by Anna Elliott
So far, Becky had eaten three of the biscuits and was looking calmer, though still frightened and pale. I had given her my spare dressing gown and wrapped her in a blanket, besides.
She swallowed her mouthful and took a sip of the cocoa.
“All right.” She frowned. “I don’t know very much. Only what I overheard the other police officers saying—and that wasn’t a lot, because they knew I was listening, and they thought I was just a stupid kid.”
Becky’s mouth twisted on the last word, her face working as though she were about to start crying again.
I felt cold all the way through, but I squeezed her hand. “Just start at the beginning,” I told her. “When did this all happen?”
“Tonight.” Becky took a shuddering breath. “I had already gone to bed—except I wasn’t asleep yet. I was waiting to hear Jack leave to go on duty.”
Becky scrubbed at her eyes. “But before I heard him go out, all of a sudden the door burst open. I heard it crash. I jumped up. I thought it might be—you know, neighborhood trouble.” Her throat contracted as she swallowed. “But it was the police. There must have been five or six of them. They grabbed hold of Jack and said he was under arrest.”
Becky’s small face was white and strained, the freckles on her nose standing out like splotches of paint against her pale skin.
“They grabbed Prince and shut him up in the bedroom. Then one of them saw me, and he tried to grab me, too. I heard him say that I’d have to be taken to an orphanage—or a workhouse—since Jack was going to prison. He took hold of me—but I bit him. The rest of them were already dragging Jack away. I knew I couldn’t follow. They’d just have caught me again. So I ran all the way here.”
Becky stopped, looking up at me. Her hands twisted in a fold of her nightgown. “You’ll help him, won’t you? You and Mr. Holmes?”
“Of course.”
Holmes would lend his considerable talents to helping Jack, even if I had to strongarm him into it.
“But Becky, I don’t understand—what is your brother supposed to have done?”
“Jack asked that.” Becky swallowed again, her eyes shadowed by the memory. “He was angry—but at the same time, staying calm, you know?”
I nodded. Jack had a temper, but he kept it under firm control.
“He asked the police who came to arrest him what the charges were,” Becky went on. “And they said it was murder.” Her voice wavered on the last word before going on, obviously quoting the words she had overheard. “They said he was being arrested on suspicion of having killed Inspector Mallows.”
I stared at Becky. The tick of the clock on the mantle seemed unnaturally loud in the night silence.
“Mallows?” I finally said. “You’re positive that was the name?”
Becky bobbed her head. “I’m sure. Jack’s told me about him once or twice. He’s the sergeant Jack reports to at the station house. Or he used to be. He was made an inspector not long ago. But why would anyone think that Jack had killed him?”
“I don’t know.”
A growing dread was pooling inside me, but I forced myself not to show it. Becky was already frightened enough.
“I don’t know why they suspect your brother, but I promise you that I’m going to find out. Listen to me, Becky.” I leaned forward. “We both know that Jack is innocent.”
Not that Jack Kelly was incapable of killing. If he had to, I was fairly certain that he would kill to protect Becky, or in defense of his own life.
But I also knew enough about Sergeant—or rather Inspector—Mallows to be certain that, whoever killed him, it wasn’t Jack.
I had a horrible certainty that I already knew who was responsible for his death—though unfortunately, if my suspicions proved true, that made it even less likely that we would ever be able to prove it.
“You can stay here for tonight,” I told Becky. “Then in the morning, we’ll go to Baker Street and plan out our campaign.”
Becky looked exhausted, but she gave a small nod. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I leaned forward and hugged her.
Becky stiffened for a second, but then clung to me tightly. Her voice came out muffled, buried against my shoulder.
“What if you and Mr. Holmes can’t save him? What if they hang him? That’s what they do to murderers, isn’t it?” Becky’s whole body shook. “Jack’s all I have. If he’s gone, what will happen to me? I wouldn’t have anyone—”
“Yes, you would,” I interrupted her firmly.
For a second, as I smoothed Becky’s hair, I thought of the little girl I had been at her age.
From a physical standpoint, I had lacked nothing. I had always been sent to the best boarding schools, and was well fed and dressed in all the best clothes.
But I had no family, no one to speak up for me or fight battles on my behalf, no one to send letters to me on my birthday or a home to visit at the holidays.
I did not even know whether anyone in the entire world cared whether I lived or died.
“You’re not alone, Becky. Holmes and I aren’t going to let Jack hang for a crime that he didn’t commit. But even if something happens to him, you will always have a place here with me, and with Uncle John and Holmes. I promise.”
I hugged her tighter, resting my chin on top of her tangled blond hair. “Eventually, you’ll be able to take care of yourself, because you’re smart and capable and very, very strong. But you don’t have to worry about that for right now. You’re safe here with me, and I’m happy to have you.”
I would love to see Sherlock Holmes’s face if I wound up foisting an eight-year-old girl on him during those times I had to be at the theater. But I knew he also would never turn Becky away. Even the self-described thinking machine was not so heartless as that.
And at least Uncle John would be pleased. He and Becky were already well on the way to becoming fast friends.
