by Darrell Pitt
As this memory passed through his mind, he heard a sudden shuffling sound from behind him. He turned. A man leapt up from behind a desk at the end of the room. The stranger wore a bizarre mask – a beekeeper’s hood.
He waved a gun in Jack’s direction.
“Don’t move,” the masked man ordered.
The gun fired.
Bang!
Jack threw himself sideways, hitting the ground. He rolled once, leapt to his feet and jerked open the door to the reception area. He raced through. Gloria cried out to him, but he ignored her as he sprinted down the corridor. As he reached the lift, he heard the man’s voice.
“Wait! Stop!”
Not bloomin’ likely, he thought.
Waiting for the lift would take too long. He tore open the door to the stairs. Charging down them in terror, his heart banged like a hammer in his chest as the dimly lit stairwell closed in around him.
Chapter Three
Harry’s words rang in Jack’s ears.
“They kidnap and drug you…you wake up on a boat….forced to work in the mines…feed you scraps….”
As far as Jack was concerned, no–one was drugging him, forcing him to work in a mine or feeding him any scraps. He would rather live on the streets than allow that to happen. As he went down the stairs two at a time, he heard the lift clanging as it descended through the building.
Was his assailant after him?
The stairs seemed to take forever. Finally he saw the old drunk at the bottom. He leapt over him in one smooth leap just as the elevator reached ground level.
The metal door slid across. Jack glanced back and saw a well dressed thin man exit. He held the beekeeper’s mask in one hand. It had to be the man who had shot at him. It had to be Ignatius Doyle.
Ignatius Doyle: man with an infirmity.
Ignatius Doyle: child kidnapper and slave trader.
Ignatius Doyle: scoundrel.
“Wait!” Mr Doyle cried out.
Jack ignored him and bolted from the building. When he reached the footpath his feet zigzagged left and right.
Where to run? Where to hide?
A small group of well dressed people waited before him to cross the road. Jack pushed between them. A woman cried out indignantly at him as he started to charge across the road.
His feet slipped on the cobblestones.
A horse screamed.
Jack looked up to see a team of horses charging towards him. He tried to stand, but his shoes slipped again in the muck on the road. As he looked at the horses he saw the froth running from their mouths, their noses snorting, their legs bearing down on him…
“Holy bazookas,” Jack breathed.
A hand darted out of nowhere at the last moment. Grabbed his lapel. Dragged him sideways. As he sprawled across the pavement, he saw the horse and carriage charge directly past.
One more second and he would have been finished. He looked up into the face of Ignatius Doyle.
“You need to let me explain,” the detective began. “You see –.”
Ignatius Doyle got no further. Suddenly a dainty fist hit the older man in the shoulder.
“Mr Doyle!” Gloria stood there, her face crimson with fury. “How dare you scare the boy! He’s only just walked in the door!”
“I was merely testing a hypothesis,” Mr Doyle said. “Can a gun be accurately fired whilst wearing a beekeeper’s hood? I now know -.”
“Testing a –“ Gloria drew Jack close to her. “I’ve told you before about shooting inside!”
Mr Doyle stuck his bottom lip out. He looked like a schoolboy who had been caught doing something wrong. “A little bullet here and there won’t –.”
“A little bullet,” Gloria mumbled, turning Jack around to face her. “Don’t you mind Mr Doyle. He’s a good man, but a little eccentric. You know what I mean?”
“Uh,” Jack began. “I think I do.”
He studied Ignatius Doyle for the first time. He looked to be of slim build and aged about sixty years old. He moved with a slight limp; he favoured his left leg. He wore a bowler hat with goggles wrapped around the brim, a long black coat and a brown chequered cape.
“You come on back to the house,” Gloria continued. “Mr Doyle will make you a nice hot drink and sort everything out.”
Ten minutes later Jack found himself back in Ignatius Doyle’s lodgings, standing in almost the same place as he had been when the detective had fired his weapon. Now that he thought about it, the gun, although startling in the tiny space, had not actually been pointed at him.
