Their sad faces brightened and their eyes grew wide as they gratefully nodded and took one biscuit each. Holmes nodded at me to bring in the tea and milk. Only the girl preferred tea, but they all ate and drank eagerly, as if this had been their first meal in days. My heart aching, I also put out a tray of bread and apricot preserves. Holmes smiled as they enjoyed this rare free meal.
Once their stomachs were filled, Holmes led Miss Elsiebeth to my chair and asked her to sit down. He sat down in his armchair, crossed his legs again and rested his chin on his fingertips while the others sat where they could find room on the floor.
“We want you to know that, even though none of us knew Peter very well, we are at your service to help find his killer, Mr Holmes,” Miss Elsiebeth began. “Free of our mandatory charge, of course.”
“I cannot consider ever receiving your services for free, Miss Elsiebeth,” Holmes retorted. It was the proper sentiment and sat well with them. “You put yourselves in danger when I seek your aid, I only wish I could afford a higher stipend. Now, you said that none of you knew Young Master Peter Lawson very well... then why do you wish to catch his killer?”
“Because he was one of us, sir. All we have out there is each other and we know that if we don’t seek justice for wrongs done to us, no one else will. Do you understand that, Mr Holmes?”
“Of course,” Holmes said. “Do any of you know if he had any family? A mother, father, brother or sister?”
Miss Elsiebeth shook her head. “Peter was a loner, Mr Holmes. We didn’t even know his last name until you mentioned it a moment ago.”
“I see. Are any of you familiar with a child or a woman with only four fingers on the left hand - the ring finger being the absent one?”
All the children shot each other quick, confused glances.
“I’m afraid not, sir. But we will do what we can to learn what we can, then pass it on to you.”
“Good. I will be touring the East End later today,” Holmes said, which was news to me. “I will keep my ears and eyes open for you and will return the favor.”
“Thank you for granting us audience, sir.”
All the children, sensing the meeting was over, began standing up.
“Before you leave, Irregulars,” Holmes said as he rose from his chair. “I want you to know that my allegiance is with you, I won’t rest until this case is closed. And you can trust that I would do the same for each and every one of you.”
They nodded and Holmes offered them a biscuit for the road as they left. Once the flat had been vacated, Holmes turned to me. “Come, my friend,” he said. “We must disguise ourselves!”
***
By mid-morning our disguises were complete. Holmes forbade our regular daily shaves, thereby adding a rugged roughness to our normally smooth and pristine faces, then he tousled up our hair, adding to that roughness. Next, he raided his costume closet for shabby suit coats and pants that a common man wore in the East End nowadays. Donning a pair of the oldest shoes we each possessed completed the façade. When the reveal was over, I barely recognized Holmes and I’m sure it was the same with me. We could now travel through the dim grime of London’s East End without causing suspicion among the natives.
Following Holmes’ earlier supposition, we took a hansom to Cable Street, got out and began walking the dingy streets of the East End, heading for the ship building yards on the banks of the Thames, in the Shadwell District. But as we made our way past Farmer Street, Miss Elsiebeth, knowing our identities quite intimately, spotted us with her sharp eyes. She came up and handed Holmes a folded piece of paper.
“It was waiting for me on my cot in the Farmer Street train station when I came back from your flat this morning,” she explained.
Holmes unfolded the paper and read it. Immediately his eyes went wide. “I was right, Watson,” he said and handed me the note. “We’re looking for a woman.”
I read the note, in a primitive, uneducated scrawl, it said: Justis for Petr. Fynd her in th’ box!
“But this reference to the box,” I began. “What does it mean?”
“There’s an alley on the banks of the river that connects to Wapping Street,” Elsiebeth said. “We call it Box Alley because it’s lined with small, square flats that cater to men’s-”
“You mean it’s a den of prostitution?” Holmes interrupted.
Elsiebeth nodded. “For the ship builders and sailors,” she said.
Holmes must have noticed my extreme reaction and put his hand on my shoulder. “Are you up to this, my friend?” he asked. “You may see things you’ll never be able to forget.”
