Becoming Holmes

by Shane Peacock

  “And, after you did it, you saw an opportunity, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. Irene said I should seek his killer and so did you.”

  “A fine idea, a just one.”

  “Yes, you are right. But that killer was me. And when Malefactor came to see me in that public house in Leicester Square, he was SO angry; he hated Grimsby for his interference. It came to me suddenly that I could frame him. I could frame them all. I had killed Grimsby, Crew could be positioned as his murderer to the police, and Malefactor, filled with hate for his disloyal lieutenant and with a motive to kill him, could be shown to be the power behind it all.”

  “You just needed a plan.”

  “It came quickly. I began telling you and my brother Mycroft and every one I met that I was seeking the murderer of one Grimsby. I even made Lestrade note it in the police records. The seeker of the murderer is never the murderer himself. I wanted everyone, from the police on down, to think me the least possible suspect. That is what criminals should do.”

  “Then you went after Crew. You found out about the snakes that he carried. You searched for his home, the lair no one else dared near. Snakes! It was perfect! You have seen them, haven’t you? Was one a big constrictor, capable of killing a large mammal?”

  “Yes, sir, an anaconda.”

  “An anaconda’s squeeze! That would be ‘inhuman,’ that would leave a huge purple welt across the chest of the victim and crush his insides. The police would believe that.”

  “Yes, they will.”

  “Despite the fact that the anaconda would have left a series of welts, not just one, as you did.”

  “Lestrade won’t figure that out.”

  “He won’t know much about an exotic snake from the Amazon, will he? He won’t know that it might have tried to swallow its victim too, especially a little one like Grimsby.”

  The boy pauses. “Should I tell him everything?”

  “No, Sherlock, you shouldn’t.”

  “No?”

  “Though I am not glad that you took Grimsby’s life, I am glad that he is dead. Good riddance to him! I am also glad that Crew will be hanged for his murder and for the murder of many others. Good riddance to him too! Malefactor, thank goodness, is gone, though I don’t believe he would have been convicted on the evidence you provided. Had he lived, I have no doubt, given his genius, he would have walked free.”

  “I … I am sorry, sir. I was too angry. I wanted to stop them so much!” He begins to cry. Bell embraces him. They have never done anything quite like this before.

  “You are forgiven, my boy. Now, go out and never do such a thing again. Respect yourself and respect others. Always do what is right, no matter what, no matter your opponent, no matter their evil. Oh, be tricky, my young knight, use means that are irregular, even a little nasty, shall we say, and always win! Be your brilliant self. You must win! But never do the evil that they do.”

  “I won’t.”

  “The world needs you. You have much to do in life.”

  When he utters those words, the same words that Sherlock’s mother said to him before she died, the boy looks at Bell. Did I ever tell him that? A shiver goes through him. Who is this man, really? Was he sent to me? Bell pulls back from him and smiles. Then, the old man struggles up onto the balustrade, teetering over the water far below. Sherlock doesn’t stop him.

  “I shall bequeath the entire shop to you, my boy. Sell it. Keep the money and go to university. Go to the best, to Oxford or Cambridge. You will need connections to get there, despite your genius. That’s how it works in our world. Go to see Sir Ramsay Stonefield. He will be overjoyed at what you have done for him. I am sure you can ask Lestrade to keep his good name out of all of this. In a year or two, with Stonefield’s influence, you will be in any school of your choosing.”

  Bell looks down at the water and spreads out his arms.

  “We all came from water, my boy. We should all return there.”

  And with that, he lets himself fall from the bridge. Sherlock gasps, but he doesn’t run to the edge and look over.

  He hears the splash. It sounds so tiny for such a gigantic man.

  So, it ends.

  Sherlock walks away. The police will soon be coming over the bridge from Southwark with Crew in chains. Holmes doesn’t want to see them. He simply wants to go home to the apothecary shop. He will not cry. He will not think of Bell or Irene or Beatrice or his mother or father. For their sake, for the sake of many others, he will not break down. From this day forward, he will not think anymore of his entire childhood. He knows now that emotions are his enemy. He must be a machine, a sword against evil. My past shall be known to no one. I will be a mystery, my vulnerabilities unavailable to the criminals. He will sell the shop, speak to Stonefield, go to university, come back to London, to the center of both good and evil, and set himself up here. He will fight crime in a manner and with a success that no one else has ever achieved. And, yes, he will find someone to tell the world about it.

  It occurs to him that he has a home again. His home, his solace in life, is in his great purpose.

  At least, he thinks, I have a head start. I have vanquished Malefactor.

  He leans over the balustrade for a moment, just before he descends the stairs back into the city. The sun is beginning to rise. From where he is, he can see the Tower of London better than before. Its wharf is clear, right in front of that ship where Malefactor went under. As he looks down there, he sees something.

  A man is lying on the wharf right near the ship. He is soaking wet, having just pulled himself from the water. He is dressed in black, wearing a tailcoat. He staggers to his feet, holding his head. For an instant, he seems to steal a glance over his shoulder up toward London Bridge where Sherlock stands.

