Becoming Holmes (15 page)

“Sherlock, I know you thought me naïve when we first met and for a long time after. I know I miscalculated, somewhat, about Malefactor, but –”

“Yes, you did.”

She closes her eyes in frustration with him; he need not have said that out loud. “But not entirely. I still believe, as father does, that all people can be reformed.”

“And I do not.”

“If you want to be a true seeker of justice, truly a good man, here’s what I think you should do: search for Grimsby’s murderer.”

She doesn’t get far with that idea. Sherlock won’t discuss it. Soon he turns the conversation and there is no more talk of their careers, just a happier discussion about their pasts, their old friendship. They actually begin to laugh together. When it is time for her to leave, they are both reluctant to part. She kisses him on the cheek.

“I will be here for a week or more. Father spends much of his time with his
son
, so I am free most nights.” The attention her father pays to her foster brother, Paul, the spitting image of his dead son, still grates on her. Her attachment to home has waned since Paul arrived. She smiles at Sherlock. “You know where to find me.”

As she goes out the door, Holmes has the feeling that he wants to follow her, chase after her. But he stays inside. He sits down at the lab table.

“People keep stealing in and out of here, surprising
me!” he mutters to himself.
In the future, I need an upstairs flat of my own, with a companion and a housekeeper
.

“You know,” says Sigerson Bell as he materializes out of the shadows like a ghost, not even pretending that he wasn’t eavesdropping, “she is right. If you truly believe in justice, you should seek out the person who killed Grimsby. It would indeed mark you as what you say you intend to be.”

An hour later, the boy is out on the streets. He has no school today. He wants to be alone for a while. He knows that his master and Irene are correct. If he were truly a good person, truly a man of justice, he would help to find Grimsby’s murderer. But it is complicated, very complicated. He needs to sit somewhere and think about it. Usually, he takes his meals with Bell, but now he wants to find a public house for a long sit and then have some food on his own.

He heads to Leicester Square, walks past The Faustian Bargain where he once met with the famous young trapeze star, The Swallow, while in pursuit of the Brixton Gang, and finds another public house – a much calmer place called The Boy and Man.

He finds a booth, sits for a while, then orders a mug of tea and a chicken pot pie and starts to eat, losing himself in the meal and not thinking about what Irene and Bell had said. He thinks of Grimsby.
Dead
. But he can’t help it; it doesn’t sadden him in the least. There is, however, a small lingering feeling of guilt.
What if I indeed searched for his –

“Master Sherlock Holmes, I perceive.”

As if by magic, someone is sitting in the booth with him. Sherlock’s head shoots up. Sunken eyes are looking back at him.

Malefactor!
He has done it again.

“Wh-where did you come from?”

“Never you mind, Holmes. I can always find you.” He sets his top hat on the table and takes off his gloves. He looks calm on the surface, but plucks at the gloves aggressively. Holmes can tell that he is holding back a seething anger.

“I can see that,” says Sherlock.

“I prefer to be a mystery to you. You know too much about me already. In fact, in the future, should you live into the future, I think it would be best if you and I feign to have never known each other. It is best to have no past, no known past, at least.”

“Agreed.”

“But, as I say, you may not last much longer anyway. I don’t know on how many occasions I have told you that I am not pleased with you.”

“Once or twice.”

“As we get older, I can assure you, the chances that you will survive my displeasure diminish substantially.”

“You said almost as much before. This is about Grimsby.”

“Not entirely. It is mostly about you.”

“How so?”

“You, age sixteen and a half, have chosen, once more, to interfere in my affairs. I would have thought that you
would have matured enough to know to stay out. As I have said to you before, we are not children anymore.”

“At least one of us isn’t.”

“You state my case exactly. I did not know, the last time we met (and kick myself for not understanding), why you asked if I had been at my country home the night before. You were wondering if I, or one of my operatives, was following you in Hounslow, weren’t you? I know that you discovered it was I who was blackmailing Sir Ramsay Stonefield and where the source of my inside knowledge lived.”

“I did indeed.”

“That is most unfortunate. Though Grimsby, that little turncoat, has hurt our immediate chances with the police and in government by his treachery, they are not at an end. I shall get my way. I shall be an influence at every level of London life.”

Malefactor’s face had turned red when he mentioned Grimsby. That intrigues Sherlock, greatly.

