The Secret Fiend

by Shane Peacock

  “What?” says the boy aloud.

  “I really wish you had not done that!” shouts Bell. He is advancing on the boy. He snatches the material from him and takes him by the collar. He drags him down the street and into an alleyway, looking right and left to make sure no one has followed them.

  “I am required to kill you now.”

  “What?”

  “That is what I am required to do.”

  “By whom?”

  “By the Hermetic Order of the Sacred Dawn. You know of us now, you know our name, and you know that I am part of it.”

  “And I know you are the Spring Heeled Jack!”

  Sigerson Bell’s eyes look like they may pop out of his head.

  “I’m what?”

  “The Spring Heeled Jack!”

  A smile spreads across Bell’s face. “You have always been a strange one, Sherlock Holmes. But now you’ve done it. You have officially gone and lost your marbles.”

  “Say what you will … I am on to you.”

  “Yes, yes, I am a fictional character from a Penny Dreadful magazine…. You have caught me!”

  “Why did you attack Beatrice and her friend? Or did you dress up someone else to do it?”

  “Ah!”

  “What do you mean … ‘Ah!’”

  “So that’s what it was! Her vision was of the Spring Heeled Jack.”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know. Don’t pretend it is a surprise. I have caught you, red-handed. You have been using me, somehow. This was all set up. Why did you draw me into your employ in the first place?”

  “Because I needed an assistant … and you are a wonderful young man, who thinks a little too highly of himself from time to time, full of troubles and indecision, yes, but a wonderful young man … who seeks justice.”

  “What? I thought you were about to kill me.”

  “I didn’t say that. I said that was what I was required to do. But I would be as apt to actually do it as I would be to harness a thousand crows and use them to fly to the moon and back.”

  “But …”

  “But nothing. Close your mouth and listen to me. I am not the Spring Heeled Jack. Neither am I Robin Hood, Goldilocks, or the Big Bad Wolf.”

  “But …”

  “But nothing. I am a Mason.”

  “A Mason? You mean … someone who goes to meetings at Masonic Lodges?”

  “Precisely. Most people know something of Masons, I am sure you have your own impressions. We are the descendants of the great builders of England and Europe, the architects of the world, creators of many structures since the time of Solomon’s Temple, formed into lodges, all of us with philosophies and in pursuit of knowledge, seeking the Supreme Being together.”

  “Masons are secretive, aren’t they? Once they’re inside the walls of the lodges? You have secret codes, secret symbols, don’t you? But aren’t Masons just ordinary folk too … you aren’t terribly secretive, are you?”

  “Most lodges aren’t. But we are. The Hermetic Order of the Sacred Dawn is a higher sect of our kind … a very high order. I am the highest ranking apothecary and alchemist, once the Worshipful Master here. I … I come from a long line of apothecaries, Master Holmes, my father and his father before him and on and on. There is a family story that the Bells once had the name Trismegistus and originated in Egypt long before we came to England, that we knew magic, real magic of the occult sort, not the stuff silly prestidigitators attempt on the London stages, sawing ladies in half and the like.” He looks down at the green and black material. “This is what I wear when I enter the holy altar inside. Some outfits have masks with them too, black paint to mark our faces. Our order has associates all over Europe. We wield greater power than most can imagine…. And no one is to know our members’ identities.”

  “No one?”

  “No one. An outsider discovers us on pain of death.”

  Sherlock gulps.

  “But I doubt the folks inside those walls,” he waves down the street toward the building, “could ever kill another. I know I certainly couldn’t … or maybe I could … but not you, Master Holmes, not you.” He smiles at the boy.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Your lips are sealed?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sealed with the best glue one could make from any horse in London? A triple promise with sugar piled on top?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “For life and beyond?”

  “Absolutely. And I’m sorry about the … the Spring Heeled Jack idea.”

  Sigerson Bell laughs so loudly that he has to put his hand over his mouth to prevent someone from hearing and coming their way. “Give me a moment, let me gather myself. I shall put away the papers I had come to arrange and we shall walk home together. I want to hear more about Beatrice’s vision.”