  The villain walks away.

  The young man up on the bridge isn’t disappointed. He is ready. I am a man. A smile comes to his lips. He feels as strong as the anaconda. Much stronger, in fact.

  It is dawn, thinks Sherlock Holmes. It is just the beginning.

  Be sure to read the first five books

  in the award-winning series

  EYE OF THE CROW

  t is the spring of 1867, and a yellow fog hangs over London. In the dead of night, a woman is brutally stabbed and left to die in a pool of blood. No one sees the terrible crime. Or so it seems.

  Nearby, a brilliant, bitter boy dreams of a better life. He is the son of a Jewish intellectual and a highborn lady – social outcasts – impoverishment the price of their mixed marriage. The boy’s name is Sherlock Holmes.

  Strangely compelled to visit the scene, Sherlock comes face to face with the young Arab wrongly accused of the crime. By degrees, he is drawn to the center of the mystery, until he, too, is a suspect.

  Danger runs high in this desperate quest for justice. As the clues mount, Sherlock sees the murder through the eye of its only witness. But a fatal mistake and its shocking consequence change everything and put him squarely on a path to becoming a complex man with a dark past – and the world’s greatest detective.

  DEATH IN THE AIR

  till reeling from his mother’s death, brought about by his involvement in solving London’s brutal East End murder, young Sherlock Holmes commits himself to fighting crime … and is soon immersed in another case.

  While visiting his father at work, Sherlock stops to watch a dangerous high-trapeze performance, framed by the magnificent glass ceiling of the legendary Crystal Palace. But without warning, the aerialist drops, screaming and flailing to the floor. He lands with a sickening thud, just feet away and rolls almost onto the boy’s boots. He is bleeding profusely and his body is grotesquely twisted. Leaning over, Sherlock brings his ear up close. “Silence me …” the man gasps and then lies still. In the mayhem that follows, the boy notices something amiss that no one else sees – and he knows that foul play is afoot. What he doesn’t know is that his discovery will set him on a trail that leads to an entire gang of notorious and utterly ruthles
s criminals.

  VANISHING GIRL

  hen a wealthy young socialite mysteriously vanishes in Hyde Park, young Sherlock Holmes is compelled to prove himself once more. There is much at stake: the kidnap victim, an innocent child’s survival, the fragile relationship between himself and the beautiful Irene Doyle. Sherlock must act quickly if he is to avoid the growing menace of his enemy, Malefactor, and further humiliation at the hands of Scotland Yard.

  As twisted and dangerous as the backstreets of Victorian London, this third case in The Boy Sherlock Holmes series takes the youth on a heart-stopping race against time to the countryside, the coast, and into the haunted lair of exotic – and deadly – night creatures.

  Despite the cold, the loneliness, the danger, and the memories of his shattered family, one thought keeps Sherlock going; soon, very soon, the world will come to know him as the master detective of all time.

  THE SECRET FIEND

  n 1868, Benjamin Disraeli becomes England’s first Jewish-born prime minister. Sherlock Holmes welcomes the event – but others fear it. The upper classes worry that the black-haired Hebrew cannot be good for the empire. The wealthy hear rumblings as the poor hunger for sweeping improvements to their lot in life. The winds of change are blowing.

  Late one night, Sherlock’s admirer and former schoolmate, Beatrice, arrives at his door, terrified. She claims a maniacal, bat-like man has leapt upon her and her friend on Westminster Bridge. The fiend she describes is the Spring Heeled Jack, a fictional character from the old Penny Dreadful thrillers. Moreover, Beatrice declares the Jack has made off with her friend. She begs Holmes to help, but he finds the story incredible. Reluctant to return to detective work, he pays little heed – until the attacks increase, and Spring Heeled Jacks seem to be everywhere. Now, all of London has more to worry about than politics. Before he knows it, the unwilling boy detective is thrust, once more, into the heart of a deadly mystery, in which everyone, even his closest friend and mentor, is suspect.

  THE DRAGON TURN

  herlock Holmes and Irene Doyle are as riveted as the rest of the audience. They are celebrating Irene’s sixteenth birthday at The Egyptian Hall as Alistair Hemsworth produces a real and very deadly dragon before their eyes. This single, fantastic illusion elevates the previously unheralded magician to star status, making him the talk of London. He even outshines the Wizard of Nottingham, his rival on and off the stage.

  Sherlock and Irene rush backstage after the show to meet the great man, only to witness Inspector Lestrade and his son arrest the performer. It seems one-upmanship has not been as satisfying to Hemsworth as the notion of murder. The Wizard is missing; his spectacles and chunks of flesh have been discovered in pools of blood in Hemsworth’s secret workshop. That, plus the fact that Nottingham has stolen Hemsworth’s wife away, speak of foul play and motive. There is no body, but there has certainly been a grisly death.

  In this spine-tingling case, lust for fame and thirst for blood draw Sherlock Holmes one giant step closer to his destiny – master detective of all time.