Becky’s breath went out in a shuddery rush and she slumped against me, limp.
“Now then.” I hugged her again, then sat back. “Dry your eyes, and then we’d better get some sleep so that we’ll be able to think clearly in the morning. We’re going to need your help to prove Jack’s innocence, you know. What happened to being Irene Adler?”
Becky rewarded me with a watery smile, and I patted her hand.
“Tomorrow morning first thing we’ll go to Baker Street, and then we can find out where Jack is being held.”
26. A PESTILENTIAL PRISON
There were, I was discovering, advantages to being the daughter of Sherlock Holmes.
As a rule, Holmes was less than enthusiastic about my involvement in his criminal investigations. However, in this case, he had very little choice but to lend both his full aid and the full weight of his influence with the London police force.
Inspector Mallows’s murder concerned Holmes every bit as much as it did me—albeit for different reasons.
Now I was following a uniformed constable along a narrow hallway of the Holborn Police Station in Lamb’s Conduit Street.
Holmes had arranged for me to be brought to see Jack. Not that he had actually introduced me as his daughter. He was adamant that if our relationship was widely known, his enemies might make me a target—so only a select handful of people were aware.
Holmes had merely told the desk sergeant on duty that I was an associate here to see Constable Kelly—and everyone had leapt to comply with his orders.
Holmes himself had stayed behind to ask questions of the station’s superintendent and the inspectors.
Part of Holmes’s purpose was a quest for any information he could learn about Inspector Mallows’s death. The other part was distraction—while they were speaking to the great detective Sherlock Holmes, the officers in charge here would be unlikely to bother with listening in on my conversation with Jack Kelly.
“Right this way, miss.” The constable up ahead of me cast a quick, curious glance at me over his shoulder. A young man with fair hair, round
blue eyes, and a round, pink face, he looked a little like an overgrown baby. But he was huge—over six feet tall, and solidly built, which presumably saved him from being laughed at when he went about his duties.
“Friend of Jack’s, are you?” he asked me.
“I’m a friend of his sister’s.”
The hallway was unlighted, the only illumination coming from a barred and grimy window set high in the wall behind us. I had never been to the holding cells in a police station before, but everything about this place seemed to fairly ooze desperation and despair.
It did not help at all that my mind had disobligingly called up a section of libretto from the Mikado and was playing it over, again and again, inside my head.
To sit in solemn silence on a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock, awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock from a cheap and chippy chopper on a big, black block.
After performing the show nightly for the past several months, I knew every line of every song by heart. But I doubted that I would ever again be able to listen to that particular section without flinching.
“I just came so that I could tell Jack that his sister is staying with me, and that she’s quite safe,” I finished.
For the moment, Becky was in fact in Baker Street with Uncle John. She had been extremely unwilling to let us come on this errand without her. She only agreed to stay behind when Holmes and I pointed out that firstly, as a child, she would never be allowed in to see her brother—and secondly that if any of the police saw her, they might still insist she go to an orphanage.
Now the blond-haired constable gave me another appraising look before turning back to face away from me as we marched down the narrow hall.
Drawing a jangling bunch of keys from a loop on his belt, he unlocked a heavy gate that ran from floor to ceiling and was constructed of iron bars.
Beyond were a row of cells, little more than square, barred boxes, each outfitted with a rough wooden cot for a bed and nothing more.
I counted three other occupants of the cells we passed: two men and one woman, all slumped over on the floor, too drunk or exhausted to bother with moving to the beds.
“He’ll be transferred to Holloway tomorrow,” the constable told me over his shoulder. “But for now he’s right here. Oy, Kelly!”
Drawing to a halt outside of the last cell in the row, the constable rapped on the bars at the front.
“Visitor to see you!”
As I moved up behind the young constable, I could see into the cell. Jack Kelly was sitting on the edge of the narrow bed, his elbows resting on his knees and his dark head bowed.
He looked up, though, at the other constable’s summons. Surprise crossed his face at the sight of me, followed by a brief, wan smile.
“Hello there, Trouble.”
My heart seemed to cramp.
Jack’s lean, sculpted face was shadowed by a stubble of beard on his jaw. A darkening bruise blossomed on one of his cheekbones.
He wore regulation blue trousers and a plain white cotton shirt, rolled to the elbows—and the fabric on the right shoulder was torn, and marked with a spatter of what looked like blood.
My twenty-one years on earth had taught me that real life was frequently both unjust and unfair—despite virtue generally triumphing in plays. But this was just too much.
I raised my eyebrows. “You’re the one in prison, and I’m Trouble?”
I turned back to the young constable. “Do you think you might let us talk privately?”
I added my most winning smile—the one I reserved only for emergencies, because I knew its effect—and I did not in fact enjoy having to turn down marriage proposals.
The pink-faced constable, though, proved unfortunately far more difficult to sway than the average male member of the opera company. He blinked at me, looking uncomfortable—but also undecided.
Jack cleared his throat. “Give us a minute, Will?”
The constable—Will—looked even more uncomfortable as he turned to look at Jack inside the cell. His face flushed a darker pink, and he ran a finger around the collar of his tunic.
