Vanishing Girl (15 page)

“
Let us be friends again
,” he says to her … but only inside his head.

His silence makes her tentative.

“Have you read the papers?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“What do you make of it?”

Be like steel
.

“What you or I make of it doesn’t matter. This is for the police to sort out. There are heinous fiends about in this city, doing terrible things every day. It is best we stay clear of them.
All
of them. This is a new case and Victoria Rathbone is not part of it, so it is no longer your worry. She is as safe as houses. I am sure the family has done what they can for your workhouse boy.”

He is expecting Irene’s umbrella to come down on his head again and has measured the distance he must keep from her. But she surprises him. She doesn’t become angry. Her eyes are filling with tears.

“The Rathbones won’t speak to us. And this crime will make things worse. We are powerless: we still can’t help my bro … that little boy.”

She is so upset that Sherlock is again in grave danger of giving in. He straightens himself.

“My father feels strongly about this,” she says.

“As strongly as he did before?”

“Yes.”

Holmes does all he can to hide the thrill that goes through him.

“You could gain as much as before,” she says, and reaches out to take his hand. But he steps back. Her expression turns to a glare and she wipes her cheeks.

“Perhaps I
will
join forces with my
other
friend then. I didn’t when Miss Rathbone was kidnapped. I held off. But I doubt I can wait this time. He may know who did this, and might tell me … so I can deliver the news to Inspector Lestrade. At the very least, I am guessing that my friend would consider helping me.”

The words are spit out.

“Should you be referring to a certain blackguard who roams the streets at night with a group of ne’er-do-wells who prey upon the London populace, I would advise against it. I could produce these villains before he or Lestrade were even on their trail.”

“I am helping Master Malefactor to …”

“He is a thug and he shall remain one.”

“I can change him.”

“And we shall all fly to the moon one day.”

“He understands misery. He knows the sort of pain people endure in the workhouses.”

“Really?”

“You don’t know him, Sherlock. His life fell apart when he was small. His father’s railway investments collapsed after they left Ireland and came to England – they lost everything. His family went to an almshouse in Liverpool.
His education ended. His parents died … and so did his little sister. She’d held them together through everything. All he has left is his father’s coat … and his memories of her. He’s angry and bitter about life, but he can change.”

“A story meant for the pages of the agony columns, I’m sure. I prefer Samuel Smiles and instructive novels … where folks rise from their troubles, where they choose the right path, not evil. He is a
rat
. And he tried to kill me.” He turns from her and marches away.

“I shall show you!” she shouts after him. But she looks undecided.

Sherlock dodges tradesmen on narrow Denmark Street, his jaw set tightly.

Andrew Doyle will still give me what I need
. The instant she told him that, his mind sped up. By the time he nears Trafalgar Square, it is racing. And he can’t slow it down. The game is afoot!

Scotland Yard first
, he figures,
then to the scene
. He needs more than facts now.

It isn’t a police file that he wants to investigate – it’s something inside a particular detective’s brain, in the skull cavity of a chap named Lestrade. He plans to march right up to him and ask directly.

At Trafalgar Square he glances west toward The Mall, the beautiful, tree-lined pedestrian lanes that border St. James’s
Park and lead to Buckingham Palace. Ladies and gentlemen are strolling on the grass avenues and governesses walk with children, all pursued, from time to time, by street vendors. He has read in the papers that the queen is in London – the flag is out atop the palace in the distance. The green squares and beautiful residences of Belgravia are on the other side of her magnificent home. He’ll speak to Lestrade and then make his way there to the Rathbone mansion, even if it is watched by a hundred policemen.

White Hall Street runs south from Trafalgar Square. He turns onto it. Wide and impressive, it is lined with regal government buildings. Soldiers in spotless red tunics ride horses outside the Roman columns of the Admiralty directly across from the Yard. Sherlock slips down a passageway between the police buildings and finds the black, stone exterior of the detectives’ office.

The same sour-faced, grandly mustached sergeant he’d encountered in the summer when he rushed in here flushed and on the trail of the Brixton gang, is standing behind the desk in the damp stone office. When he looks up to see the boy, there are no signs of recognition. “Obser vation is the elementary skill of the scientist and the primary talent of life,” his father used to say. Obviously, the rank and file of the London Metropolitan Police were never taught such things.

“I would like to speak with Mr. G. Lestrade.”

“
G
?”

“Yes, the junior.”

“I shall see if he is present.”

A bored looking Peeler sitting on a worn wooden bench that creaks each time he adjusts his position is coaxed into rising and dispatched. Moments later the younger Lestrade approaches from the hallway.

Sherlock has been observing this boy for several months: beady-eyed and not very tall, fuzz on his face, brown tweed suits of a distinctly adult cut, anxious to be a man and follow in his father’s footsteps … but of a kinder, more curious disposition. It is those last characteristics that Sherlock is counting on. He has noticed that when they talk there is often a trace of empathy in the older boy’s face, even admiration, and a touch of pity for the way Sherlock has been treated. It is time to use these things.

“You?” says Lestrade. He looks unsure, glancing back down the hallway.

