Malefactor first saw the boy on the streets many months ago and picked him out as different, drawn to him as if he were something shiny. The thug couldn’t resist harassing him, but has yet to allow his followers to truly do him harm.
Sherlock turns and walks.
He is half a block away when a rotten tomato, fired like a bullet, catches him flush and splat on the back of his neck. His head turns like a falcon’s. But they are gone.
He stands still for a few seconds. “Curse you!” he finally blurts, frantically wiping the red slime from his coat. “I’ll never get this clean!”
“No ’and shall strike ’im!” echoes a voice from around a corner, trailing off, laughing maniacally as it fades into the London day.
He reads the papers again that morning. There is nothing new. The police have made up their minds. It strikes him that they think in straight lines and never have new ideas. He sits in the center of Trafalgar Square, among the tourists and the pigeons, stealing the odd chunk of bun from the fat gray birds. From time to time, he dips his necktie in one of the fountains and scours angrily at the red stain on his collar, until he nearly scrubs through the cloth.
The Irregulars don’t know who murdered the woman. He can tell. But they know something. At least Malefactor does. There is no one on the streets of London more cunning than that constantly calculating boy. His minions not only fear him, but accept him as their better. Sherlock doesn’t just imagine that Malefactor is of higher stock, he knows it. There’s an indisputable clue: that long black coat with tails. Though it is tattered and frayed, the gang leader wears it every day, as if he prizes it deeply, not as if he’s stolen it. His chimneypot hat, his walking stick: those he sets down in alleys without thinking twice. But Sherlock has seen him cleaning his coat and tails in a rain barrel when he thinks others aren’t looking, has watched him caress it and smooth it as he talks. Long ago, that coat belonged to someone of some social status. There are secrets within its folds.
Malefactor indeed has been blessed with more brainpower than the others. Nothing in London escapes his notice. He knows something about the Whitechapel murder.
But what? What else is there to know?
Sherlock casts his mind back to the scene from last night, his vivid imagination reproducing it almost perfectly. And as he does, he realizes something. The crows … they weren’t staying on the blood stain! They were moving around, as if they were looking for something, as if …
“Sherlock.”
Someone has spotted him, even though his head was down. It’s a warm woman’s voice, un recognizable for an instant, as he suddenly awakes from his thoughts and leaps to his feet.
“Sherlock, it’s just me,” Rose laughs. “Don’t be surprised. I knew I’d find you on this very spot. Remember, I was giving lessons in Mayfair today? It’s not far from here.” She motions to the west. She is wearing one of her best muslin dresses trimmed with lace, preserved as well as possible from her other life. It had once been ivory white.
“Mother … I …”
“This is your last day away from school, correct?”
The boy nods.
“I want us to walk out together tonight,” says Rose.
She sits down beside him and takes one of his long white hands in hers.
He knows what she means. She wants to go to the opera. They’ve gone many times before. She’s been taking him for as long as he can remember. He is sure she brought him there in her arms, around to the back of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, just a short walk from Trafalgar. They slip into the shadows and go to her spot, a place where a coal grate opens on to the street and they can crouch and hear the music as if they are right in the seats. As he listens, she tells him the story of each opera, slowly and clearly, with tears in her eyes.
They sit in the Square that late afternoon, talking. He can smell the beer on her breath.
His mother’s conversation is never about the past: always about what has happened that very day. Today, she begins with the big homes that she’s just been in.
“The first was in Belgravia and it belongs to a duke.”
She knows it will interest him and describes every inch of the ornate dwelling: its glittering front door, its glowing chandeliers, and the well-born lady who lives there … and never once deigned to say “Hello.”
“The other house was in Mayfair,” she continues.
The gentleman was home. He had a ruddy, red face, a long red goatee, and a rough way of talking. Everything he said was addressed to the servants. He never once spoke to his wife. He was so rude and ill-mannered, especially for a man whose spouse is related to the queen.
“He kept staring at me. Or at least I thought he did. He had the most peculiar eyes. One seemed so different from the other: some eyes are like that. Examine them, Sherlock, and you’ll see. One eye was alive … and the other looked dead.”
The sun is setting by the time they make their way up the Strand and then north toward Covent Garden. The market has closed for the day. Flower petals lie on the muddy ground, big torn baskets are scattered about, the shouts of costermongers and piemen have faded away. They cross the open area toward the back of the big opera house, a magnificent, white stone building.
Rose Holmes has a routine. She goes round to the front entrance, the part with the tall pillars that look out on Bow Street, then crosses the road and stands on the foot pavement, just south near the dim blue lights of the police station. She always takes Sherlock’s hand, even now when he is thirteen, and squeezes it unconsciously while she watches.
The carriages pull up, one after the other. The famous people, the rich folk, step down, top hats shining, diamond stickpins glittering, silk dresses flowing. The boy performs his mental exercise as he watches; he observes and deciphers the life stories of each gentleman and lady.
Bobbies stand by, observing too, but they never watch the upper classes. It’s the others who gain their attention. Sherlock catches their eyes several times and each time looks away.