But finally he jerked his head in a short, uneasy nod. “Fine.”
Watching him, it occurred to me that Jack was probably well liked among his fellow officers at the station house. And Inspector Mallows—if the glimpse I had had of him six weeks ago was anything to go by—was almost certainly not liked or respected at all.
“I’ll wait over by the door,” Will muttered, jerking his head back the way we had come in. “Five minutes, only, though,” he added.
When he had stumped off, Jack and I looked at each other in silence.
My eyes felt hot and prickly. Which was ridiculous. Jack didn’t need me to sit here and weep over this miscarriage of justice. He needed me to find a way of getting him out of here.
“Becky is quite safe,” I said at last. “She came straight to me last night. She’s with Uncle John—Dr. Watson—now. They’re going back to St. Giles to collect Prince and bring him to Baker Street.”
Jack’s whole body seemed to relax as he let out a breath. He must have been eaten up with worry for his sister, all through last night.
“Thanks for that. I was hoping she’d have found her way to you.”
“She did. She’s a very bright girl. Not that you need me to tell you.” I paused, looking through the bars. “What happened?”
Something seemed to shift in Jack’s gaze. His expression hardened, the line of his mouth turning a shade more grim. “I don’t think—”
I interrupted. “Don’t bother.”
“What?”
I gestured with impatience. “You are about to say that this is a dangerous entanglement and that for the sake of my own safety I should stay out of it, abandoning all efforts to prove you innocent. To which I will say that you are wasting time—something we can ill afford, since your friend only gave us five minutes.”
Jack glared at me, his straight dark brows forming an almost perfectly horizontal line. “It is dangerous, and you should stay out of—”
I interrupted him again. “Dangerous? What?” I gave him a look of exaggerated astonishment.
“The organization we have been tracking is a network of German spies, dedicated to assassinating our regent and overthrowing the British government. Their agents attempted to kill me six weeks ago—twice in fact! But I had no idea that they might be considered dangerous. It’s so lucky that I have you to point that out. Perhaps you would also like to tell me that we are in London and the earth is round.”
Jack’s jaw muscles clenched. “They did try to kill you—twice. Did you ever think that they might be third time lucky?” He leaned forward, his dark eyes shadowed with intensity. “If something happened to you, I’d—”
But then he stopped.
I waited, but he did not go on.
This was exactly why I had sought Holmes’s advice the day before: I had no idea, really, how Jack Kelly felt about me.
Sometimes—as now—I thought that he looked as though he might care for me as more than a comrade and friend.
But speak to me only with thine eyes was also hardly a reason to start shopping for wedding clothes and selecting patterns of china.
“Have you stopped to consider what would happen to Becky if she lost you?” I demanded. “She’s already lost both her parents—she doesn’t need anyone else taken away from her.”
Jack opened his mouth, but I kept going.
“Besides, our enemies—whoever they are—already know who I am. They may not know of the nature of my connection to Holmes—but they certainly know that Holmes and I have committed ourselves to tracking them down. Which means that it makes no difference whether or not I turn around and walk straight out of this prison now. I would still be in danger. The only way that I—that any of us—will be safe is if we round the entire organization up. Not to mention that I have no intention of allowing the Kaiser to succeed in his plans to overtake ou
r nation. So.”
I folded my arms, matching Jack glare for glare. “You might as well tell me what I need to know to get you out of here.”
Jack stared at me for a long moment of silence. Then, finally, he blew out a breath, tugging both hands through his unruly dark hair.
“I don’t know how much I can tell you. No one will tell me anything. I know Mallows is dead. But they won’t give me any details about how he died, or when or where. I don’t even know why they’re so sure that I did it.”
“Never mind all of that.” I waved one hand. “Holmes will have found out the details from the station superintendent. He’s here—interviewing the inspectors and everyone else right now. No, what I need you to tell me is anything you learned about Inspector Mallows in the last few weeks. You have been watching him?”
“Of course.” Jack glanced up towards the end of the room where I could see the young constable Will standing beside the door.
Then in an abrupt movement Jack got up off the bed, coming to stand facing me at the bars of his cell. He lowered his voice as he went on. “I’ve been watching Mallows—just as we agreed. I followed him from here, after he went off duty. I couldn’t get too close, since he’d have recognized me if he ever spotted me. But I can tell you that he goes to a pub in Covent Garden most nights—the White Hart. Stays there drinking till closing time. Or he did.”
Jack stopped, plainly struck by the necessity of referring to his former sergeant in the past tense.
“We’ll have to go to the public house and see whether we can find out whether he was meeting with anyone in particular. Anything else?”
“Nothing definite. But I can tell you that he seemed to be flush with money all of a sudden. I saw stubs of racing tickets in his desk drawer, when I got a look in it the other day. And he’d bought himself a fancy new gold pocket watch.”
I drew in a breath. “He was blackmailing them.”
I stared straight ahead, picturing the sergeant’s red, beefy face and doughy body. I had disliked Inspector Mallows almost on sight—but I would not have wished him killed purely on account of his own greed and stupidity.