Death in the Air Read Online Free Page B

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 movean 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