“I have no doubt that you think you can do as you please in that regard,” says Holmes. “But concerning Grimsby, you seem angry. No grieving on your part?”

Malefactor springs to his feet. “That little pig! He was not loyal! He has made great troubles for us!”

Sherlock is even more intrigued.

Holmes’s enemy doesn’t wait for him to respond. He turns on him. “Never mind about Grimsby! He got his due! Live by the sword and you will die by it. Stay away from all of this, Sherlock Holmes! I am warning you for the
last
time! Stay away!”

As Malefactor stalks out of the public house, Holmes is radiant. He has a new plank in his plan, a brilliant one. He will indeed search for Grimsby’s murderer. And when the police consider the facts that he will unearth, it will be obvious to them that the murderer was either Malefactor or his only living lieutenant, Crew; or both.
I can do more than just put them behind bars
. He almost vibrates with excitement. The opportunity is suddenly before him to provide evidence that will see his archenemy
hanged
!

14
AFTER CREW

S
herlock has to go back to school the next day. He will begin his investigation of Grimsby’s murder the instant he is finished. He tells the apothecary what he is up to.

“Why, my young knight, are you constantly telling me what you are about to do? That is not like you.”

Holmes is usually so secretive that the old man has to draw things out of him.

“Really? Not like me? You think so?”

“I know so.”

Sherlock ignores the comment. He is a man on a mission. “I will begin at Scotland Yard.”

“Young Lestrade?”

“Absolutely. I am guessing that he has seen the body.”

When Sherlock Holmes arrives at police headquarters in Whitehall Street at about five o’clock in the afternoon, he is sure that he will find Lestrade there, even though many of the other constables and detectives on his time shift
will have left for the day. The young sleuth is just that dedicated, especially since he became the only Lestrade on the Force. He needs to build his career. This is a godsend to Holmes.

Though Sherlock hasn’t been actively attempting to solve crimes since he played his part in the Hemsworth-Nottingham magicians’ affair, he has been, as has been his custom for a year or so, helping young Lestrade, both by bringing him cases and ideas and listening to him when he has a problem. It is an excellent strategy – he is making sure that the aspiring detective will always be an ally at Scotland Yard. And for now, their partnership gets him access through the front door whenever he wants. The desk sergeant no longer attempts to toss him into the street.

The minute Sherlock asks to see Lestrade Junior, he is allowed into his office. It is far down the building, at the back, past all the desks and clutter, distant from where his father used to reign in a big room at the front, with its huge map of London on the wall. The son’s kingdom isn’t much larger than a broom closet.

He is twenty years old now, though still not fully capable of growing the kinds of whiskers he is attempting to proliferate on his slightly ferret-like face – an unfortunate visage, not entirely dissimilar to his father’s. He may have to give up his hirsute ambitions or settle for a modest mustache. He is wearing a tweed suit again, the one he wears every day, almost as if this imitation of his father’s similar bad taste will somehow help him in his pursuit of criminals. He is at his desk and actually smiles when Holmes enters.
This, despite the fact that the younger boy now towers over him, a fact that he tries not to dwell upon.

“What have you today?” he asks.

“It is what
you
have that interests me.”

Young Lestrade doesn’t like Sherlock’s tone. And there is an expression in his eye today that was often there when he was in active pursuit of his own solutions to cases. The last time Lestrade saw this look was during that magicians’ investigation. But there is something else about the lad that is worrisome.

“I have an interest in the Grimsby case.”

Lestrade is momentarily relieved, pleased to hear that this is just about Grimsby. The young detective knows that Sherlock has some sort of relationship, or enmity, with the former street gang leader named Malefactor (though that rough has apparently reformed now and hasn’t been seen in years) and would have known Grimsby well. “Yes, of course, I should have thought of that.”

“I would like to see the body.”

“Uh …”

“I will tell you all that I know of this case in return.” Sherlock will, of course, do no such thing. He will reveal to Lestrade
only
what he wants him to know.

“You are aware, Holmes, that I would do anything for you in a professional way, just
about
anything that is, but this is really against police protocol.”

“And?”

“And that means it can’t be done.”

“Lestrade, you cherish your rise in the ranks of this police force, do you not?”

The detective, again, does not like the look in Sherlock Holmes’s eyes.