Death in the Air (4 page)

Though the article goes on to describe Mercure’s career and that of the three other members of his troupe, Sherlock reads on with only passing interest. His eyes keep flashing back to the last sentence in the first paragraph.

The police have no idea
.

“Hmph!” snorts Bell when the boy is done. “If you live by the sword …”

They eat in silence for a moment, or at least Sherlock does. Bell consumes his food with his mouth wide open, smacking his lips and groaning with pleasure.

“Might I pose a question, sir?”

A large slice of greasy brown sausage is about to enter the apothecary’s watering mouth, speared as it is upon his
scalpel. He hesitates, sets his food back in his bowl and smiles. He loves these sessions.

“Pose away.”

“What exactly occurs when one suffers a concussion of the brain?”

“Ah,” announces Bell, thrusting his pointing finger into the air, “the flying gymnast’s wound.”

“Precisely,” answers Sherlock trying not to seem too interested.

“The brain is like a jelly … imagine tomato aspic.” The old man pauses and peers over his glasses at the boy. “Do you have it now?”

Red, jellied tomato aspic the size of two fists is riveted in a picture in the boy’s own brain.

“Perfectly.”

“Now imagine that tomato aspic inside your skull.” He pauses again and leans forward, examining the boy. “Do you have it?”

“I do.”

“Dispense with all those absurd ideas about phrenology that one hears these days – that the bumps on one’s skull, prominent or underdeveloped, indicate one’s particular kind of intelligence or lack thereof, or the ridiculous idea that the African or Oriental man has inferior intelligence due to the shape of his helmet. The skull is a mere bone of protection for the tomato aspic inside. Its bumps and curves say absolutely nothing about one’s intelligence. It’s that jelly that matters.”

“Yes sir.”

“When one receives a severe blow to the cranium, as this trifler upon the flying trapeze contraption did, the tomato aspic sloshes about inside.” Bell shakes his head in an alarming manner before continuing. “Different parts of the brain govern different human powers: motor skills, memory, that sort of thing. A concussed brain is a banged-about, bruised, or even bleeding brain. It has been paralyzed, shut down. Some of its functions may be damaged.”

“For good?” asks Sherlock. “The aerialist may have lost his memory, for example?”

“Perhaps, though that is the least of his worries. His tomato aspic has suffered a great deal of trauma. It’s sounds to me as though he will die.”

So there you have it
, thinks Sherlock.
Dead men don’t talk
.

The boy wants to get away. Bell is going out, as usual, to see a long list of patients, and Sherlock is supposed to guard the shop, tend to any customers who appear (though it seems, curiously, that very few ever do), and clean the lab.

But he has no intention of doing any of that. In fact, he is planning to deceive his boss. He has never disobeyed him before, not about anything. But what harm can it do? Bell’s trips are usually long ones – gone all day, busy as a Canadian beaver, pursuing his thriving business. Sherlock will get out and back without the old man knowing. But first, he has one more question.

“Have you ever treated a circus performer?”

“Oh yes,” says Bell. “They go in for unconventional things, you know. Hengler, the rope-walker, once came to see me himself. Inner ear infection. Helped him regain his equilibrium.”

“What are they like?”

“Very independent and self-reliant, looser morals than the rest of us, thick as thieves, but jealous of one another too. I remember Hengler was quite put out that a more youthful funambulist was causing a sensation that same week. He was anxious to get back up in the air. Said the younger man was an upstart; that he’d like to knock him off his rope. Struck me that he’d do it with a crossbow if he had one!”

The old man utters a burst of explosive laughter.

Bell leaves with a cheery good-bye and moments later, Sherlock is out the door. He rushes along Denmark Street – he has much to do today. First, he wants to talk to Malefactor, and then, he will fly to the Palace to examine the crime scene. He shall be gone most of the day, but still hopes to get back and clean up the shop before the apothecary returns. It will be a risky task.

Malefactor’s attitude toward Sherlock has changed since he solved the Whitechapel murder. Before, despite a strange connection between the two, he had treated Sherlock with disdain, setting his dozen little Trafalgar
Square Irregulars on him from time to time, teasing him, making references to his mongrel blood, sneering at his interest in criminals and the city’s celebrities. But since Rose Holmes’ death, since her son solved the murder, the young crime lord has left him alone, just watching, a look more like respect in his eyes.

Sherlock knows where to find him. The Irregulars will be gathering at a park called Lincoln’s Inn Fields, getting pick-pocketing instructions for the day, discussing the fencing of their latest stolen goods.

But not long after he starts out, Sherlock sees something shocking.

It’s Sigerson Bell. Though he had left the shop nearly five minutes earlier, he’s still barely down Denmark Street. And he isn’t walking with the characteristic spring in his step. In fact, it looks like the weight of the Empire is on his stooped shoulders. The boy slows and watches him turn west onto Rose Street, past the charity school.

Why is he so distraught?

Sherlock decides to follow him.

The old man doesn’t go far. He stops at Soho Square and sits on a black iron bench, ignoring the beautiful flowers, with his eyes cast straight down. Sherlock can’t understand it. He can’t recall even a hint of any sort of trouble at the shop from the moment he took on the job. There doesn’t appear to be a happier man on the face of the earth than Sigerson Trismegistus Bell.

Sherlock slides onto another bench not far away – there are several big trees between them. Bell doesn’t move
an inch. And he stays like that, as still as the square’s statue, for half an hour.

