Death in the Air

by Shane Peacock

  “The members of the Brixton Gang,” Sherlock begins, his eyes staring into the distance, his fingertips drumming against one another, “are so clever that their identities aren’t known to the police. They were casing the Crystal Palace in broad daylight, undetected, the day before the accident, already well aware of where the vault was and the different ways they might get at it. They were deciding on the best approach, in search of the key to another perfect crime. Then everything fell into their lap.”

  “They meet their old friend, now known to the world as The Swallow,” nods Bell.

  “They know he won’t give them away,” continues Sherlock. “So they start to converse, asking him innocent questions about the performances, learning that Le Coq flies by far the highest, that he nearly touches the glass ceiling … that he would be able to see into the vault room.”

  “That seems like a problem for them, at first,” notes Bell.

  “But then the guard, who worships The Swallow, who stops whenever he can to talk, comes along. He is introduced. The Brixton boys hide their immediate interest and slip into their quiet technique of drawing information out of others by asking innocuous questions. Soon the guard is bragging about the fact that there will be a great deal of money in the vault by tomorrow afternoon, at least a hundred thousand pounds. He also states that he keeps the combination to the lock in a notebook in his breast pocket. Before he leaves, he tells them something else: he loves the delicious lemon drink one can purchase in the Refreshment Department nearby.”

  “A beverage into which one might slip a helpful potion,” adds Sigerson Bell, turning and writing a few chemical symbols on his little chalk board on the wall.

  Sherlock looks at it. He understands almost everything now.

  “The Brixton Gang knows a great deal about poisons and medicinal mixtures,” adds the alchemist sadly. “The use of them, as well as the gang’s elusiveness, love of misdirection, and murderous ways during robberies, are all trademarks of their nefarious operations.”

  “They leave the Palace,” says Sherlock, “come back with an appropriate tool of their trade, and later that day, one of them distracts The Swallow just as he is finishing his work on the trapeze bars before they are raised to the perch … and the other slices two cuts at the ends of Mercure’s swing, each about halfway through it, and perhaps camouflages them with paint.

  So, the scene is set for one of their perfect crimes. The four members of the Brixton Gang arrive at the Crystal Palace early on the day of the event. They mix with a large and growing crowd drawn by the promise of a marvelous flying trapeze performance, and situate themselves near the vault room’s door, which is undoubtedly always guarded by a Bobbie or two, likely bearing concealed revolvers.”

  “But there is a sensational performance about to begin just down the transept,” chimes in Bell, “an irresistible show the Bobbies will be able to view from their spot outside the door.”

  “When the band strikes up, their attention shifts down the transept.” Sherlock looks at Bell who nods. “The world-renowned Flying Mercures are about to perform.”

  “Still, the policemen are professionals and keep an eye on the door,” cautions the apothecary.

  Sherlock thinks for a moment. Then he has it. “But, when Le Coq himself seizes the trapeze bar on his lofty perch and the drumroll begins, it is too much for the policemen. It would be for anyone. They stare away, up into the distance.”

  “And thus the Brixton Gang strikes. They spring the latch on the vault-room door with quick and ghostly expertise.”

  “In all probability, two go in and two remain just outside.”

  “Inside, the guard doesn’t see them, because he is slumped on his chair, his half-finished cup of lemon drink gripped sleepily in his hands, drugged into a stupor.”

  “They remove the notebook (with the combination) from the guard’s pocket, open the vault, and take the money.”

  “And return the little volume to its sleeping owner,” adds the old man.

  “And while they are doing this, a terrible accident occurs down the transept. It transfixes everyone, including the Bobbies. No one can take their eyes from it. Le Coq screams, he falls like an anvil toward the hard floor and strikes it with a sickening thud. Pandemonium ensues. Everyone rushes to the fallen man. There is deafening noise, shrieks and wails, women fainting, absolute confusion in the Palace. The Bobbies outside the vault-room door are caught up in the crush, and are either pulled along by it, away from the door, or simply stunned. Who would not be? The door behind is of no interest to them for at least a minute.”