  An hour later they are strolling arm in arm along Fleet Street toward home. The sun will rise in an hour or two. Now a few milkwomen are out, walking on their thick white-stockinged legs, their yokes over their shoulders, from which big pails dangle.

  Sherlock tells Bell all about Beatrice’s encounter on Westminster Bridge and what he found when he went to investigate. “So, in the end, it was nothing, sir. Especially now that my suspicions of you … and I must say again, sir, that, I am sorry …”

  “Not at all, rather flattering I must say, at my age.”

  “… it was just a young girl enamored of me.”

  “Oh! Is that what you think? You have a rather high opinion of your animal magnetism when it comes to the fairer sex, think you not? Do you really believe that a young girl would go to such lengths just to impress you? It seems unlikely to me.”

  “She is a nice girl, sir, very pleasant, but a simple one. I’ve known her since we were children. Her father is a hatter.”

  “I have seen this ‘simple girl’ with my own eyes, Sherlock. And I say, ‘Beware.’ She is more than she seems … as most women are. I shall tell you some day about my witch.”

  They part ways at Trafalgar Square, the old man anxious to get home to bed, the boy deciding to take a stroll down to Westminster Bridge before he heads back. He knows he won’t be able to sleep. He has always been like that when something is on his mind – he could continue wide awake for a week, he sometimes thinks, if he were really intrigued by a problem. Perhaps he has been unfair to Beatrice, perhaps she and her friend were indeed accosted by someone on the bridge, nothing to really worry about – a lunatic of some sort – someone acting in a way that disturbed her impressionable female mind. Or perhaps it was a vision of a sort, a frightening image made by the lights in the London night and the fearful girls’ imaginations. Perhaps Louise really believed it forced her toward the water: Beatrice fainted. He should have helped her, been more understanding.

  When he arrives at the bridge, it is still pre-dawn, but there are people crossing toward the main part of the city, and a few going south. They are mostly working class, ready to start their trades early. But then Sherlock spots someone who stands out among these ordinary folk. He wears a bowler hat, and is examining the very spot on the bridge where Beatrice said she and her friend were attacked.

  Lestrade.

  FEAR IN THE STREETS

  It isn’t the senior Lestrade, not the police inspector himself. It’s Sherlock’s friend, Master G. Lestrade. That narrow-faced lad, a few years older than he, is dressed, as always, in a sort of imitation of his father – checked brown suit with tie, brown bowler for a lid. The wisp of a mustache is just beginning above his upper lip. Though Sherlock respects him as a human being, he has yet to gain much admiration for his supposedly burgeoning detective skills. The only ability young Lestrade has that the boy cannot quite fathom, is his knack for sneaking up on others without notice. He has done it several times to Holmes, and it galls him.

  Sherlock slips through the crowd and sneaks right up to the older boy. He comes within a few inches and then speaks softly into his ear.

  “It has returned!�
��

  Young Lestrade nearly leaps over the balustrade, into the river – his hat comes flying off and almost sails overboard too, though he catches it at the last moment, in an unintentionally comic move. Recognizing the voice at his ear, he gathers himself, straightens his suit, and calmly sets his lid back on his head, cocking it at a fashionable angle. He doesn’t turn around.

  “Master Holmes, what a strange thing to say.”

  Then he turns and smiles at the boy, their faces just a foot apart.

  “Rings no bells with you?”

  “All is silent.”

  “You are here for no purpose?”

  “I am just on my way to the office.”

  “And I thought your family lived west of the city, north side, not south – curious that you would be out on this bridge. No need, really, on one’s way to Scotland Yard.”

  “You know where we live?”

  “There is a slight turn in certain vowels employed by many long-time residents of Hounslow. You and your father exhibit as much.”

  Lestrade sets his jaw tightly. “I thought I’d come out here and look at the river.”

  “Brown and smelly and cold on the second day of March? Lovely, that.”

  “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

  “You have it with you.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The note. The one the so-called Spring Heeled Jack left last night.”

