The Dragon Turn (20 page)

Holmes puts out the candle.

As he gets closer to the lighted area, the screams grow in volume. It sounds like someone, or something, is in pain. It is as if he or she or it is being tortured. But the screams are not all he hears. They are interspersed with barks, but they don’t sound like they are coming from a dog.

He stops about fifty feet from the light. From this vantage point he cannot see anything in the dimly lit chamber except the stone wall at its far end, and a torch hanging from it. But there are shadows moving about. He hears those barks again, screams, and now squeals. Amidst it all, he thinks he hears a human moan. He moves a little closer.

Then he sees something.

A figure moves past, going from right to left in the chamber. Sherlock flattens himself against the wall, and then cautiously looks toward it. It is nearly five feet tall … and not human. It seems to be doing the barking, though it
definitely
isn’t a dog. It ambles on four legs but then stops and stands up on two, looking around as if sensing an intruder. Sherlock pulls his head back. It has something in its hands, which is struggling, screaming, trying to get away. The boy peers out again. The smaller, writhing creature is a small monkey. The big one that grips it — brown and furry — lowers its head and bites it; and it stops screaming and gasps. Then the larger creature continues on its way across the room to Holmes’ left and disappears down a ramp into what seems to be a pit. Sherlock hears a horrible hissing sound and the little monkey screams again; there is a great thrashing about and gnashing of teeth … the noise of a huge animal gobbling up another. Then the big creature appears again. Sherlock can see
it clearly now, face-on: a frightening canine-like visage, with a muzzle and close-set black eyes, framed by sand-colored hair … an immense, dog-faced ape.

A baboon!

Sherlock has read about them in journals. They are found in Africa and areas of Asia. He thinks there may be a few at the Zoological Society’s Gardens in Regent’s Park. This one seems enormous, as if someone has fed it too much and altered it somehow. The boy recalls what he knows of them. They are aggressive, the males (which this one obviously is) have teeth the size of human thumbs, and they are omnivorous, eating not just fruit and vegetation … but other animals too.

Sherlock lets his horsewhip slide down in his sleeve.

Then he hears that moan … the human moan. He freezes, and as he does, the baboon passes by again, this time going back to his right. Then there is the sound of a cage rattling, a latch being opened, an ear-splitting squeal, and the ape appears once more, now with a big rat in his hand. It ambles across the space and heads toward the pit. Sherlock steps into the room from behind, carefully watching the back of the baboon’s head as it descends to the place where the horrific sounds came from just moments ago.

It is feeding live animals to something
.

The boy turns to examine the room and what he sees shocks him. Directly before him, against the wall and to his right, is a row of cages in which rats, monkeys, and pigs are held. They stare out at him in fear, squealing and chattering. The last cage, in the corner, is twice as large as the others —obviously
intended for bigger creatures.
What else, in God’s name, has been fed to that beast?
Then he glimpses a large animal of some sort lying on the wet stone inside that cage, barely noticeable in the far corner. It looks weak and is moaning. Sherlock realizes that it is a human being … a small one … 
Scuttle!

The cage latches are simple ones, opened with keys, hanging from poles just a few feet away from each prison, just beyond the reach of the captives.
The baboon must have been taught to open each cage, take out an animal, lock it again, and put up the key
. Sherlock hears the hissing again from the pit, the thrashing sounds, the rat squealing, and the crunching of small bones. Then he sees the baboon’s head rising up above the ramp on its way back, to retrieve more live food for whatever is down below. It spots him. It barks, pounds its knuckles on the ground, bares its teeth, and runs toward him. In a flash, the boy seizes the key to the big cage, opens it, and drags Scuttle out.

Holmes wonders if the baboon is just threatening him. But instantly, the big creature is after them. Sherlock snaps his whip in its face and it jumps back, but then immediately advances again. Holmes is desperate to get to the pit and see what is harbored down there, but his first thoughts are for Scuttle. The little boy is barely conscious and seems frighteningly weak.
I must get him out of here!
Holmes keeps his face to his tormentor, his right arm under Scuttle’s arms and across his scrawny chest, dragging him, backing away in the direction of the passage, cracking his whip while he goes. As Sherlock reaches the tunnel, the giant ape stops:
it must never go down the passage
. Before long, they are far apart — the boy
hears the big baboon barking in the distance, its outline evident in the light.

Holmes has to move in the dark the rest of the way, pulling his load. He had feared he couldn’t even do this on his own. But anxious to save the little one he has put into danger, he finds the strength and courage he needs, and soon, is at the iron door. He left it slightly ajar. He pulls it open and slams it behind him, locking it. Then he drags Scuttle out onto the beach and puts him down on the mud. He turns toward the water. Breathing heavily, his heart still racing, he puts his hands on his knees, and vomits.

Sherlock Holmes sits on the mud for a long time after that, Scuttle beside him, still moaning. Finally, he gets to his feet and cups some water from the Thames in his hands and gently splashes it in his friend’s face. The small boy’s eyes focus a little, and he appears, for the first time, to actually look at Sherlock. But he doesn’t speak. It seems as though he can’t.

“Scuttle, can you hear me?”

The other boy nods.

“I am going to take you to see an apothecary.”

The boy grips him by the hand, so hard that he almost cracks his finger bones.

“I will stay with you.”

His grip lessens.