He was right. I’d heard of horrible places like Box Alley but had never seen them, preferring to keep my nose above the water. Yet I couldn’t abandon my compatriot now that we had a true lead. I’d have to put aside my repugnance for Young Peter’s sake.
“I’m up to it, Holmes,” I said.
Holmes gave me a brisk pat. “Good man,” he said then turned to Elsiebeth. “Can you tell us where this Box Alley is?”
“I can do better than that, sir,” she answered. “I can show you.” She pointed to the entrance to the Farmer Street train station, where she lived, then led us inside. At the entrance we were met with a giant map on the wall that displayed all of Upper and Lower Shadwell, Elsiebeth pointed out our destination.
“Fascinating,” Holmes said. “Watson, do you see what I see?”
Indeed I did. Box Alley lay a block to the west of a ship building yard, just to the north of that was the Griffin Street timber yards. I had no doubt we’d find plenty of unused, discarded cedar timbers that would match the injury to Young Peter Lawson’s skull.
“Miss Elsiebeth,” Holmes said. “I trust I don’t need to ask you to stay behind while we investigate Box Alley?”
“That’s no place for the likes of me, Mr Holmes, Godspeed to you and Doctor Watson,” she replied.
***
As Holmes and I made our way to Lower Milk Yard Street, then south along Star Street I realized I had some questions that needed answering and made them known.
“Holmes,” I started. “Who do you think wrote the note - and why?”
“It was someone who knew Peter and the mysterious woman who killed him,” Holmes replied. “As for the why, well, the answer to that is in the note... justice.”
“And the woman? Who is she and what would be her motive for killing Peter?”
“It’s clear she’s a prostitute, Doctor, which means her motive would most likely be income-related.”
“Income-related? What could a poor, displaced street urchin like Peter have to offer someone?”
“Two shiny new shillings, Doctor,” Holmes said as he pulled the two coins from his pants pocket. He shook them up in his fist, creating a metallic ringing.
“You’re saying this four-fingered prostitute killed Young Peter for two shillings?”
“They go a long way in the East End, my friend.”
I couldn’t argue that point. As he pocketed the coins, we came to Wapping Street and turned east. A few minutes later we came to a street on the right where run-down, dingy, windowless, box-like hovels lined both sides of the brick concourse, all the way down to the green waters of the Thames. The structures were made of aged, weathered red brick, the mortar missing in some places and I tried to guess what they might have originally been built for, but failed.
“Here we are, Doctor,” Holmes said and we turned, following the alley south. It was like stepping into another world, a nightmare world turned upside down and inside out. Women, their faces gaudily made up, their hair tied up high and curly, their shoulders and bosoms exposed, stood in front of open doors hooting and calling at us as we passed by. A few even gave us a verbal menu of what could be done to us for what price as they showed us their stockinged legs. It was appa
lling and it darkened my view on human existence. I couldn’t imagine what it could be like to live as they did, without hope, happiness or pride. It was all I could do not to turn tail and run out of there.
Suddenly, I felt a strong grip on my arm, causing me to halt. “There, Watson, that one,” Holmes said in a low voice.
I looked at the woman he was referring to. She was a thin, short woman with tangled brown hair wearing a black corset and long gray skirt. Her face had the lines of many difficult miles imprinted upon it but I don’t think that even when she was younger, she’d been menially attractive.
She noticed us staring at her and waved us over. “’Aye, loves,” she gushed through a mouth missing many teeth. “I’ll take ya’ both on for five quid. I ‘av the time an’ place!”
My skin crawled as I imagined for the briefest moment what she was selling. “You think she’s Peter’s killer?” I asked Holmes in disbelief, my mind in no way could conceive of her swinging a cedar beam to the boy’s skull.
“Look at her left hand,” Holmes instructed. I did so and noticed she was wearing a glove. Remembering that it was mid-April, much too warm to wear gloves, it suddenly made sense to me; she was covering a hideous, four-fingered left hand.
