Eye of the Crow (19 page)

“And something else,” boasts the young boss.

“The cry of crows,” murmurs Holmes.

Malefactor is displeased. It appears as if he wants to strike the other boy again. “Yes,” he mutters. His eyes narrow. He doesn’t want to say anything more. But he gives in.

“I shan’t ask you how you know that. Though I
will
tell you to be careful. Not for your sake, God knows, but for the girl. The sort of person who did this will have the
means to make you – and Miss Doyle – vanish. You don’t matter to him. Neither did the woman he murdered. That’s the way of the world. Get that into your head.” Malefactor is almost snarling.

“Which way did the coach go?” inquires Sherlock, gambling that pride will make his rival say even more.

The boy in the top hat shows his teeth. “Think I might not have that answer?”

“I …”

“The coach fled from there going west!” Malefactor places his arms across his chest and sticks out his chin, observing Sherlock’s reaction.

“Thank y –.”

“There is nothing good in this world, but if there were, Miss Doyle would be the closest thing to it. Protect her, or feel my wrath.”

“Of cours –”

“Goodnight, Jew-boy”

Malefactor’s inquiries have confirmed everything Sherlock has suspected and much more: screams, evidence that the victim saw her attacker, the crows, a rich man fleeing westward in a well-described coach … west toward Mayfair.

He knows what he has to do next. He has to stride right into the middle of this battle and begin with his dangerous move. He has to involve his mother. She will be giving lessons in rich Mayfair homes this very week.

His parents know he is alive and still in London. They could not have missed the crow he drew on their table.

But he isn’t coming tonight to set their minds at rest.

It is early morning and pitch-black in much of Southwark. The freakish people on the streets pass without his notice. He slithers silently through the warrens and cobblestone lanes and soon is near his home. There is the hatter’s shop. No one appears to be watching tonight, at least that he can tell. Their little window is dark.

He sneaks along the alley at the back and up the stairs. He lifts the latch. Open.

Again he hears the sounds of his parents sleeping. Crawling across the main room, he stops at his bed. It is empty. He’ll have to go straight to their room. There is no door there, just a drape hanging in the entrance. When his face touches it, he can smell her perfume. Though his father doesn’t always have tobacco for his stempipe, its aroma is often in their flat. It hangs in the air in the bedroom. Sherlock stops moving. They smell safe. He feels another overpowering desire to crawl into their bed and snuggle between them.

It is strange to see them lying there. They are stripped to their undergarments, wrapped in each other’s arms in a deep sleep: he on his back gently snoring, she in her shift with her hand on his chest. It is embarrassing to catch them like this. It isn’t what a son is supposed to see. But it nearly makes him cry. He can feel their love and knows it is the best thing on God’s earth.

It is time to set aside these feelings. If he doesn’t act
immediately, he won’t act at all. He reaches out and gently places his hand over Rose’s mouth. Her eyes fly open. He presses his hand down firmly. She can’t scream.

His mother seizes his hand and opens her mouth to sink her teeth into his flesh. Rose Holmes has long since learned how to defend herself.

“Mother!” he whispers as loudly as he dares.

The eyes turn toward him, at first thrilled, then filling with tears. He removes his hand and she sits up in bed, enfolding him in her arms.

“My boy,” she whimpers, kissing him.

Beside her, Wilber stirs. He looks up at his son as if he’s seeing Marley’s ghost and reaches for his wire reading spectacles.

“Sherlock?”

For an instant, the boy thinks his father is going to cry too. Instead, his arms go around his wife. He extends a hand.

“Wonderful to see you, son.”

Minutes later they are having cold tea at their little table, using just one candle for light, speaking in hushed tones. Sherlock explains everything that has happened: about his escape, about Irene, Malefactor, the eyeball, Mayfair, and all the evidence he has gathered, even about smelly old John Stuart Mill, which makes his mother laugh. When the tea is done, they pull their chairs close together and are silent. They know that Sherlock can’t stay long. They extinguish the candle and huddle in the dark. No one moves, as if they all hope they can forget reality and fall asleep together. Only Wilber, who is given to dozing off, succumbs
to the darkness. Rose turns to Sherlock and smiles, motioning toward her husband.

But her son isn’t smiling back. His expression has grown serious. Their faces are close enough that she knows, even in the darkness, that he is anxious to tell her something.

“Mother?” he asks in a faint voice.

“Yes, dear?”

“You have to help me.”

His voice sounds so somber that she doesn’t respond.

“Mayfair is a world unto itself,” he continues, as if he needs to explain this clearly. “Everyone is connected to everyone else there.”

“I know,” says Rose, patting his hand.

“The answer to all of this is inside that neighbor hood … where you give lessons.”

She is beginning to understand what he wants.

“Have you ever seen a man with a glass eye in a Mayfair home?”