  “But from that door now sneak two villains dragging sacks of money. They are met by two others. With smiles on their faces they move against the crowd, the other way, out the big rear entrance of the central transept and to a carriage with fleet horses nearby. They are gone within minutes.”

  “Behind them the vault-room door is shut and locked, as if it had never been opened.”

  “Their perfect crime is complete, made possible by brilliant misdirection: by the Bobbies’ interest in the trapeze performance, and cinched by the accident.”

  “The policemen have no reason to inspect the vault room. Within half an hour, the guard slowly rouses, unaware that anyone has been in the room.”

  “In fact, no one even knows that the Palace has been robbed.”

  “The gang is long gone. There is just one witness … and he is dead. Silenced.”

  The two irregular, amateur detectives had been speaking faster and faster, and have come to a sudden halt.

  “There are several potions they could have used,” says Bell. “Laudanum with a few drops of chloroform would do nicely. It would mix transparently into the opaque lemon liquid and render a human being insensible for at least half an hour. You would rouse with the sense that you had simply nodded off for an instant.”

  Sherlock starts to pace.

  “What will you do next?” asks Bell excitedly. “To Scotland Yard with the evidence?”

  “No.”

  “But why not?”

  “There are many reasons. Firstly, even though we know we are correct, to them this will all just sound like a theory. I acted too rashly before. What does this give them, really, even if they believe it? The Brixton Gang is gone, vanished again. To the police, simply knowing that these fiends committed this crime is almost worse than not knowing. If they tell the public the truth, they will look like the fools they are … another case of the Brixton wizards outsmarting the Force, this time killing a great performer and disappearing into the night. And in addition to everything else, I will be the bearer of the news. Inspector Lestrade doesn’t like that … at all.”

  “But I could come with you. I would do that, my boy. Right down to Whitehall! I shall back you up!” The old man shouts his last sentence at the top of his lungs and turns to a battered old painting of Queen Victoria, hanging on the wall, barely observable through test tubes and glass phials. He actually clicks his heels to attention. He can see it now: in his last few failing days, just before he must tell the boy that his world has fallen apart, he can do something wonderful.

  Sherlock smiles, but then his face grows dark. His eyes narrow. “No,” he mutters. He paces rapidly back and forth across the lab again, sweat dripping down his face. “It isn’t enough. I will go one further…. I will capture the Brixton Gang myself! Every last one of them…. I shall lay my hands upon these villains.”

  Five hundred pounds of British sterling are gleaming in his mind.

  PART TWO

  THE BRIXTON GANG

  “I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can see deeply into

  the manifold wickedness of the human heart.”

  – A client in The Adventure of the Speckled Band

  I KNOW SOMEONE WHO KNOWS SOMEONE

  It is an ambitious, intoxicating idea, and exceedingly dangerous. But what if Sherlock Holmes could actually deliver the notorious Brixton Gang, the most violent, most wanted collection of
villains in all of London, into the hands of Scotland Yard? He could fund his education forever, save Sigerson Bell, truly begin his attack on crime … and Lestrade would not be able to deny him his due.

  “That is not feasible!” blurts out the old alchemist, getting to his feet and making several little circles around the boy. “How could you possibly do such a thing? The Brixton Gang members are not only frighteningly brutal in their manner, murderers, but they are as elusive as phantoms. They have disappeared again. The police have no idea who they are, let alone where they are. No one does!” “I know someone who just might know something,” says Sherlock and he springs to his feet, swipes his coat from the hook, and heads out the door.

  “Master Holmes, it is nearing midnight!” cries the old man. “I … I shan’t keep you if you …” But the boy is gone.

  He has been on his feet since the early hours of the morning. If he persists much longer, he will have spent an entire day pursuing the case. But that doesn’t matter – he hardly thinks of it. There are fiends to catch and the time to strike is now. The prize is irresistible. Alert for his prey he sweeps along streets lit by the soft yellow glow of gaslights, heading into the bowels of the city. The fog is heavy in the humid night.