Ignatius Doyle bustled over to a dartboard on the opposite wall. He examined it closely.
“Just as I thought,” he said triumphantly, turning to Jack. “The Queenscliff murder could have been committed by the beekeeper.”
Jack simply nodded.
The man lurched forward and held out a hand. “Ignatius Doyle.”
Jack looked at the hand uncertainly for a moment. Finally he clenched his jaw. In for a penny, in for a pound.
“Jack Mason.”
“Ah, yes.” Mr Doyle looked slightly embarrassed. “Sorry about that little misunderstanding regarding the gun.”
“Uh, that’s alright.”
“But you will have to get used to my little mannerisms.”
“Uh. Okay.”
“Jack,” Mr Doyle mused. “That’s a good name.” The detective suddenly changed tact. “Did you enjoy the orphanage?”
Jack paused. “They were good to me, but I’m glad to be out of there.”
“I can imagine,” Mr Doyle said. “Hmmm.”
The detective limped over to a small table. He carefully inspected the collection of Bunsen burners and the chemicals filtering their way through a maze of tubes and curved piping. He removed a large flask of bubbling brown liquid. “Care for a hot chocolate?”
“Oh yes,” Jack said, his mouth instantly watering. “Please.”
Mr Doyle indicated two seats squashed around a small table under one of the windows. Jack looked out and saw a building on the other side. A woman hung washing on a makeshift line slung between two balconies. On another balcony a few floors below, two men sat on a pair of stools drinking cups of tea. One of them burst into laughter and fell backwards off his seat. Jack suspected there was more than tea in the cups.
Pushing aside a pile of books and a statue of the Eiffel Tower, Mr Doyle planted two mugs of steaming chocolate between them.
“Hot chocolate,” Mr Doyle said. “Elixir of the Gods.”
Jack gingerly sipped his drink. It was delicious. But – .
Could it be drugged? Mr Doyle and Gloria both seemed friendly, but could it all be part of an evil plan? He took another sip. The temptation was too strong.
Goodbye London, he thought. Hello, Saudi Arabia.
“Ah, Bertha,” Mr Doyle said, rising to his feet. He walked over to the fish tank, pulled a dead cricket from a nearby jar and dropped it in.
Jack watched in some horror as an enormous spider scurried over to the cricket and started to devour it.
“Haplopelma lividum,” Mr Doyle said. “The Cobalt Blue Tarantula.” He gazed down fondly at the creature before turning to Jack. “Do you have a favourite arachnid, Mr Mason?”
“Yes,” Jack said. “Any spider that’s under my shoe while I’m wearing it.”
Mr Doyle looked at him, stupefied.
He suddenly got the joke and burst out laughing. “Oh, very droll. But I must warn you that Bertha can only be handled by someone trained in arachnology. I must ask you not to play with her unsupervised.”
“I promise,” Jack said, seeing no problems in keeping that particular pledge.
“Now I will give you the grand tour,” Mr Doyle said.
The grand tour proved to be something like a cross between a jaunt through the British Museum and navigating a building site. Mr Doyle indicated various objects of interest. “Shrunken heads from Malta. My complete collection of cigar ash from the Birmingham and Leeds districts
. Ah, now this is interesting.”
They stopped to pause before a cupboard. On one shelf assorted plates held samples of bread in various stages of decomposition. Moulds of various colours sprouted over the food. A small plate with a piece of cheese sat next to the others.
“I’m conducting an experiment into the rate of decomposition of bread at room temperature,” Mr Doyle explained. “It’s for a case I’m handling for the Surrey Police.”
“And the cheese?”
“Oh, that’s just yesterday’s lunch. Left it here by accident.” He popped the piece of cheese into his mouth.
Towards the back of the huge chamber, Mr Doyle pushed open a door and pointed inside.
“Here are your lodgings,” he said.
Jack looked inside.
His mouth fell open.
My lodgings, he thought.
