The Downward Spiral

by Ridley Pearson

  “What!?”

  “In case I needed it. As it turned out, it came in quite handy. Been carrying that thing around for days now. I have no idea where the real necklace is. When I left the museum it was in its case.”

  “You know what’ll happen when that man realizes what you’ve done?” James said.

  “Nothing,” Sherlock said, “because I won’t be around.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Think about it, James. At this point I know far too much. They would have to kill me or—”

  “Expel you.”

  “There you go,” Sherlock said. “I’ll be gone by morning, and that necklace won’t likely be found out for what it is until some time long after that.”

  “You can’t go!” James objected.

  “If it was up to me, I wouldn’t. But I will, because it’s not. But don’t think you’ll be getting rid of me any too soon. Even from a distance, I’ll still be working for you.”

  “I appreciate that, but I don’t need you anymore,” James said proudly.

  “You can’t possibly take on Hildebrandt alone,” Sherlock said, bringing James to a sudden stop.

  “How the crud did you know about him?”

  “There is so much I know. One shudders at the thought.” Sherlock said nothing of Father’s translated journal. Instead, he used some of Ruby’s misdirection on his roommate. “It’s your mother I can help with.”

  “Mother? What about Mother?”

  “If I’m right—and when am I not?—it’s all going to come together. But Hildebrandt will have something to say about that, I’m afraid. If and when we can find him.”

  “Ah . . . but I already have found him,” James said, savoring the one time he’d been able to stun Sherlock Holmes.

  CHAPTER 68

  I TOOK THE NEWS OF RALPH’S CAR CRASH HARD. New England roads were narrow and twisty, originally horse trails through forest, most of them. The wreck suggested Ralph had been driving southwest from Boston—toward Baskerville Academy, I thought. Why? I wondered. On that, of all nights, why?

  The news came the morning after those beasts, Bret and Ryan, had held me for two hours in a dusty, narrow space that smelled of concrete, like a basement. I cried in the chapel. I cried in my room. I cried on walks around campus where no one could see me. Ralph wasn’t officially family, so though James and I could return to Boston the following weekend for a service, the faculty didn’t cut me any slack when it came to homework. I could be sad on my own time.

  But my tears weren’t only for dear Ralph, a man whom I loved beyond the limits of love and care. They were for my brother, who hadn’t been seen for the past thirty-two hours.

  Given that the last time James had disappeared it had been due to unfortunate circumstances, I couldn’t help but think he’d been kidnapped again. Mr. Lowry and Headmaster Crudgeon had questioned me for nearly an hour in Crudgeon’s office about whether James had contacted me, what he might have told me, blah-blah-blah. No matter how many times I swore I’d heard nothing, they repeated nearly the same questions, suggesting they didn’t believe me at all. When, finally, I left, despite their attempts at reassurance to the contrary, I was deathly afraid for my brother.

  If my lack of sleep was any indication, James was in trouble. Deep trouble. And Crudgeon and Lowry knew it.

  Sherlock would later claim he had acted out of his own curiosity, but I would harbor the suspicions he did it for me, trying to pull me out of my depression and sorrow. At that point, no one in the school, including me, had heard of any events at the chapel, deadly or otherwise. To the student body, and the proctors for all I knew, it had been a Thursday night like any other: unremarkable, cold, and quiet on the hill. The rumors concerned James’s disappearance, a good number of which had connected it to his and Lexie’s failed relationship. People did not know my brother very well. He would not give an ex-girlfriend more than thirty seconds of consideration.

  The only other whiff I got that something strange was going on was when Mrs. Favor visited our room at one in the morning. She didn’t need to wake me because I was just lying in the dark staring at the ceiling. She woke Jamala by accident.

