Death in the Air (13 page)

By mid-afternoon, Sherlock has both the front room and the chemical laboratory cleaned up like never before. But he is restless. He can hardly wait for the apothecary to return, and not just because he has polished the half-crown and set it on the examining table for Bell to see, but because he desperately wants to be free to do something about the Mercure case. What, he isn’t sure.

He keeps hearing Redhorns’ threat.

Four days
.

This business about The Swallow’s upbringing is tantalizing. But in the end, is it helpful? It just doesn’t make sense to him that the young acrobat is involved in the murder.
If he is, why didn’t he let me fall from the trapeze
perch? And
what could the Brixton Gang possibly have to do with all of this?

Pacing and frustrated, he carefully plucks some books from the precarious stacks and tries to read. Usually these are his moments of greatest joy: with a Charles Dickens novel, a new tract by Darwin, a Richard Francis Burton tale of a far-off land, or the latest Mrs. Henry Wood sensation in his hands. A favorite lately has been Samuel Smiles’
Self-Help
, which puts forth a new belief that Englishmen of any class can achieve nearly anything: it simply takes imagination and especially, hard work. Sherlock loves drifting off into other worlds to feed his mind with information.

But he can’t concentrate today.

He makes tea and picks up the
Telegraph
again. He’d only glanced at it in the morning. His eyes fall on “
DOINGS AT THE PALACE
,” on the entertainment pages. This is a short column by a society sort containing a series of single lines about ongoing attractions, upcoming sensations, and statistics. He learns that a balloonist will attempt a leap in something called a parachute over the archery grounds on Wednesday next, that the wonder named
Professor Inferno
will set himself on fire in an “incendiary” return engagement in the central transept, the four-hundred-year-old Californian sequoia tree in the tropical area needs seventeen imperial gallons of water a day … and that the writer has heard whispers that money is missing from the Palace vault.

What?

He reads that last line again, the final note in the column, presented sparely, as if the writer has a good
source, but no confirmation. As if the authorities are being tight-lipped about it. It is almost as if something doesn’t make sense to them, as if the money went missing and, somehow, wasn’t noticed. Sherlock has the feeling that there won’t be any publicity about this, at least until details become clearer.

But it is evident to him that some time this week the Crystal Palace was robbed.

The bell rings on the shop door again. Sherlock gets to his feet and makes his way into the front room. The possibility of another sale picks up his pace.

Irene Doyle is standing at the counter, her eyes cast down, pretending to be not the least bit interested in his arrival. She isn’t dressed like a working-class girl today. She veritably shines in a red silk dress patterned with roses and matching bonnet and shawl. Her blonde hair seems to sparkle and a wonderful scent fills the room. But she looks almost ashamed to be here and Sherlock’s heart goes out to her.

“Irene,” he says.

She looks up at him hopefully.

He checks himself and his emotions, stiffening his body almost to attention. She notices.

“I’m not here to see you,” she says quickly in a hard voice.

“I would be honored if you were.”

“Malefactor told me you were living here.”

“Something I never mentioned to him,” replies Sherlock, looking away.

“He has means to find out.”

“He is a rat who feeds off others.”

Irene pauses before beginning again.

“He has told me more about himself, you know. He has had a difficult time. His father was a simple dustman in Ireland, picking up rubbish off the Dublin streets. He worked day and night, and made a respectable sum of money, invested in the railroad and increased his wealth dramatically, and moved to northern England. But …”

“I do not care what befell him,” Sherlock says, cutting her off. “You may have feelings for his sob story, but tragedies befall many of us. I have no interest in him. He is a
rat.”
He chews off the last word.

Irene pauses again and closes her eyes, perhaps so she doesn’t have to look at him.

“Very well. You have no interest in
most
people, it seems to me, other than those whom you can put in jail in order to make you feel better about yourself.”

“I seek justice.”

“So do others,” Irene counters. “But they don’t have to become wooden automatons to do it.”

“What are you here for?”

“To purchase something, but my interest has waned.”

Sherlock wishes he could make her change her mind. He wonders how much she had planned to spend. But she lifts her nose into the air, turns sharply, and marches toward the door. Before she opens it, he sees her shoulders sag. She turns back to him.

“Can’t we be friends, Sherlock?”

He steels himself and answers her with a cold, unemotional face.

The door opens and slams shut.

Sherlock spends the last part of the afternoon pacing in the laboratory, at first trying to keep himself from thinking about Irene, building up a hard resistance to her like a callous over a wound; and then pondering The Swallow anew, wondering about a certain question he asked the boy and the long hesitation in the answer.

The alchemist returns not long after the bells of St. Giles ring five. He has a box full of oysters from the Smithfield Market ready to smoke for their supper, and a pile of little cakes from a Drury Lane muffin-man for sweets after. Sherlock wonders where he found the money – it must be nearly all that he has left. When the old man sees the half-crown, he almost weeps.

