Vanishing Girl (8 page)

S
herlock Holmes is surrounded when he awakes. A circle of little people are looking down at him. The sun is bright directly behind them in the cold, early morning and he can barely make them out. Their faceless heads are ringed with black lines, and their breaths hang in clouds.

“Is it real?” asks one.

“Course it’s real, donkey-face, but it ‘as a costume on, it does.”

One of them pokes Sherlock with a stick. The boy decides he’s had enough. He jumps to his feet, feeling pain in his arm and surprised to find his whole body aching. They all step back, five farm boys and a girl, all dirty, all wrapped in layers of heavy clothing, every one in bare feet. The fear in their faces betrays their readiness to run.

But Sherlock doesn’t want that. Fortune has smiled upon him: this is the perfect greeting party. Adults would be a much bigger problem for a stranger. He straightens his clothes and combs down his hair with the palms of his hands.

“My name is Sherlock Holmes,” he says with a winning smile.

“Told you ‘e weren’t real.”

“And I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Why you wearin’ them duds?” asks the girl, who is in a stained linen dress. Her greasy red curls escape from her soiled bonnet.

“I am from London.”

“That explains it,” whispers one boy.

“That’s brilliant!” cries another.

“And I am lost. I would wager a bob that you lot are intelligent individuals and can point me in the direction I need to go.”

“Where is it?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The bob.”

Sherlock needs to change his tactics. “What if I box your ears?” He takes a step forward and his coat falls open. They all backpeddle.

“To where do you need to find your way, sir?” asks the girl quickly.

“The paper mill at St. Neots.”

“That ain’t where it’s at, sir, it’s five miles on the other side o’ town, in Little Paxton on the Great Ouse River. Just follow the banks. It flows right through the town.”

“I wasn’t really going to cuff any of you. You do know that, don’t you?”

Sherlock doesn’t want the local adults thinking that a London child-beater has entered the parish and needs to be pursued.

The little people stand still and don’t respond. Most are staring at his open coat. There is silence for a moment. Finally, Sherlock turns and walks away. They watch him.

“What about that bob, you layabout?” inquires one of them after Sherlock has stepped over the fence and moved toward the road.

When he looks back, they are all running, laughing as they go. But one pivots and unloads a rotten apple at him. Well bowled, it passes within an inch of his face.
As bad as the Trafalgar Square Irregulars
, thinks Sherlock with a smile. He starts walking again, fixing his hair, working on making his clothes more presentable. That’s when he notices that his jacket is undone and sees the blood stains on the dark waistcoat inside.

St. Neots is the market town for the area, sitting in a gentle green valley through which the beautiful blue-silver river winds. Sherlock wants to be inconspicuous so he approaches the town cautiously and stops when he spots the first few clusters of buildings ahead, just over an old stone bridge. Beyond that, the road leads to a main square where the spire of an imposing old church with a clock tower looms above it. A few folks are moving about just where the narrow road, lined with shops, opens into the square. St. Neots is half deserted at this hour, and eerie.

Sherlock makes a wide turn and heads for the countryside. There, he marches quickly along a narrow, dirt road
lined with a stump fence, a minute’s walk to the west. Red and yellow leaves fall around him and others cling to the trees that hang out over this little artery. The valley rises far away on either side of him, and nearer, the river appears off to his right, flowing, just as the children said, through the center of town.

Soon he is past St. Neots and about a mile later comes to the small gathering that makes up the village of Little Paxton – a few humble homes, stables, and a church. The paper mill isn’t hard to find. It is the only place of any size, evident farther up the river just beyond the buildings, its tall chimney of red brick pointing like a mighty lance high into the sky. Clouds are gathering, some dark and threatening.

Sherlock keeps moving at a good pace in the tall grass beside the river, but falters when he nears his target. It is long and intimidating, with several grimy mills stretching along the water, the biggest one a sort of warehouse three or four storeys high, above which that chimney ascends. He can actually hear the giant complex, rumbling as it makes paper, like some monster with a grumbling stomach.

The boy begins talking to himself.

I am obviously a stranger. I can’t just walk into the mill and ask a detailed question about its products. I must have a convincing reason to be there
.

He sits in the grass and hangs his worn leather boots over the riverbank, nearly dangling them into the water. Almost immediately, his eyelids descend and his mind drifts off. It’s a bad habit, this ability to instantly slip away – sometimes he appears almost unconscious when he’s
deep in thought; “Dead to the world,” his mother used to say. Such powers of concentration are only good if they bring results.

There is a sound behind him; something approaching on the run, brushing the tall grass. Sherlock bounds to his feet, setting them wide in a perfect Bellitsu stance.

But the approaching figure means him no harm. In fact, it is startled and cries out. She is terrified.

About forty-five, a mother of either six or seven, works with her hands, a papermaker, late for her job, beaten by her husband, loving eyes, susceptible to kindness
.

He has examined the direction and speed she is going, her thick, rough hands, the number of dirty little ribbons with names pinned to her dress. One of them is black and larger than the others.

“My apologies,” he says, offering a slight bow.

She looks into the distance toward the mill as if trying to decide if it is wiser to stay or flee. One of her eyes has been blackened. She shivers under a ragged woolen shawl on a cotton dress and strands of her auburn hair sweep across a once-pretty face.

“You are a stranger.”

“And you, I am grieved to notice, are late.”

She almost smiles, but then looks at him with concern.

“Are you a runaway?”

He cannot have this.