Before the big doors are closed on the last grand couple, Rose yanks her son across the street. They steal down the north side of the Opera House and dart under a little wrought-iron staircase at the back of the massive building. It leads to a secret entrance, used by the singing stars. The little dark door is camouflaged with ivy, and the coal grate, hidden under the stairs, provides an opening into the building. They might as well be in the front row.
They huddle on the ground, Rose’s dress in the mud, but she doesn’t care. She puts an arm around Sherlock.
The music begins.
A cry escapes from her lips. It’s The Thieving Magpie. Now he knows why she wanted to come tonight.
First the overture thunders, commencing with rolling drums, the sounds of an execution: the execution of a young girl. But his mother says nothing. She is waiting. Then she sighs.
Violins.
“They tell us,” she often says, “of the tragedies of life.”
She calls it violin land. It is the place she goes when she hears them. Her son knows what she means. He can feel it too. There are no instruments like them. Violins are sad; they are strong; they tell the truth. When they are slow, they make you cry. When they are fast, they press you forward, push you into the struggle of life.
“Bah a bah, pa pa pa … Bah a bah, pa pa pa…” She sings gently, to the sound of the swirling strings, the sound of the magpie darting through the air, heading toward its treasure.
Rose tells the story, her voice musical and gentle over the beautiful strains. In his mind, Sherlock can see the brilliant hall inside: the lit stage, the tiers of balconies, the rich red velvet seats, the magnificent silver chandeliers. And he can see the story.
“A magpie flies innocently through the air on its merry way at the opening of another day. It sees something shining through a window in an elegant home. It darts down. It’s a spoon, a sparkling silver spoon worth more than its little brain can imagine. It lights on the sill. It looks
around. It steals the spoon and flies away. The next day, the lady of the house is inconsolable. Someone has stolen one of her pure silver spoons. It must be one of the servants! A beautiful young girl, poor as a field mouse, happened to be working in the room when the spoon was taken. The lady accuses her. She is arrested. It is an open-and-shut case. She is sentenced to die. Her day of execution approaches …”
Rose Holmes never gives away the ending. Her son knows what will happen, but she never breathes a word of it, no matter how many times they listen. They huddle in the darkness until the last note is played. Then they leave like thieves, moving through the shadows back out to Bow Street, down to the river, and home.
Wilber is waiting. He knows where they’ve been. He takes his wife in his arms and holds her while she sobs. Then he puts her to bed.
The boy sits at the table. Sherlock Holmes doesn’t cry not about anything, ever.
“The Thieving Magpie,” says his father, shaking his head, as he comes out and sits down. They are both quiet for a moment.
“What family do magpies belong to?” asks the boy suddenly.
Wilber smiles at him: “They’re corvidae. The corvid family. There are jays, nutcrackers, ravens, and of course, your friends the crows.”
The instant his father mentions the crows, an idea bursts into his head – Sherlock wonders why he hasn’t thought of it before. He sits, dead silent, his mind far away.
His father is used to this sort of behavior. Sherlock is a strange lad. Most boys his age have herds of friends – he doesn’t have one. Every now and then, right in the middle of a conversation, he’ll slip into these silent stretches and float away. The boy will sit back, his lids nearly closed, and drift off. Wilber stands up, ruffles his son’s hair, and slips off to bed in the side room.
Sherlock fixes his hair and rises to his feet. He moves to the back door, opens and closes it silently, and flies down the wooden stairs.
On the dark streets, he starts to run.
He is headed back over the bridge to the part of the city where the narrow streets wind through the fog like snakes … to that little lane with the bloodstain.
FIRST CLUE
The crows had been looking for something. He is sure of it.
Something shiny!
He is all the way to London Bridge before fear catches up with him. What in the world is he doing? It will soon be past midnight. He’s never been out of doors in the city at this hour. The bridge is almost deserted. Nearly all the boats are docked: just an odd one floats on the black water. Above the endless crowds of shadowy buildings eerily lit by gas, he can see the dome of St. Paul’s to the west, the evil Tower to the east. That poor woman was murdered at about this hour, down that narrow lane deep in the East End. He shudders to think of being there in the dead of night … exactly where he is going.
London is a dream past midnight: a nightmare. He leans against the bridge’s stone balustrades, feeling terrified, and imagining the desperate people who must inhabit the night. Dim reflections of the bridge’s lamps quiver on the water, and other than the distant blasts of a few steam whistles, it is frighteningly silent. He waits for something to come out of the fog.
Before long, it does. There are footsteps.
Someone is emerging in the darkness.
It is an old woman, dressed in shades of black, her clothes so worn that they seem to be patched together. Her hair hangs in strings, her face is like a mask. Beside her walks a child in a dirty sheet. No, not a child: it is a man, or an animal, dark-faced and about three feet tall, with crude juggling clubs in its hands. She has it by a chain. The hag looks at Sherlock and grins. Then the two figures disappear into the fog, floating, their near-silent steps moving slowly away. He hears the woman laugh. Or is it that thing by her side? It is an animal sound: a hyena’s cry.
The little hairs stand up on Sherlock’s arms; his flesh is tingling.