  After an unneeded apology for waking me, which she had not, Mrs. Favor asked me a string of questions regarding Sherlock. When had I last seen him? Had he contacted me? Answering her questions was not easy given LeTona’s involvement, a girl I didn’t want to get into trouble, along with Eisenower and Thorndyke holding me hostage, blindfolded—but at my (missing) brother’s command. I made up something and tried to memorize my fiction word for word so that I’d be able to repeat it if asked again. Lying wasn’t worth the work involved. I wasn’t sure why people bothered with it.

  Sherlock, meanwhile, was on a mission. A twofold mission. First, he wanted to avoid anyone in authority at Baskerville, for he feared expulsion. Guessing the Raven had been Crudgeon or, if not, someone close to the headmaster, he knew the Scowerers couldn’t allow him to remain on campus. He slept by day beneath the stage in Hard Auditorium. I deposited leftovers from the dining room inside the piano on stage. Second, he wanted to find James, showing that he, Sherlock, had more heart than even I gave him credit for. It wasn’t exactly as I’d thought, but nothing ever is.

  After dark, nearly a full twenty-four hours following the events in the chapel, Sherlock began his search for my brother in the chapel’s bell tower. It was a risky and frightful effort, given that his master key did not unlock the door to the tower, requiring Sherlock to scale the outer wall. He was not a regular at the school’s indoor climbing wall, so one can only wonder at the terror that must have possessed the boy as he ascended the stones and grout, toehold by fingerhold. At last, he arrived to the square tower’s wood platform and its massive iron bell, rusting and as old as the stars. No James.

  Defeated, exhausted, Sherlock looked out onto the Main House and its clock tower. He withdrew his pocket watch. His eyes returned to the clock tower. Of course! he thought.

  Sherlock carefully put his weight onto the thick rope that tolled the bell, gently so the clapper wouldn’t strike and sound, and slid his way down, opening the locked door from the inside. Let the chaplain figure out that one, he thought.

  Next, Sherlock made his way to the rafters and joists above the Main House’s third floor and immediately above a former dining hall, turned library, turned extra art studio. Climbing the joists in the dark proved treacherous. Sherlock knew if he fell he would, at the very least, damage the ceiling of the art studio, and at the worst, break through the Sheetrock and plummet twenty feet to its floor, likely breaking most of the bones in his body.

  He worked his way up and into the Main House clock tower, having a tricky time of it as he climbed through the clock’s gears and inner workings.

  “Go away,” James said.

  “Aren’t you impressed in the least that I’ve found you?”

  James was balled up as far from Sherlock as he could get. The single light atop the clock tower found its way through ventilation slats and spread a harsh white light in stripes across the mechanism and both boys.

  “Not the least bit curious?” Sherlock asked.

  James glared, his skin gray, his eyes unresponsive.

  “I’ve tried a number of places, including the tunnels. I tried the bell tower because I thought if it was me, I’d want a view of what was going on, and a way out in case I didn’t like what I saw.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You must have leaned against a gear, dear boy. Nodded out, I imagine. Do you remember waking up against the clock’s mechanism? It’s seven minutes slow, you see? I monitor it carefully against my own timepiece.” He withdrew an old-fashioned pocket watch. “It’s never as much as a few seconds behind. A perfect piece of timekeeping, this.” He slipped it back into his pants pocket. “I measure the two against each other because until your visit up here, they were stroke for stroke. But there I am in the bell tower, and I look across and good lord, seven minutes slow. S
o I knew, you see? Or was quite confident, I suppose.”

  “Shut up. Go away.”

  “You didn’t know, James.” Sherlock cracked whatever cage held James.

  “I thought he was a Meirleach.”

  “The Raven and his men have made it look like a car crash. Over and done. Not even Moria knows. Never will.”

  “But you know,” James said. “And I know you know. And that makes us enemies. For life.”

  “I suppose. Ralph would not blame you for trying to protect your family’s secrets. I won’t use it against you.”

  “But you could. You’re a threat to me. As long as you’re alive, you’re a threat to me.” His slit eyes opened then, revealing true menace. A cornered and caged animal.

  “Interesting.”