“No, mum,” he blurts out. “I am … representing a stationer, from London … here to speak to your owner about his paper…. That’s all.”

“This ain’t the usual way they do it.”

Sherlock blanches.

“My … My governor is not a usual sort…. We are looking for a new papermaker. Will you take me into the mill? I have long legs and can walk quickly. Perhaps I might say it was I who delayed you?”

She smiles fully this time. But it doesn’t last. “Had a spot of trouble at home,” she says, touching her eye. Then she takes a longer look at him.

“My eldest wasn’t much older than you. She is gone now.”

“I’m sorry, mum.”

“Thank you – that is kind of you to say. You are certain you have not run away? Your mother would be powerfully worried.”

He feels an ache in his chest. But he dismisses that soft emotion the instant it arises. There is too much to do to waste time on it. Not sure that this woman believes him, he holds out his good arm to her to see if she will take it. To his relief, she does.

“I am certain,” he says.

The noise from the water-powered turbines inside the mill fills the big building and makes it almost impossible to be heard. Long sheets of paper, looking like wide white ribbons, are forming between horizontal spools on huge iron machines that rise almost up to the ceiling. Dirty, burly men and several industrious women are at work. Somehow, despite the whirring clamor, they all look up when Sherlock and his companion enter. He is eyed suspiciously.

His companion, looking nervous, motions for the boy to follow her and they move toward an office with rows of glazed windows caked with grime, revealing only shadows within. She opens the door and they enter: the sounds from the mill are immediately muffled.

“Penny Hunt! Past seven, wench!” growls the fat foreman who whirls around in his chair, “I won’t keep you on if – Who is this?”

“Sherrinford Bell,” says Sherlock quickly, extending his hand. “I am a messenger from a stationer in London, and I am afraid that I have kept this lady from her duties. In short, her tardiness is entirely my fault.”

The man’s mouth is slightly open. Had his cigar not been sticking to his thick lower lip, it likely would have dropped on his greasy desk. He sits there, looking out of his moon-shaped face, the three rolls of fat under his chin matching in number the rolls pressing against the inside of his stained shirt. He has never seen or heard anything quite like this boy: dressed in a dirty frock coat and waistcoat, as tattered as a street Arab, yet speaking like a Cambridge University professor. He also thinks he saw a spot of blood on the boy’s waistcoat when he extended his hand.

Not much past thirty
, thinks Sherlock,
hands pudgy and soft, never worked with the paper machines
.

The foreman won’t take the boy’s hand. “What do you want?”

Penny slinks out the door.

“I would like to be the agent of the purchase of a large order of paper.”

“Who do you represent?”

Sherlock has the name of Dupin’s friend and gives it. The foreman offers no recognition.

“I hain’t the boss anyways, can’t make that decision.”

“Then perhaps you can simply tell me something about your paper.”

The foreman says nothing.

“We are looking for a certain kind which I believe you manufacture. It has a watermark with two faces upon it.”

“All our watermarks is but three letters – large
S
, small
t
, large
N
. You are awfully young to come all this way representing a London stationer. How did you hurt your arm?”

Sherlock had winced when he raised it in greeting.

“Uh … I carry our materials every day, sir. Sometimes they are quite heavy. This arm takes the brunt of it … chronic aches.”

“Is that a fact? Well, we hain’t got the paper you want…. Perhaps I should send a man out to get the constable in town so you could explain your needs to him?”

The foreman stands, opens the door, and shouts a name.

Sherlock tries to get to the entrance, but the fat man blocks the way. Looking out into the mill, the boy can see who the foreman is calling: a big man with a dirty face, near-bald head, and blacksmith’s arms; Penny stops him for a moment and whispers into his ear.

Moments later, the big man is ushering the boy along the river toward the town.

“I’m not takin’ you to Constable Bradstreet,” he says, “Penny ‘unt says you is a good lad and you should just get on back to where you come from. I will figure an answer for Rumpleside. Mind, it isn’t smart for low-dressed strangers to ask unusual questions in a small town.”

Sherlock has failed miserably. And he has wasted a precious hour.

He examines the man. He’s past fifty, has thin strands of white hair and big hands curled into the shape they assume as he works with the paper.

I wonder
.

“Have you been at this job long, sir?”

“Since I were younger ‘an you.”

Sherlock is thinking about what Sigerson Bell said: that paper mills used to have more complicated watermarks than they do now. The flabby foreman was a young man, perhaps handed his job due to family connections – he hasn’t been employed there for long.

“Have you ever seen a watermark bearing two faces at the mill?”

The man stops.

“‘ow do you know that?”

“My employer … is a paper historian … knows all about the St. Neots mill and its famous past.”

The man starts walking again.

“Well, ‘e is absolutely correct.”

Sherlock’s heart leaps.

“There was a day when all our paper used to bear the
mark of the Fourdrinier Brothers. Pioneers in papermaking, they was.”

“But all that paper is gone now?”

“Afraid it is, just three letters we ‘ave these days, that’s all you’ll find on a St. Neot’s sheet of paper…. ‘old on, that ain’t exactly right.”

This time Sherlock stops.

“Used to be a man by the name of Muddle in Little Barford just south of town, who bought several dog carts full of our paper on the last day we made that watermark. I remember it well because it was such an unusual thing to do. ‘e owned a little tobacconist shop on the main road. Said that paper was the best ever made and wouldn’t ‘ave any of the new. Stupid goat, it was the same. I wonder if that old crate is still alive.”