He has to make a choice: go forward or retreat home. He thinks of the school bully sitting on him, telling him he’s helpless. He thinks of the young Arab’s face, the fear in it, of him swinging from a rope on a scaffold in front of a huge crowd outside Newgate Prison. The people are cheering. They hate him. Three weeks and that will be the scene.
Sherlock steps away from the wall.
He is going to Whitechapel.
He walks with trepidation into the old part of the city: more people emerge out of the mists like cast members from dark operas. Their numbers grow as he moves east. Most are as strange as the old woman and her wretched companion: a ghostly parade of grotesque creatures, frail as skeletons, ragged as goats. A moaning, white-haired beggar clings to him for a while. He encounters gentlemen too, drunk as lords, staggering home in fine evening clothes, preyed upon by pickpockets who rob without breaking stride. Women circle on street corners under the hissing lamps, wearing dresses pulled down at the top and turned up at the bottom, red paint on their lips. Farther east they are poorer, older, and dirtier. Some look at the boy and laugh.
Malefactor is out there somewhere hard at work, stealing his way through life: surviving, providing for his nasty followers.
It seems to take Sherlock forever to get where he is going. There aren’t as many lights in the East End. He meets fewer people, sees some lying on the footpaths or sitting against black buildings, unable to get lodgings for the night. There are sounds in the mist. Under each dim glow of light, he stops and looks back: just shadows, it seems, and voices like echoes.
Finally, he finds Old Yard Street, and realizes it has no gas lamps.
He walks into the darkness; soon the alley appears dimly to his left. He stands still for a moment. Then he turns down it.
Footsteps behind!
He swings around. No one. Silence.
He moves again, his boots sounding like cannons on the cobblestones. The bloodstain is somewhere near. The fog seems very heavy. He drops down on his hands and knees and edges forward, his eyes inches from the ground.
There it is.
His fingers are right on the stain. He casts his mind back again. He sees the crows once more at the scene. The picture appears in his mind in two dimensions, as clear as a stereographic view. There they are! One is on the stain, yes, but the other is a carriage length away, near a damp wall. It isn’t pecking like the one on the blood. Its dark head moves with a different motion. It is doing something with its beak … digging!
Sherlock crawls forward. His eyes are becoming more accustomed to the darkness. He can see the spot where the bird was digging just ahead. He reaches it … a rubble of bricks, probably dumped here by a tradesman.
Something moves, right near his head. He sucks in his breath. It makes a scratching sound.
A black bird is an arm’s length from his face. It spreads out its torn, evil-looking feathers for an instant, as if to fly. Then it stops and stares at him. He can see the intelligence in its dark eyes. It tips its head, regards him once more, and lifts off.
It vanishes.
Sherlock turns back to the rubble and at that instant the fog lifts slightly in the alleyway, the moon shines through, and he sees something. It glitters in the stones.
Something shiny. It is nearly buried. He moves a crumbling brick.
Then he shudders and almost falls face-first into the rubble.
It’s a body! And it’s buried under the bricks!
An eye is staring up at him … a human eye.
Steeling himself for the sight of a corpse, he takes a deep breath and works as fast as he can, moving more pieces. But the body’s head must be tilted sideways, because no matter how hard he digs, only one eye is evident.
Then he realizes exactly what he has found. It isn’t a corpse. It is just an eye. A single human eye is buried in the rubble a half dozen steps from the spot where the woman was murdered.
Then he realizes something else. It isn’t real. It is a glittering, glass eyeball. Sherlock stares at it. It stares back. Flecks of blood are splattered on the iris. He picks it up.
Footsteps again!
He is sure this time. Absolutely sure! And they are coming toward him. He closes his fingers over the eyeball, rises to his feet, and starts to run.
“Boy!” he hears a gruff voice shout.
Perched up above in the night, the crow lets out a scream.
Sherlock runs in the darkness. He hears violins … from another Rossini opera he and his mother have heard many times. They are the galloping, charging, fleeing, escaping violins of The William Tell Overture. Sherlock puts his head back, pumps his fists and lets his long legs take him. The music powers him: out the alleyway, past a dark, ghostly man with a gas lamp reaching out to grab him. But Sherlock eludes him and is gone in an instant, around the corner, past a parked black coach on Whitechapel, then down the street and on the double toward the ancient stone arches of London Bridge.
“Boy!”
The cry fades as he flees. He barely notices the night people this time. His mind is fixed on home. He holds the eye tightly in his hand as he sprints off the bridge, through Southwark, away from the street, and onto the lane that leads to the back stairs of the family flat. When he gets there, he goes up three steps at a time.
Who was that? Who was standing in that alley where the woman was murdered?
His shaking hands open the door gently. Their home is dead quiet. He calms his breathing, locks the door, slips off his clothes and gets into bed. He tucks the eyeball under his mattress. Despite his excitement he is asleep in minutes. Exhaustion overtakes him.
Not long afterwards there is a thudding on the door.
He awakes with a start. At first he turns away, wraps the pillow over his head and tries to convince himself that he is dreaming. No one can be pounding on their door at this hour of the night.
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