  “That’s all you’ve got? Interesting?”

  “That’s not all I’ve got,” said Sherlock. “I have the stone you threw. It will have your DNA on it, for I promise you were sweating at the time. Some skin, perhaps. I have it put away in a safe place with instructions to recover it should anything untoward happen to me. You don’t want to hurt me, James. You had better hope I live a long, productive life. If anything happens to me, that stone will surface. There’s no statute of limitations on murder. Did you know that?”

  If James was breathing, there was no evidence of it.

  “Come down from here. Tell them you were grieving for him. They’ll believe you.”

  “Why would you allow me to do that?”

  “Because Moria and I need you, dear boy, and the men you control. The Scowerers. Bringing Hildebrandt to justice will not be easy.”

  “Why would you care?” James said.

  “You and Moria contracted me to help you find your father’s killer. That person remains at large.”

  “We didn’t contract you!” James said. “We asked you. Kind of.”

  “Semantics.”

  “You think it’s Hildebrandt?”

  “I do,” Sherlock said. “Your father was embroiled in a policy change in the Directory. This, I know, though I can’t share how I know it, not yet. That put him at odds with many. Hildebrandt ran the FBI for decades, did you know that? Think of that power, James! Think if a person like that sits on the Directory. How could such a thing happen? Think if he wanted you out of the way! At the very least Hildebrandt’s a person of interest to us. He was at odds with your father! Tell me you aren’t intrigued, James.”

  James uncoiled his grip on his shins. “Enemies for life. You understand that?”

  “So melodramatic. Give it a rest! I detest such labels. Our paths are currently entwined. Some knots. I’ll give you that. But we share a common purpose. And we both care for Moria.”

  “Leave her out of this.”

  “Do you think that’s up to me?” Sherlock cocked his head like a cat.

  “You know too much. The Directory . . . it won’t be safe for you.”

  “Yes. I’m aware. You’ll have to control the dogs. You don’t want them biting me.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Think it through, James. Consider the stone. At all times, consider the stone.”

  “You assume too much.”

  “I’ll be expelled. We both know that’s the only logical step. I’ll keep my mouth shut, my head down, but I imagine they will send people for me, or tip off the Meirleach.”

  “How can you possibly know what you know?”

  “It’s me, James. Let’s not forget it’s me.”

  “You are . . . impossible.”

  “To the contrary, I’m very much real, my friend. Never underestimate me. I will be your undoing.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “But let’s put all that aside until we see Hildebrandt to justice,” Sherlock said.

  “Indeed.” Sherlock waited as the movement of the clock hand made another loud click. “We should set it forward seven minutes before we go so it’s available to you as a hideout should you need it.”

  “It won’t be me needing the hideout, pal.”

  Sherlock smiled nearly ear to ear. “You’re better already. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  CHAPTER 69

  SHERLOCK WAS EXPELLED FROM BASKERVILLE for “behavior unsuitable for a student of the academy.” He’d been packed up and moved off campus overnight, with no chance to say good-bye to anyone, including me. I kept my phone on around the clock, hoping for a text or an email, even though Headmaster Crudgeon told the student body that, “Mr. Holmes has been forbidden from contacting any student prior to the end of the school year, and if such contact is made, the student in question is to notify any faculty member immediately.”

  The letter came by mail, in an envelope I nearly trashed without opening. The envelope announced “Your 6 favorite magazines absolutely free!” But a faint image had been used to cancel out the stamp.

  It was an image familiar to me, an image I’d heard described by my brother. The letter inside was not from a magazine publisher.

  My Dearest Moria:

  By now you are aware I was made to leave campus rather unexpectedly. I don’t know what you’ll be told, but it was not voluntary. I’ve been expelled and forbidden from getting within two hundred yards of the campus.

  What you need to know is this: though I’ve been sent back to dreary old London, if I have anything to do with it—and when don’t I?—it won’t be for long!