***
Her name was Maude Amber Lawson and she was Peter’s mother though she’d never married. Eleven years before one of her clients had made her pregnant. She was a damnable woman, full of spit, spite and vinegar. I honestly had never before heard some of the words she threw at Holmes and I as we dragged her in to Scotland Yard. I realized now why Young Peter had turned to live on the streets.
Detective Inspector Lestrade didn’t believe she was Peter’s killer until we went to the morgue and displayed Young Peter’s corpse, due to be buried in a pauper’s cemetery the next day. I was shocked at the lack of reaction the boy’s mother had as she saw her son lying there on a slab. She did manage a defiant sneer as Lestrade asked her to press her deformed hand to the bruise on Peter’s cheek. She resisted like a tigress but Holmes took her hand in his, forcing her to do it; it matched perfectly. That closed the case.
“Why did you do it?” Lestrade asked. “This boy was your son!”
“What’s ‘is is mine,” she spat. “’E wouldn’t give ‘em to me! A woman’s got to eat, y’know?”
“Give what to you?”
Holmes pulled out the two shillings and showed Lestrade. “These,” he said. “Two shillings I gave him for help in solving a case last year.”
“Had ‘em hid from me th’ whole time!” she said through a scowl, her eyes never leaving the glistening coins in Holmes’ hand. “Imagine, holdin’ those two shillings for a whole year without spendin’ ‘em. So, when I found out ‘e ‘ad ‘em in ‘is pocket, I figured, well, if ‘e’s not going to spend ‘em, then I will. But ‘e wouldn’t hand ‘em over... so I sent a plank upside ‘is traitorous little ‘ed to teach ‘im a lesson, but ‘e escaped with what’s mine before I could get it from ’im,”
Lestrade’s face fogged over red, his eyes glowed orange with anger. “Madame, you can be sure that when they hang you, I’ll be there watching with glee!”
***
Young Master Peter’s funeral was a somber affair even though it was a bright, sunny spring day. As good members of his extended platonic family, the Baker Street Irregulars, one and all, attended. Solemn and respectful in their goodbyes, they each shook Holmes’ hand as they left. Holmes had delivered on his promise to them that he would catch whoever killed Peter and they were grateful.
When the digger returned to cover the casket, Holmes and I headed for the cemetery gates, but only got as far as a row of mangled oak trees near a line of marked and unmarked graves. The gates were clearly visible from our vantage point.
“Why aren’t we leaving?” I asked.
Holmes, staring at the gates, replied in a monotone voice. “We’ll wait here, behind these trees, for a while. See what happens.”
He was expecting someone to come through those gates so, curious, I waited with him in silence. Many minutes passed until finally, a thin, shabbily dressed teenaged boy with holed leather shoes and messy brown hair entered the cemetery. He followed the brick path through the gravestones until he stopped at Young Peter’s grave. The digger had long since completed his work and the spot where Peter lay buried suddenly seemed a lonely and abandoned place now, all that showed that he ever existed was a small bed of black soil.
“Come, Watson,” Holmes said. “Time to shore up the final piece of the puzzle.”
I followed him out of the cover of the trees until we came up behind the boy standing at Peter’s grave. The boy either hadn’t heard our approach or was ignoring it, for he never moved from his space. We stood next to him and I noticed there were tears running down his cheeks.
“Why did you leave the letter with Miss Elsiebeth instead of telling the police?” Holmes asked.
The boy remained in position, his eyes staring down at the grave, as he answered. “I was afraid, sir. My name is Samuel. Peter was my younger half-brother. We had different dads, mine is th’ one who cut off our mother’s ring finger. She’d been wearin’ his band to wed but she was still seein’ men that were payin’ for it an’ he caught her, so usin’ a kitchen knife, he cut off her finger with th’ engagement band still on it. Since then she hated all men, includin’ Peter an’ me. I couldn’t tell th’ police... they would come an’ would ‘ave believed my mother’s lies, then my mother would ‘ave found out it was me that told ‘em... she would’ve done th’ same thing to me. Y’see, I still lived with ‘er, sir, I couldn’t take th’ chance. But Peter... ’e was always more brave, more strong n me, even though ‘e was younger. ‘E liked livin’ out there on th’ street, bein’ free, doin’ for ‘imself. ‘E talked so well of th’ Irregulars an’ of you, Mr ‘olmes, an’ ‘ow you gave him those two shillings. I knew if I contacted Elsiebeth, it would get back to you and you’d fix it all like I was never involved.”