All the way into central London, Scuttle says nothing. It is strange to be with this talkative boy and not hear him utter a word. There is a haunted look in his eyes, as if he has seen something terrible, and it is still with him. He walks but does so like a ghost, floating at Sherlock’s side, his feather-weight propped up as they move. They stick to the smaller avenues, and when they reach the bottom of Denmark Street, the bigger boy stops and gets back into his disguise — boots inside his reversed frock coat, bare feet, a stoop to decrease his height, all to go with his still muddied face and hair. He takes Scuttle’s arm again, and together they approach the apothecary shop.

As expected, a Bobbie stands nearby, resplendent in his long, buttoned-down blue coat and helmet. He is slapping a truncheon against his hand. The two boys stumble directly past him. Neither of them matches the description of young Master Holmes.

Sherlock has the presence of mind to knock.

Irene answers the door, holding it open a crack. “Yes?” she asks. Beatrice is right behind her. “It’s you!” she cries out. The door opens, and they are brought inside.

As Holmes gets out of his disguise, Scuttle is laid on the laboratory table, and Sigerson Bell begins to perform his own sort of magic. He starts by giving the little lad a good snort from a bottle of gin.

“These two young ladies appeared here this afternoon and proclaimed that they hadn’t seen you, my boy, for some time, one, since this morning —
imagine that
— and were concerned. They have ensconced themselves here ever since, anxiously awaiting your arrival.”

“Not
that
anxiously, sir,” insists Miss Doyle, “I simply have something to tell him.” Miss Leckie remains quiet, glowing at Sherlock.

The boy looks enquiringly at Irene.

“What I have to say … can wait,” she says, looking at Scuttle.

“As for me,” says the apothecary, “I shall bring this child back to life — a good hot flask of my special tea and a serving of cold mutton should do most of the trick, though we will resort to toad bile if we must. And you, my young knight, shall tell us who this lad is, why he is the way he is, and what you have been up to. I see your whip has been in use.” Bell’s keen eye has spotted it hanging partially out of Holmes’s sleeve, its butt covered with mud.

The old man raises Scuttle to a sitting position and twists him in all sorts of ways, asking him to breathe deeply while he does. As Sherlock begins to talk, Scuttle is fed some of the tea that the three have been drinking (though the apothecary adds another splash of gin to the little boy’s) and great slabs of mutton and several scones. Both Irene and Beatrice tend to him with gentle care, a fact that seems to contribute substantially to his rapid improvement. He looks more like himself within minutes. Still, he doesn’t speak.

Sherlock explains about his adventures, which have stretched now into the late afternoon. All his listeners are riveted. Beatrice looks upset, Irene shocked, and Sigerson Bell absolutely fascinated. His eyes sparkle, and his body contorts as the action is described, as if he were fighting off the baboon himself.

“Excellent! Excellent, my young knight! Had I been there I would have administered a little Bellitsu to that simian monster, boxed its ears and dropped kicked him whilst you were diverting him with your whip-snapping prowess!” The image of this ancient, bent-over man in mortal combat with a baboon is almost enough to make Sherlock smile, even as he tells his desperate tale. So intense is his audience that they have all begun to ignore poor Scuttle, who sits on the lab table behind them munching on his third scone. As Sherlock comes to the part that describes the breathtaking escape onto the beach, they hear a little voice behind them.

“In the servicement of clarification, might I give some relations as to what occurred to Scuttle in the extremely small hours of this morning?”

They all turn to him. Sherlock, especially, is relieved to hear him speak.

“When this agent of Scottish Yard, ’ere —” continues the little boy, pointing at Holmes, “and I am making assumptions that you ladies and this nubile old wizard are also under the covers with the London Metropollution Police Force — encountered yours truly on guard outside The World’s End ’otel, where he is known to speak with many famous celebritants, an ass-signment was given, without the ’elp of a badge, to go down into the secret chambers and solve a mystery.”

“Scuttle,” says Sherlock, “I have related all of that. Please tell us what happened once you were inside.”

“Well, sir, I opened the wall, as your secret instructioning instructed me to do. My ’eart was sweating and my ’ands pounding. I could ’ear with my ears noises in another chamber,
as you sir, agent of Scottish Yard, had imitated there might be. There was awful screeching and screaming and sounds that might make a man throw up his victuals from his bowels out onto the ground. I moved toward it … though not at lightning speed, I’d say, due to a knocking about of my knees. It was dark and I could not see with my eyes what was transporting in that chamber. And then, a bad thing ’appened.”

“A bad thing?” asks Irene.

“Scuttle fell.”

“You fell?”

“Just at the opening to the lower chamber, and rolled like a rolling pin down the stairs. Scuttle is not always a ballet man on his feet.”

“I can imagine,” says Bell sympathetically.

“And there they were … and Scuttle directly amidst them.”

“They?” asks Sherlock.

“Two men.”

“Who?”

“I think, sir, that one was ’emsworth.”

Irene gasps.

“You think?” asks Sherlock.

“Well, one thing Scuttle ’as never really said … is that I at no times actually viewed Mr. ’emsworth’s face with my own eyeballs, though I felt I ’ad seen ’im in the dark many times at the Cremorne. I ’ad related that I gabbed with ’im … but that was not strictly the truthful truth. And underground, ’e pulled ’is ’at down low too, when ’is eyeballs fiercely saw me, as if to say to me that ’e was under the covers as well.”