Back at the orphanage Jack shared a room of this size with seven other boys. It had measured about twelve feet square. Four sets of bunk beds crammed the interior. The room had no windows. A single gaslight illuminated the chamber in the brief hour before the boys went to bed.
Jack stepped into his new bedroom. Late afternoon sunlight steamed through the window, illuminating a wardrobe, chest of drawers, a freshly made bed and a desk. The walls were freshly painted. A sketch of a dog leaping over a stream decorated one wall. A door led off to one side.
“Your bathroom is through there,” Mr Doyle explained.
My bathroom, Jack thought. I have a bathroom.
He staggered over to the door and pulled it open. A toilet, shower, hand basin and bathtub filled the interior. Black and white tiles decorated the floor. A vase with a small bunch of posies sat on the basin.
“I hope you don’t mind the flowers,” Mr Doyle said, looking slightly embarrassed. “They were Gloria’s idea.”
Jack found it hard to speak.
“The flowers are fine,” he said finally.
Mr Doyle continued his tour through the huge apartment. At one point they stopped before a closed door leading into another anteroom. After looking at it silently for a moment, Mr Doyle moved on and pointed out another experiment on the top of a filing cabinet – this one was being carried out to discover the life cycle of maggots into flies.
“Uh, Mr Doyle,” Jack started.
“Yes, my boy.”
“What exactly is it you do?”
“What do I do?” Mr Doyle raised his eyebrows. “Why, I thought you knew.”
“Not really.”
“Why, I’m a consulting detective,” he explained.
“And what exactly is a consulting detective?” Jack asked cautiously.
Mr Doyle led them down the far end of the chamber. An archway led to a balcony overlooking the Marylebone district and Regent’s Park. Lines of airships criss-crossed the sky. Smoke rose from a thousand coal fires. A steam train chuffed between buildings to their left as horns sounded distantly from the river Thames. The older man settled his thin frame onto a wrought iron chair and indicated for Jack to sit down. He took another moment to pack a triple chambered brass pipe with tobacco and lit it thoughtfully.
“The world has changed, Mr Mason,” Mr Doyle said. “And so have the criminals. The police are good enough when dealing with the run of the mill scoundrel. Such a vagabond will often be caught in the act or will simply confess when confronted by a burly constable.
“But what can the police do when they are forced to deal with a criminal matching their own intelligence? Or an adversary of greater intelligence?” Mr Doyle leant forward. “Such people can literally get away with murder and that cannot be allowed to happen. When the police are at a loss to discover the guilty party or are simply unable to make sense of the events, they call upon me.”
Jack frowned. “I don’t keep up with the news, of course, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of you.”
“I’m sure you have not,” Mr Doyle nodded. “I am not keen to attract attention and the police are equally sparing with their recognition.”
“But how do you solve these crimes?” Jack asked.
“I use the powers of observation and deduction,” Mr Doyle said. “People frequently look, but rarely do they see. It is the role of a detective to collect the pieces of the jigsaw and assemble them into a comprehensible picture.”
Jack glanced back into the apartment and noticed a sepia photograph on a small coffee table near the door. “Mr Doyle. Is that who I think it is?”
Mr Doyle glanced at the picture. “Only if you think it is Queen Victoria. If you thought it was a hump backed gorilla you would be mistaken.”
“And you’re standing next to her!”
“I had assisted Her Majesty in a small matter involving a diamond necklace.” The detective shrugged. “The case involved the theft of the necklace, a dwarf with a limp, a plum pudding and a cat with only three legs.”
“That sounds amazing.”
“Oh, I have solved much more interesting cases.” Mr Doyle waved the pipe airily. He stood and slowly paced the balcony. “That was in my younger days.”
The great detective fell silent. “Of course, I’m not the man I was. Oh, mentally I am. Probably more so. No, it’s my body, Jack. I’m not as fast, not as strong and certainly not as sprightly.”
Jack sat silent.
“That’s where you come in,” Mr Doyle said. “That’s why I need you.”