“No, though I doubt any gentleman would advertise the fact that he has a false eye, especially to the likes of me.” She smiles in an attempt to make light of her comment, showing an echo of the spirit she once had. Sherlock needs her old courage now.

“Could you …” he begins.

“Yes, I could,” she says, without flinching.

“I can’t go there.”

“I know.” She takes one of his hands into both of hers.

Now that his mother has agreed, Sherlock wants to run away. He shouldn’t be doing this.

“No,” he says decisively, getting to his feet, regretting that he came here. “You can’t be involved in this. It’s too dangerous.”

She pulls him back down.

“If you are in jail for much of your life, if they … hang you, Sherlock, I would never forgive myself for not trying to help. My life would be over anyway.”

He pauses for a long time before speaking again.

“Just observe. Look around carefully. That’s all. I don’t want you to ask anyone anything directly. You might be in the murderer’s home or a friend’s. We are expendable to people like that. He will be suspicious of any interest in his glass eye from an outside inquirer.”

“I will be careful,” she assures him, squeezing his fingers.

“You must be.”

“But what if I ask a discreet question, something
in
direct? Perhaps of a servant who knows the neighborhood well, who wouldn’t normally talk to her master anyway, a scullery maid?”

Sherlock hesitates. “Only if you are absolutely certain about her,” he says with emotion, a little louder than he intends.

“What was that?” mutters his father as he comes awake. “Sherlock? What are you two talking about?”

“The physics of flight in the yellow-bellied sapsucker, my dear,” smiles Rose.

Humor is not Wilber’s strong suit and for a moment, before he laughs, he is a little mystified.

No one has to call Sherlock “Judas” now. He’s heard the Christian Bible story of that reviled man’s betrayal many times in school, and as he works his way through the dark avenues back to Montague Street, he indeed feels like a traitor. Has he gone too far, put his mother in danger – into a situation that might turn her over to the villain? She will be a spy behind enemy lines. If spies are caught, they are executed.

The sun is still a few hours from rising when Sherlock crosses back over the Thames. He doesn’t pay much attention to his surroundings, doesn’t even try to imitate the street-boy shamble he has perfected. He is too deep in thought. He moves down Montague, under the gaslights, beside the long pale exterior of the British Museum without even glancing behind. The Doyle home is still. He hopes that fleabag J.S. Mill will be indoors tonight. Sherlock slides down the passageway and into the backyard.

A dark object is hanging from the kennel. He can’t tell what it is. He moves closer.

It’s a bird … a large
black
bird.
And it’s dead.

It is attached to the boards just above the entrance. A long-bladed knife has pierced the crow through its breast, pinning it to the wood. Its beak is open as if in a scream. Written just above its shotgun-sprayed little head, in scarlet slashes of blood, are two words. His stomach feels sick as he brings his face within a few wingspans:

Beware Jew!

Sherlock almost cries out. Who, other than the police, could know that he is after the villain? Who is watching him?
Why?
As his eyes dart around the yard, a ghost-like figure comes to mind, one he thought he had imagined – the big coachman in black livery and red standing in the alley observing him and then looking up at the crows. There’s an instant connection in the boy’s thoughts between that phantom coachman in black … and a black coach racing west from the murder! Then he remembers a dark vehicle parked alone on Whitechapel too, on the night he ran from there in fear.

He wipes the scarlet words from the kennel with a quivering hand, leaving a smear of blood. He looks left, right, up above, toward the house, down the passageway. He spots no dark figure. His whole body is shaking. He pulls the blade from the crow’s chest, allowing the bird to fall to the ground, then kicks it into the rose bushes and flings the bloody knife after it.

He darts into the passageway and starts to run. But halfway down Montague Street he turns around, sprints back and slips down the passage into the yard. He checks the back door … locked. He rushes around to the front and tests it … locked. Thank God.

Then he disappears into the wicked London night.

THE DEVIL’S CARRIAGE

S
herlock lies on cold, hard cobblestones in a lane behind a pile of rotting vegetables north of the University College of London for several dark hours. He knows he must retreat to an area he doesn’t frequent. When the rain pours down, he presses as close to the building as he can get.

Who is that coachman?
What has he seen and what does he know? Was he at the Haymarket Theatre too, the glass maker’s shop in Soho, following him from the moment he visited the crime scene?
Only the murderer or someone who works for him would do this.
It is obvious. The villain is on to Sherlock … and in a murderous mood.

After the sun rises, he makes his way back toward Irene’s house, not because he needs food – he’ll beg or steal it now – but because he has to see her, warn her, tell her that their meetings will have to be rare, if they take place at all.

He finds a place on the grounds of the British Museum, against the east side of the building inside the wrought-iron fence, where he can see the house and not be detected. He waits. He is frantic. His hands are clammy, his eyes shift in his head, and he holds his spine tightly against the wall. Finally,
Andrew Doyle emerges and marches down the street, walking stick in hand.