  Young Lestrade is barely able to contain his surprise, but he keeps his mouth from opening into a gape.

  “Beatrice Leckie is a long-standing friend. She told me this yarn as well, brought me to this very spot last night, in fact. She must have taken the note to police headquarters. Is that how you ended up with it?”

  The note had been written on a big sheet with big letters – Sherlock has noticed a bulge in Lestrades’s left suit-coat pocket, one that such a sheet, folded many times, would make.

  Lestrade says nothing for a moment, but soon relents. “All right. Yes, she brought it to Scotland Yard early yesterday morning. My father thought it nonsense.”

  “The only wise thing he has ever thought.”

  “I will thank you to never say anything of that nature in my presence again. You are not capable of even carrying his boots.”

  “I shall speak as I please.”

  “Very well – we have nothing to say to each other, then.”

  Lestrade turns back to the river.

  “I found Beatrice’s friend,” says Sherlock, “one Louise, lying near the shore without a scratch on her. Her clothes were barely damp and she was not particularly cold, though her story is that she was carried through the air from this balustrade more than fifty feet into the freezing water of the Thames. The lettering on the note is not consistent with the hand of a madman. Miss Leckie, I must tell you, is an admirer of mine. She was seeking attention.”

  Lestrade wheels around.

  “Who do you think you are, sir? You stain her name with that comment. I spoke to Miss Leckie myself, after my father politely refused to look into this. I found her to be believable. In fact, I found her a remarkable young lady.”

  Sherlock smiles. “And not without attractions.”

  “Step away from me, Master Holmes, or I may slap your face.”

  “You don’t want to do that, my friend, believe me. However, I am sorry that I offended you. I have no quarrel with you, not at all.” He turns to go, but then looks back. “Proceed as you see fit, Lestrade … against your father’s wishes … but I warn you, you will be much more likely to catch a wild goose than the Spring Heeled Jack.”

  But Sherlock Holmes isn’t so sure about all of this as he walks up Whitehall, back toward Trafalgar Square, and home. If Beatrice was making this up, then why did she go to Scotland Yard with it? Surely she isn’t so angry with me that she would make herself look like a fool to the Metropolitan London Police Force. It would take monstrous chutzpah to go to them with a made-up story, especially one about a character from a Penny Dreadful come to life. But if she isn’t making it up, then why was Louise in the healthy condition he found her? She showed no signs of any attack. It is very puzzling.

  The sun is rising, the streets are filling. He should really get home and off to school. He isn’t sure how much longer he’ll attend. But he’s a pupil teacher now, as well as top boy, and he needs to find a way to inveigle his way into a university. He must have higher education. So for now, his plans are to keep going to school; keep gaining the best grades at Snowfields.

  Up ahead, Trafalgar Square is abuzz with activity, even more so than usual on a Monday morning. And it isn’t just the number of people that seems different. There are Bobbies everywhere: Peelers on foot, Peelers on horseback, even Peelers up on rooftops, looking down. He sees several blackhelmeted heads and blue shoulders on Morley’s Hotel, more on Northumberland House. Crows are cawing. There is a palpable sense of danger in the air. What’s going on?

  Sherlock looks across the square, past the fountains, the statue of Charles I, the big monument to Admiral Nelson that rises up into the sky and sees a rough wooden stage in front of the steps to the National Art Gallery. It has obviously been pulled here by a big team of dray horses, all of which are still standing between the stage and a group of onlookers. He notices that some folks are carrying placards. He hears shouts, sees the crowd growing as he walks toward it, growing into a mob. Looking around, he notices other people actually running this way. Off to the side, down Pall Mall Street and on the other thoroughfares that go like spokes out from the square, he sees the Force gathered in large numbers, veritable battalions of police on horseback.

  What is going on?

  He sees the answer, then, standing on the stage. There, large as life, is the one and only John Bright, the most eloquent, the most bombastic, the most thrilling orator in the empire – and one of the most radical. He often speaks at Reform League demonstrations. When Mr. Disraeli, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, had pushed the latest Reform Bill through the House of Commons and made it law that twice as many Englishmen could vote as ever before, Mr. Bright had stood in the House and said it was not enough. There must be secret ballots, and every man in England must have a vote, he had said; we must become truly democratic, or the people will rise up and the consequences will be catastrophic. Chaos, he had said, will come to all our cities; violence will fill the streets.