“Is your father here?”

“Yes.”

Sherlock lowers his voice.

“Might I have a word with you … outside?”

The budding young inspector hesitates before he consents.

Rain has started to gently fall, another pre-winter drizzle. They stand under the awnings close to the buildings.

“This is highly irregular.”

“That is often what is needed. I won’t mince words. Do you know anything about the Rathbone robbery, anything that hasn’t been in the papers that I might employ? I need more to go on than what I have read.”

Lestrade is taken aback by his boldness.

“Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you, Master Holmes. It wouldn’t be right. I am sorry.”

Not all bad … the last three words are promising
.

“This doesn’t concern you,” adds the older boy.

“I understand your position. But perhaps you can accompany me?”

“Accompany you?”

“
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?
”

Both boys turn to see Inspector Lestrade in the doorway. Sherlock can hardly believe it is the same man he saw just a few weeks ago. On that glorious day, he had noticed Lestrade preparing to speak, licking his fingers and using the saliva to preen his hair and slick his mustache; he had stood very erect and bellowed proud words to the masses about the recovery of Victoria Rathbone; and then beamed down on Sherlock. Now the senior detective looks as though he has aged ten years – his eyes are red and heavily bagged, his shoulders slumped, and it seems to take a mighty effort to simply hold up his receding chin. He obviously didn’t sleep a wink last night. He’s escaped one nightmare … and plunged into another.

“I was … asking him to leave,” says his son. The look on his face says “Run!”

Sherlock does. He takes to his heels and flies out the passageway between the buildings and onto White Hall. The constable whom Lestrade sets upon him gives up a short distance down the street.

The boy isn’t deterred. He heads west along the queen’s beautiful park with its many flowers and swan-filled lakes,
toward the palace and Belgravia. Walking briskly, he soon passes Buckingham and stares up, imagining himself a prince, though a much more respectable one than Victoria’s reckless first son and heir, Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales. He slows at the beautiful Royal Mews, trying to get a glimpse of the horses and the gleaming four-ton Gold State Carriage used for coronations. Oh, to be transported in that vehicle, watched by adoring crowds. But he doesn’t allow himself more than a moment’s pause. Belgravia beckons.

Though there aren’t a hundred policemen outside the Rathbone home, it seems like it. They don’t speak to the brightly dressed gentlemen and ladies who stop on the foot pavements and stare, but regular folk are gently disbursed. The milkmaids, hawkers, and the street children looking to make a farthing by picking a pocket or offering to run an errand, are instantly sent away, with rude comments and rough encouragement.

Sherlock spots the house long before he reaches Belgrave Square, and not simply because of the Force and the gawkers. Everyone in London knows where Lord Rathbone lives and his place stands out even in this posh neighborhood. Its Georgian, yellow-stone exterior, five storeys with red-curtained bay windows, large grounds, and majestic columns on its wide front portico mark it as a home of distinction. This is a relatively new residential area, built for the rich just a few generations ago, and its pale homes are
even taller and more “perfect” than the mansions of nearby Mayfair. Mozart and Chopin once lived here, and Mary Shelley, who wrote that frightening book about the monster named Frankenstein. People often come to Belgravia simply to catch glimpses of luminaries.

Though Sherlock himself is often distracted by famous faces, that will not happen today. He is looking for no one and seeking to be invisible. What he wants is an indisputable fact or two about the robbery – a clue, a starting point like the watermark, which he will then investigate with much more care. Pulling his collar up around his neck against the cold air, he sneaks into the fading green confines of the park across the street and stands behind a tree, sizing up the building and how to get nearer without being shooed away. He is hoping that the police haven’t disturbed the scene any more than is necessary. He knows he can’t get inside the house, but it may be possible to sneak onto the grounds. There he might find something that would at least help him build a profile of the thieves.

Belgrave Square has some unusual corners where its big houses almost seem to jut out into the street at sharp angles. The huge Rathbone mansion is one such home. It also has a little lane with stables at the rear. Sherlock observes closely: there are policemen on duty near the street at the front of the house and a few evident through the windows inside, but there seem to be an inordinate number down the passageway and at the rear. The boy thinks of what he read in the papers. The getaway vehicles must have been stationed at the back and …

“You were saying?”

Lestrade Junior is standing right next to Sherlock, who nearly jumps into a tree at the sound of his voice.

Holmes gathers himself, adjusts his coat, and fixes his necktie.

“I asked you to accompany me.”

“And here I am. I knew you were coming this way.”

“How perspicacious of you.”

“Uh … yes, well, I guessed, knowing what I know about you, if that’s what you mean, that you would be bold enough to come right to the scene of the crime.”

“
Guessing
, my good fellow, should be left to the horse-racing crowd. It is not a tool for the detective.”

Sherlock can see the color rising in the other boy’s face.

“You are no detective, sir. My father is.”

“Absolutely, I stand corrected, and a fine one he is, the best in London.”

“You are just a boy whom circumstances have favored in a couple of matters.”

“Yes, I have been fortunate.”

“Well, he hasn’t treated you the way he should, perhaps.”