The Dragon Turn (19 page)

Holmes tries not to think of what Beatrice did for him as he moves briskly south and west through London to Chelsea.
Concentrate
. The gates are not open yet at the Cremorne Gardens, and he has to be very careful getting over the
wrought-iron fence in broad daylight, but he succeeds and goes in search of Scuttle. He can hardly wait to hear what he discovered. But an hour later, Sherlock still can’t find him. He looks everywhere and then begins to panic. The little boy’s broken dustbin, where he sleeps, is empty.

The Cremorne opens for the day — the music fills the park, dancers gather in the pagodas, hawkers cry their ices and cold refreshments, stilt-walkers move about the crowds, and the circus performers get ready. But still, no Scuttle. Sherlock leaves the Gardens and heads around its exterior to the front entrance of the hotel. He knows this isn’t smart during the day, but he must locate the boy.

“You!” someone shouts.

Harrison Starr is pointing a finger at him and coming his way. Normally, Holmes would run, but he wants to know about his little friend.

“Sir, have you seen …”

“I will do the talking. I am being generous as it is, allowing you to even be here. We have an emergency this morning. Young Scuttle is missing.”

Sherlock’s heart leaps.

“I …”

“Have you seen him?”

“… no.”

“If you do, alert the authorities at once. Scuttle is always out and about in the mornings, always speaks to me at exactly 8 a.m. at the back entrance, so it is very disturbing that he did not appear and can’t be found. The police are suspecting foul play.… It is a terrible thing … poor little
boy; he was such a fine lad. We are all half expecting his body to turn up soon.” Starr walks away, so preoccupied that he doesn’t even send Holmes off the grounds.

But the boy is barely able to move, anyway.
First, I nearly had Irene killed during the Whitechapel case, then … then my mother … I even put Mr. Bell in danger … then Beatrice takes Grimsby’s very arm to help me … and now, Scuttle, that little chap who wouldn’t hurt a flea … who didn’t want to go down there
.

“Sherlock!”

He nearly jumps out of his skin.

“I didn’t mean to startle you.” It’s young Lestrade, who has an irritating ability to sneak up on others. “But I thought I should warn you. Father hasn’t heard anything from you and he is very impatient about this case. You must produce something he can use now … or he will ruin you. He said this morning that he wants you found. They sent someone to Denmark Street about half of an hour ago.”

“Thank you,” says Sherlock and slouches away. He heads for the river, one of his black moods descending on him.

The shoreline of the Thames varies a great deal as it winds through London. In some places there are piers, wharves, or docks jutting out into the water, in other spots there are buildings set right to the edge — factories and warehouses on the south side, more attractive structures on the north — but other areas have rough beaches of pebbles or mud, stretching down to the brown-gray water. The Thames’s thirteen bridges
are all different too. As Sherlock trudges away from the Gardens down to the shore, he sees one of the most westerly viaducts, the Battersea, to his left. One of the oldest bridges on the river, the only one made out of wood, it looks rickety and medieval compared to the stone and cast-iron crossings in the center of the city. Those bridges are always packed with surging crowds and buzzing with noise, while Battersea has few pedestrians or carriages moving across its narrow gravel surface. Boats of all sizes jam the river to the east, toward Westminster. But from where he stands to the bridge, a distance of some several hundred yards, few people frequent the shoreline. He hears the gulls and just the odd human voice crying out in the morning mist. Below Cremorne Road, which runs along the edge of the bank, he sees the people called mudlarks searching for things washed up on the beach, paupers wandering about, and scrawny, barely clothed children with bare feet, trying to play. Other bodies lie still, faces ghostly white, fast asleep on the wet ground. The day is gray. There is no wonder they call this part of Chelsea, The World’s End. Sherlock looks toward Battersea Bridge again and notices a ramp leading down from Beaufort Street onto the beach. He wonders if he should cross into Battersea, head south.
Where should I go?
Whatever he does, he cannot be near the Gardens, the hotel, his father, or the apothecary shop.

Perhaps he should find Beatrice … or make his way to Bloomsbury and Irene. Instead, feeling sorry for himself, he walks aimlessly. He takes the stone steps down from Cremorne Road onto the stretch of mud near the water. A voice cries out from up above and he instinctively ducks,
covering his face. But when he glances up to the road, no one is looking down. He knows the Force
will
look, even here, very soon.

Holmes takes off his frock coat and turns it inside out, making it appear tattered. He pulls the collar up. He takes off his boots and stuffs them inside the coat, and buttons it around them, creating a big belly for himself. He rolls his trouser legs up to his knees, then smears mud on his face and runs it through his hair. And when he begins to walk again, he bends over, making himself look shorter. It isn’t his best disguise, but hopefully it will work. If the police look for him here, they likely won’t come down to the water, just search from above, instead. They won’t view him up close. He hopes Lestrade isn’t really after him anyway.
They want me out of their hair, away from the crime scene and the theater. But if I can’t go to either of those places … then what can I do?

He walks slowly along the shore.
It, indeed, feels like the end of the world here
. All the action is up above at the Gardens, or to the north and the east; there is even much more activity, of a working-class sort, to the south toward Battersea Park and the factories. It occurs to him that someone could wander this area for a long time, down near the water in this sparser part of western London, and virtually no one would —

No one would notice you!

