Associates of Sherlock Holmes - George Mann Page 0,8
face streaked with tears and sawdust, his sandy hair matted into a squirrel’s nest, his blue eyes round and anguished. His lip bled where he gnawed at it, and the boy was thin enough to be a wraith. Lestrade cursed as we stood aside for the doctor to pass.
“Your name is Arlie, I think,” Mr Holmes said with a voice like warm syrup. “I am Mr Sherlock Holmes, and this is my friend, Dr Watson.”
“She don’t need a doctor no more,” the boy replied, almost too thickly to be understood.
“I know she doesn’t, but do you think that you might?” Mr Holmes continued. Dr Watson sat unobtrusively on a crate to Arlie’s left. “We’d be grateful if you allowed my friend to take your pulse. He’s a very good sort and would never dream of harming you.”
Arlie was too far gone to protest when Dr Watson slipped his fingers around the lad’s wrist. Tears continued to stream from his eyes, his wasted body shaking.
“He’s dehydrated, in shock, and in considerable need of food, but otherwise healthy.” Pulling a brandy flask from his coat pocket, the doctor offered it. “Take a sip, if you please. That’s right! Good man – you’ll feel calmer in a moment. You say that your sister needed a doctor but doesn’t anymore?” he added, casting a tense glance at Mr Holmes.
Arlie nodded, choked on more tears, and swallowed them back. “All she wanted were to see more’n that back room. For a long spell we managed on our own, but a week ago my sister done showed signs o’ the sickness, and I’d nary a choice save hiring meself out for the medicines and tonics. It were too soon for her to be ill, too soon by far. She didn’t want to stay in London, in that room, not forever.”
“Do you mean to say your sister was too weak to leave the house?” Mr Holmes prompted softly.
“Aye.” The boy winced. “These ten years she has been, for all the poultices and teas the Wus tried. Me, I done brung all such maps as I could find, and she’d tell me what it were like there, in other lands. Dragons and beasties and tigers ten foot tall. She wanted to see ’em with ’er own eyes. Liza said as the Thames don’t look like much, but the Thames can take you anywhere in the world, anywhere, and one day we’d sail down it together and see something other than Limehouse. But then she stopped breathing. For hours.” Racking sobs did violence to the boy’s lungs. “I done sent her off to the islands and the deserts like she wanted. Down the Thames, she said. She always said as that were the way to get there. She knew the way. I were careful never to lock the boxes. When she lands, she’ll be worlds away from London.”
Horror had spread like a plague across our faces, Lestrade standing with a hand over his mouth and Dr Watson and I staring as if somehow the force of our sympathy could undo what had been done. Only Mr Holmes remained impassive, his skin marble-white and his eyes positively metallic.
“Did anyone notice you?” he asked in the same hypnotic tone. “Packing the boxes, or perhaps carrying them?”
“Not I. I went by night down to the river steps.”
“Hopkins, run and fetch us a constable,” Lestrade commanded with uncharacteristic gruffness.
“No, not on my life,” Mr Holmes growled fiercely.
“Can you be serious?” Dr Watson demanded of my senior inspector.
“Now who’s theorising in advance of facts?” Lestrade snapped, brushing an angry hand over his face. “Get this Arlie lad to his feet, come with me, and we’ll find a cab. Hopkins here is about to report that an abandoned building has been broken into. Aren’t you, Hopkins?” he added meaningfully.
“Yes, sir,” I answered with some passion.
“What of the bloodied hatchet?” Dr Watson wondered as he and Mr Holmes together helped the distraught youth to stand.
“The family had just killed a hare for supper when they suddenly vanished,” I supplied at once. “It’s a great mystery as to where they went. I daresay it’s possible they left a letter of intent somewhere, however, and I daresay I can bring it to the constable’s notice.”
“Right, that’s settled.” Lestrade shook his head in despair. “Lord have mercy. Doctor, can you find him a place?”
“I’ve a friend with a thriving practice for neurotics in the Kent countryside.” Dr Watson sighed. “It’ll be temporary, but I’ll wire him at once. Arlie,