  If it were his choice, he would have nothing more to do with Malefactor. But events are compelling him in the young crime lord’s direction. He needs him. Whatever must be done to succeed, to bring those culprits to justice, shall be done. Sherlock will sign a deal with the devil if he must.

  The master criminal had been near St. Martin’s Workhouse just off Trafalgar Square earlier in the day, so the boy starts off in that direction. Shadowy Lincoln’s Inn Fields can be searched later if necessary.

  He sees ragged beggars, brightly dressed and painted women, drunk men, and the shoeless, pale-skinned poor, either staggering about or creeping along in the yellow fog, but no matter where he looks, he cannot find Malefactor. The shadows are hiding him well tonight.

  But rounding a corner off St. Martin’s Lane he spies someone else: the Irregulars’ most disgusting operator, hard at work. Nasty, dark-haired Grimsby dressed completely in black with his face charcoaled too, and hatless, is toiling in tandem with a younger thief tonight. The smaller boy is more nattily attired: cleaned up as best as possible, a tattered greatcoat fitting loosely on his boney frame. They have been out hunting and have spotted an easy mark: a gentleman in evening dress, silk white scarf around his neck, black top hat on his graying head, elegantly mustached, but obviously confused, and more than a little lost as he shambles about trying to go westward toward his wealthy neighborhood, but heading north.

  “Hansom cab? Cabbie? Why can’t a gentleman find a driver!” he shouts in a slurred voice.

  The younger thief, standing next to a Horse and Carriage Repository where vehicles are built and kept, beckons him to approach. Several carriages are gathered around in its small yard behind a black iron fence, some unfinished. To the man’s inebriated brain, this must look like an enormous cab stand.

  “Cab, guvna?” shouts the little Irregular. “Stand ’ere and I’ll bring one along, sir.”

  Sherlock slides up against a building. He can see Grimsby crouching in the lane that runs to the front doors of the Repository. He is hidden from view, ready to pounce, and shaking his fist at another group of boys, not Irregulars, who have obviously also been following the gentleman. He is letting them know that this is not their prize tonight.

  The gentleman sways toward the younger Irregular and then reaches into his pocket for a coin, turning his back to the entrance to the lane. Grimsby shuffles into perfect position from behind and suddenly drives forward, striking his victim violently in the back of the knees with his shoulder, knocking him, face down, onto the cobblestones. The man groans. The next blow comes from the hard toe of the boy’s boot driven against the gentleman’s head. This time the man goes limp. Grimsby and his accomplice pull him into the lane, go through his pockets, strip him to his undergarments, and make off through the streets with his clothes and money, running low to the ground.

  “To your heels!” he hears Grimsby hiss.

  Sherlock is after them in a flash. It had pained him to watch them operate. He had wanted to shout out, stop them in their tracks, save that man from them. But he couldn’t: he had to watch it all transpire so he could follow them when they were finished. He has larger prey to ensnare. Allow a crime in order to end greater evil – it is the price he has to pay.

  “Speed, you vermin! Speed!” spits Grimsby under his breath.

  They are scurrying north-east, human rats on the run. Sherlock keeps low and stays on their trail, following them past a smelly brewery, a church, a school, and then the hospital near the Bloomsbury and St. Giles Workhouse. They are heading to a spot in a poor neighborhood … not far from where Irene Doyle lives in the more genteel Bloomsbury area, a fact not lost on Sherlock.

  They turn up Drury Lane and slither down a little mews that leads right onto the workhouse grounds. This dark “house,” one of many feared by the poor, who are put in these places when they can no longer survive on their own, is a big, granite building. It is silent now, its desperate, ill-nourished inmates asleep, or tossing and turning on their hard little beds.