“Did Peter ever tell you why he never spent the shillings?” Holmes asked.
“’E was proud of them, sir. Said it was th’ first thing in ‘is life ‘e ever earned. Said ‘e would keep ‘em forever to remind ‘im of a good deed ‘e done for someone else.”
“Your brother was a good, lad, Samuel,” Holmes said sympathetically. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”
My heart was near breaking as I listened to the boy tell his story, but my friend shattered it completely with what he did next. Sherlock Holmes reached into his pocket, came out with the two shiny shillings then handed them to the boy.
“These aren’t mine, Samuel,” he said and we left the boy to his grief.
The Adventure of the Underworld Assassin
1
With a printed invitation to tea in hand, Sherlock Holmes took the weathered, well-traveled stone steps outside the House of Lords by twos with his long, smooth gait. I followed closely behind as the invitation allowed for one guest.
We were to meet Stanley Arthur, newly elected Member of the British Parliament at three in the afternoon at his parliamentary office and from the beginning, Holmes was suspicious that something was up as the famous consulting detective had always made his distrust and disgust of politics known to anyone who knew him, especially to politicians. Something wasn’t right. Holmes had never met this Stanley Arthur before so why would he be suddenly invited to tea by the man? Hiring Holmes was out of the question, surely the man would have known that Holmes found it distasteful to service politicians at any level, no matter what the emergency.
For answers, we attempted to contact Mycroft, Holmes’ older brother. Mycroft works, in some secret fashion, for the British Government and would know if the invitation was genuine, but we discovered from his secretary that he was attending an important meeting up at Durham University in north eastern England. With his brother cu
rrently unreachable, Holmes decided to play the invitation through, see what happened.
It was a mild, but overcast late April day and there were many people flitting about, on, above and below the steps to the House of Lords. When we reached the top, there was a young man wearing a dark suit standing there looking around with his hands clasped behind his back. With the standard of Queen Victoria embroidered on his chest, he seemed to be employed by the government to answer people’s questions going in and out of the huge, brick façade.
Holmes went up to the man and gave him the invitation card. “My good man,” he said pleasantly. “Where may I find Mr Stanley Arthur?”
The man looked at the invitation then at Holmes. He blinked once and his eyes focused on something in the distance. He raised his right hand and pointed. “Why, that’s him there, sir,” he said. “Going down the steps. The man with the hat and walking stick.”
Holmes stole the invitation back, turned and rushed after the politician. We finally chased him down as he reached the walk at the bottom of the steps. Holmes introduced himself and myself, then handed him the invitation. Arthur was a tall, overweight but distinguished looking man with a thick, silver mustache and a wide, bulbous nose. He stared at the card as if it was written in a different language. “Who are you again?” Arthur asked. “And what’s this all about?”
“Well, sir, my name is Holmes and as the card indicates, you invited us to tea,” my compatriot answered.
“Rubbish! I’ve done no such thing!” Arthur said confidently and handed the card back to Holmes. “The invitation is a fake! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m expected at an ambassadorial dinner very shortly.”
As the tall, big man turned, his throat suddenly erupted in a flash of blood and gore. His head jerked backwards, spinning his hat off. He dropped his walking stick and brought both hands up to his throat as he fell backwards into Holmes’ arms. Immediately after, a loud crack shattered the calmness of the afternoon air, so loud it made me jump. I’d heard that sound before, many times while fighting in Afghanistan in defense of our Majesty’s interests - the crack of a rifle shot. It came from the west, far across the roadway where a large patch of woods resided, and was so loud people everywhere either scrambled away or hit the ground and covered their heads.
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