“Oi, there’s the old man again.”

Two street urchins are walking past, likely heading into the center of the Soho district to beg or steal on its busy, spidery arteries. It is hard to distinguish where their torn shirts end and dirty trousers begin, but each wears a cap, cocked at a devilish angle.

“Seen him every day this week, ain’t we?”

“Same spot, mate, same ’ead down.”

“Lost in the clouds, ’e is.”

“Black ’uns.”

“Let’s relieve ’im ’o somethin’.”

A second later, the lead boy is on the hard, sun-baked ground, deposited by a swift kick from Sherlock Holmes that takes his bare feet out from under him. Sherlock glares down at him and then at his accomplice. The little boys run.

The young detective reluctantly leaves, heading for Lincoln’s Inn Fields, leaving Bell sitting in the same spot, staring at the ground. The apothecary didn’t even stir when the street boy was felled.

Sherlock is remembering something now, something he should have taken note of before. It had happened nearly three weeks ago. He had been cleaning the laboratory with a mop and a smelly cleaning liquid Bell had concocted from horse hooves, when a customer came into the shop. The alchemist had responded to the doorbell’s tinkle in his typically breezy manner and headed to the front room.

“I shall see to this individual, Master Holmes. Carry on.”

But he had instantly returned, with a forced smile on his face.

“I shall close the door. This gentleman’s inquiry is of a sensitive nature. The bowel, you know, and the exit from said bowel. Arduous journeys have been taking place.”

Sherlock had smiled back. But Bell had never closed that door before, not for any patient who had dropped by sensitive rear end or not. There had been shouts in the front room, all coming from the customer. The apothecary was either speaking very softly in return, or saying nothing at all. The issue appeared to be money. Sherlock had assumed that Bell had been asking for too much for one of his wares. But now, when he considers it, he realizes that wasn’t the case. When the gentlemen left, Bell immediately returned to the lab, another grin fixed on his red face. At that moment, the shop’s front door had suddenly opened again and Sherlock saw the customer as clear as day. He was dressed in an expensive black evening suit, a red waistcoat tightly fitted by a Savile Row tailor over his bulging stomach. His face was covered with a big black beard, black nose hairs, and bushy eyebrows that went in an unbroken line across his brow and ascended almost to his hairline. There was a monocle stuck in his left eye and he carried a tall black top hat, white gloves, and walking stick. His voice was big and blustery.

“I shall give you two weeks, old man. Mind what I say!”

“Well,” sighed Sigerson Bell, turning back to Sherlock after the door slammed. “Some customers are demanding indeed. Don’t know if I can acquire the tonic he requires … in two weeks. Carry on, Master Holmes.”

Sherlock puts two incidents together and realizes that that confrontation had nothing to do with a much-needed tonic. The very next day, he had noticed the same gentleman walking past the shop, and stopped a tradesman to ask if he knew who the man was.

“That’s Lord Redhorns, that is. He owns this here whole parish.”

All of it
, thinks Sherlock, as he walks toward Lincoln’s Inn Fields,
including the apothecary shop
. Sigerson Bell owes him rent money, likely a great deal of it, more than he has, or ever will have. In less than a week, the boy’s savior will lose his dwellings and his livelihood with it. And Sherlock will be out on the streets with him.

It is a moiling Holmes who spots the Trafalgar Square Irregulars a short while later. They are gathered in front of their young chief in the shade under the trees inside the black iron fence of the big park at Lincoln’s Inn Fields – a quiet place amid the deafening noise and bustle of London. Malefactor sees him at a distance and cuts his speech short, motioning for his acolytes to step aside. Sherlock immediately spots the gang’s two omnipresent lieutenants: dark,
talkative Grimsby and silent, blond Crew. He watches them warily. They are the nastiest of a nasty lot.

“Master Sherlock Holmes, I perceive.”

The crime boss is just a little older and taller than Sherlock. As always, he is a presentation in ragged black, wearing his ever-present tailcoat, his black chimney-pot top hat, and carrying his crude stick. Sweat is glistening on his face, his coat is soaking wet.

“Malefactor,” says Sherlock steadily, searching the other’s eyes for lingering signs of disdain.

“To what pleasure do I owe this call? I sense another crime.”

“Perhaps.”

There is always a hint of competition between the two boys and Malefactor, the way a superior might, doesn’t appreciate Sherlock withholding anything from him.

“You had better keep your nose out of whatever you are contemplating,” he spits.

“I will tell you in time.”

Malefactor wants to hit him. But his curiosity gets the better of him. His regard for the boy, which he tries to hide, has indeed grown, though he would never ask the half-Jew to be part of his organization. Holmes would be an irregular among Irregulars, incapable of the subservience demanded. The young street lord sets aside his anger. He shall know what the boy is up to soon. If he isn’t told, he will find out.

But something stops their verbal duel in its tracks.
Malefactor looks beyond Sherlock, over his shoulder. His face softens; a rare occurrence.

Sherlock turns.

Irene.

She is walking toward them, after stepping out of a carriage on the street at the far end of the big park. For a few minutes she is out alone in London, not safe behavior, but something this unusual girl has been courageous enough to try several times. A few beggars immediately start following her and a couple of men leer nearby. Malefactor snaps his fingers and three dirty Irregulars are dispatched across the park to her, sending the beggars flying and the men discreetly moving away.