  A sensation goes through Sherlock, part fear, part thrill: it is curious how danger has two sides to it; how it can excite you and scare you at the same time. Over the last few years, demonstrations by Radicals both here and elsewhere in London have often grown violent. Last year in Hyde Park more than two hundred thousand protestors had stormed the fences and knocked them over, sending the police fleeing.

  Today, the Force looks ready. They will fight back.

  Sherlock spots another man on the stage, dark-haired and powerfully built like a rugby player. He wears a unique green suit with black stripes. He is looking at the crowd as if searching it for individual faces. There is something sinister about him. Twenty-four or -five years old, Irish, by the cut of that Dublin-made suit. A man with an agenda, plotting something.

  “It’s Munby!” shouts a man near Holmes.

  So that’s Alfred Munby! thinks Sherlock. Controversial Reform League member, accused of Fenian connections, always denies any association with bombings, has had nothing proved against him. John Bright must be including him reluctantly.

  Sherlock rushes forward with the others, and pushes his way toward the front. He turns back to see how many more are coming, and something stops him in his tracks.

  Malefactor.

  He is at the edge of the crowd, leaning against a statue as if he owns it, his top hat cocked at a devilish angle, dressed as usual in his fading tailcoat, twirling his cane. His gray eyes are alert under a bulging forehead. There is a big grin on his face as he watches the rowdy scene. Arrayed on their rear ends on the stone ground against the plinth around him
are his lower Irregulars, ten in number, nasty little boys dressed in eclectic combinations of stolen clothes; and right beside him, on either side, standing as he is and surveying the crowd, are his two lieutenants, dark little Grimsby and big, silent Crew. The latter, for some reason, has dyed his blond hair black.

  There used to be a sense of amusement in Malefactor’s face whenever he encountered Holmes, but when he spots him today, it is a very different look. It is hatred. They are now in open enmity. If looks could kill, Sherlock Holmes would be dead.

  But almost immediately, Malefactor’s gaze is averted by Sherlock’s, who has noticed three particular people coming forward in the swarm of spectators approaching the stage. They are holding hands. It’s a respectable looking middle-aged man with a walrus mustache, wearing a tweed suit, and a young lady, his daughter. Between them walks a little boy. Sherlock hasn’t seen her for a few months. She is more beautiful than he remembers and grown up too, looking more like a woman than he can ever recall. But her looks are not all that have changed. The fashion of her clothes makes her stand out from the crowd. She wears a red linen dress without hoops or crinoline, so that it falls limply around her frame, showing her shape. The dress is of the sort the artists are wearing now, the kind the Pre-Raphaelite painters are depicting in their work, and it greatly surprises Sherlock. In a sea of bonnets, she wears a small hat, pinned atop her long blonde hair. Her brown eyes sparkle with intelligence. The sight of her fixes him to his spot. People jostle him, colliding against his shoulders as they run past toward the stage. But he just stands there, staring.

  Irene Doyle used to smile a great deal, but lately things have changed: today her expression looks grim. Her jaw is set tightly and she barely hangs on to the little boy who steps along between her and her father. The reddish-blond child is dressed in a copy of Mr. Doyle’s suit.

  Sherlock is responsible for this family combination. The boy’s name is Paul Doyle. It used to be Waller, nickname Dimly. The child used to languish in the Ratcliff workhouse in Stepney, going blind. But Sigerson Bell cured his eye infection. And Sherlock, who had discovered that the child was a relative of the Doyles, brought that fact to the attention of Irene’s father, enlightening him in a private letter. Andrew C. Doyle, who had long ago lost his only son, adopted the waif within days … much to the disappointment of his only daughter. Paul, as Irene expected, immediately ascended to a position of prime importance in their household. It had given her another reason to turn away from Sherlock Holmes.