Becoming Holmes

As The Boy Sherlock Holmes series comes to an end, there are many people to thank. Tundra Books has been a wonderful home for me and my work. Kathy Lowinger was the visionary at first, bringing her bravery and brilliance to bear, allowing these novels to take flight. Catherine Mitchell then sent them sailing off to other countries. Others at Tundra have contributed throughout – Alison Morgan, Pamela Osti, Sylvia Chan, and Jennifer Lum, among the key players. But no one was more important, certainly for me, than Kathryn Cole, one of Canada’s premier editors. She piloted me through the first five books with a Sherlock-like wisdom and was missed on this sixth and last. I was lucky, however, to have been partnered with Tara Walker on
Becoming Holmes
. Stepping into big editorial shoes with verve, compassion, and great skill, she helped me steer the Sherlock ship home. I was fortunate to have her as my guide.

Derek Mah was a key ally all the way through this series, his lovely paintings gracing each and every novel, an artist with a sort of Watson-like ability to make his remarkable work much more than just complementary. I would be remiss if I did not mention one Samuel Peacock, whose
snake research for this novel was thorough and much appreciated. And I’d also like to thank my agent, Pamela Paul, for all her efforts from day one. Jennifer Stokes’s copyediting and Margaret Allen’s proofreading were invaluable as well.

My mother, Susan Peacock, who, as I said in my first dedication in this series, “gave me a writer’s soul,” passed away between the fifth and sixth novels. But she was with me, nevertheless, and will stay in my heart as long as I write and beyond.

And finally, thanks goes to that group of strange people who live with me and deal, together, with the storms of life: Sophie, Johanna, Hadley, and Sam. No one has a better team. We, like the boy Sherlock Holmes, are just beginning.

T
he streets of Hounslow had seldom seen his like. Descending from his gleaming carriage, he walked silently beneath the gaslights, in and out of darkness, top hat pulled down, his cape shrouding his form, and his walking stick never touching the ground. He eyed the row houses until he stopped at one. He looked in both directions, turned onto the walkway and floated to the door. A gentle knock – three short and three long – let him in. The entrance closed and the neighborhood returned to normal. But this was a different night from any other, for not far down the street, a shadow had observed him
.

Another shadow lay in its dark nest south of the River Thames that night, a waste of a man. Crows called outside his marble walls, rats ran through his rooms, and spiders, left to their ways, spun webs the size and thickness of blankets above him. He was naked and sweating, spread upon his filthy stone bed. There were tears in his eyes, tears of joy. A hissing and rustling surrounded him. He had loosed his giant pets, the squeezers and the poisoners. They caressed his legs, his hips, his chest, his big, throbbing head. Though his slithering killers were the world’s most deadly, none were as lethal as his thoughts
.

“Command me!” he cried to no one
.

1
DEATH

L
ondon might as well be draped in black on this thirteenth morning of June in 1870. It is as if every pedestrian imagines dark ribbons hanging upon the buildings across the great city from Westminster to Whitechapel and all along little Denmark Street to the apothecary shop where Sherlock Holmes, sixteen years old and as moody as a young stallion, slumps over the laboratory table, unable to work. A single gaslight is lit in the dim room.

“DICKENS IS DEAD!”
read the headlines on the shop’s newspapers, now three days old and yet still lying nearby. The funeral will be tomorrow at Westminster Abbey.