Sherlock halts suddenly and stops thinking about himself. Something else has entered his thoughts.
Hemsworth and the secret contents of his strange vehicle … going west
. He looks downriver to the ancient wooden bridge, remembering the little ramp he has just seen there. He walks toward it,
the moist sand poking up between his toes.
What is it?
It becomes clearer.
A little road that leads down to the beach!
He has never observed such a thing at other bridges. Usually, it is almost impossible to take a carriage or a wagon of any sort down near the Thames. However … if you wanted to do it here, and approach the Cremorne Gardens unseen, you could do it via that ramp and this shoreline, away from the population, moving past drunks and paupers and children and mudlarks at night.
But where, exactly, could you go?
Sherlock turns around and heads back to the Gardens at a hurried pace, trusting that his disguise and his distance from the upper roads will keep him unrecognized. It occurs to him, as he moves, that not only is the Gardens directly above the high bank at the river … The World’s End Hotel is right there too.

Growing more excited, his black mood instantly gone, he approaches the Gardens, though he walks on an angle, away from the banks and out to the river, until his bare feet are in the water. From here, he can see up above the banks.
The hotel is, indeed, right there
. He can see the top of its black roof and one of its gothic turrets. The big building virtually hangs out over the river. Unable to stay calm, he sprints toward the bank. He slows as he nears, and examines the surface of the shoreline beneath his feet, observing faint remnants of wheel tracks close to the banks, coming from the direction of the bridge. They are difficult to make out, having been washed over by the tide, but he can judge where they are headed.

As he approaches the bank, he realizes that there is absolutely no one on the shoreline right there. He glances
around. No one is looking his way from a distance either, from up above or down below. At the bank, he spots footprints in the sand in front of bushes. There is something unusual about these shrubs. He doesn’t have to tug hard on the branches to pull everything away.
They aren’t rooted
. In fact, they are, upon close examination … stage foliage, just like the jungle trees in Hemsworth’s act. Hands shaking, he separates them and sees an opening in the steep bank behind them, not much more than four feet wide and six feet high. He strides through the bushes and carefully puts them back into place behind him.

There is a tunnel in front of him.
What did Riyah tell him about the inner chamber? He said there were stories that it was once a dungeon, used by William the Conqueror during the 11
^th
century. Were victims brought in this way, up or down the river, and then secreted into a dungeon?
It is very narrow and low.
But Hemsworth’s strangely shaped vehicle had about the same dimensions!

Within a few yards, Sherlock encounters a door. Thick and made of iron, fitted tightly into the rock, it is obviously meant to keep out curious trespassers who may get past the façade of bushes. It is locked shut.

The boy takes off his frock coat, turns it back the way it should be and puts it on again, then pulls his boots on too. He may need to be able to move quickly. Though he has his horsewhip with him, he didn’t think it necessary to bring a knife when he left the shop this morning. But he does have a way to open this lock, not the best means, but hopefully it will do. He reaches into a pocket to find the little wire he has
carried with him every day for more than two years, since he helped solve the case of the Whitechapel murder: the wire his rival unwittingly taught him how to use.
Malefactor
. He steps back out toward the beach and looks along the river in both directions.
No one watching
. At least, no one he can see. He returns to the door, sticks the little wire into it, and in minutes has it unlatched.

What will be inside?

His heart pounding, he slowly opens the door, steps through, and leaves it very slightly ajar.
I can’t lock myself in
. It is pitch black inside. He has just one Lucifer and a small candle left in his pocket. He strikes the match and lights it.
Will this light last long enough to get me to wherever this leads? … Will it still be burning on the way out?

He walks slowly. The passage is barely taller than his head and continues to be just a little more than four feet across.
People were smaller in those days. Hemsworth’s vehicle would just fit in here, as tight as an arm in a sleeve. It must be a ghastly trip
, he thinks,
going through here in the dark with that beast, or whatever it is
.

Sherlock hears very little at first, just the sound of water dripping and the echo of his footsteps on the rock floor. But as he moves forward, he begins to hear other noises, somewhere farther along the tunnel. As he gets closer, it becomes clear that they are screams … and they sound human.

DEATH IN THE CHAMBER

S
herlock begins to run along the dim tunnel. But about a hundred paces in, he realizes he has made a big mistake: the passageway is not as dark here, which indicates that he is moving toward lights; it also means that whoever or whatever is up ahead — a villain, or a murderous beast of some sort — he, she, or it, will soon see
his
light.
I must approach in total darkness
. He slows.
I need to douse the candle
. But if he does, he will have no light to find his way out. If this tunnel leads to the lower chamber, he will not be able to leave through the hotel basement either, because the exits are guarded by the police. His only way out is via the door he came in.
Should I go back while I have a light? Get out while I can?
But he knows that if he goes now, without any evidence, he won’t be able to convince the police to come here and investigate, no matter how much he pleads. They will simply accost him the moment they spot him. Lestrade won’t listen to him. The only solution to this entire mess is to find the dragon, or its equivalent; to find Nottingham’s murderer.
And I cannot just turn away from whoever is in peril. I must go in there, toward those screams
.