Jack Mason tried to think of how he would be of assistance to the detective. “You mean, to run messages…or…”
“More,” Mr Doyle said. “Possibly much more. I need someone to be my partner. Someone who can stimulate my imagination when I become stale. Someone who can go places where I cannot.”
“Uh, Mr Doyle. I am only sixteen.”
“I know,” the detective jabbed his pipe into Jack’s direction. “A younger mind. A fresh perspective! And your legs –”
“My legs?”
“I need someone with legs far more capable than my own. I cannot run as fast as my younger self and I certainly cannot climb as fast. And I understand you come from a family of circus performers.”
“Yes.” Jack felt a stab of pain at the memory. “We were trapeze artists in the circus. The Flying Sparrows. We were very good.”
“And your acrobatic skills?”
“I’m a little rusty,” Jack admitted. “But I’ve kept in practice when I could. Still, I can’t help but wonder if you wouldn’t be better with someone older. An adult –.”
Mr Doyle interrupted. “An adult can do many things, but you can do so many other things an adult cannot. Sometimes a young person may ask questions or go places without fear or favour, all the while wearing a mask of innocence.
“I think you will be perfect for the job.” The detective paused, looking slightly embarrassed. “If you’re interested, that is.”
Jack looked out at the skyline. Darkness had begun to fall and the first chill of night filled the air. Jack thought of the children back at the orphanage. They would be eating their evening meal right now. An hour of free time would follow, followed by bedtime. Tomorrow would follow the same pattern. And the day after.
“You don’t have to decide immediately,” Mr Doyle seemed to sense his hesitation. “I’m sure you’ve had an enormous day. You must eat and rest.”
Jack nodded wordlessly.
“Would you like some cheese?” the detective asked. “I think I have some in another cupboard.”
“No thanks, Mr Doyle.”
The detective led Jack back to his bedroom. He paused outside the door. “I have arranged a tutor for you. Miss Bardle. She will teach you maths, French and Latin, history and politics.”
“Ah yes, Latin,” Jack said, trying to sound enthusiastic.
“Yes, I always hated Latin too.” The detective motioned towards the chest of drawers. “A selection of clothing is in the drawers. I hope it fits. I checked your size with Mr Daniels at the orphanage. Anyway, I’ll leave you to it and see you in the morning.”
He missed them. He missed the fun and the laughter and everything that made up their small family. It was always The Flying Sparrows versus the world. Outside he heard the sounds of London; horse drawn carriages, steam cars, men and women walking the streets. The faint glow of the gas lit streets cast faint shadows across his walls.
Now there’s just me, he thought.
He remembered Bertha the tarantula. Well, me and Bertha. He hoped the lid on her glass enclosure was properly closed.
Forcing the image of the spider from his mind, he finally surrendered to sleep.
Chapter Four
Jack stirred himself from a deep sleep. He had been dreaming of a mine in Saudi Arabia where he had been forced to work until overcome by exhaustion. Cheese had been his only food source. The overseer had just approached him with a deadly looking whip when he was saved by the sound of knocking.
He sat up groggily. Light streamed through his window. The clock on his bedside table read ten o’clock.
“Come in,” Jack called.
Ignatius Doyle appeared in the doorway of his room with a piece of toast jammed between his teeth.
“The game’s afoot,” the detective said.
Jack blinked away sleep. “Uh, what’s that? You want to play footy?”
“No, no,” Mr Doyle assured him. “That’s just an expression. We have a client in the outer office. I need you showered and ready in five minutes. Chop chop, old chap.”
Mr Doyle disappeared. Jack quickly showered and dressed in only four minutes. The clothing provided by the detective was all clean and new. Jack put on a pair of dark trousers and a blue and white striped shirt. It was the best quality clothing he had ever worn. He discovered the detective at their living room table surrounded by plates of toast, condiments and hot tea. Jack Mason buttered the bread and slapped on jam while Mr Doyle explained.