  I have made extraordinary headway in our mutual pursuit—you will know what I’m talking about, of course. I shared some of this, and I believe that is why I’ve been sent away. You can assume your mail is being watched, that you are being watched, and that your emails and texts are likely being intercepted. So play nice, will you? Please, Moria: play nice. It will set back our efforts substantially to have you expelled as well. And we are close. I promise you!

  You must know this as well—the person who broke a heart cannot, I’m sorry to say, be trusted. He who twists tongues can be and should be so. The lesser of two evils is the more troublesome and even less trustworthy than the aforementioned. The one to blame is known to me. The secret place is no longer, so do something. With these clues I put you on to the path of finishing what we started. But wait for me, please. I am full of surprises.

  I plead with you, dear girl, not to forget me. Our task is nowhere near complete, though, I’m pleased to say, we’ve accomplished what we set out to do.

  I have advised our gumshoe of a vessel that should have sailed, but did not. Fingers crossed.

  Yours, and I mean that,

  Sherlock

  My first reaction was sadness. I hadn’t considered he might have headed back to England. He was half a world away.

  My second reaction was anger. At the headmaster. At my brother. At all those who’d conspired to send Sherlock away. For it had to be a conspiracy.

  My third reaction was a combination of paranoia and irritation. Of course, Sherlock would leave me with clues rather than just tell me whatever it was he wanted me to know! But his using clues also signaled he’d feared even my mail would be opened. The less private my life became, the more sleepless and disturbed I became. How was I supposed to live a normal life with the feeling of eyes watching me? I started dressing in my closet with the sliding doors closed. This, despite my having pulled the drapes and turned off the overhead light in the room. I didn’t want to speak for fear I was being recorded. I ate less—a good thing. I slept less—a bad thing.

  I sat on a toilet seat fully clothed while decoding Sherlock’s letter, the stall door bolted shut.

  the person who broke a heart cannot, I’m sorry to say, be trusted.

  This one was easy. James had broken Lexie’s heart. But I didn’t want to believe the message. How could Sherlock tell me not to trust my own brother?

  He who twists tongues can be and should be so.

  No idea who this was or what it meant.

  The lesser of two evils is the more troublesome and even less tru
stworthy than the aforementioned.

  I wasn’t sure I could solve this until I solved the tongue twister. But the lesser of two evils comment sounded to me like something Sherlock had said about Ralph and Lois.

  The one to blame is known to me.

  This one intrigued me. I must have read it twenty times. No matter how many ways I tried to interpret it, I believed he meant Father’s killer. Your father’s killer is known to me. I couldn’t breathe. How long was I supposed to wait until I found out if this was true?

  The secret place is no longer, so do something.

  There were two secret places Sherlock and I had dealt with: the space beneath the chapel, about which I knew but where I had not visited; Father’s secret room off his office.

  Sherlock wouldn’t ask me to do something about the Scowerers’ ceremonial cave. His demand that I take action meant he wanted me to move everything out of Father’s hiding place. To where and how, I had no idea. But I knew if he said it had to be done, it was better to act than argue. I could make a plan. I could visit weekends. I had a hunch he would not want me working with Lois. I had my work cut out for me.

  we’ve accomplished what we set out to do.

  I took this to mean at least one of two things, maybe both. We’d saved James. Protected him, which was something we’d discussed. We—that is, Sherlock—had identified Father’s killer. That meant his death hadn’t been an accident. That meant someone was out there who could be held accountable. The fact that Sherlock had not told the police meant he lacked evidence. Was that up to me to find? Was I supposed to wait for him? For how long? Years?

  He hadn’t included an address where I might write him. This was supposed to be a one-way conversation, like every other Sherlock conversation. If I hadn’t liked him so much, I could have hated him.

  CHAPTER 70

  NATALIE RETURNED TO CLASSES HAVING MISSED most of a week. She made no mention of her ailment, though something to do with a break-in at the science labs was rumored.