of even carrying his boots.”
“I shall speak as I please.”
“Very well – we have nothing to say to each other, then.”
Lestrade turns back to the river.
“I found Beatrice’s friend,” says Sherlock, “one Louise, lying near the shore without a scratch on her. Her clothes were barely damp and she was not particularly cold, though her story is that she was carried through the air from this balustrade more than fifty feet into the freezing water of the Thames. The lettering on the note is not consistent with the hand of a madman. Miss Leckie, I must tell you, is an admirer of mine. She was seeking attention.”
Lestrade wheels around.
“Who do you think you are, sir? You stain her name with that comment. I spoke to Miss Leckie myself, after my father politely refused to look into this. I found her to be believable. In fact, I found her a remarkable young lady.”
Sherlock smiles. “And not without attractions.”
“Step away from me, Master Holmes, or I may slap your face.”
“You don’t want to do that, my friend, believe me. However, I am sorry that I offended you. I have no quarrel with you, not at all.” He turns to go, but then looks back. “Proceed as you see fit, Lestrade … against your father’s