  Sherlock sees Malefactor instantly. He always stands out from his gang. He is leaning against the cool, stone workhouse wall in his tailcoat and top hat, twirling his walking stick in anticipation of Grimsby’s return. When he spots Sherlock, he scowls angrily at his lead lieutenant, who, as the mob’s thief extraordinaire, should have known that he was being followed. The young boss turns to the other, smaller thief, knocks the gentleman’s rich garments from his hands, and drives the end of his cane deep into the little boy’s ribs, eliciting a shriek of pain. Somehow the lad ducks the ensuing blow, directed at his cheekbone. Malefactor pivots and glares at Grimsby again, who slinks away into the shadows, looking daggers at Holmes. The gang’s other lieutenant: blond, silent Crew, grins nearby.

  “Master Sherlock Holmes, I perceive,” Malefactor growls, his dark, sunken eyes turning to the boy, trying not to betray his anger. “I see you have returned to my presence.” There is an undertone of interest in his voice, as if he had hoped that Sherlock would come back some time.

  “Intriguing location,” says Holmes, looking about. “Bloomsbury is to your taste these days?”

  “Unquestionably,” smiles Malefactor.

  “I –”

  “She often comes to see me.”

  “Who?” asks Sherlock.

  Malefactor merely snorts.

  There is a long silence. The criminal knows why Sherlock is here and is forcing him to speak first, shaming him. He examines his fingernails.

  “I …” begins Sherlock.

  “Yes?”

  “I need some information.”

  “Let me quote you, Master Holmes, upon the occasion of your last interview with me. ‘ I don’t need help from the likes of you anymore.’ It was said with some mustard in your tone. I believe I have that correct, do I not?”

  Sherlock hates this, but he must endure it. At first he doesn’t reply.

  “Do I not?” repeats Malefactor.

  “Yes.”

  “I did not hear you.” He is cupping an ear in one of his white-gloved hands.

  “Yes!”

  “Thank you. Now, what brings you here? For what, specifically, are you groveling now?”

  “I am after the Brixton Gang.”

  Malefactor says nothing at first. Then he laughs so loudly that it seems he may wake all the inmates of the Bloomsbury and St. Giles Workhouse. And almost instantly there is a chorus joining in, lead by Grimsby and the others – Crew, as usual is mute, though his smile, visible in the shadows, is cheek-splitting.

  “I know they killed Monsieur Mercure!” shouts Sherlock.

  It brings the laughter to a halt.

  “Perhaps you should announce that on the top of Nelson’s Column at Trafalgar Square,” says Malefacto
r quietly. “Even if it isn’t a fiction, keep your gob shut about it!”

  “It is true. And I intend to lay my hands upon them and bring them to justice for it.”

  The crime boss looks at him closely saying nothing.

  “They planned his murder,” continues Sherlock through his teeth, “and robbed The Crystal Palace of one hundred thousand pounds simultaneously, in a crime of misdirection. They took the money from the vault and left a locked room behind.”

  Crew takes a coin from his pocket, places it in the palm of his hand, showing it to the other boys. He points at the coin, closes his hand over it, then opens the palm to reveal that it is empty. In a smooth move, he swirls the other hand in front of his chest and opens it … revealing the coin.

  “Misdirection,” mutters Grimsby.

  Sherlock ignores both of them. “If it helps me get what I want,” he offers, “I shall tell you exactly how they did it.”

  Malefactor appears to be considering this. Information is, to him, like gold, especially information about the activities of other members of the criminal world. He understands that Sherlock wants to exchange it for something. His eyes shift about as he thinks. A chess game has begun. This time, he intends to win.

  “No thank you,” he responds.

  The boy finds this surprising. And Malefactor has a strange look too, a sort of poker-face set on his features, as if he were trying to keep his thoughts concealed. What is he thinking? Why did he refuse?

  “Give me something else,” the young boss says, eyeing Sherlock as if he were looking into him. The boy has the feeling that Malefactor is checking to see his reaction to the refusal, to see if it is giving anything away.

  Sherlock wonders what else he can possibly offer. He looks around the workhouse grounds and his eyes glance north momentarily toward Bloomsbury … Montague Street … and Irene Doyle. He must be dispassionate about this, thrust aside all his emotions … all his feelings.