Sherlock loves smoked oysters, but he barely enjoys his supper. He gobbles it up, eating as if it were his last meal. He has made up his mind to talk to The Swallow again, and can hardly wait. This time his interview will have a much different tone.

There’s a public house named The Faustian Bargain in Leicester Square that music-hall and circus people frequent. Johnny Wilde is sure to be in central London now and certain to be taking meals there. He has nowhere else to be
today. The Mercures are out of work until they can hire a new member.

His mouth full of his last two oysters, Sherlock tells Bell he is going out.

“For some air, undoubtedly?”

“Yes, sir.”

He accepts a cake from his old friend and eats it on the run, sprinting away into the bustling rush of people heading home from work.

Sure enough, The Swallow is in the public house when Sherlock arrives. He is sitting alone in a booth at the back, a mug of tea and a plate of fish pie in front of him. When he sees the young detective he actually ducks his head for an instant, but then he raises it and waves him over. Sherlock makes his way through the dingy, wood-paneled room, tobacco smoke thick in the air, mixing with the strong smells of beer, coffee, and food. He spots a number of famous faces: sees midget acrobats, recognizes a freak known as the
Animal Boy
, and several comic singers.

“Fancy seeing you ’ere, mate,” says The Swallow amiably, with what looks to Sherlock like a forced smile. He motions for Holmes to sit across from him in the booth.

Sherlock sits heavily, keeping his eyes on his target.

“I’m not here for any niceties. You lied to me.”

Wilde places both hands on either side of his fish pie. One holds a big steel spoon … the other tightly grips a sharp knife. Sherlock sees the boy’s knuckles growing white around the handle. He feels adrenaline seeping into his system. The Swallow releases the spoon, picks up the knife and drives it … into the wooden table. It stands straight up.

“Yes I did,” he says with a sigh.

Sherlock is still recovering from a vision of that knife rising up from the table and being driven into his neck. He can’t speak for an instant. But The Swallow can.

“Now you tell me what I lied about, mate … because it may be more than one thing.”

Sherlock can’t help but smile. There is something in the concept of an honest liar that appeals to him.

“I think you know what I am speaking about.”

“The question about suspicious blokes loiterin’ near us at the Palace before the accident?”

“Yes.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“How would you answer that question now, knowing that if you don’t answer truthfully, I will hand you over to Scotland Yard with the suggestion that you are the chief suspect in the slaying of Monsieur Mercure?”

The Swallow grins.

“Well, knowing what little I know of you, Master ’olmes, graspin’ your particular brain power that is more and more evident to me, guessin’ that you is in possession of some information about meself that don’t look too well for me … I would tell you the truth.”

“And that truth is?”

The Swallow looks out the grimy little window by the booth. Outside, a narrow alley snakes beside the public house, but it is barely visible through the grime. He rubs the back of his neck with his left hand and sighs.

“There was indeed some folks … visitin’ me at the Palace the day before the accident.”

“From Brixton?”

The Swallow looks away again.

“Yeah, from Brixton,” he mutters.

“Of disreputable occupation?”

“I can’t give you their names, Master ’olmes. You can turn me over to the Peelers if you like, but I ain’t givin’ names. There’s a sort of honor, you know, among thieves.”

“I can imagine,” sneers Sherlock.

“I’d wager you can, knowin’ the bit I know about you. You have a deadly look about you at times, you do.”

He eyes Sherlock and it makes the boy uncomfortable, so he quickly moves the conversation forward.

“Tell me this, just yes or no: were they members of the Brixton Gang?”

The Swallow swallows. No one knows much about the members of that vicious, slippery, and magically efficient group, not even the police. For a moment it seems as if the young acrobat won’t answer. He picks up the knife and carves out a slice of his pie, slides it onto the utensil and eats it. Then he looks back at Sherlock, fish evident in his mouth.

“Yes,” he says quietly.

The young detective knows instinctively that an enormous piece of this puzzle has just been revealed. But exactly where it fits and what it all means is still a mystery.

“I knew ’em in me youth. Two of the four. They was a bit older ’an me. They is in with some desperate ’uns now. Smaller thieves are useful, can get into places bigger ’uns can’t. I don’t condone what me old mates do, mind.”

He is keeping his head down, as if he were ashamed, eating big chunks of the strong-smelling pie, his jaws grinding the food.

“But you did, one day.”

The Swallow looks up at Sherlock, a defiant expression on his face.

“I did. But not now. You can believe me or not. That is up to you, Master ’olmes.”

“You can prove it to me.”

The Swallow goes back to eating.

“’ow’s that?”

“Come with me to the Palace today. I need you to get me in and help me walk about,
everywhere
, without interference. I am guessing that the trapeze apparatus will be removed soon.”

“Tonight. I’m supposed to start tearing it down when the Palace closes this evenin’. The other two will be there. I’m takin’ the train.”

“You shall be departing earlier than you planned and paying my fare.”

“With pleasure,” snarls the boy with an unpleasant look.

“Eat up,” says Sherlock Holmes.

THE SCIENCE OF DEDUCTION